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How Unix-like is MacOS X?
prospective_user asks: "I
am a heavy user of Unix, spend most of my time running Linux and am
considering getting myself an iBook, after seeing a considerable
amount of exposure Macs/Apple have in both Slashdot and the O'Reilly
Network. Given that MacOS X is based on FreeBSD/Mach, I suppose that the usual
Unix libraries and environments (like ncurses and tcl/tk) are
available in MacOS X (which I hope is true, for text-based
applications). In fact, I'm concerned about the Unix side of MacOS X
and also plan on running Debian/PPC on it, but I plan to primarily use
MacOS X. So, before having an (uncertain) investment in a new platform, it
would be reasonable to have a bit more of background on it and thus,
the questions: how well does MacOS X support traditional Unix
applications? For instance, how do the following applications run
under MacOS X (which I use the most): teTeX, GNU Emacs, mutt and
fetchmail?" Note that the submittor isn't asking if OSX is or is
not a Unix; we've fielded
that question already. No, the question here is where does OSX
differ from the other unicies.
"Also regarding the investment in a new platform and coming from the
x86 world, I'm a bit interested about the PowerPC performance in
comparison to what I could get with a x86 notebook. I've read some
articles and pages that suggest that PowerPCs may not be fast (or, in
fact, may be quite slower than their x86 counterparts):
Some of the sources I've read are:
these
pages, from
D. J. Bernsteins's website, and
this article on
processor performance from the
GMP website.
Also, as some later questions, can the portable Macs be plugged to
non-mac monitors? And does MacOS X feature a packet filter like Linux
or other BSDs do?
Any comments and experiences with these machines are welcome.
Thanks."
http://developer.apple.com/macosx/
all you need to know.
there's more than one way to do me.
As far as I understand, with the help of the amazing "fink" you are able to compile pretty much every *nix app to OS X. Therefor it is as much Unix as you want to.
But as I dug deeper, the initial euphoria wore off. While MacOS X gives the impression of being a Unix, as one digs deeper into the system, it becomes more and more clear that it is anything but Unix:
- No
/etc. Well, technically, there is a /etc, but it is incredibly empty compared to what you may be used to in FreeBSD or Linux. None of the system's configuration is included in standard POSIX text files; Apple has opted to move everything into what they call a "NetInfo" registry. This is awful, to say the least. Obviously, Apple has failed to learn anything from the problems Microsoft's reliance on a central registry have propagated, and it wasn't long before I ended up having to reinstall MacOS X due to a corruption of the NetInfo database.
- Not everything is a file. MacOS X violates this essential tenet of the Unix interface by hiding the implementation of several core functions such as keyboard and mouse I/O behind a "CoreGraphics" ObjC library. There is no
/dev/mouse or /dev/kbd or any of the easy-to-use device nodes I've grown accustomed to coding for on Linux.
- Everything above the Unix layer is proprietary. The Unix world on MacOS X is completely separate from the GUI world. The Unix directories are completely hidden from the Finder, and likewise one cannot start GUI apps from the console. There is none of the tight CLI-GUI integration seen in AmigaOS or BeOS or even Windows.
If you're looking for Unix, I suggest you make room on your iBook's drive for Linux, which runs very well on Mac hardware, and is much faster than MacOS X to boot. I'm afraid all of MacOS X's vaunted Unixness is little more than FUD.Loneliness is a power that we possess to give or take away forever
Mac OS X is just as unix-ish as the NeXT OSes it's based on -- NEXTSTEP/OPENSTEP. True, in many ways it doesn't look like a traditional unix, especially regarding filesystem layout and the use of NetInfo. Like NEXTSTEP and OPENSTEP, it has its quarks, but for the most part, things work. It's Unix, but it's a funky Unix. And if you don't want to pay for it, you can run the bare guts, the opensource non-GUI version, Darwin. (even on x86)
Here are three better URLs:
http://developer.apple.com/unix/index.html
http://developer.apple.com/darwin/
http://www.opensource.apple.com/projects/darwin/
Linux is great for what it is. Linux is a swiss army knife. It is most things to most people. There's nothing it wont do if you're willing to put forth the effort to use what's there. In itself that's a wonderful design philosophy. I've been using Linux for a long time and it amazes me what it can do when people put their minds to it. Gearheads love this sort of OS, and love to demonstrate it's ability to perform any function no matter how arcane or bizarre the procedure to get there is. The people who build Linux are pragmatists. Soured by years of lofty goals, but failed implementations, they work to make a system that solves all the problems, even if they have to compromise usability, simplicity, or advanced design. Efficiency is stressed at the system level. I've never encountered a general purpose computing task that could not be solved by Linux.
