Top Ten Mac OS X Tips for Unix Geeks 560
Lisa writes "There are big differences between Mac OS X and
Unix machines. In this MacDevCenter article, Brian Jepson has assembled ten
tips to help achieve a smooth transition from Unix to OS X."
uh, no michael (Score:5, Insightful)
Wouldnt that defeat the purpose of using OSX?
Re:uh, no michael (Score:3, Insightful)
Those of us who got sick of waiting for the Gnome / KDE war to stop long enough to get a *usable* linux desktop finally caved in and bought a nice shiny Powerbook because it ran OSX...
I'm sorry but gnome and KDE SUCK compared to aqua. Not to mention all the things that just work in aqua out the box (Hmmm, iTunes, DVDPlayer, CD Writing)
Good! They need the extra skills... (Score:5, Funny)
I'm kidding, I'm kidding... jeez...
-B
Remember.... (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Remember.... (Score:5, Informative)
The Screen Savers... (Score:5, Informative)
Re:The Screen Savers... (Score:3, Interesting)
(in windows it'd be like: Did you know that to turn your screensaver on you can browser My Computer/Windows/something.scr and double click on it? Instead of using a hotcorner or anything, you know, sane.)
Where's my...Unix? (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Where's my...Unix? (Score:5, Informative)
The article's comments about NetInfo are a little off as well. OSX has been moving to using NetInfo less and less. 10.2 tends to utilize many more traditional ways of doing things.
I should add that most of those elements are hold overs from NeXT and the Darwin team appears to be making it more like a traditional BSD.
BTW - if you want a good Finder replacement with more Unix tools try Path Finder. It has lots of nice things such as creating SymLinks rather than Aliases etc. (Although Aliases are more powerful, but most Unix tools don't recognize them)
Re:Where's my...Unix? (Score:5, Insightful)
Excellent point.
One unfortunately probably lost on a large portion of the Slashdot crowd that believes Linux == Unix (or GNU/Linux == Unix)...
--
I love it when you call me longhair bath-needin' poppa!
Re:Where's my...Unix? (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Where's my...Unix? (Score:3, Interesting)
You will not convince me of that. They are simply trying to ease the porting of applications. Flat files *are* inherently less organized and archaic and the fact that they are supporting it is just so they can woo unix users and developers more easily.
Try to create a user using /etc/passwd, better yet try to create a *group* without using netinfo. I don't really care one way or the other, flat files are more familiar and netinfo is more elegant, but using both in conjunction is a hack.
Re:Where's my...Unix? (Score:5, Interesting)
That's more or less true. If you ignore the fact that pretty much every Unix system that has a GUI except Apple's uses X11 the differences from "Apple's Unix" to anyone else's isn't really any bigger then the differences between any two other Unix-like systems. Sure Apple uses NetInfo, but it really isn't any different from Sun's YP or NIS. Yes, Apple has a ton of GUI admin tools that whizz all over /etc, but what is IBM's SMIT? Or HP's...er...what does HP call their admin tools again?
If you are talking about command line tools, Mac OS X is "just another Unix", period. One of the less common ones, so you may not find as many things compiling out of the box, but that isn't because OSX is more different from whatever Unixish system the author used (most likely Linux these days) then, say NetBSD or SunOS is, but just that whatever 3 random things that always seem to trip people up when going to a new platform weren't already spotted and fixed.
I remember when SunOS was king, and it was a slight pain to port stuff to Ultrix (DEC's Unix). This is no harder. Straight down to programs sometimes forgetting a htonl or the like.
Once you get to GUI's then it's a whole different thing (unless you remember when Suns came with Sun Tools, DEC had X11, AT&T had the BLiT, and everyone else had their own thing too). OSX is way different from other Unix-like systems. You could install X11 on it, but X apps will never feel like native apps, and most apps that are written for OSX that you might want to modify won't be using X. Then again, it's nice to learn a new thing once in a while, isn't it?
In what ways are aliases more powerful?
Re:Where's my...Unix? (Score:5, Informative)
Prior to 10.2 the default behavior was to first check the file id, and if that file isn't there any more then check the file location. In 10.2 this behavior changed to be more like a symlink. First it checks the file location, then it checks for a file of the given file id.
To sum up: aliases are more powerful than symlinks because they do everything that a symlink does (when accessed through the mac file apis, not the BSD ones), but can also still find the target file if it's been moved to a different directory.
Re:Where's my...Unix? (Score:3, Informative)
My experience porting my application [maradns.org] to various unices is that porting from Linux to Mac OS X is a no-briner; the toolchain to build programs on the both unices is the GNU toolchain, and is almost identical.
The only Unix I have had a hard time porting to is Solaris; then again, I have not tried porting my application to other prorpietary unices like HPUX, Ultrix/OSF-1/whatever they call it these days, AIX, etc.
