While there’s not much that’s changed with Unix, the learning curve to understand Unix can sometimes be steep. And for Mac users who aren’t familiar with the command-line — or worse, afraid of it — teaching an old dog new tricks takes some work. I knew a little about Unix before coming to work at O’Reilly (although, I’m not sure having used pine and mutt on a VAX system counts for much), and on my first day I was given a copy of Learning the vi Editor and Unix Power Tools, and was told “You’ll need these.” Man, did I ever! I was a long-time Mac user, and while I had worked on VAX systems at my previous employer, I was a real Unix neophyte. I know what it’s like to learn Unix in a trial-by-fire sort of way, but once I saw what you could do with it, I easily succumbed to the Unix side.
With this new edition, written by Dave Taylor, Mac users are introduced to the Unix side of Mac OS X. You’ll see some of the things you can do in the Terminal that you just can’t do in the Finder, and along the way, you’ll learn the Unix lingo as well, so if someone says “Just chmod 775 that file and you’ll be okay,” you’ll know what they mean and know that they’re not playing tricks on you. Dave’s taken a good whack at the revision of this book, and has added Tiger-specific material to make you drool. If you’re a Mac user and you’ve been riding the Unix fence, this book’s for you.