What has terminal ever done for us?

andrefrancis2

andrefrancis2

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I have been using Macs for nearly 20 years and have never particularly felt the need for delving down to machine level (as I occasionally do on my PC). However, curiosity has got the better of me and I decided to try Terminal. Bringing it up is the easy bit ... it just waits there, daring me to key in something moronic (probably so that it can snarl my system up!).

Does the fact that I don't know what to do with it mean that I don't need or deserve it (as an old girlfriend once said to me :rolleyes:), or is there a website out there simply brimming with chunks of code eagerly waiting to fly my Mac (G4 Audio 466 upgraded to 1Gh) and me to paradise?

Also, can one use any Unix command or just a special subset. (I remember in a former life using a subset called Cromix on Crememco hardware - with a massive 40mb hard drive - around 1981!)

Any info would be appreciated.
 
The Terminal is one of the best things ever in my opinion. Use it every day.
And you can use every command you can think of because the Terminal is nothing more or less then a direct connetioc to the Uninx that waits under the GUI ;)

So if you want to setup a few unix-servers or compile some other app's out in the net just do it. I've compiled so many usefull tools für Unix out there without any problem.

And of course it's a great place to start learning *nix. But if you really know what to do you can do so much more than just with the GUI. The Finder etc. is really great no question but the Terminal has the real power without the need to log in as ">console" :D

So I think "normal" people should just ignore the Terminal but if you want to lern what's buried under the GUI just start it and begin with some simple thinks lile "who am i" or "ls". And the man-Pages are always helpfull. Just type man commandname like "man ls" or search the net for any Unix beginners guide
 
Since OS X is based on the BSD line of UNIX OSes, UNIX commands can be entered in Terminal, and they won't snarl up your computer :)

I use it everyday. Why? I develop a lot, and the Terminal is an easy place to compile my programs. I don't use XCode because I find it.... useless. For me, the combination of JEdit(edit my code) and Terminal(issue build commands) are all I need to program.

For normal users, you don't need Terminal. Its just there for those who are curious about UNIX but don't want to install Linux on their machines, and for those die hard UNIX fans who can't live without the Terminal. Terminal is one of the reasons I switched to OS X.
 
I am a relatively normal user, but i have still found the terminal a great tool for lots of things.
For instance, force deleting awkward items, monitoring processes running on my machine, general machine maintenance (cron, fsck etc).
When i first looked at unix/terminal stuff i did this tutorial, which was simple and useful (and incidentally the top hit for "unix tutorial" on google, see how lazy i am).
Its definitely worth a look. Just be very careful about running commands you find on websites and don't understand yourself. Many people may be honestly trying to help, but some aren't, and sometimes just mistyped commands can cause you problems. I think O'Reilly do a book on Unix for OSX as well now, so maybe that would help you.
 
A really good intro to using Unix for Mac OSX is at OSXFAQ. I have used the Unix tools in OSX to save me from having to re-install. You can do a lot more than you ever could from the finder.
 
I think using the terminal has been a great learning experience. First, it shows the power of the command line. Sure, for most of us the GUI is all we will ever need, but it can't do it all! I have seen a few *nix geeks do fricking amazing things with scripts and multiple terminals. Every IT department should have a *nix guy/gal around to write all kinds of slick apps and scripts.
 
Yet another link to learning UNIX commands in OS X...
http://www.utexas.edu/cc/ds/osxsmf/cli.php

Always, ALWAYS read the man pages for a command (which is really a small program) before you actually use it. For example, if someone told you to enter sudo rm -r -f / at the command line and you read the man pages for rm, you'd know that they were trying to get you to erase your hard drive with no chance for stopping it.

(BTW, do NOT enter the above command under ANY circumstances. It WILL erase your hard drive and you will NOT be able to stop it if you put in your password.)
 
Coming from a design background, the very idea of a terminal / command line was an anathema to me.

A lot of the design people I know either just shrug their shoulders as if to say: 'what next? A start menu...' or were outraged that the mac has been highjacked, somehow.

I was a little horrified at first. But then I started to learn PHP and MySQL and the earlier versions of OS X had no slick double-clickable installers, so the command line was your only recourse.

I'm still no CLI fiend, but I'm determined to learn more...
 
Also a designer, and programmer, I only use it to check my uptime. I also use applescripts I created that run cron scripts, thats about it. I know it's powerful, just not mutch use for me.
 
The terminal rocks the house. It lets me make SSH tunnels to my iMac at my apartment form my parent's house, share my iCals without iSync, and control almost every system level aspect of my computer remotely without special costly software.

I spend as much time in the shell (terminal) as I do in Aqua, seriously.
 
I don't use the terminal, but I appreciate its power.

I used to program a bit, so I'm no stranger to a command line...actually, who am I kidding, I haven't "programmed" in fifteen years and that was just BASIC and PASCAL and FORTRAN to get through engineering school. Which I didn't, cuz I flunked out. Where am I going with this? I have no idea. Let's move on.

Can you say "stream of consciousness"?

When I have used the terminal on occasion, I eventually found GUI solutions that worked just as well, but as a GUI. For example, BatCHMod is good for changing permissions, locked status and force deletions. It's just a GUI for terminal commands. Same for Better Finder Renamer for batch processing renaming schemes for lots of files/folders. If I knew Unix inside and out, I could blast through it just as fast or faster using terminal, but I don't, so the GUI shareware is my way.

For when I have used it, I love its drag and drop functionality. I like the nostalgia aspect. Reminds of the Vic20/Comm64/Apple II days. And then I switch back to the Finder and remember the day my mom brought home a Mac SE. A day that truly changed my life. [Wipes a tear]
 
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