UNIX question

[Hapster]

Hello to all.

I'm new at this online community and this is my first post in this forum. I have been a Mac user for about 2 years or so now. The UNIX system (Darwin terminal) is an interesting thing and I began to study the basics of it. I understand it has been a popular thing for those experts at computers especially Mac users. Now, I'm getting a hang of it but only the basics. My question is where can I put this UNIX system to good use? In other words, in what ways can I use UNIX?

I hope experts or people with a vast knowledge about this can help me out or at least give me good insights about UNIX because I have gained interest in the topic and wish to explore it more.

Thank you and more power to this site.

[victorpanlilio]

Hi Hapster,

I'm an xBSD noob as well (my previous exposure to UNIX was IBM AIX), but I'm finding that some things are easier to do in the Terminal than from the GUI:

sudo periodic daily weekly monthly

runs the cron jobs that do disk housekeeping and maintenance, which normally happen at 3AM (because *NIX was designed to be on 24/7)

Also, the command line is very useful for using ssh to connect to other *NIX boxen, if you need to administer them remotely.

There are many GUI utilities for running command line programs, but once you get the hang of the command syntax, it can be faster and more convenient to just type it into the Terminal...

I have a copy of MacOS X Unleashed, a very thick book, about half of which is devoted to the xBSD subsystem in OS X. Haven't found much time to read it, though, because of so many other commitments... like learning to support OS X users in Windows 2003 Server Active Directory environments... O'Reilly has a beginning UNIX book for MacOS X users, you can look it up on their site...

Cheers,
Victor

[Hapster]

Thank you for your advice sir. Yes, I'm currently searching for books (beginners guides etc) about UNIX and its functions.

THanks again.

[jbd]

I am a new Mac user. In fact, I only got my first Mac 2 days ago after playing with the new OS X for a few days. The MAIN reason I switched (other than it looks completely SEXY), is for the UNIX underpinings. Having used Unix and Windows for the longest times for specific applications, it is great to finally have a computer that combines both work (Unix) and play (Windows) into one complete package.

I'm not sure that the question should be how can you use Unix as more of.. "what do I want to do and how can Unix help me". For instance, on my laptop, I have a TFTP server running for saving and uploading configurations to routers and other equipment that I need to for the office.

I have multiple email addresses, so I have enabled the SMTP server (postfix included in OSX) so that I can send email eaisly from wherever I am without having to worrying about relaying restrictions from my various email providers.

Built in OpenSSH allows me for easy and secure connections to other servers, and my SSH key goes with me wherever I go. Mac OS X is nothing short of being a Unix user's dream.

If you really want to learn about Unix, I would recommend reading on the Unix books. In particular as was previously mentioned about the xBSD books. Unix is just a tool.. like Windows... OS/2.. etc. No tool is really better than the other... they just fit better.

[marcgalang]

Hi,

Unix is an implementation of a operating system. Darwin which is actually based on BSD (freeBSD in particular) is an implementation of Unix. BSD is a flavor of unix developed at the University of Cali, Berkeley. Our most beloved MacOSX is actually built on top of the Unix(Darwin) Operating System.

The terminal that we use is like a window to the underneath, Unlike on the surface we just click buttons, down here we are alot more in control of the computer because we are closer to the core and more tools and resources is available upon our needs, just be careful, since were in control we could break things unexpectedly. Im actually a computer science student so I usually work on the terminal. I usually program on the terminal, i configure config files and stuff to suit my needs on the terminal, I even create new apple applications on it and alot more.

Well, I hope I answered your question.

There are more resources available on the internet, try visiting:

unix.org
freebsd.org
linux.org

you might also want to try Linux... another flavor of unix.

gudluck!

[jbd]

Originally posted by victorpanlilio
I'm an xBSD noob as well (my previous exposure to UNIX was IBM AIX), but I'm finding that some things are easier to do in the Terminal than from the GUI:

sudo periodic daily weekly monthly

runs the cron jobs that do disk housekeeping and maintenance, which normally happen at 3AM (because *NIX was designed to be on 24/7)

You may want to try editing /etc/crontab. You will see that the daily runs at 3:15am, weekly at 4:30 am on the 6th day of the week and montly at 5:30am on the 1st day of the month.

I just changed the time to when I have the laptop always on so that I don't have to run the scripts manually and don't have external programs cluttering up my drive.

[Hapster]

Hey. Thanks everyone for your advice. It really helped me a lot. I'm not a student of computer studies but the computer, specifically the Mac, is an interest of mine and one of the reasons I try to explore UNIX. I'm going for the business and finance courses after I graduate High School and since my Mac has helped me a lot in my high school life, I wish to harness its full power to help me through the business and finance world. Although I don't know how it would help me yet though. Any suggestions anyone?

I'm now off to Powerbooks to search for a good reference book regarding UNIX. Thanks again everyone.

[victorpanlilio]

http://www.oreilly.com/catalog/lunixpanther/
looks like a good place to start...

then once you're comfortable, andyou want to explore further, see
http://www.oreilly.com/catalog/mpantherunix/

[marcgalang]

this pa:

http://images.apple.com/macosx/pdf/Panther_Unix_TB_10082003.pdf
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mac_OS_X

Business and Finance? I dont know much about it. Sell macs at lower price would be a nice idea

[victorpanlilio]

Originally posted by jbd
You may want to try editing /etc/crontab. You will see that the daily runs at 3:15am, weekly at 4:30 am on the 6th day of the week and montly at 5:30am on the 1st day of the month.

Hi jbd,

I followed your suggestion and changed it to 12:15PM daily, 1:30PM on the 6th day of the week, and 2:30 on the 1st day of the month, but because I schlep my laptop around a lot (I visit various client sites during the week) and it might be sleeping then, I'll probably still need to run them manually anyway. Oh well.

Cheers,

Victor