If you're one of the many Unix developers drawn to Mac OS X for its Unix core, you'll find yourself in surprisingly unfamiliar territory. Unix and Mac OS X are kissing cousins, but there are enough pitfalls and minefields in going from one to another that even a Unix guru can stumble, and most guides to Mac OS X are written for Mac aficionados. For a Unix developer, approaching Tiger from the Mac side is a bit like learning Russian by reading the Russian side of a Russian-English dictionary. Fortunately, O'Reilly has been the Unix authority for over 25 years, and in Mac OS X Tiger for Unix Geeks, that depth of understanding shows.

This is the book for Mac command-line fans. Completely revised and updated to cover Mac OS X Tiger, this new edition helps you quickly and painlessly get acclimated with Tiger's familiar-yet foreign-Unix environment. Topics include:

Using the Terminal and understanding how it differs from an xterm

Using Directory Services, Open Directory (LDAP), and NetInfo

Compiling code with GCC 3

Library linking and porting Unix software

Creating and installing packages with Fink

Using DarwinPorts

Search through metadata with Spotlight's command-line utilities

Building the Darwin kernel

Running X Windows on top of Mac OS X, or better yet, run Mac OS X on a Windows machine with PearPC!