MacOS X on the other hand is more like a perfectly ergonomic, intuitivley simple yet surprisingly flexible single bladed knife. It doesn't have a corkscrew or scissors, But the handle grip doubles as a file and it is perfectly balanced along every axis. Ninjas use it for throwing, Butchers use it for cutting meat. Carpenters use it to score material and Master chefs use it to prepare dishes, but you wont be able to open a wine bottle, it wont loosen most phillips screws and you'll just make a mess if you try to open a can of peas or bottle of beer with it. It also wont fit in your pocket. However, if there was ever a knife that was a perfect balance of asthetics, utility, and well executed engineering, this is it. Again, a wonderful design philosophy.
The local CompUSA here has several modern Macs running Mac OS X. I pulled up the console (terminal.app) and poked around a bit. It's very much like the NeXT unix machines I've used in the past. Even pico was installed by default, heh.
However...
CompUSA didn't have the developer tools (gcc, gdb, libs, the awesome GUI debugger and IDE, etc) installed. Have the manager fetch the CD or bring in your own:
http://developer.apple.com/tools/macosxtools.html
Apple's desktops have offered a generic, common, plain SVGA HD-15 connector since the first blue&white G3's several years ago. Almost every single PC monitor will work on a blue&white G3 or silver/graphite G4 without any sort of adapter.
However, older macs used a DB-15 (two rows of pins rather than three rows) connector for the monitor. These require a $10 - $30 adapter to offer the proper connector and pin routing if a PC monitor is to be used.
All current Apple monitors use ADC, the Apple Display Connector... a single cable that carries power, signal, and usb to the montior. ADC is based on some obscure standard that nobody else adopted. Macs with ADC have a second alternate connector for SVGA HD15, but only one connector can be used at a time.
The PowerBook G4 has a SVGA HD15 monitor connector.
The iBook has a funky monitor connector, but a SVGA HD15 adapter is included.
Current desktop Macs have both SVGA HD15 and ADC connectors on their gfx cards. An ADC -> DVI adapter is included for use with a DVI flat panel. (Should you choose not to buy an Apple flat panel). THough, I have been told by more than one person that they had to buy the ADC -> DVI adapter as it's not included with all new G4s. Go figure.
Hope this helps.
I just put my PB to sleep, plugged in a monitor into the VGA port, woke it up and boom: I was typing this message in a window displayed on that monitor.
So... yes. Absolutely (at least on a PB Ti)
It runs nearly all of my favorite open source unix apps, including the X applications. I am personally using mutt, gvim (that's vim with the GTK frontend), nethack and a few others. I like the new operating system very much, and even though bits of it don't look like unix, that's usually because they're NeXTish instead.
It's also probably reelevant to mention that the GNUstep libraries are mostly source-compatible with Apple's Cocoa API, so you can compile GNUstep apps and they'll work just like "native" OS X apps. Plus the development tools are all completely free (unlike the other major commercial desktop OS).
These are the exact same complaints aired in 1988 when the first NeXT machines shipped with NeXTstep 1.0. I agree with everything you've said. But keep in mind, Mac OS X is its own funky flavor of unix for a reason. I just wish NetInfo was optional. NI is a dream on a large NI network (I used to help admin 320 NeXTstations across our Math department), but it's a pain for someone that doesn't need its offerings.
Ignorance or Evolution? It's hard to say. But I can tell you I've been happy with Mac OS X thus far. Final Cut Pro 3.0 works perfectly. My digital cameras (USB still photo and FireWire MiniDV) integrate fine. OmniWeb 4.1 is looking to be a great new browser (plans for 4.2/5.0 are sounding awesome). And yet I can still run all of the goodies I'm accustom to on my Sun and my Linux box.
