Running Mac OS X Panther

Rating:
Summary: Apple Still Has the Best GUI/OS combination
Review: A little cognitive dissonance or impedance mismatch, perhaps, on the cover. It says "Panther" but shows some kind of dog. Luckily, the rest of the book does not exhibit similar inconsistencies. :)

For starters, the first chapter is an excellent independent summary of Apple's operating system history since 1984's Macintosh release. It makes clear that Panther is the third major iteration of OS X. Nice new improved usability features like XCode for developers and an improved Finder.

If you are acquainted with unix/linux or Microsoft Windows, you should get the message from this book that Apple still leads in the cleanest combination of operating system and user interface. Unix fans will see much friendly territory. Indeed, who would have thought 10 years ago that Apple would converge its operating system atop unix? A brilliant move that lets it leverage off ideas and innovations in unix and linux. In fact, a virtual necessity. Apple's market share is so small that it cannot maintain a brute force matching of competitors' features, let alone surpass these.

Apple fans can read this book and come away encouraged that Apple can still innovate and punch above its weight. It has a future, despite the repeated pronouncements of people like Michael Dell.

Please note that Davidson is explicitly writing for experienced Mac users, though you do not have to be currently running OS X?
(Why aren't you?)

Rating:
Summary: Invaluable!
Review: I consider this book to be the ideal companion to "The Missing Manual". Indeed, "Running Mac OS X Panther" is the Red Pill for Mac OS X users because it takes you beneath the applications into the Panther underworld where all the interesting stuff happens. I found the depth of the book's content to be truly unique. From Panther's killer app -- the Terminal -- to working with Open Directory, reading through the book was a journey that quickly transformed me from a mainstream Mac junkie into an enlightened power user.

Take the Red Pill. You'll be glad you did.

Rating:
Summary: Invaluable!
Review: I consider this book to be the ideal companion to "The Missing Manual". Indeed, "Running Mac OS X Panther" is the Red Pill for Mac OS X users because it takes you beneath the applications into the Panther underworld where all the interesting stuff happens. I found the depth of the book's content to be truly unique. From Panther's killer app -- the Terminal -- to working with Open Directory, reading through the book was a journey that quickly transformed me from a mainstream Mac junkie into an enlightened power user.

Take the Red Pill. You'll be glad you did.

Rating:
Summary: A dangerous book :)
Review: I first opened my Powerbook just over a year ago. That special gas they store under the keyboard sprayed out, I breathed in, and I was hooked. I've gone from being a ten-year Linux user to being a Mac newbie, and I'm loving it. My Powerbook is my primary machine: I even typeset our two latest books on it. For me it's an ideal combination of convenience and power. I can use the nice GUIs when I want, but underneath it all there's a Unix heart and the command line. Except...

It isn't just Unix. There's a whole new world of stuff waiting for users like me who only recently drank the Apple kool-aid. I'm not used to the various configuration schemes, the various databases for user-level information are obscure, and so on.

And that's where JDD's book comes in. I was lucky enough to be a reviewer, and I just lapped it up. It is packed with information on all aspects of Panther, ranging from the high-level down to the lowest level nitty-gritty detail. The chapters are just the right length: tight enough to keep you reading, but not so small that they miss out on the details you need.

The only bad thing? If you're like me, you'll spend hours experimenting with all the new stuff you learn while reading this book.

A must have for power Panther users.

Rating:
Summary: A good 'shop manual' for OS X Panther
Review: Many years ago I bought a second hand Ford Cortina in dubious condition. I kept it running with the assistance of a marvelous volume purchased at a specialist bookstore that was referred to as "the shop manual." It wasn't much help teaching you how to drive or how to park but if you needed to know how to perform an oil change, flush the radiator or bleed the brakes it told you all the details. Now James Duncan Davidson has given me a shop manual for Macintosh OS X Panther.

This volume assumes you know how to use your Mac, how to perform all the routine changes that are easily accomplished with the GUI. Davidson also assumes you don't want to know how to get a movie running as your desktop, or get an Exposé blob floating on the screen or any of the usual sort of 'hacks' or 'hints.' What he gives is a good guide to lifting the hood and performing serious mechanical work or tweaking the performance of your Mac with enough background information so that you can feel confident taking your own steps.

It was good after a few near misses to read an O'Reilly book that was once again well written, well edited, tight and crammed full of information pitched at just the right level. Davidson has done an excellent job with this book.

Davidson starts with a little history, and from the viewpoint he presents, this is not a waste of space; he spends his time explaining exactly how we arrived at the current version of the Mac OS.

Then we have a chapter titled "Lay of the Land" that explores the file system, including both the Finder view and the view you get from the command line. It also explains the four file system domains and the 'Library' directory. The third chapter is a quick (20 pages) look at the Terminal and shell.

