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Top Ten Mac OS X Tips for Unix Geeks
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."
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from the um,-install-debian-instead? dept
Wouldnt that defeat the purpose of using OSX?
Show some respect. punk assholes like you ruin slashdot and make it stomping grounds for those without real opinions. (i.e. me)
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.
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.
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
Mac OS X is just about same as everything else *nix.
That is a true statement. SCO isn't like SUN, Linux isn't like BSD, HP-UX isn't like IRIX. They share similarities but are each unique in their own way.
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"?
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.
how to invest, a novice's guide
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)
NetInfo connection failed for server 127.0.0.1/local
Yes, Apple does get a better response these days... and why shouldn't it? They've clearly got a clue since OS9, and while not everything is open source, much of it is. They also seem committed to standards and interoperability. While Microsoft is busy mangling standards so that customers are compelled to buy other Microsoft products to assure everything works, Apple has become a vendor that actually cares about playing well with others.
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.
Good grief. Can't this just be a "news for nerds" site? Who said Slashdot needs/wants/has a political agenda?
Patrick Doyle
I mod down every jackass who puts his moderation policy in his sig. Oh, wait a sec....
Their suggestion to use sudo is good advice for *any* Unix, not just MacOS X. Since I started to use it, I've reduced the time I spend as root by 80%, which probably reduces my chances of making a really ugly mistake by the same amount. I have to shake my head when I see people who do all their work in Unix as root -- it is only a matter of time before you make some fatal typo.
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.
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!
-- I love it when you call me longhair bath-needin' poppa!
The question that arises is not how to convert but WHY for God's name?
So you can stop wasting time making the computer work, and actually get something done?
I use machines running Jaguar every day, and, just as one expects, when you choose "Shutdown" from the Apple menu the computer... get ready for this... shuts down. It's really not that difficult, but, seeing as most here come from the unintuitive hell that is X11, I can imagine that you may be braindamaged enough for the obvious to escape you.
Software piracy is victimless theft.
Those 'non-unix' ways of doing things are to support backward compatibility mostly with older apps and previous OS versins (ie 'classic'). If you're going to be lagacy-free, and chances are you will if you're switching from unix, getting around the differences is pretty easy: I always hide files with the ".", I always use unix style symlinks, except for quick and dirty desktop shortcuts, when I might use alias.
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.
"That naive cube! How long must I suffer this!" --Sheldon J. Plankton
You name it, OS X has it (or can get it with Fink).
Maybe I should revise the above statement and say that their agenda is "Anything But Windows"?
Speak for yourself. My agenda is 'anything but Lindows'. That Walmart is the white devil.
If you mod me down the terrorists will have won
Yes, OS X sounds like Unix. I was not flaming OSX, I was flaming the article, which gave a hysterical view to the situation.
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.
// -- http://www.BRAD-X.com/ --
I think you'll find that most people aren't Open Source advocates in the sense that RMS is. I'm happy to puchase/use closed source stuff provided that:
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.
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.
Strange women lying in ponds distributing swords is no basis for a system of government.
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.
Oh please. The least expensive Mac that I can buy is the iMac at $799, for $699 I can get a brand new Dell with a 1.8 Ghz processor (Mac has 600Mhz) and 256M of Ram (Mac has 128M). Dell will even throw in Corel's PerfectOffice.
The hardware in the two boxes will be very comparable, with the edge probably going to Dell. After all, Apple uses commodity hard drives, video cards, sound cards, and memory just like Dell does. And if you are talking about the Power Macs, then for far less than Apple wants you can get a far superior Intel system (SCSI drives, for example).
Mac addicts can just drop the story about superior Mac hardware. At this point it is nothing but myth. Just compare prices for a bit.
> OSX - a closed source operating system
:P
Can you say "open"? [opendarwin.org]
This is misleading. Darwin is the most ho-hum part of OS X, because all of its Unix-like functionality is reproduced in other kernels (BSD, Linux, etc). The interesting parts are the GUI and the APIs that let it run Mac-specific software. These are all proprietary.