That said, OS X is not for someone who wants Linux in the first place. If you want the X Window System, if you want GTK or Qt, if you want GNOME/KDE/etc... do yourself a favor and build a Linux box. Running these under OS X is possible, but a kluge.
Mac OS X is a whole new world. Learn its ways and tools, compute with peace.
Hope this helps.
I haven't actually worked with the toolbox since Sys7, and I haven't seen OSX at all, but, perhaps see how much of the Macintosh functionality has been made available (quicktime.h, quickdraw.h, etc) to compilable apps. If you find that some of the toolbox actually has been made available, then it's more than BSD-style unix, otherwise, yes, it's something equal or "less".
I'm very happy with Mac OS X for two reasons:
m l
1) I previously worked for a large Linux and Solaris based ISP. I'm still able to work with all of my favorite command line utilities and perl scripts.
2) It's boss friendly, It's geek friendly. -- I can compile and run the stuff I want. My boss can run Microsoft Office v.X. It's a "commercial, supported OS", whatever the hell that means (important to some people I guess). And the full, complete developer environment is free....
http://developer.apple.com/tools/macosxtools.ht
Take this with a grain of salt. Andrew Orlowski is a long-time Mac user, some of whom (myself excluded) dislike the departures from the traditional Mac UI. If you're coming from a *nix background, you'll feel more comfortable, since you won't have to unlearn anything.
--- Work, worry, consume, die. It's a wonderful life. -- Bill Griffith
Uhm, I mean seriously. Did you really need an Ask Slashdot to figure this out? Apple has a website. I'll leave finding it as an exercise to the reader. Look up about MacOS X, you'll find its core is Darwin. Darwin is BSD based. What more do you want? Go to [insert chain computer store here] and play with a machine. Stop asking stupid questions you're too lazy to figure out on your own.
"Nature doesn't care how smart you are. You can still be wrong." - Richard Feynman
Yeah, but that was because it was too little like classic MacOS and not because it wasn't Unixy.
Lars T.
To the guy who modded me down from perfect to terrible Karma - Apple haters still suck
If you are willing to run Xwindows in addition to MacOS X you can get almost anything working... as other have suggested look into the fink project.
Pluses to Apple Hardware:
Fairly nice power management, I have not done the comparison, but I get decent (2.5 hours on a battery) off an old walstreet powerbook in OS X.
Nice wireless, Airport is a just another standard wireless card, but it works well out of the box.
I have had no problems attaching PBs to a number of external monitor and projectors.
In general they make nice hardware.
Whether you call it Unix at all depends on your definition. Depending
/bin, /sbin, and /usr are
/etc/passwd is essentially a stub. There is
/etc/inittab. There are few useful things in /usr/lib, /usr/share,
/etc, but /Library and /System/Library are full of goodies
/System/Library/Perl and /System/Library/OpenSSL). There is no
/Users (which through some automount magic
/Network/Users with the local /Users) Again, this system is
/System/Library and build your own
on whether you look at OSX from a kernel perspective, as a development
platform, a unix user, or a unix administrator, it can vary between
being a "true unix" to something very foreign.
It most looks like unix if look at a system call interface (aka
section 2 of the man pages. Things like open, read, write, close,
fork, and exec). The user commands (section 1 of the man pages. Things
like ls,cp, and rm) exist but all of
entirely hidden from the GUI. For actual user commands, they are in
some ways rather spartan (traditional BSD versions, not all-singing,
all-dancing GNU versions.) but there are some rather interesting
additions (emacs, tcsh, pico, gcc, autoconf, and gnu tar.)
Standard Unix system libraries (section 3 of the man pages
fopen,fread,printf,system,and popen) exist as a "non-preferred"
interface. The command line utilities are built against them, but
building an arbitrary tarball developed under linux might show some
compatiblity quirks. (those same quirks might exist trying to port to
FreeBSD) Most of the file and process oriented tasks can be done in
the OS X specific libraries with an API entirely unlike the POSIX ones
in libc. (This isn't anything new really, these OS X libraries are the
updated versions of what came with the first NextStations in 1987.)
Shared libraries are somewhat different than what probably currently
exists in FreeBSD. I bet it started because NeXT implemented shared
libraries before the became standard in BSD, but they need to continue
their own system because it hooks into the object oriented IPC
framework that is much of what the makes the system interesting.
