Customer Reviews

Mac OS X Tiger in a Nutshell: A Desktop Quick Reference (In a Nutshell (O'Reilly))

5 star:		(4)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

I opened the box and immediately noticed that this is a -much- smaller book than the Panther edition. The reason? It's about command line Unix, nothing else. This is described as "we've come back to the Unix roots" and that this is consistent with other O'Reilly titles like "Linux in a Nutshell". Perhaps, but titling a book "Tiger in a Nutshell" and discussing only Unix terminal commands is misleading at best, especially since this is a major departure from previous editions.

This isn't a bad unix command reference and it is specialized for the BSD Unix of Tiger. Just don't expect it to be more than that.

If you're looking for a book that covers Tiger -and- the unix commands in a lot of technical depth, you may want to look at "Mac OS X Tiger Unleashed". That isn't in any sense a nutshell book (it's huge) but it has all the material that this book doesn't.

Before you go buying this book expecting it to be about Mac OS X with lots of pictures and descriptions about iTunes and the like, if that's what you are looking for this book is NOT for you. If you are looking for a reference on UNIX commands and how to use the Terminal mode on the Mac with OS X 10.4 then you are in the right place. Chock full of more than 500 pages, I really like the way that this book is laid out. Not too long, not too short, this reference lays out all the relevant UNIX commands that you would find useful on the Mac and provides short descriptions of how each command should be used.

There is some discussion on the xWindows system and Network Services, but this is mainly a reference on UNIX commands and all the keyboard shortcuts available in emacs.

A very nice reference for Max OS X users who use the Terminal on a daily basis. If you are a UNIX expert you probably won't get a lot out of this book, but if you do use the UNIX side of things on the Mac it's probably worth the purchase to add to your library.

***** RECOMMENDED

Yes, this is a command-line centric book - because that's where all the POWER is (the graphical user interface is well designed and hardly needs a reference). This book provides a great OS X-specific reference - so you won't have to test all the commands in your "UNIX in a Nutshell" book to see which ones work. Aside from the command line, this book provides important information on Managing Mac OS X (See PART THREE, below) and an excellent index for finding your information. The sections (and approximate page count) in this book are:

PART ONE - Commands and Shells
Introduction - 3 pages
Unix Command Reference - 251 pages
Using the Terminal - 13 pages
Shell Overview - 3 pages
bash: The Bourne-Again Shell - 10 pages

PART TWO - Text Editing and Processing
Pattern Matching - 3 pages
The Vi Editor - 34 pages
The Emacs Editor - 12 pages

PART THREE - Managing Mac OS X
Filesystem Overview - 15 pages
Directory Services - 15 pages
Running Network Services - 10 pages
The X Window System - 11 pages
The Defaults System - 3 pages

INDEX

To be clear, this is a Unix reference. The commands are defined in enough detail to understand and use them easily. It also includes information on command line utilities that are installed with the Xcode Tools. A number of the common UI functions in Tiger have command line equivalents, like Software Update, NetInfo Manager, Grab (screencapture) or Spotlight, so you can create pretty powerful shell scripts. The rest of the information is covered with less detail (i.e. vi, emacs, regular expressions, X11, etc).

The chapters on bash, vi and emacs, for example, are ok - but I'm not sure who would use them. If you're coming from a Unix or Linux background, you probably already know this stuff as the info is pretty basic. If you're coming from Windows, I'd recommend other, more detailed, books for learning bash, vi, emacs, etc.

I like the detail on the metadata (aka Spotlight) commands. I also found a couple fun commands I hadn't used before, for example "say". Now you can have your shell script announce "Dude, I'm done!" on completion. I will be using this book for the Unix command reference and probably not much else, so it works for me.

"Mac OS X Tiger in a Nutshell" isn't your typical tome on "everything you need to know to use Mac OS X." If you're looking for an easy to read, richly illustrated book to curl up with on a rainy day with a cup of coffee, this isn't it. But if you're interested in the Unix underpinnings of Mac OS X, then grab a six pack of Jolt and your favorite junk food, because there's a heck of a lot of information packed into this book.

The authors clearly identify their target audience early on - "Unix users and Unix programmers", or generally people who are already familiar with the Unix system. Obviously, that's not your stereotypical Macintosh user from pre-OS X days (i.e., System 7 or Mac OS 9). But if you've ever spent time using other operating systems (dare I say DOS?) or are feeling adventurous and want to "peek under the hood", then you'll also benefit from the wealth of information presented in this book.

