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| Book: | Learning Unix for Mac OS X Panther | |
| Subject: | Learning Unix for Mac OS X Panther Review | |
| Date: | 2004-01-20 11:25:46 | |
| From: | Ed Crelin | |
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Rating:
 
Other than terminal session telecommunications 18 years ago I have had no real terminal type training and was anticipating an introduction to the terminal and some useful UNIX commands for everyday use in OS X. I am sorry to report that while this book does a good job introducing you to the terminal, that's all it really does. Doing things like reading your email in the terminal is something so arcane that no mac user would do more than once as a silly test. Too much space devoted to it and other silly things. The title is Learning Unix for OS X, not "a couple generic UNIX commands" I was hoping for a handbook, a reference list of basic useful commands for REAL OS X needs. I will give you a perfect example. Every OS X user has heard of permissions and many have experienced the need to fix them. Most people don't know that you can do it in Disk Utility and download applications (some free, most not) that will do it. I have since learned (from another source) the ridiculously simple commands that will envoke disk utility to do it (using the 'sudo' command that isn't even in the book, c'mon) without opening windows and pushing buttons. I don't want to diminish the author of the utility Cocktail's profits but users can do everything that program does easily using the terminal. That would be "Learning UNIX for OS X". I would rethink the content, leave out the stuff no one would ever use and add some realworld goodies. This is effectively chapter one, I was done in twenty minutes, and $20. is too much, I expected a wee bit more from O'Reilly. |
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