Product: 1491939982
For a variety of reasons, I am not an Apple fan. However, for the first time in 25 years I am considering purchasing an Apple Mac computer.
Why?
Versatility.
As I move more deeply into video and audio production, there are some excellent apps out there that simply aren’t available for Windows.
On a small, highly portable laptop, I can run the Mac OS, Windows and access the underlying Unix core of the Mac OS.
On a Windows machine, I can also run Linux or Unix, but not the Mac OS and its Mac-only video and audio apps.
So maybe Ill hold my nose and buy a Mac.
I consider myself an advanced dabbler with Linux: I can hold my own as long as I have access to the built-in MAN pages or a good manual nearby.
I was interested in this book because I am always aware of gotchas those changes from one flavor of Unix to another, hardware specific anomalies and the like.
Thus my interest in this book and I can tell you right now, it is precisely what I wanted. It is not a book for Unix system administrators. It isn’t a compendium of all the commands and programs available in Unix and Linux. It won’t show you all the wonderful things you can do with DD command or the various Unix/Linux text editors.
It is an introduction to running Unix on the Mac and it excels at that.
So far, I haven’t found any Mac only vagaries, but considering the very careful detailed (and thankfully well-illustrated) writing, if there are any I anticipate they will be mentioned.
In short this a great book for the Mac user who knows nothing about Unix, but wants to learn the basics, a very worthwhile endeavor or someone like me who has a bare understanding and wants to learn about using Unix in its Mac environment.
Jerry
Rating: 5
1491939982
Count: 6
Review by Jerry Saperstein
on 2020-03-10