Mac for Linux Geeks (eBook)

Tony Steidler-Dennison is a longtime Linux user, dating his first experience with Linux back to 1996. He's used Linux as his sole operating system at home, developed software on Linux systems, and administered such systems in environments as diverse as robotic telescope control, online shopping, presidential politics, and commercial aviation. Tony has coauthored two books on Linux and over the years, he's written more than a dozen magazine articles on topics from Drupal and content management systems to podcasting with open source tools. Since February 2005, he's engineered and hosted "The Roadhouse Podcast," a weekly hour of "the finest blues you've never heard." Since the purchase of an Intel-based Mac Mini, Tony has become both obsessed and fascinated with the operating system he calls "Linux with a pretty face." Tony is an avionics systems engineer with Rockwell Collins, Inc. in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, engineering open source solutions in the commercial aviation industry.

Contents at a Glance 5
Contents 6
About the Author 11
About the Technical Reviewer 12
Preface 13
The Backstory 18
Of Macros and Manuals: UNIX 18
The Fork: BSD 21
The Enthusiast and the Marketer: Apple Computer 22
The Convergence: Mac OS X 26
Why BSD in Mac OS X? 28
How Is BSD Implemented in Mac OS X? 31
Why Switch from Linux to Mac? 31
Summary 32
The Comparison: Linux vs. Mac OS X 34
Mac OS X and Linux Filesystems 34
Permissions in Mac OS X 47
Terminal Access in Mac OS X 49
Interfaces in Mac OS X 51
Devices and Drives 55
Summary 56
Dual-Booting and Virtualization 57
Dual-Booting Linux and Mac OS X 57
Virtual Linux 70
Summary 79
Building Out the Linux Environment 80
Xcode Tools 80
Online Linux Tools 86
Summary 95
Using the Many Apple and Linux Tools 96
A Brief Overview of Graphics and Multimedia on the Mac 96
Built-in Mac OS X Multimedia Tools 101
Third-Party Multimedia Tools 113
Open Source Multimedia Tools 119
Office and Productivity Tools in Mac OS X 123
Open Source Productivity Tools 132
Summary 137
Routine Mac OS X System Administration 139
Using the Shell 139
System Monitoring 143
User Maintenance 149
Log Review and Maintenance 154
Administering Shared Resources 159
Summary 166
Backup, Security, and Automation 168
Backup and Recovery Overview 168
The Mac Approach to Backup and Recovery 169
The Linux Approach to Backup and Recovery 191
Security 195
Summary 205
Mac OS X and Code 207
Using Xcode 207
Xcode and Other Application Development Tools 219
Scripting 228
Code Maintenance and Revision Control 230
Summary 244
Hybridizing Your System 245
How BSD and Linux Differ 246
Kernel Customization and Compilation 249
Porting UNIX Apps to the Mac 253
Installing Linux Desktop Environments on the Mac 261
Summary 269
Index 271