What's the best way to learn Mac OS X command-line?

Question

I want to learn how to use the command-line (terminal) on Mac OS X. Where is the best place to start?

Answer 1

I would suggest that "learning the Mac OS X command-line" is actually synonymous with learning Unix.

Thinking back to how I learnt Unix there was basically two things that helped: Necessity and a good book.

I HAD to learn Unix, because it was what was used at the university for my computing science degree. You will find that to effectively learn Unix you might need something to motivate you. To that end I would suggest that you should try and perform as many tasks as possible in the terminal if you really want to learn how to use it, such everytime you need to copy, move or delete a file, use the terminal.

The other thing that I needed (this was before the world wide web existed) was a good reference book, for those "how do I..." moments. I would recommend that a copy of Learning the Unix Operating System would probably be a good idea.

Other books like Take Control of the Mac Command Line with Terminal would be good as well.

There are some good tutorials as well such as Unix tutorial for beginners.

Answer 2

The default Mac OS X "command-line" is the Bash shell. There is a reference manual available from the GNU project.

Answer 3

This is a set of good resources specific to Mac OS X (yes, it's not that different to any Bash shell, but directory locations and stuff like that varies)

General tutorials with plenty of information

• http://www.osxfaq.com/tutorials/LearningCenter/
• http://oreilly.com/pub/ct/51

And a list of some useful commands

• http://artofgeek.com/2006/09/22/useful-mac-os-x-terminal-commands/

Answer 4

In addition to the Bash tutorial provided, I'd like to recommend you to have a look at zsh which is also installed by default and provides some features in addition to the standard Bash.

What makes this a really interesting choice though is the user-friendly guide to zsh which is how I learned Unix shell back in the day when I was still a heavy Windows user.

Answer 5

Since Mac OS X is a nice variant of Unix you can start digging into the Manual (MAN) pages to come up to speed on how to use the shell.

Running the command below in a shell will show you how to query the MAN Pages for info.

man man  

This should get you going.

Answer 6

I've recommended "Learning UNIX for Mac OS X" before, the current edition is a little behind the times but I still think it's a valuable introduction.

Answer 7

I think that the step-by-step guide available on http://linuxcommand.org/ is perfect for beginners, because first it demonstrates how useful the command line can be, and then gradually introduces the user to mastering it.

Of course manual pages are the next logical step, once you've grasped the basics: man(1) will always be your best friend :)

Answer 8

http://ss64.com/osx/index.html

This is a good list of commands available and what they do. Mac OS X uses a Bash shell by default. Hope this helps.

Answer 9

When you say "learn the command-line" do you mean learn the intimate details of the particular shell (Bash) that Mac OS X uses by default? Or do you mean, "What can I do on the command line and how?"

If it's what can I do and how, then I think starting with a general book on Linux/Unix is a good idea. My favorite starter is The Linux Phrasebook by Scott Granneman. (Skip Chapter 13 if your only interest is Mac OS X's command line, since it covers package management in RPM-based or [deb][4]-based distributions. Bottom line: that chapter doesn't apply to Mac OS X.) The book isn't too expensive, and it does an excellent job of covering a lot of ground clearly and in a reasonable amount of detail. (Enough detail to get some real meat, but not so much right away that you lose the big picture.)