From a system administrators standpoint (I guess to keep my analogies,
section 4 (device files) and section 5 (configuration files)) things
are radically different.
no
/var, or
(like
/home, instead there is
merges
inherited from NeXT.
As a user, its a modern mouse and windows type of system. Its slightly
more interapplication oriented, less monolithic application oriented.
Like my friends who used NeXT systems in the past, there seem to be
two ways to deal with the system peculiarities. The first is to assume
that the system is a very stripped down Unix system, ignore whats in
/Library and
/usr/local/{bin,lib,share}. The other way is to buy into its
weirdness.
As far as the ADC based on some obscure standard. All ADC is DVI+USB+power. You buy a splitter if you need one.
I myself have a 22" Apple Cinema Display DVI model.. so I bought a combiner that takes the DVI+USB+Power and makes it into ADC.
I'll admit, ADC isn't the norm (though you can buy PC video cards with ADC connectors).. but it's not a half bad idea to take the 3 connections from the monitor and combine it.
It's just nothing wildly proprietary.
To answer the question asked, yes.
... interesting, and takes getting used to, but it powerful once you do spend some time in it.
I'm currently using OSX running on a G4 Cube at home and a G4 Black and White in my office for most of my writing and research programming (my laptop still run linux and sees a good deal of use).
I do all of writing in LaTeX (using teTeX) and occasionally use mutt. OSX comes with GNU emacs installed, but I've started to use bbedit as my text editor of choice. X11 will run rootless in OSX, so you can use the X-enabled GNU emacs and xemacs if you want (and I have). All my documents end up in CVS, and transitioning them from one machine to another requires no changes what-so-ever.
I haven't touched mutt or fetchmail, my home mail server is still a linux box, which I ssh into, and the same in my office. I assume they work, however. I'm pretty sure there are fink packages available.
OSX isn't Linux, it is based on NeXT, and, therefore, does have a number of quirks. Besides one issue with the GUI [1], I have not found any issues that make me want to switch back to a Linux box as a primary machine. Yes, updates are not weekly, and the debacle of OSX 10.1 being released without Developer Tools was annoying (though we were clearly warned before hand). However, none of these things are insurmountable.
ProjectBuilder is
-Seth
[1] I miss virtual workspaces that I can ctrl->right-arrow to terribly. The only current contender (a docklet called Spaces) doesn't have keyboard bindings and doesn't quite work 100%.
dual monitor is built in on the powerbooks, i would guess also on the iBook, but i'm speculating there.
and this is a COOL thing. you can run the monitor as a mirror to your lcd, or have it as a separate screen that can be positioned anywhere around the powerbook's screen. great for presentations - you can move the presentation notes to the 'book's screen and have the presentation come out the svga port.
(Score:-1, Offtopic)
The titanium powerbook is an awesome piece of kit. Shame on those that don't have one.
Yes, the Ti PowerBook has a lot going for it. Yup, it's thinner than thin. Uh-huh, beautiful screen. Ooh, built-in Gigabit Ethernet. Pretty fast, too, and it comes with a combo DVD-ROM/CD-RW. Hard to beat.
But it's not perfect. To install an AirPort card, you have to skin it completely. And the sexy titanium skin is so thin, it scratches and dents very easily. And titanium is one of the most conductive metals on the periodic table; after an hour, the bottom of the laptop gets hot enough to make your thighs and the palms of your hands really uncomfortable. The joke going around the office after we bought ours was that Apple was planning to make the next one out of copper.
It's an awesome laptop, but in my opinion it's just a little bit too delicate. I love my iBook. I throw it in my backpack and hit the road. Over $1,000 cheaper, too.
I am a long time Linux and UNIX user. I began running Linux exclusively fairly early in its life cycle, and thus I require a nice UNIX environment for my day to day life.
/etc/hosts file exists, but does not appear to be used. Instead, you must use Apple's NetInfo manager. Additionally, the base compiler's supplied with Apple's developer tools have some differences that make porting a little bit interesting. Overall though, its a great UNIX environment.
About 3 weeks ago, I purchased an Apple Titanium PowerBook G4 with the intent of installing Linux on it. Since then, my experiences with OS X have made me reconsider.