- Sam
Re:Where's my...Unix? (Score:5, Informative)
Is it a big change? yes. Is the whole world upside down? ummm.... no. You still have a shell, all the standard unix utilities and most everything is done the Unix way, even when it's done through the GUI. Personal Web Sharing is Apache. Windows File Sharing is Samba. Printer Sharing is cups. The firewall is a default deny ipfw setup.
Sounds like Unix to me. Though admittedly I'm biased, since I really like the fact that I'm posting this message from a unix box (OS X 10.2.1) that's currently running Illustrator, Photoshop and Quicken, while charging up my iPod.
Re:Where's my...Unix? (Score:4, Insightful)
Yes, OS X sounds like Unix. I was not flaming OSX, I was flaming the article, which gave a hysterical view to the situation.
Re:Where's my...Unix? (Score:5, Informative)
I do feel compelled to point out that OS X actually uses lookupd for host name resolution, and lookupd can be configured to use any number of sources for name-to-address mappings. Under 10.2 and later, lookupd is configured to look in
More info can be found in the lookupd man page.
no.... (Score:4, Informative)
lookup does not run in single user mode, but runs in multi-user mode (the normal mode of operation).
The files are actually kind of wrong as of 10.2, as the flat files do get consulted in multi user mode, and do so before the NetInfo database does.
ie,
See how 'FF' gets consulted before 'NI' ? This means that the flat file does get looked at. 'DNS' is self explanatory, and 'DS' stands for Directory Services like LDAP...
Virtual window management? (Score:5, Interesting)
Short of running one of the X11 WMs described, does anyone have a native Aqua virtual window tool?
CodeTek VirtualDesktop (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Virtual window management? (Score:3, Informative)
try this one
open source too if'n you're paranoid
Not with Jaguar (Score:3, Informative)
Warning: Virtual Desktops.app is not yet compatible with 10.2.
Re:Not with Jaguar (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Virtual window management? (Score:5, Informative)
Its a damn fine piece of software and was the final addon that made Aqua perfect for me.
CodeTek VirtualDesktop (Score:3, Informative)
Shareware ($20.00), but you can use it with two windows as nagware.
This isn't a real virtual desktop (Score:3, Informative)
It works by hiding the applications on a desktop, when you move from desktop to desktop.
If this is acceptable to you, Space.app does it for free. But it's a poor solution for those of us used to real virtual window managers.
Re:Virtual window management? (Score:5, Informative)
Talk about bad design... (Score:4, Insightful)
You can also create a link with ln or ln -s. If you use this kind of link, Unix, Cocoa, Carbon, and Classic applications will happily follow it.
I have no knowledge of the reasons for this design decision, but why isn't it just "All links are symlinks, no matter where they came from"?
Having links that the gui creates be incompatible with the command line, but having links the command line makes be compatible with the gui, just creates complication.
Apple's been on this site before... The Interface Hall of Shame [iarchitect.com]
Re:Talk about bad design... (Score:2)
Re:Talk about bad design... (Score:5, Insightful)
In a nutshell: symlinks only point to one fixed path. If the target file's name is changed, or the name of any directory in its path changes, the symlink will no longer work. Aliases, however, can track a file even if it is renamed or moved, or if any of its parent directories are renamed or moved.
The Finder, as well as most applications, can deal with either one.
It's not bad design to do things that most users want, and to provide a way for power users (who know about symlinks) to get what they want as well. I could imagine a better way to do it than through an obscure key combination, but that's not what you were complaining about.
Re:Talk about bad design... (Score:3, Informative)
As far as the alias thing goes, 1) it is not too hard to avoid aliases and 2) they are designed to be convenient to your average user. By default there are not many in the system, so provided you make symlinks rather than aliases all is well. Having used OS X since Public Beta, I have yet to have had a real problem with the alias/symlink thing. *NIX tools do not like aliases, so I always use symlinks instead, no big deal.
Aliases point to a file in an intuitive way to a non-technical person - if you move or rename the file it keeps pointing to the file - if you replace it, then it points to the replacement, simple for grandma to get.
As for breaking aliases, you are in error saying that renaming your HD will do this. When I managed Mac labs, users used to rename various HDs in labs fairly often, which I would name back. There were no ill effects on any aliases. I have done full and partial restores from backups using Retrospect with no unexpected effects on aliases, sounds like you were using a crappy backup tool.
6. Aliases and Links (Score:2, Insightful)
There are two ways to create links to files. The first is to select the file in the Finder, and drag it to a new location while holding down the Option and Command keys (or select Make Alias from the File menu). This creates a Mac OS alias that Cocoa, Carbon, and Classic applications can follow. However, Unix applications will ignore those links, seeing them as zero-byte files.
