This is primarily a "Unix 101" book. I would approximate that about half of the book is general Unix information that applies to all Unix/Linux variants. The other half goes over how to use these commands with Tiger.
It's not a big book and doesn't go into great detail, rather it gives short introductions to Unix utilities. For example, entire books are written on grep and regular expressions, but here there are only seven pages or so devoted to this topic. If you're already pretty comfortable with Unix, you may want to check out a different book (Mac OS X Tiger for Unix Geeks, for example).
I liked (and wish there had been more of) the information on mdls and mdfind, which gives you command line access to Spotlight metadata information.
I think the chapters on X11 and Fink, while interesting, might be a little too advanced for the beginner. In my opinion, there isn't enough information on X11 and you should be pretty comfortable with Unix before diving into Fink.
If you've never opened up Terminal to get a glimpse of Tiger's Unix capabilities, this is a great introduction. Just be careful with the sudo command! :)
I am a "Classic" Mac OS "Power User." I was accustomed to the power and flexibility of the Classic Mac OS coupled with various third-party utilities & software.
Upon recently acquiring an iMac DV with Tiger installed, I wanted to be able to wield similar power over this new computer, but I saw that in order to do so, I would need to learn Unix, since the various third-party utilities I was using previously would not work on Tiger. So I spent some time reading "man" pages and trying to find internet resources, but all the internet resources assumed a basic knowledge of unix, and reading "man" pages presented me with more information than I could process, as all the unix commands have such a large host of options.
Shortly thereafter, a friend got me this book. Unlike other materials I had seen, this book did not get bogged down in complex details. Instead, it "walks" the user through the totally novel (to mac users) environment of Terminal, explaining the terse grammar of UNIX, touching on the most useful options.
Some cool things I learned from this book include:
How to use the terminal to ftp to a site (you don't need fetch!)
How to use regular expressions and wildcards to quickly sort through scads of data
How to "pipeline" commands to automate in a way that would be much more difficult using applescript.
How to change the terminal prompt.
Perhaps after the next book, I'll feel confident enough to set up the SSH server.
When I emailed Mr. Taylor with a question, I was amazed when he actually responded. He seems like a really cool guy, and I think I'll get his next book, the one on shell scripting.
I had really high hopes for this book. I consider myself a pretty smart Mac tech, but Unix was the one thing that really scared me about OS X. To fix some esoteric problem, I'd have to follow some Unix recipe and it always annoyed me I didn't understand what I was typing. O'Relly books are well known not just for the animals on the cover, but excellent explanations of very technical concepts.
After reading Taylor's book, I felt better, but not by much. Most readers can easily understand the basic unix file structure commands, but towards the middle of the book he inaccurately assumed that his readers could also quickly understand some of the advanced concepts. Towards the end of the book I was left scratching my head. We went from move a file here and there to commands that were taking up multiple lines. Arrrgh!
The critical flaw in the book was a lack of exercises and real world examples. When I want to learn something, I don't just want to be told. Involve me and test my knowledge. Some of the more difficult concepts covered in the book would have been enhanced with numerous real world examples, each building on the other. Things moved way too fast and made it easy to get lost.
The book was an excellent overview of Unix for the Macintosh and perfect for someone to decide whether to pursue further learning. "Introduction to Unix" instead of "Learning Unix" would have been a better title. After reading the book, I was reminded of speed dating where you meet 20 people for five minutes each and decide whether you want to go out with them or not. After reading the book I have enough familiarity with Unix that I can understand basic commands and how they relate to each other. I clearly want to go out on another date but any type of wedding bells are way in the distance.
PROS: Excellent overview of Unix for the Macintosh
CONS: Doesn't leave you with enough practical understanding
by Mark G. Sobell
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