I started out quite skeptical, but was pleasantly surprised to find many of my favorite Linux/UNIX applications available. Step 1 was to install Fink. Fink is a source and binary distribution of UNIX applications and utilities for OS X. I installed it quickly, and was able to use the debian-like commands (apt-get install!) to get Python, rootless XFree86, and bash installed. Fink can be found at http://fink.sourceforge.net.
Since then, I have grown used to the excellent environment that they have built, Its very refreshing to see such a usable and powerful desktop environment based around a standard UNIX kernel!
Now, there are some caveats. Some of the standard locations for things don't make sense. For example, the
I am extremely happy with the UNIX side of Mac OS X, but I am equally impressed with the amazing usability and cool technology of Aqua and Quartz. Very cool stuff.
If you have any questions about my experience, feel free to post them here and I will do my best to respond.
i just recently dumped the whole x86 archetechture and went with a powerbook g4 for college next year (parents pay half as a graduation present). the powerbook supports my 17" NEC multisync monitor flawlessly. what's better is that it treats it as a dual monitor display, rather than replicating the primary display, and at resolutions up to 1600x1200 on the secondary monitor (1152x768 for the main lcd)....very nice indeed. my adivce is to skip the ibook and get a powerbook, it's a fully fledged desktop when you hook up a second monitor, and has pretty much everything your desktop has built in, cd-rw/dvd, 10/100/1000 base t eithernet, usb and firewire, plus Svideo out. the only thing you might consider is a usb video capture and usb mouse. you might say it lacks expandability, but you need to look and see that this laptop has everything required for day to day operation for the next 2 years already built in. the only thing you might ask for is counterstrike and a dvd-r.
moox. for a new generation.
A minor nit: the Ti PowerBook has actually got an AirPort card built in already.
Bzzt. The Ti PowerBook has an AirPort antenna built in already, just like the iBook and iMac. You can purchase PowerBooks from Apple that have the AirPort installed at the factory, but that's not the same as built-in.
One thing to be aware of when purchasing a Mac (I use MacOS X/9.x exclusively -- X exclusively once Photoshop/Flash/Director run natively):
The "consumer" level models do, in fact, offer VGA out -- however it's mirrored video of the main display ONLY. This includes the iBook and iMac series.
The "pro" level models (TiBook, G4 tower) allow you to tile displays, and the TiBook also allows for s-video out (which can also be had on the consumer models via USB converters).
If you're worried about the overhead of the GUI/Aqua, you'll be happy to know that you can launch into "single-user mode" -- command line only, if you'd like. That said, the 10.1.2 version of the Finder, etc. does a great job of being friendly to CPU cycles.
As mentioned above, OS X is a "real" unix -- but several directories (etc, bin ad nauseum) are hidden from the Finder (hidden from Grandma, actually -- who'd throw them away on accident if given the opportunity). You can make them visible with an indispensible little piece of shareware called Tinkertool which can also customize (or turn off) several extraneous features of the Aqua interface.
You still have access to those directories via the command-line/Terminal, though.
My first week under OS X, I was able to download and compile all the latest versions of Apache, PHP, mySQL, SSH with minimal problems.
Today, most of the popular packages are available as double-clickable installs, FWIW.
If you're an Apache user who is considering to move to OS X, do yourself a favor and check out Tenon's iTools.
That allows for full customization of the httpd.conf from the GUI, with a few extra goodies thrown in.
--dr00g
I would have picked up an Apple notebook some time ago if ONLY it came with a second mouse button.
I know that MacOS apps don't need that 2nd button, but WTF are you supposed to do if you want to run Linux or run *nix apps on OSX? It's bad enough working with -only- two buttons, going to one button would destroy functionality.
my sig's at the bottom of the page.
I know that MacOS apps don't need that 2nd button, but WTF are you supposed to do if you want to run Linux or run *nix apps on OSX?
The right-mouse-button click is emulated by holding down the "control" key and clicking. (Actually, it's the other way around. The right mouse button sends the computer a control-click.) So for OS X apps, do a control-click instead of a right-click.
XDarwin takes it one step further, offering mappable keyboard-mouse combos for X button event emulation. Go to the XDarwin screenshots page and look at the second screenshot.