You can also create a link with ln or ln -s. If you use this kind of link, Unix, Cocoa, Carbon, and Classic applications will happily follow it.
If this is the case I'm suprised that they didn't just have the Finder create Unix-style links behind the scenes if they work with everything that Finder-style links work with but additionally Unix applications. Is there some advantage to using Finder links over Unix links that I'm unaware of?
Re:6. Aliases and Links (Score:2, Informative)
So in concept Finder Aliases are superior. In practice though programs like Apache and FTP don't work with them. Over on MacNN [macnn.com] there is a script to convert Aliases to Symlinks.
Going the other way, Apple makes SymLinks work for native OSX software. So the problem is mainly that they have full Unix software compatibility which typically entails Unix software can't take advantage of some OSX features.
Part of the problem is that most people run OSX on HFS+ rather than UFS file systems. This gives more backwards compatibility but also ties you to the limits of HFS+. Most expect this to change in about a year due to extensive work Apple has been doing on filesystems. (They have some of the folks from BeOS working on them)
Re:6. Aliases and Links (Score:5, Informative)
If you are interested in Apple's aliases, check the "Alias Manager" chapter of Inside Mac: Files [apple.com]
It seems to me, if you try to look at OS X as a generic Unix system, things tend to get a little skewed. Rather than trying to be an good Unix OS, they are trying to be a good OS, and willing to pick up pieces (like a Unix process model and system call interface) that will help them in that goal, then great. I bet if they could do it easily, they would even dump everything in /bin, /usr, /var, and /etc. I suspect that they are willing to let the Unix geeks play around with the Unix underpinnings of their system, but I doubt they want to extend and enhance any of it to suit us.
On the other hand, last time I got in this discussion with a co-worker [slashdot.org], he pointed out the addition of ruby and the upgrade of python to 2.2 as counter examples.
Some good pointers for Linux/*BSD/UN*X users (Score:2)
Fink helped edumacate me to all that apt-stuff and provides a good base for GNU utilities and applications.
But I still find myself cd'ing to
Excuse me... (Score:4, Funny)
Thank you.
Now back to your regularly scheduled beowulf "jokes", first posts, goatse.cx links, trolls and astroturfers.
Errors on the table in the aritcle (Score:4, Informative)
AFAIK, it should read:
Isn't it suposed to be ~/.trash - in your user directory?
I don't own a Mac but I see 'em on the Sreen Savers.
fwiw, there are other unix gotchas (Score:3, Informative)
Another "feature", at least in 10.1 is the 255 char line limit the Terminal has. This pops up in shell scripts at the worst times without warning.
My Top 10 (Score:4, Interesting)
* Forget tcsh and get bash [sourceforge.net], copy it to
* Go to The Fink Package Database [sourceforge.net] and snag a ton of cool Open Source apps.
* Mount
* Usually stay away from
* Forget sudo and enable root access (I forget how, I don't have an OS X box in front of me), then use su.
* Don't delete ~/Library, that's where all your preferences are saved.
* Load XDarwin in rootless mode and run x2x [freshmeat.net] way cool.
* Get the absolute latest autoconf, automake, etc that recognize Darwin.
* Don't forget to click "Require Password" in your screen saver.
* Put your own pictures in, er, somewhere in your home directory (don't remember where) so the screen saver can display them in its slide show.
Now if only the WM had "focus follows mouse" and iTunes played Ogg Vorbis.
Re:My Top 10 (Score:3, Funny)
Re:My Top 10 (Score:5, Informative)
Uhhh... why? If your suggestion resulted in some kind of improvement I might be convinced to go along, but why mess with things that don't need to be messed with? There's no reason at all to enable the root account on your OS X machine. If you absolutely, positively have to have a root shell, you can always use this little trick:
% sudo su -
Password:
#
Re:My Top 10 (Score:3, Insightful)
Yes, forget tcsh but there's no reason to get bash. OS X comes with zsh [zsh.org] built in. Rather than chaning your login shell (which is still good for when you log in remotely), tell Terminal to exec /bin/zsh in Terminal's Preferences. Otherwise it calls login(), which is pretty slow.
Zsh is the successor to ksh, and, generally speaking, kicks butt. Put 'setopt automenu; setopt autocd; setopt autolist;' in your ~/.zshrc file and you will be happy.
* Forget sudo and enable root access (I forget how, I don't have an OS X box in front of me), then use su.
sudo passwd root
Put your own pictures in, er, somewhere in your home directory (don't remember where) so the screen saver can display them in its slide show.
That would be ~/Pictures.
bash is included in 10.2 (Score:4, Informative)
[Computer:~] acomjean% bash
bash-2.05a$ yes
y
y
y
y
y
Two Points (Score:2)
One: under item 2 he states you need to change Login Options once root has been enabled; this is not true--Jaguar automatically provides an "Other" button that allows you to log in as root.
