Utilizing the vast power of my limited readership

[edg]

I have 132 people reading this journal. I bet at least one of you has an opinion on this.

I'm interested in learning more about using *nix, which I've never really been very good at, via my iBook. Can any of the Mac fans out there recommend to me a book specifically about using the BSD derivative that OS X Panther uses? Would I be better served getting something like The Mac OS X Bible?

Comments

[katayamma.livejournal.com]

Try checking out Mac OS-X in a Nutshell (http://www.oreilly.com/catalog/macosxian/index.html) by O'Reilly publishing.

Here's the synopsis for it:

Mac OS X in a Nutshell offers a thorough treatment of Mac OS X version 10.2, from its BSD Unix foundation to Aqua, the new user interface. The book's "Unix Command Reference" is the most complete and thorough coverage of Mac OS X Unix commands you can find anywhere. Each command and option in this section has been painstakingly tested and checked against Jaguar. Serious users who want more from their system will find everything they need to know systematically documented in this book.

[gehn.livejournal.com]

What parts of unix are you interested in learning? Commands and being a general user? Or are you more into learning the general layout of a unix-like system?

In the second case, a Mac might not be the best target, as it's still got a lot of non-unix bits to it despite the parts that are there.

I bet there's a lot you can learn online without buying a book, though. Installing and playing with linux on a cheapo PC is another good way to learn. Go with a easy distro that's not TOO user-friendly, so you actually get to play with the whole system. I like Slackware or Gentoo for that..

[oyving.livejournal.com]

Although not specific to OS X, `Advanced Programming In The UNIX Environment' is the bestest when it comes to writing portable C programs for Unix operating systems. I wouldn't get too scared from the `Advanced' part in the title.

[oyving.livejournal.com]

Hm. I see that the book is now out in a second edition with a different author. I don't know how that one compares to the first.