With the release of version 10.1 of Mac OS X in the fall of 2001, the new operating system was finally stable enough for mass distribution on all shipping Macintosh computers. Yet underneath the new colorful interface was a powerful, complicated operating system based on BSD Unix. An Mac users of all kinds needed help both in figuring out how to run OS X and in understanding how OS X worked underneath the covers and how to get the most out of it.

In late summer 2002 Apple is expected to release a new version of OS X-code-named "Jaguar"-that will add some end user featurs (like iChat), that will increase OS X's stability, and that will further extend the capabilities of the underlying Unix-based subsystem.

The second edition of Mac OS X Unleashed takes the same approach as the best-selling first edition, helping the reader deal with the most trouble-prone aspects of the user interface-including the new features in the latest version-but focusing to a much greater extent on the BSD environment and how the user or administrator can get the most out of both the current operating system as well as the new components expected in the latest version.