Two: people really should learn to use NetInfo.
tell me WHY before WHAT (Score:3, Interesting)
Remember? I am a Unix geek and as such I don't buy any eye candy. Normally I deal with serious data processing stuff. And I don't buy hardware args as a reason - I've already got G4 to run Gentoo Linux.
So, is there any *REAL* serious reason?
Re:tell me WHY before WHAT (Score:5, Insightful)
No more /dev/dsp clusterfuck. No more wondering how to turn on anti-aliased fonts in X... or did you only enable them for GTK apps... or was that KDE aps...
In short, OS X is a great OS because you don't have to spend time fucking with things you don't care about, you can spend your time actually doing your work, leaving you that much more time to play.
Re:tell me WHY before WHAT (Score:3, Interesting)
You just made the classic mistake of assuming that because you, a unix geek, don't care about something, no other geek should either. Many of us do care about such things as good fonts. Just because we like the command line, doesn't mean we are prepared to put up with any old tat.
Expand your mind, and accept that other people have views just as valid as yours. If you are a true unix geek, you will appreciate the value of choice and not put down those that are different to yours. It's the desire for choice that has been the driving force behind most of geekdom for the past several years, hasn't it!
sudo rocks! (Score:5, Insightful)
On the other hand, their advice to use tcsh/bash as a sudo command is poorly thought out. How is that any better than su? Better to use sudo with a few simple commands and scripts that need root for 80% of cases, and use su for the rest.
I would switch but... (Score:5, Funny)
Smooth transition indeed! (Score:3, Insightful)
I'm afraid a transition away from UNIX and toward MacOS X will be a step down for a long time to come.
UNIX supports, in its open source forms, a larger and more powerful variety of platforms than Apple makes, and in its closed source forms runs on much higher end systems.
Want a workstation OS? Great. Get MacOS if it makes you happy. Tinker with FreeBSD/Linux if you like to be a geek.
Don't waste time thinking MacOS is the answer to everything. Don't waste other people's time trying to convince them it is.
Throwing Around "UNIX" (Score:5, Insightful)
"a transition away from UNIX and toward MacOS X"
That's sort of like a transition away from birds but towards ducks. Here the author is assuming MacOS X is somehow not a *NIX... an assumption that's been proved wrong here many times before. MacOS X is a subset of UNIX, just look up any UNIX history [levenez.com].
Sadly, even the original story submitter made this mistake: "There are big differences between Mac OS X and Unix machines." Sorry, that's not correct unless it's specified what other type of UNIX we're comparing OS X to.
After all, even the O'Reilly article author himself says "These tips will show you the differences between Mac OS X and other flavors of Unix" (my emphasis) MacOS X is a UNIX. Let's get it straight.
My top 10 OS X Tips (Score:5, Funny)
Tip #9 Despite claims of Cocoa, Aqua, and Java there is absolutely nothing to drink in OS X
Tip #8 'Switching' will get you more dates than 'I am SciFi'
Tip #7 Buying OS X and pirating XP will raise your karma
Tip #6 Sherlock kicks msBob's ass!
Tip #5 iTunes, iChat, iPhoto, and best of all
iDon'tHaveToDownloadTheCrossoverPluginToWatchMo
Tip #4 [these are not the droids you are looking for]
Tip #3 31337 h4x0r5 use RISC
Tip #2 Ellen Feiss is a hottie
AAAAAAAANNNNND.... The #1 Tip is:
Don't let eyecandy and marketing fool you into thinking it is open source
New command line tools (Score:5, Informative)
ditto - Copy files and directories while preserve resource forks.
hdid and hdiutil - Mount disk images (even over HTTP), create ram disks, and all sorts of fun stuff.
disktool and diskutil - Complementary command line counterparts for the GUI Disk Utility. Unfortunately not much documentation is provided for them, but they can do everything from fsck to repairing system file permissions.
softwareupdate - Command line version of the GUI Software Update. Run it without arguments to see packages that need updating, run it as root with arguments of packages to update and it will download them, install them, and even display a text version of the evil EULA for you to read and agree to.
For those interested in the book, it is nice to note that most of these items are covered as shown by the online index. [oreilly.com]
tip: command line fun (Score:5, Funny)
create root owned directory called "-p" or some suitable switch-like string
you can't delete it, or move it, or rename it.
rm -rf "-p" nope
rm -rf \-p nope
rm -rf '-p' nope
rm -rf * nope
try mv, ls, chown, chmod, anything! it won't let ya do it. And even when authenticated as an admin the finder won't delete it.
Finally I was able to chown -R from a higher level directory and then whack it via finder. But what a PIA!
