The Unix shell in Macs

After working through Practical Computing for Biologist, I've been turned on to using the Linux shell on my MacBook. A immediately useful feature is being able to run a while script in R without having to open the file.

A short and helpful book for learning more about the shell is Learning Unix for Mac OS X, 2nd Edition from O'Reilly. This was published in 2002 and and is superseded by more recent editions on Tiger and Leopard, but for beginners and dabblers I'm guessing this older (and cheaper) edition is probably just fine (Isn't one of the reasons to use Linux is that it doesn't change much?).

Accessing the Mac Shell through "Terminal"

Terminal is the program that allows you on a Mac to access the shell. Just do a search for "Terminal" and it will come up.

The shell can be used to move, copy, and rename files using typed commands - just as you can with a mouse - and is the entry point for more advanced file manipulation and programming in languages such as Python.