Then we get 'Part II: Essentials,' which is the 120-page core of the book. This starts off, logically, with system startup and the login (and log out and shutdown). This is followed by short chapters on users and groups, files and permissions, monitoring, scheduling and preferences and defaults before a marvelous long chapter on the file system. Davidson goes into great detail and closely covers each of the topics, making sure that you get all the details not just 'recipes.'

Part III ("Advanced Topics") starts with a chapter on Open Directory that I found particularly useful. It includes coverage on Kerberos and single sign-on that explains it well, as well as the command-line Open Directory tools. The chapter on printing could have had a bit more guts. It covers the obvious but leaves out such joys as CUPS apart from a half-page sidebar; since sharing printers has caused me more than a little grief I would have appreciated more detail here. The final chapter on networking is better, and provides more useful detail.

It must be said that this section concentrates more on user level detail and leaves out real information on server level software and options. Given the target group for this book, and that a book has to draw a line somewhere, this is quite fair.

Davidson has picked his topics well, almost everyone will find all of Part II useful and educational. Part III is perfect for people wanting to run Panther in a corporate environment. He has balanced the command line and GUI well, pointing out where you can do a job with both and explaining the details.

I would recommend this book to any Panther user with a moderate amount of experience. It is not for the newcomer to the Mac, perhaps, but everyone else will benefit from this book.

Rating:
Summary: Fine Volume for Mac OS X Geeks
Review: Most Mac users are perfectly happy that the Mac user interface shields them from the intricacies and complexities of the Unix-based "plumbing" beneath the surface of their machines. Others, however, like motorheads who compulsively tune, torque, and tinker with their souped-up cars, love to open up their Mac, so to speak, to get at the innards. This book is for them.

"Running MacOSX Panther" is a systematic guide to the core of OSX written, not just for power users, but for those with a compulsive need to know how the Mac works inside-out. It is for those who want master-level knowledge of how the Mac operates inside.

After a short history of the developmentof the Mac operating system, the book describes all the essentials: what happens during the startup and login process; how files organized and permissions set up; how preferences are maintained and edited; how users and groups are set up and administered, and more. The emphasis is on the Unix underpinnings and use of the command line to view, customize, and control the Mac. There is discussion on how to see and edit hidden files and directories, how to use the Unix "shell" and text editors, and how to edit Open Firmware - the Mac version of the PC's "BIOS". You can learn to create a user account for non-human users (not including your kitty!)

The advanced sections discuss the Open Directory, a type of database which stores information about the system and its components, and advanced networking information and options. Journaling is explained and an argument is made why disk defragmentation is not necessary on OSX. It convinced me.

An appendix providing guidance on installing Panther has sections for ordinary users as well as for Mac "motorheads". The motorheads will enjoy reviewing the list of Boot Command key combinations.

Rating:
Summary: Not for geeks, good for future geeks
Review: This book is not for geeks. If you are already someone who understands Mac OS X inside and out, uses the terminal to accomplish things periodically, and know how to get things done you will find this book to have no new information.

As I paged through my newly purchased copy I was quite disappointed at the lack of anything that was new to me. As such, this book will be passed on to one of my more advanced users who will enjoy learning more. For someone technically minded who wishes they knew how to do more with OSX, this is a pretty good book.

This book is well written and helpful, but geeks like me are not its audience. If you want a book that digs a lot deeper and covers a lot more subjects, pick up Mac OS X Unleashed (I bought mine from amazon, I know they carry it).

Joel

Rating:
Summary: don't quite see where it fits
Review: This book is supposed to fall in some middle ground between a Mac OSX manual (Like Pogue's Missing Manual on OSX) and the hard core extreme Mac-OSX-as-another-Unix-system (as typified in Mac OSX Unleashed or the OSX Nutshell handbook or the under-rated Unx for Mac OSX by Enzer). However, I think it just ends up neither fish nor fowl. Not really a Mac OSX manual because it is much too short for that, and not nearly as detailed as other books that get into much more depth on the Unix aspects of OSX. I would suggest getting the OSX Missing Manual (or Robin Williams OSX book) and then supplementing that with Enzer's book or Mac OSX unleashed.

Rating:
Summary: Most accessible of O'Reilly's OS X books
Review: This is a work for those who don't mind getting into the Terminal and into the internals of their Apple. The book has an interesting mix of coverage of the GUI and then the corresponding Unix layer. This dual coverage brings the topics covered home quite nicely. Some of the topics covered are; the Terminal, process control, file access, startup handling, printing and networking.

I consider this the most accessible of the recent crop of O'Reilly OS X books on Panther. If you are a reasonably skilled end-user or engineering looking to get under the covers of your Apple this is probably your best bet.