And, of course, there is the favorite option of one-button-basher-haters: spend the $30 and buy a f*cking external three-button USB mouse.
My processor rule of thumb goes like this:
AMD's "1800+" type labels, while cheesy, are essentially accurate in comparing in to the latest P4 generation. I normally give G4 hardware about a 2x advantage clock-for-clock to a P4 - so an 800 Mhz G4 ~ AMD 1600+ ~ P4 1.6 Ghz. I don't have a handle on Transmeta. PIIIs and G3s seem to not be significantly clock-for-clock worse than the newer generations, but the G4 and P4 achieved much higher clocks.
Is this perfectly accurate? No. Could you spend hours listing things that affect speed? Yes. Are various bus and interface speeds probably more important than the CPU? Yes, especially if one of them is slow, because the bottleneck has the most prominent effect.
The upshot is that the fastest x86 chips are faster these days, and cheaper. OTOH, raw CPU is probably not your bottleneck.
Laptop wise, you should be aware the PPC chips are fairly power friendly, and x86 chips are hogs. iBooks have ludicrious battery life, and that's good. Also, "SpeedStep" is tricky: SpeedStep does NOT reduce the power consumption of the CPU by idling it when it's not being maxed - it reduces the power consumption AND the clock rate WHENEVER the laptop is unplugged. There might be a way to supress this, but it would make your battery work even less time than they start with.
I'd certainly get a Powerbook G4 before I'd get an iBook, if I could afford it. The flexibility is awesome. But I'd be able to afford an iBook sooner...
Looking for freelance Actionscript (Flash/Flex) or ColdFusion work and/or freelance developers. Email me, put Slashdot
At least for micro benchmarks, the unix performance really, really sucks. See1 /Dec/2.html
http://lists.apple.com/archives/darwin-kernel/200
Toward the bottom there's lmbench output indicating that Darwin is roughly an order of magnitude slower than Linux or NetBSD on the same hardware for things like syscalls, context switch, file creation, etc.
There is a packet filter (as well as a bpf):
~>uname -a
Darwin g4 1.4 Darwin Kernel Version 1.4: Sun Sep 9 15:39:59 PDT 2001; root:xnu/xnu-201.obj~1/RELEASE_PPC Power Macintosh powerpc
~>sudo kmodstat | grep Firewall
59 0 0x15053000 0x4000 0x3000 com.apple.nke.IPFirewall (1.1)
~>sudo ipfw list
65535 allow ip from any to any
~>sudo tcpdump -i en0
tcpdump: listening on en0
13:15:13.707607 g4.22 > thunder.1357: P 2129343678:2129343722(44) ack 994474742 win 33304 (DF) [tos 0x10]
ADC is, I believe, EVC. EVC is also used on HP Visualize PA-RISC systems. It was actually designed to be a single connector for all the items on your desktop: Firewire, USB, Video IN and out, audio in and out. Its an interesting concept that unfortunately never took off. Pinouts are here:
http://www.volex.com/products/ind_evc.html
Granted, most laptop pointing devices suck, but still, I don't want a machine that -needs- an external mouse to work correctly.
my sig's at the bottom of the page.
I'm a webmaster that uses OS X for my desktop, and I love it. For Java/Web development, OS X is fantastic. It has java, perl, and all of your unix tools built in by default. Apache comes standard as well, but you'll probably want to compile your own flavor to match your production environment. If you're doing design work, you get the benefit of the Macintosh graphics apps like Photoshop and Illustrator.
I can't really speak for C++, since I use Apple's Cocoa dev environment which is built for Java or Objective C. However gcc comes with the free developer's tools, so I imagine you can do all your C++ stuff with the standard unix tools. For my purposes, I've found OS X to easily match Linux for dev work once you get used to the idiosyncracies.
This
Your original post acknowledged that MacOS apps don't "need" a second mouse. Now you've changed your mind? What gives?
As was pointed out, not only do you not NEED an external mouse to get the same functionality, but ctrl-click gives you contextual menus and XFree86 (XDarwin) lets you do add additional mappings.
He told you that if you really wanted to 'right click' that you should go fucking buy one.
--
My comments and opinions completely reflect those of anyone and anything I am remotely associated with.