There are too many problems with your other FUD for me to even contemplate responding.
I see a lot of people complaing that OS X is supposedly a lot different from Unix. Well, hate to break to the Linux fanatics out there, but it is a lot CLOSER to Unix than Linux. Remember that Linux is not actually Unix, but a Unix-like operating system. OS X is Unix. It is BSD through and through. OS X is more Unix than Linux will ever be.
I hate to point out nitpicky but important points (OK, well no I don't) but:
"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.
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.
I dunno...
Saying that Photoshop is the best photo editing tool is crossing the line from fact to opinion. Who will argue that Photoshop isn't a very good photo editing tool? Likewise, who will argue that The GIMP isn't a very good photo editing tool? Nobody, who knows what they are talking about, would argue either, but anyone trying to argue that Photoshop is the best or that The GIMP is the best can only argue from their own opinion.
As for MS Office being the industry standard. Why exactly anyone would need the industry standard in office suites is usually because of lazy managers who themselves use MS Office and are to lazy to use a more open format to save/view documents.
But, of course, sence we are talking about UNIX geeks needing MacOS X, it is unlikely that they would be bound to MS Office formats, and needing the industry standard quickly becomes obsolete.
...interesting if true.
"Because OS X seems to deliver on all of the promises that Linux has been making for years."
Since when did "Linux" made any promises? Linux is just a kernel, and the developers just do whatever they like. They didn't made *any* promises.
Usable desktops? That's up to the GNOME and KDE projects and distributors. Say whatever you want, but GNOME and KDE, as of version 2.0 and 3.0 are very much usable, and more than usable enough for normal usage.
"I don't want to learn the intricacies of my Xfree86 config files."
You don't have to! Your XF86Config is setup automatically by RedHat/Mandrake/SuSE/FooBar's auto-hardware-detection-installer!
"I don't want to find where Red Hat hid Apache today."
You don't have to! Applications->System Tools->Service Configuration -- now how hard was that? (and the average user doesn't even want to run a webserver!)
"I just want to fire up my Dev Tools/Word Processor/Photoshop and get to work."
Login --> Applications->Office->AbiWord --> start being productive. Was that hard? I don't think so.
Really, "Linux"'s usability is heavily underrated. People seem to be stuck with those "omfg I have to edit 3000 text files to get it working!"-mentality from a few years ago.
OS X may be o-so-userfriendly, but don't underrate Linux as some kind of usability nightmare that can't be used to get anything done.
No more wondering if your resume is going to display correctly in Microsoft Word
Perhaps this is true with Office X, but I have nothing but trouble with people who cannot read my Word 98 files. Often, if I save it as word 6.0/95 people can read it, but not always.
I think that Mac OS x rocks, and having MS office for it is important, but claiming that Office for Mac and Office for Windows has totally compatible file formats is, in practice, untrue. Such statements give MS defense that it is not a Monopoly, as well as sets unreasonable standards for openoffice.org.
"She's a scientist and a lesbian. She's not going to let it slide." Orphan Black
He had a point that being able to telnet or now SSL into a server and use these tools is faster. But that is but one fraction of the time and only for some users. For the rest I've never figured out why these "unix geeks" do things that are often the "hard way." Yeah they can do things faster, but only because they stick to what they already know and never learn other ways. Further, as you said, they don't do things like Word Processing or the like. So when they use X11 apps they think they actually are as good as equivalent Windows or Mac apps.
For the rest of us it sucks. The nice thing about OSX is that you have both available. It comes standard with an awesome from end for gcc and gdb. (Other than not saving watch variables between debugging sessions - damn that bugs me) You also have MS-Office and many other Apps that are awsome. (And yes I've tried OpenOffice - it just isn't as good IMO)
That's why I love OSX. It truly is the best of all worlds. Further it accomplished everything on the GUI/desktop that Linux folks have been saying they'd do. And the Linux folks have been saying that for years!
