Chapter 2: . . . And Unix Lurks Beneath

In This Chapter

arrow.png Discovering the benefits of Unix

arrow.png Doing things with the keyboard

arrow.png Introducing Unix commands

arrow.png Creating text files

arrow.png Exploring deep inside OS X Mountain Lion

As I mention in the first chapter of the book — at the beginning of our Mountain Lion odyssey — Unix lurks deep beneath the shiny Aqua exterior of OS X. Unix is a tried-and-true operating system (OS) that’s been around for decades, since the days when minicomputers were king. If you don’t believe that it’s a powerful (and popular) OS, consider that more than half of all web servers on the Internet use some variety of Unix as their OS of choice.

Besides being battle-tested and having a long history, Unix offers some fantastic features. Unlike the graphical world of OS X, the keyboard plays an integral role in using Unix. Because Unix is text-based, it’s evolved a large set of useful keyboard-driven commands that can perform powerful feats that a mouse user just can’t easily equal, ...

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