Re:tip: command line fun (Score:5, Informative)
There's nothing magical going on here, it's just the difference between escapes that are processed by the shell before the program ever sees them and correct parameter syntax.
-Kevin
Re:you're missing the point (Score:4, Informative)
Obviously the dollar-sign is a parser character right? Watch this:
Right? Okay...
Hmmm, obviously the - is not a character that the shell thinks is special, it just passed it straight through to echo
Ah, there's your reason, putting a backslash in front of a character that isn't otherwise parsed by the shell, just passes that char on through to the program.
If you pass a -- (two-dashes) to a GNU-ish (getopt and friends) program it'll stop parsing commandline options, and accept things like -p as an argument, and not a commandline option.
HTH!
I just can't understand what they were thinking... (Score:3, Interesting)
It may appear to work, and it may crash less than OS9, but from a design point of view, OSX is an anathema. This article just makes it clearer: OSX is, not a port of MacOS or an enhancement of Unix, but a bloody (and fatal?) collision between the two, where both lost what clarity and integrity they had by attrition to the other. A great opportunity to do a new system right was squandered by what appears to be terrifyingly sloppy-looking engineering.
Re:I just can't understand what they were thinking (Score:4, Informative)
What? Have you actually *used* it? How about this explanation instead: they've managed to create one unified operating system that keeps some very diverse users happy. If you're an end-user technophobe, what you see is a very nice, clean, end-user system, far nicer than Windows, and without the 10 years of cruft that OS9 had accumulated. On the other hand, if you understand computing, you have a complete Unix-ish system, again, without a lot of the cruft that other Unix systems have accumulated. The Apple engineers deserve major kudos for keeping the "collision" under control as well as they did... they of course have backward compatibility to deal with, too.
Yes, the file copy stuff is a little ridiculous, but geez, the complaints on that level are pretty few, considering how much elegant functionality there is in there otherwise.
Re:I just can't understand what they were thinking (Score:3, Interesting)
You said: "without a lot of the cruft that other Unix systems have accumulated," but I have no idea what you mean. What unix cruft is gone? Are you talking about X11 being replaced by Aqua? From my point of view, all the bad things about Unix are still there, and worse, new unix-esque crap has been piled on top of it, often conflicting, and badly, to add to the confusion that Unix already is.
I think the ditto issue is emblematic of the entire conflict between unix and OS9; they've met, and they've been joined by a confusing and unfortunate kludge which everyone who uses the system is guaranteed to run afoul of. Copying files is about the most basic and fundamental activity you get into in an OS - that's not a little detail you overlook. Why not just modify cp to copy metadata if it exists, or make cp a link to ditto? Or the passwd file being superceded (at least in "some cases," I'm sure) by another database... My rule on this stuff is that if you're going to fsck with the password file, you'll break a lot of old code, but once you do replace it, you take the old piece out... the only thing worse than broken old code is broken old code that thinks its working.
There are more complaints I didn't even get into. The incredible performance hit of scattering metadata of various kinds in what seems like dozens of flat files, so that the UI chains up thousands of seeks all over the disk, parsing XML and doing lots of complicated crap just to show you the contents of a folder or the properties of an application... And then apparently tying everything up in the layout loop... Have you tried resizing windows? It's tragic. And then there's the fact that Apple seems to have abandoned the superior use of metadata it once had; I see gnr9ng.xyz files scattered everywhere, not legacy stuff but new stuff created by Apple, as if it's a DOS box... IOW, turning their back on one of the earliest and best ideas in the Mac: type and creator information, instead of goofy abbreviations and naming conventions that are super-easy for the user to run afoul of.
My big complaint with them is rather than boxing up traditional unix organization and features (which have no place on a desktop Mac, IMO), they made MacOS into a Unix clone, and an annoying one, because there's a bunch of important differences and gotchas and thus hassles actually porting and running unix software, since they did change quite a bit, even if they didn't fix it... meanwhile hiding
Transition? (Score:4, Interesting)
I don't think that's going to happen, and I think Apple is shooting themselves in the foot with that assumption. UNIX users like open systems: that come from multiple vendors and have open specifications. If they didn't, they would have moved to Windows long ago.
Sure, there are some UNIX users that really go for the OS X pretty look and are happy with a BSD-like system call interface and a C compiler. But I think for the most part, OS X enjoys popularity among UNIX users only to the degree that it is UNIX compatible. If Apple wants to be in the UNIX market in the long term, rather than just receive a brief shot in the arm from a few UNIX converts, they need to make a long-term commitment to interoperating more with UNIX systems, and they need to give up dreams of "transitioning" UNIX users to Mac OS X.
