Mac OS X Panther for Unix Geeks [Paperback]

Brian Jepson (Author), Ernest E. Rothman (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 0596006071 | ISBN-13: 978-0596006075 | Publication Date: December 1, 2003 | Edition: 2nd

With its rep for being the sort of machine that won't intimidate even the most inexperienced users, what's the appeal of the Mac® for hard-core geeks? The Mac has always been an efficient tool, pleasant to use and customize, and eminently hackable. But now with Mac OS® X's BSD core, many a Unix® developer has found it irresistible. The latest version of Mac OS X, called Panther, makes it even easier for users to delve into the underlying Unix operating system. In fact, you can port Linux® and Unix applications and run them side-by-side with your native Aqua® apps right on the Mac desktop.

Still, even experienced Unix users may find themselves in surprisingly unfamiliar territory as they set out to explore Mac OS X. Even if you know Macs through and through, Mac OS X Panther is unlike earlier Macs, and it's radically different from the Unix you've used before.

Enter Mac OS X Panther for Unix Geeks by Brian Jepson and Ernest E. Rothman, two Unix geeks who found themselves in the same place you are. The new edition of this book is your guide to figuring out the BSD Unix system and Panther-specific components that you may find challenging. This concise book will ease you into the Unix innards of Mac OS X Panther, covering such topics as:

• A quick overview of the Terminal application, including Terminal alternatives like iTerm and GLterm
• Understanding Open Directory (LDAP) and NetInfo
• Issues related to using the GNU C Compiler (GCC)
• Library linking and porting Unix software
• An overview of Mac OS X Panther's filesystem and startup processes
• Creating and installing packages using Fink and Darwin Ports
• Building the Darwin kernel
• Using the Apple® X11 distribution for running X Windows® applications on top of Mac OS X

The book wraps up with a quick manpage-style reference to the "Missing Manual Pages" --commands that come with Mac OS X Panther, although there are no manpages.

If you find yourself disoriented by the new Mac environment, Mac OS X Panther for Unix Geeks will get you acclimated quickly to the foreign new areas of a familiar Unix landscape.

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Brian Jepson is an O'Reilly editor, programmer, and co-author of Mac OS X Panther for Unix Geeks and Learning Unix for Mac OS X Panther. He's also a volunteer system administrator and all-around geek for AS220, a non-profit arts center in Providence, Rhode Island. AS220 gives Rhode Island artists uncensored and unjuried forums for their work. These forums include galleries, performance space, and publications. Brian sees to it that technology, especially free software, supports that mission.

Ernest E. Rothman is a Professor of Mathematics at Salve Regina University (SRU) in Newport, Rhode Island, where he is also Chair of the Mathematical Sciences Department. Ernie holds a PhD in Applied Mathematics from Brown University and held positions at the Cornell Theory Center in Ithaca, New York, before coming to SRU. His interests are in scientific computing, applied mathematics and computational science education, and the Unix underpinnings of Mac OS X. Ernie lives in South Kingston, Rhode Island with his wife Kim and two Newfoundland dogs Max and Joe. You can keep abreast of his latest activities at http://homepage.mac.com/samchops.

Product Details

• Paperback: 240 pages
• Publisher: O'Reilly Media; 2nd edition (December 1, 2003)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0596006071
• ISBN-13: 978-0596006075
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 5.9 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (9 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,050,518 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #26 in Books > Computers & Technology > Apple > Mac OS X UNIX

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

19 of 20 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Power & Beauty!, April 30, 2004

By 

"yamanohana" (Chugiak, Alaska USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Mac OS X Panther for Unix Geeks (Paperback)

I really enjoyed this book, it's a treasure trove of information throughout. Generally speaking Mac's goal is to keep things simple and the majority Mac user's are perfectly content with that. I would even say that most Mac users I've met don't care to learn UNIX. That's a shame, they don't know what they are missing! The only reason that I became interested in Mac is that it now has the power of a stable, mature and secure operating system, UNIX! Apple has the best of both worlds, the power of the UNIX OS and the beauty of the Mac interface.

With Mac's simple approach, sometimes it can be difficult to get techinical details. For a technical person, this book is welcome. But I wouldn't consider this book to be overly "geeky." Anyone with some experience with UNIX could find useful information in these pages. For example, did you know that you can use GIMP (a very powerful free image editor program) as your default image editor for iPhoto? You can use a lot of cool, free, open source software with Mac OS X. That's another good reason to learn alittle UNIX! This book goes into a lot of detail on how to install GNU free software and other packages.

The book is divided into 4 Parts: Part I. Getting Around, Part II. Building Applications Part III. Working with Packages Part IV. Serving and System Management. Then there's a lengthy Appendix on the file system, command line tools and missing manpages. In a nutshell the book starts with general information, then covers Networking and Programming topics. A good place to start is to find the Terminal Application in the Utilites folder and drag it to the Dock for quick access. I'm more of a network guy than a programmer, so naturally I gravitated to the networking chapters. But to tap into the full power of UNIX one must be able to edit and write some scripts too. This book has some practical scripting examples. It also touches on using your Mac OS X client as a server. I'm sure that I'll be refering back to this book, it's a good one to have in the library.

16 of 17 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Excellent content, well written and edited, March 6, 2004

By 

Jack D. Herrington "engineer and author" (Silicon Valley, CA) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Mac OS X Panther for Unix Geeks (Paperback)

This second edition is a substantial upgrade in both content, and clarity of prose. The technical depth that was a little overwhelming in the second section has been smoothed over and some parts have been moved out of the core of the book and into the appendices.

The unique value of the book is in it's ability to anticipate and answers the questions of Unix users who are looking to migrate to OS X, and in that it performs very well. Ever question I had in moving from Linux to OS X is answered in this well-organized work.

The book starts with the Terminal and how it can be tweaked or even replaced. It then covers the unique startup and directory services. Other user level services and applications are covered, but I liked the last section on third party tools the best. That chapter alone would have saved me a lot of time before I bought the book. The second section covers building applications on the unix layer and this edition adds a chapter on Perl which is excellent. The coverage of Fink, which is a critical, if poorly named, tool for OS X has been greatly improved in this edition. The fourth section, on databases, is well-written and is a nice-to-have to for readers, but it probably not exactly in line with the book as it's not significantly different with OS X.

If you are switching from any unix to OS X you will find this book a well written and invaluable accelerators to get out over the hump of getting the right tools and finding what and where to tweak.

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Highly Recomment, September 11, 2004

By 

Charlie "book browser" (Charlotte, NC) - See all my reviews

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This review is from: Mac OS X Panther for Unix Geeks (Paperback)

Having recently bought a Powerbook 17" I wanted to indeed bridge the UNIX and Windows world. How better to do that than going Apple? I've got MS programs, pretty GUI and, the best, based on UNIX. So... Going from FreeBSD to a Mac I needed a manual and this book does it best IMHO. It's has a plethora of links to open source and some shareware, howto's, links to more info and is fairly broad. It does presuppose a working knowledge of UNIX and is targeted to an audience who is switching from a Linux/BSD OS to a Mac. While the transition is somewhat seamless, the Apple folks did some things a bit differently and that's where this book can, and does, help. Anywho, enough rambling. It's a great little book/help and should be on a UNIX person's desktop if converting from, say, Linux/FreeBSD to a Mac.