I have Unix in my Powerbook....now what??

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o-maco-mac
Posted:
in macOS edited January 2014
Hello,



I'm trying to relearn unix again after not using it for over 10 years. Back then I used unix in college to do my programming asignments. But in the real world where getting that biweekly paycheck means more than compiling small code I ended up getting sucked into the PC world and never used unix again. It's a sad sad story...



So now I have my really awesome Powerbook Ti and I'm staring at the terminal and then looking over at "Learning unix on mac os x" by o'reilly and thinking to myself...what do i do now?



I'm sitting at home in the kitchen doing this and I'm thinking, what am i going to use this for? how am I going to learn this so that I can put it on my resume and legitimately say that I've used it for something worthwhile?



Any of you Mac people out there who use unix for a living can you give me a clue? I'd like to learn this and somehow claw my way out of the microsoft pit...It's like boba fett sitting inside the sarlacc...slow death...



any suggestions would be greatly appreciated...

Comments

  • Reply 1 of 7
    giantgiant Posts: 6,041member
    A couple good places to start:



    www.macosxhints.com



    fink.sourceforge.net
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  • Reply 2 of 7
    thuh freakthuh freak Posts: 2,664member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by O-Mac

    how am I going to learn this so that I can put it on my resume and legitimately say that I've used it for something worthwhile?



    well, what exactly do you want on your resume? general unix knowledge? then i'd suggest installing fink, then try not using the gui for a week. go strictly command line. if you need a web browser, fink lynx. if you need a text-editor, fink vi/vim or emacs (there are versions of all these that come with osx, but the fink versions are usually newer and better, i find). if you find you need some other program, do 'apt-cache search "short description of the program"' (apt-cache requires fink). of course, theres priceless, yet cryptic, help in the "manpages". start at "man man", then move on to "man bash" and "man tcsh". everytime you want to know if a program does something do "man programName" (like "man lynx" or "man vim"). (note: fink requires dev tools, which came with old versions of osx, but i dont think come with panther. you can download them at no cost at developer.apple.com after getting a no cost subscription.) when you tire of the cli, and want to see a gui as many Unix-like systems see it, get x11 (there are fink packages for this, and apple makes their own implementation).



    if you want to do some unix programming, start up your command-line text editor, and start some programming. osx comes with a great c/c++/objc compiler, made by the FSF called GCC (man gcc to find out its particulars). if you avoid objc, you can avoid apple's toppings. apple's stuff is all well and good, and all based on a unix-like system, but their gui and APIs are particular to their OS. you might also find that shell scripts (here come bash, and tcsh again) will be able to do a lot of the more menial tasks. there are some interpretted languages too (like, perl, python, and others), which can handle a lot of stuff that shell scripts can do, but not quite as much as compiled languages can.



    if you are more specific with what you want to learn about Unix and Unix-like systems, I might be able to give you more specific help.
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  • Reply 3 of 7
    o-maco-mac Posts: 777member
    I guess I want basic unix knowledge first, as if i was taking a class in it for the first time. Is there a book out there or something I can use a like a textbook with exercises and stuff?



    After that i guess I'd like to try some programming. but i know i dont want to go exclusively into hardcore programming...
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  • Reply 4 of 7
    baumanbauman Posts: 1,248member
    I found I learned the most about general unix knowledge by looking into shell scripts. They deal with the shell and many common unix CLI apps.



    The place I found most helpful both for reference and text was the Advanced Bash Scripting Guide. It does a good job of walking you through things and introducing common utilities like sed and grep.



    Quote:

    The Advanced Bash Scripting Guide is both a reference and a tutorial on shell scripting. This comprehensive book (the equivalent of about 590 print pages) covers almost every aspect of shell scripting. It contains 277 profusely commented illustrative examples, and a number of tables.



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  • Reply 5 of 7
    der kopfder kopf Posts: 2,275member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by bauman

    The place I found most helpful both for reference and text was the Advanced Bash Scripting Guide.



    Thanks for the reference, I will give those pages a thorough look.
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  • Reply 6 of 7
    yevgenyyevgeny Posts: 1,148member
    What to do now that you have Unix on your PB?







    CONQUER WORLD!
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  • Reply 7 of 7
    gspottergspotter Posts: 342member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by O-Mac

    Is there a book out there or something I can use a like a textbook with exercises and stuff?



    Not a textbook, but rather useful: Unix Power Tools. I have the Unix CD Bookshelf which contains the HTML-Version of this book on all my computers.
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