Re:Transition? (Score:3, Funny)
Not Linux, but DEFINATELY Unix (Score:3, Insightful)
A wonderful full-screen console (Score:4, Informative)
When this story was posted over at MacSlash, somebody replied with a tip of their own, which I've found to be quite nifty.
What it involves is logging out, then logging back in as user ">console", with no password. You might have to select "Other User" or whatever that option is called, on the login screen. That'll allow you to skip Aqua, and just have a nice full-screen terminal to work with, instead.
developer woes (Score:4, Interesting)
since he was going to be a remote user, he attempted to get his laptop up to speed with the necessary compilers, python modules and other development pieces.
after two days, he gave up in frustration, went to the nearest CompUSA, bought a new laptop and installed RedHat 8.0.
now, he is a happy, development camper.
now, i don't know much about OSX. so my question is, can OSX easily be used as a competent developer platform?
Re:developer woes (Score:4, Informative)
So this isn't a problem anymore and hasn't been for quite some time.
Re:developer woes (Score:3, Informative)
It sounds like he either tried to do all this with a pretty early version of OS X (before most major tools were ported), or he just didn't know where to look.
If I didn't have it all installed already, in just a few hours I could have Apache, PHP, Perl, MySQL CVS, CVSWeb, and a number of other tools installed and ready to go. Install the dev tools and you'll likely have most of this stuff installed to begin with.
Again, it depends on what he does. But for my own needs (admittedly relatively light), it was a piece of cake.
Re:developer woes (Score:5, Informative)
fink install python
for example, and, after five to twenty minutes (depending on the package), he's got whatever he needed. It's as easy as apt-get and it's fully OS X native. Check out the link; there are 1600 packages so far and going up literally daily. So my question is, how experienced was your developer?
Mac OS X Hints website (Score:5, Informative)
of course for the sake of keeping up, here's my top ten:
Debian for Mac OS X == Fink (Score:3, Informative)
Re:WHAT? (Score:5, Funny)
Because all other OS's go beep beep beep and eat your paper, and it was a really good paper. then you have to do it again and its not as good because you did it fast this time which is...
That and saving Christmas.
Re:WHAT? (Score:4, Informative)
Besides Mac OS X contains a complete FreeBSD 4.4 distribution-- it is, in fact, a superset of FreeBSD-- so OS X is just as much a UNIX operating system as FreeBSD is.
Re:WHAT? (Score:5, Insightful)
So you can stop wasting time making the computer work, and actually get something done?
It has, and quite a few are, actually (Score:5, Insightful)
And while Aqua is not open source, quite a few of the other components are. Like Darwin and all of it's parts. And everything you can get with Fink. And XDarwin (the XFree86 implementation). And all of that stuff. Working correctly, and with eye candy too.
Re:Wow, slashdot hyping Mac OSX? What a shock. (Score:5, Insightful)
My day job still requires me to write code for Windows, and I've got an old box loaded up with Red Hat's distro at home... but it's the iBook I have the most fun with these days, digging into Cocoa. It is pretty and a pleasure to use, yes, but under the hood it's packing a serious OS with a BSD pedigree.
The iBook may have cost more than a Windows laptop, but I feel it was worth it... especially in light of a very good set of developer tools that came with the unit, the equivalent of which would have set me back several hundred dollars with Windows.
If you think Slashdot is an Apple love-in without merit, go back and find praise predating recent versions of OS X. Slim pickings, I'd say.
Re:Wow, slashdot hyping Mac OSX? What a shock. (Score:3, Interesting)
The iBook is one of the few products Apple makes that costs LESS than comparable Windows laptops (the others generally will cost about the same or more, probably more).
I say comparable because any Windows laptop costing less than the iBook is last years model.
The reason this happens is that unlike desktops, you can't get away with commodifing the innards as you have to design custom parts for a lot of the pieces to fit inside that small case.
In other words laptops are tightly integrated.
Re:I hate to state the obvious but.... (Score:5, Funny)
Pssst! It's because we wish to sounds divinely unprejudiced. This is a safe way of doing it while holding our defenses. *...dont tell anyone else*.
Re:I hate to state the obvious but.... (Score:5, Interesting)
That being said, OS/X is in of itself cool. It's pretty, stable, reasonably fast and it is *nix under the eye candy. Geeks like that. Being an Apple product is secondary to the fact that it's a really nice OS.
Soko
Re:I hate to state the obvious but.... (Score:2, Insightful)
Ah, that's where you're wrong. Most Slashdot readers only masquerade as Open Source advocates, while their real agenda is "Anything But Microsoft". Thus, they have no problem advocating OS X (in fact, they can even lie to themselves that they are advocating open source, because the Darwin core is open), because at least it's not Windows, right? Oh, but wait ... chance are, they'll be using Internet Explorer on their new Mac, and will be using Office as well. Hrm. Maybe I should revise the above statement and say that their agenda is "Anything But Windows"?