Don't get me wrong. There are still plenty of rough edges. Alias SymLink issues still pop up at odd times. The hardware is too slow and overpriced. But beyond that you have one amazing product in my opinion. Further every edition of OSX gets better and better. I can't wait until their new file system is out.
Alphabetically, users is close to usr but the similarity ends there.
Unless you have accounts with names like "include", "local", "man", "lib", etc.
Do you even lift?
These aren't the 'roids you're looking for.
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?
Yes, forget tcsh but there's no reason to get bash. OS X comes with zsh 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.
Moderators should have to take a reading comprehension test.
So like hard links? (ln without the -s)
Mac OS X is nice rendering fonts. That is important when you do you professional document/web publishing work. Although no one criticezed the quality of fonts in TeX system (LyX if you need it in GUI). I also would remind that Interleaf and FrameMaker are produced originally for Unix. Conclusion: fonts is not a serious reason, just a subjective impression.
Mac OS X supports many of useful commercial GUI aplications. Although it is true, but it is not because of Mac OS X quality. From marketing point commercial vendors just ported old Mac applications to mac OS X in order to keep the same customer base. I don't know any new "big" applications if they has been added to Mac OS X and if they are not existed previously in old Mac OS. I don't know any big Unix applications ported to Mac OS X from Unix and discontinued in Unix either. Apple is known on desktop market for years. Commercial unices are dying. Linux is just newcoming to the market. I belive that explains. And I belive that the situation will be changed in a couple of years: Linux will be supported with commercial GUI applications wider than Mac OS X. Or at least not less. Conclusion: if you don't need any Mac OS X specific GUI applications then look for other migration reasons or don't migrate at all.
It's easier to re-configure something on Mac OS X than on Linux. I agree, it is true for common parameters. But if you need anything unusal than on Mac OS X it will be either very difficult or it will impossible at all. Same problem with Windows NT. Imagine to build a kiosk or POS with Mac OS X. I can't. Conclusion: Don't consider Mac OS X if you (or your IT) need own OS - with changed kernel, with re-written boot sequence, with cluster, with re-written desktop GUI or without desktop at all.
Besides, no one compared internationalization of Mac OS X with Linux. I heard about some problems on Mac OS X with i18n in Cocoa and I heard very positive feedbacks about Linux internationalization from around the world. No wonder: i18n is one of reasons when distributed open source community has more chances to find and fix problems faster than any commercial vendor.
Final conclusion: switch to Mac OS X from Linux/Unix if you ready to develop GUI applications that will work only on Mac hardware, specifically on Mac OS X; if you are ready to pay for overpriced hardware that still unknown for most of IT specialists, if you are ok with MS Windows quality and you need just better fonts and only English fonts. Otherwise - keep Linux.
Less is more !
Wow. Well, you make some pretty good arguments here; when you add all that up, it does sound pretty bad. But it doesn't get away from the fact that OSX works damn well in practice, and, in the 10 months that I've been working with it daily, I can't say that any of the issues you bring up have caused me any problem at all. In fact, it's head-and-shoulders the most usable OS I've ever worked with.
Three possible reasons for that:
1) I'm the designers' ideal user - I think Mac when I'm holding the mouse, and I think Unix when I'm in the terminal, and I don't tend to mix up my thinking (for example, I make symlinks when I want symlinks, and aliases when I want aliases). Maybe this isn't typical behaviour...
2) Or, the designers did a really good job of usability testing, which may explain why the elegant architectures you talk about in the early drafts got changed in the later releases?
3) Or, my use of OSX is light enough that I don't encounter the conflicts very much. I work mostly in Python/Zope/XML, and the iApps; I'm not writing applications or compiling much of anything. But, where would that put me on the standard distribution of OSX users? Certainly not out on the fringes.
I can't help but read your critique as primarily a theoretical one. But, I'll grant you that if the theoretical flaws are as you say, the hacks that are holding it together won't last for long. Time will tell, especially as we watch Apple release versions.