Can i use unix commands on mac

The shell interprets command lines you enter, runs programs you ask for, and generally coordinates what happens between you and the Unix operating system. Other available shells include the Bourne shell sh , the C shell csh , the Bourne-Again shell bash , and the Z Shell zsh. To change the shell that Terminal uses, see Section 4. For a beginner, differences between shells are slight. If you plan to work with Unix a lot, though, you should learn more about your shell and its special commands.

See Section 1. When the system is ready to run a command, the shell outputs a prompt to tell you that you can enter a command. The prompt can be customized, though, so your own shell prompt may be different. Try logging out of Mac OS X. Entering a command line at the shell prompt tells the computer what to do. Each command line includes the name of a Unix program. When you press Return, the shell interprets your command line and executes the program.

The first word that you type at a shell prompt is always a Unix command or program name. Like most things in Unix, program names are case sensitive; if the program name is lowercase and most are , you must type it in lowercase. Some simple command lines have just one word, which is the program name. For more information, see Section 1. An example single-word command is date. Entering the command date displays the current date and time:.

As you type a command line, the system simply collects your keyboard input. Another simple command is who. The who program can also tell you which account is currently using the Terminal application, in case you have multiple user accounts on your Mac. The command line for this is who am i.

Arguments are explained in Section 1. For example:. This cryptic syntax, ttyp1, is a holdover from the early days of Unix. All you need to know as a Unix beginner is that each time you open a new terminal window, the number at the end of the name gets incremented.

The first one by ttyp1, the second ttyp2, and so on. The terminal ID also appears in the titlebar of the Terminal window. Macports and homebrew will both install on OSX. You may need to bear in mind weather your mac uses an intel or a powerpc processor when it comes to compiling code or using pre-built packages, i understand new macs are only intel but i may be wrong.

Although your scripts will probably work for both Mac and Linux, it's always wise to test them on both platforms. I've seen quite some subtle differences between linux distributions and even between different versions of the same linux version. You can always install them but an a lot of commands have different options.

It's Unix but not Linux. Show 8 more comments. Neth Neth 5 5 silver badges 11 11 bronze badges. Can you elaborate more on that? Why is that? See en. Also see en. A couple things - it really depends on what you mean by command line. You'll probably run bash, which will be the same as bash on any other UNIX. The bash programming language will be the same too - as long as it's the same version. Bash versions have slight differences in the language, but this has nothing to do with MacOSX vs.

Linux per se. Rich Homolka Rich Homolka The default shell on OS X is bash, so if you're familiar with that you will adjust nicely. The primary source of differences though are: Different command line arguments at times i.

The primary commands like cd or ls etc. There are more parts of OS X that shouldn't be edited by hand as you might do in Linux. This is a topic of its own, but just be aware that running a Mac is not exactly like running a Linux box in terms of configuration and upkeep.

Here is one difference. Antony Thomas Antony Thomas 4 4 silver badges 4 4 bronze badges. Maybe you could tell people why this is. Cannot reason a -ve vote. Does find in Linux treat symbolic links to directories as directories by default? The Overflow Blog. You can then launch Terminal with a single click. This is the operating system that runs on Macintosh computers. Apple adding Boot Camp to macOS made it easy for people to dual boot Windows, but installing Linux is another matter entirely.

Apple has submitted OS X for certification and received it, every version since However, versions prior to To run a command, you just type it at the cursor and hit Return to execute. Every command is made up of three elements: the command itself, an argument which tells the command what resource it should operate on, and an option that modifies the output. The Mac command line is a program called Terminal.