Re:I hate to state the obvious but.... (Score:2, Insightful)
Speak for yourself. My agenda is 'anything but Lindows'. That Walmart is the white devil.
Re:I hate to state the obvious but.... (Score:2, Interesting)
IMHO, X + fink + OroborOSX is the best enviorment imaginable. Yes it's expensive, no it's not quite Unix, but wow!
Re:I hate to state the obvious but.... (Score:4, Insightful)
That reads like a logical fallacy. According to Rob, most Slashdot readers never post. It'd be more accurate to say "most Slashdot posters". Even then, there are wildly divergent belief systems in place. It wouldn't surprise me to learn that a significant portion of Slashdot readers were interested in useful, attractive mergers of proprietary and Open Source software.
Re:I hate to state the obvious but.... (Score:2)
Sanity
Re:I hate to state the obvious but.... (Score:5, Insightful)
Overpriced compared to what, exactly? Some beige box held together with duct tape? Probably so. Compared to equitable hardware (INCLUDING quality of internal parts and after-purchase support) probably not.
Score: -1 (Redundant)
Re:I hate to state the obvious but.... (Score:5, Informative)
Have you ever actually examined Apple hardware? (Score:3, Informative)
Have you ever owned a Mac or had a close look at one, inside and out? It's beautifully engineered. Every surface finished nicely, lots of thought given to things like cable management and noise reduction, easy access to parts that are meant to be user-accessible (not much on an iMac, just about everything in a G4 tower).
I once had a Compaq Presario that required me to _remove_the_motherboard_from_the_case_ to add memory! (Yes, that's what their tech support said to do.) Unbelievable.
Homebrew machines tend to be more accessible, but watch out for the sharp edges on that metal case! and have plenty of twist-ties handy for the cables on any Intel-type box.
I feel that OS X is the best desktop Unix around now (I used to say that about Linux), and it runs only on Mac hardware. My Mac is worth every penny of its price to me.
Re:I hate to state the obvious but.... (Score:5, Insightful)
My mother has a name brand PC, it cost about $1000 when it was new. My mother-in-law has an iMac. It cost about the same.
The monitor on the iMac is way way way sharper, and edges and corners can be used.
The built in speakers on the iMac while they suck suck less then the speakers on the PC. I expect the sound hardware on the iMac is better too, but I don't know 'cause the speakers on the PC hide it.
Other then that, I don't see a reason the hard drive on the Mac would work better, or the RAM.
But hey, who cares about all that crap. The absolute most important thing? I get next to zero help calls about the Mac. It Just Works. Really. Honest. When they buy hardware that has a Mac sticker on it and plug it in the it doesn't screw up all the existing settings. They don't seem to get a bizzilion little auto-start crap-lets every few months. They don't end up with some commercial software they buy overwriting half a dozen important system files with some other version of the files an having stuff no longer work.
In short the Mac does the most important thing possible: it doesn't screw up as much as a windows box.
To me it is worth the extra money to hear from my relatives less. Or in a less cynical mind, to hear them talk about interesting stuff when I hear from them, not about computer problems.
Now maybe you want the fastest CPU in Mhz, I just want the one that "does the job" the fastest. "Does the job" includes time for the user to figure out how to do the job, and the time lost if it crashes part way through. For me "does the job the fastest" is frequently a Unix box. I mean if I do it a lot, I probably already wrote a program to do it, and I've been using Unix forever, so that'll be a Unix program. I'm not most people though. Most people can (gasp!) get stuff done faster on a box that coddles them. So a Mac or a Wintel box. And of the two? It seems the Mac really does a better job way more offen then people think.
Don't beleve me? I tell you what, for the price difference between my in-law's iMac, and my mom's PC will you take her tech support calls?
Re:I hate to state the obvious but.... (Score:5, Insightful)
You're kidding right? (Score:2)
ROTFLMAO
Re:I hate to state the obvious but.... (Score:5, Insightful)
1) it is worth how much I pay
2) they are generally open in other ways (file formats, etc.)
You'll find that most people on Slashdot like Apple because they have really cool ideas, and actually INNOVATE. Microsoft on the other hand hardly innovates much at all, but to their credit they do buy up businesses that innovate so for the most part the end user can't tell the difference. At the very core of things, people on slashdot like Mac OSX because it looks cool and it's UNIX.
Re:I hate to state the obvious but.... (Score:5, Insightful)
I bet if you looked at the access_logs for Slashdot, you would find more Windows systems accessing the site than Linux/BSD systems. I have never seen a real advocation of Open Source operating systems on commodity hardware on Slashdot outside of the 'RMS Appreciation Society' crowd. Plus you can run Open Source OSes on many "non-commodity" hardware systems from DEC, Sun and Apple.