"Tiger in a Nutshell" is organized into three major parts. Part I, "Commands and Shells", introduces the basic concepts of networking and system administration. After providing a four page quick reference to Unix commands by topic (terrific for beginners), fully one half of the remainder of the book is a comprehensive alphabetical Unix command reference, which the authors claim is the most complete and thorough reference available anywhere (even on the system itself). They've borrowed heavily from other O'Reilly Nutshell books to compile this list, and this compilation alone is worth the price of the book. They also cover the Terminal, which is the gateway between the Aqua graphical user interface (GUI) and what they call the "no-nonsense command-line interface" of Darwin. After briefly providing an overview of different flavors of shells, the authors then describe bash, the default user shell for Mac OS X Tiger.

Part II, "Text and Text Processing", describes the tools used to work with text files, including text editing programs like vi and Emacs, and pattern matching commands like grep and the metacharacters used in search and replacement patterns. There are separate chapters that go into the details for both the vi and Emacs editors. By the way, just a little obscure history about the vi editor... although "vi" (pronounced "vee-eye") is derived from the shortest unambiguous abbreviation of "visual", I remember learning it back in the 90's as an acronym for a less flattering term: "virtually impossible". That gives you an idea how spoiled we've become with text editors that don't require memorizing arcane commands - remember, that's why you'd buy this book, right?

Finally, Part III, "Managing Mac OS X", offers chapters on managing Mac OS X Tiger with full knowledge (gained from reading the preceding 400 pages) about the Unix underpinnings of the operating system. Here's where you'll be able to finally understand the file system, directory services, how to run network services, using X Windows (also known as X11) as an alternate GUI to Apple's Aqua interface, and learn about the defaults database, used to store preferences for individual applications.

This book obviously isn't for the casual or newbie Mac user, but provides an excellent reference for the Unix geek learning to use the Mac, and the Mac geek wanting to learn more about the incredible power of Unix that is just waiting to be unleashed. As long as you're in the target audience, I have no qualms recommending this book for you!

This reference is missing many of the commands I actually use on Mac OS X to develop software such as lipo and otool. Sure the man pages are on my computer but then why do I need this book?

Suggestion for the Leopard edition: cut back on Vi, Emacs, and Bash stuff and add even more man pages.

Are you a Unix- user or programmer or a system administrator? If you are, then this book is for you! Authors Andy Lester, Chris Stone, Chuck Toporek and Jason McIntosh, have done an outstanding job of writing a book that cuts through the chaff and gives you practical details you can use every day.

Lester, Stone, Toporek and McIntosh, begin by providing you with a quick introduction to the Unix side of Mac OS X. Then, the authors list descriptions and usage terms for over 300 of the Unix commands found in Mac OS X. They continue by introducing you to the Terminal application and show you how to issue commands and tweak its settings. Next, the authors provide a quick overview of the differences between bash, Mac OS X Panther's default shell, and tcsh, the default shell for earlier versions of Mac OS X. Then, they provide a quick overview of the bash shell, along with a listing of its built-in commands for shell scripting. They also cover pattern matching. Next, the authors cover some of vi's most commonly used options and features. Then, they focus on Emacs editing capabilities. The authors continue by touring the various folders found on a typical Mac OS X volume, including the Unix-centric directories that the Finder usually keeps out of sight. They then detail the way Mac OS X stores and accesses its administrative information, ranging from the NetInfo system of network-linked databases to the "old-school" file-based system familiar to Unix administrators. The authors also detail the major categories of services Unix supplies, including web servers, file sharing, and mail servers. Next, they highlight some of the key features of Apple's X11 distribution and explain how to install Apple's X11 and the X11 SDK. Finally, the authors describe how to gain access to and hack these settings via the Terminal application and the defaults command.

Everything you need to know about the Unix side of Mac OS X has been systematically documented in this most excellent book. This book is the most comprehensive quick reference on the market and is a must for any serious Mac user.

Andy Lester, Chris Stone, Chuck Toporek and Jason McIntosh's MAC OS X Tiger In A Nutshell: A Desktop Quick Reference is also a winner: it provides an overview of OS X Tiger Version 10.4 and focuses on the Unix layer, covering over 300 of Tiger's Unix commands, reviewing basic system and network features and functions, and providing a reference chick has been tested and checked against Tiger for optimum, flawless performance.

I have to agree that the cover is a little misleading since this doesn't cover much of the workings of Tiger beyond the command line. That said, it's a really great handbook that shows the specifics of Unix in Tiger and goes further to cover things like VNC, which OS 9 users would probably not know about. As an old-school OS 9 user, this was a great in bringing my workflow to the next level. OS X brings a ton of free tools to accomplish sophisticated tasks and this is an essential guide to those tools.