Customer Reviews

Mac OS X Tiger for Unix Geeks

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This isn't a book for beginners, but depending on what you are looking for it isn't totally advanced reading. Part I (Getting Around) is an assortment of 10 chapters - Inside the Terminal, Searching and Metadata, Startup, etc. - that are really just deeper dives. Once you have gotten past the "where's the terminal?" stage they provide good, useful information for any user who expects to spend time on the command line. Or who simply wants to know how things work.

But with Part II (Building Applications) the dive becomes much deeper, focusing on compiler requirements, libraries, frameworks, dynamic linking, and all the other minutia that a serious developer needs, especially one making the transition from the Unix world. If you are completely Mac based and are happy with Xcode you may find this is overkill. Later sections deal with Working with Packages, Serving and System Management, and some miscellaneous points.

Rothman and Jepson's writing style is a bit dry, and in the deeper sections they will often make assumptions about how well versed you are in Unix. Even in the Unix world there aren't a lot of people who are linking and loading experts and a little more effort at explaining the terms would have been appreciated. Come to think of it that's a standards fault anywhere in the Unix world - people keep assuming that the reason you are reading a book is that you already know what's in it - so I shouldn't complain.

Still, this is a good reference book. If I ever do want to create packages from the command line this will be my first stop. It belongs on the shelves of all Mac professionals, geeks or not.

If you are comfortable with Unix, this book will get you up to speed with Unix on the Mac. You should at least know what things like 'grep', 'sed', 'awk' mean - if not, try the "Learning Unix for Mac OS X" book first.

Like every other flavor of *nix, the Mac has it's own take on Unix services you may be familiar with. If you open up the Terminal app, you can find most everything you would expect in the directory structure. However, things don't always work as anticipated - which is where this book is really useful. For example, one of the things that confused me when going from Unix (I used FreeBSD and Linux prior to Mac OS X) was how users and groups were used.

There are enough differences between OS X and other flavors of *nix that this book is easily worth the cost. From how to add startup items, to enabling existing Unix services, to dual-booting, to building packages, etc etc etc. I'm sure some people will find things "missing" or not explained with enough detail, but I think it's covers just about everything most "Unix Geeks" will be interested in to familiarize themselves with the Mac's take on Unix.

If you're looking for something specific (for example, VNC on Mac OS X), check out the index online from O'Reilly's web site and make sure it covers the topic you're interested in.

Someone told me once that coming from UNIX is like coming from Mars. He was a Windows user, so you'll have to decide for yourself whether to forgive him or not. ;)

But he did have a point. We do things differently in the UNIX world, and we're used to understanding how our operating systems work down at the nuts and bolts level. We get really frustrated when we're asked to do something useful with a modern desktop OS where everything is hidden from us.

MacOS X is both UNIX and a modern desktop OS. This book explains the nuts and bolts to you--how launchd, spotlight, and other bits of Tiger work, how to use and make frameworks, how to compile software, how to make your system work the way a UNIX system should, and how to run a solid server even with the client version of Tiger are all covered. Tiger features such as Dashboard are largely ignored in favor of directory services, databases, and the MacOS X firewall.

This is a niche book for a very specific audience; those engineers who are _switching_ from another flavor of *nix to OS X. And it does a great job at showing the benefits and pitfalls of making that switch. X Windows, compiling and coding, systems administration, these are all covered. But they are covered at the level of informing someone who already knows the basics. In other words, you won't be treated like an idiot. And I appreciate that.

If you are just starting out with OS X and you have had experience with other Unix environments, this is is the book for you.

There are many Tigers left in this Leopard world, and you'll want this book if you're going to tame the big striped cat via Unix. Especially valuable for Unix developers and administrators that are new to the Mac OS, "Mac OS X Tiger for Unix Geeks" illuminates Apple's unique approach to Unix and provides a jump-start into using the Mac OS's GUI and command-line tools. Authors Brian Jepson and Ernest E. Rothman lift the hood and point out the function of Tiger's major parts: the startup process, the filesystem, directory services, and the tools to use when configuring these parts. They proceed to detail Tiger's application development framwework, comparing and contrasting it with traditional Unix frameworks. The book finishes with an overview of Tiger as a server OS, replete with notes on major server technologies: administration tools, and databases and scripting languages. Jepson and Rothman share so much knowledge, you'll think they're developers for Apple!

After years working on *IX/System V environments, I decided to give Mac OS X a try (since it is based on BSD). The GUI pretty and all the gizmos and widgets, etc are pretty as well. However, I'm not really interested in that part (since they have existed in Linux for ages), but rather I was interested in the inner-workings of the BSD subsystem and kernel. I am also interested in XCode2 (GCC3, GCC4) and native 64-bit support. Since OS X is definitely delivered with the consumer in mind, most of the real power of the OS lie beneath its hood. This is when this book comes unbelievably handy. Very well written, well organized, very few typos, and with invaluable tips and tools all explained in a coherent manner. A must for unix people moving/using OS X.

OS X UNIX is amazingly friendly and accessible. Some people who had never used it before type commands and work with the operating system directly as a "cool guys" in movies! This book is very helpful and well written and it is serves as a very nice reference. I paired this book with that "UNIX Essentials" DVD I found here on Amazon and it is complete UNIX course recorded and this book and a video they contribute one another greatly. The book is very particular about the subjects that related to OS X and because there are some differences between OS X and other UNIXes it is nice to have a book that deals with it.

This book isn't for the average geek - if you're a geek but not a UNIX geek then don't buy this book. Even if you are a Unix geek the book is of potentially less value than you might expect... so let me adjust your expectations a bit.

Short and simple: it isn't a "Tiger Unix Bible". The majority of topics are just touched on or in many cases merely mentioned.

It also isn't a detailed coverage of Unix topics specific to Tiger. Apple has quite a few technologies of their own that they have woven into this flavor of UNIX. One might think that the book would cover at least those in depth. Nope. Even 10.4 specific topics that would be new to a 10.3 geek are typically "mentioned in depth". Assuming knowledge of Unix is one thing - but this book seems bent on assuming knowledge of the very topics it intends to introduce. That's probably just a fancy way of saying it covers a lot of geeky topics rather lightly.

If you're a true Unix geek you know how to deceipher man pages, hit all the usual blogs and find the information that's missing. And it's a lot easier to do if you know what the topics, commands and keywords are that you need to look at. For pointing me in the right direction I've found this book useful. Just don't expect more.

As the title implies this is a book for UNIX experts. If you need a course for beginners, I found the "UNIX essentials" DVD to be very effective. The book and DVD make a nice couple if you want to get it quickly and in deep.

Excellent. Very helpful. And even if you are a real geek who prefers to look up the man pages, or consult mailing list archives, you shouldn't dismiss this book too quickly. It covers the basics and goes on to less obvious matters. No matter how expert you already are, the chance is high that you shall find a great deal of useful material here.