Byte for Byte, Mac OS X kicks the rear end of the Open Source desktops. Why? Because not only can it run great closed source apps like M$ Office and Adobe Photoshop, it can also run Open Office and the GIMP. Best of both worlds. I wouldn't run it on a server (yet - XServe is sweet) because Linux and BSD are cheaper solutions and wouldn't want to waste the great Apple hardware which looks better on my desk than a closet.
Don't get dis Mac OS X because you can't afford Apple hardware. I can't afford a top of the line Ferrari, but that doesn't make it a crappy car.
People might like to think that Apple is somehow better than Microsoft, but trust me - if they had Microsoft's monopoly, their behavior would be no better, in fact, given that they would have a monopoly on hardware too - things would be much worse.
Trust you? Why? Because you are parnoid? Sheesh! You still have a choice. Microsoft got their "monopoly" because people liked their products and bought them not because they were the only game in town. Apple has done very well at 5% -- they are not going broke any time soon.
Re:I hate to state the obvious but.... (Score:5, Interesting)
The MS monopoly is the critical distinction. Me, I'm not a zealous open-source advocate. I think it's a good system and a good philosophy, but I am willing to pay for good quality, well designed software and hardware. Apple gives me that. Microsoft does not. Linux sure doesn't, either.
Re:I hate to state the obvious but.... (Score:5, Interesting)
Can you say "open"? [opendarwin.org]
People might like to think that Apple is somehow better than Microsoft
If you work for Microsoft and are trolling
In the meantime, Apple is better than Microsoft, and not just "somehow". They have better software, better hardware (althought I am using a microsoft mouse with my mac...I love the little wheel), their stuff looks better, works better, is more innovative, etc.
I've been using Macs and PCs since the 80's, I've followed the evolution of both, I'm not some one-side zealot. I'm telling you: The only things Microsoft has over the mac are 1-Popularity (more people use it because more people use it, vicious circle), 2-Cheap ass hardware (you get what you pay for), and better CD management (but the floppy thing is lamer than a one-legged lemur). Oh, and 4-Wheely mice (although they do make mac drivers for 'em, yay!).
if they had Microsoft's monopoly, their behavior would be no better
There are so many things wrong with this sentence, I'm having trouble replying. Ok, lets see...
Many people HATE microsoft, while many people are just in love with apple. Why is that? Because of Microsoft's behaviour. The very behaviour that led them to a monopoly position. So if Apple had the same attribute as Microsoft (a lousy attitude and a monopoly), people's attitude to Apple would be the same as it is towards Microsoft. Big fat DUH.
Your FUD bothers me.
Re:I hate to state the obvious but.... (Score:5, Informative)
In other words, Apple is taking a big step here and embracing open-source about as much as you can expect a big corporation to do. Sure they don't give away the whole farm, but they are promoting an environment which is at least friendly to open-source even if it isn't 100% open.
Re:I hate to state the obvious but.... (Score:5, Interesting)
why the enthusiasm for encouraging people to switch to OSX - a closed source operating system made by the poster-child for locking people into overpriced hardware?
Because OS X seems to deliver on all of the promises that Linux has been making for years.
While I love open-source software, I switched to a Mac because I got sick of waiting for the open source community to start making a useable desktop. Linux and the BSDs are fantastic on servers, but whenever I used either as my primary machine I found myself wrestling with the system a lot more than I wanted to. I don't want to learn the intricacies of my Xfree86 config files. I don't want to find where Red Hat hid Apache today. I just want to fire up my Dev Tools/Word Processor/Photoshop and get to work. I got away from Windows because I was sick of fighting with my machine. Why would I want to go back to that?
OS X is the first system since BeOS that does all the unixy stuff that I want without sacrificing aesthetics or ease-of-use. Overall the system is clean, intuitive, and I don't have to wrestle with it on a daily basis. Amazingly, it doesn't seem to sacrifice any flexibility or power for its' simplicity. When Linux makes me as productive as OS X, I'll go back in a second. Until then, you can pry my iBook out of my cold dead fingers.
Re:MacOSX Inconsistencies? (Score:2)
In the time that I've been useing it, OS X has been getting more unixy, and I think it will continue to be so.
Get the powerbook. OS X will make you very happy.
Re:MacOSX Inconsistencies? (Score:2, Insightful)
The only thing that surprised me was cp and mv, which didn't copy Mac 'resource forks' but these aren't used in OS X native apps, so it's probably a non-issue.
The tips in this article seemed very helpful to me, I think I may order the book.
What in the hell are you talking about? (Score:2, Insightful)
Bash, tcsh, csh, ksh (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:tsch as the default shell (Score:3, Informative)