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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."

82 of 533 comments (clear)

  1. uh, no michael by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    from the um,-install-debian-instead? dept

    Wouldnt that defeat the purpose of using OSX?

    1. Re:uh, no michael by GavK · · Score: 3, Insightful
      Absolutely!

      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)

      --

      Gav

      "There's no such thing as data that can't be manipulated"

  2. Good! They need the extra skills... by Wee · · Score: 5, Funny
    ...so they can get a better second job to pay for Apple hardware.

    I'm kidding, I'm kidding... jeez...

    -B

    --

    Ash and Hickory, straight-grained and true, make excellent bludgeons, dandy for the cudgeling of vegetarians.

  3. Remember.... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Funny

    It's Command/Control/Restart, not Control/Alt/Delete

    1. Re:Remember.... by teamhasnoi · · Score: 5, Informative

      Actually its Option - Apple - Esc. That gets you to 'force quit'.

  4. The Screen Savers... by Tha_Big_Guy23 · · Score: 5, Informative

    had a brief segment last night showing the top 10 Mac OS X killer tips.. the link is here with some nifty tricks for your Mac..

    --
    If you're looking here for something insightful or thought provoking, you're probably looking in the wrong place.
    1. Re:The Screen Savers... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Interesting

      And, oddly, 8 of the 10 "tricks" they suggest are in fact actually _harder_ than the normal way of doing things. I don't get techTV on my cable package, are they usually this dumb?

      (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.)

  5. Where's my...Unix? by jukal · · Score: 4, Interesting

    I did not (and still don't?) now have anything against MacOS X but that articles makes it sounds like everything is turned up side down. Really, I had the belief that Mac OS X is just about same as everything else *nix. However, this article did good work in convincing something else.

    1. Re:Where's my...Unix? by WatertonMan · · Score: 5, Informative

      I think you'll find that the variations aren't so much variations from Unix, but from Linux. Many of the differences the article outlines are simply "hiding" the Unix from newbies (i.e. dangerous directories) and can easily be over ridden.

      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)

    2. Re:Where's my...Unix? by NotoriousG.N.U. · · Score: 5, Insightful
      I think you'll find that the variations aren't so much variations from Unix, but from Linux.

      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!
    3. Re:Where's my...Unix? by mosch · · Score: 5, Informative
      everything is turned upside down? Did you follow the same link I did? The startup procedure is different though it still just runs shell scripts. The filesystem is laid out differently, and it uses NetInfo instead of /etc/hosts, /etc/group and /etc/passwd.

      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.

    4. Re:Where's my...Unix? by jukal · · Score: 4, Insightful
      Sounds like Unix to me

      Yes, OS X sounds like Unix. I was not flaming OSX, I was flaming the article, which gave a hysterical view to the situation.

    5. Re:Where's my...Unix? by Twirlip+of+the+Mists · · Score: 5, Informative

      it uses NetInfo instead of /etc/hosts, /etc/group and /etc/passwd.

      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 /etc/hosts first by default. So unless you're using 10.0 or 10.1, /etc/hosts will work just the way you think it should.

      More info can be found in the lookupd man page.

      --

      I write in my journal
    6. Re:Where's my...Unix? by chmod+u+s · · Score: 3, Interesting
      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.

      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.

    7. Re:Where's my...Unix? by gnuadam · · Score: 5, Funny

      But GNU's Not Unix, damn it!

      --
      You say :wq, I say ZZ. Why can't we all just get along?
    8. Re:Where's my...Unix? by stripes · · Score: 5, Interesting
      I think you'll find that the variations aren't so much variations from Unix, but from Linux. Many of the differences the article outlines are simply "hiding" the Unix from newbies (i.e. dangerous directories) and can easily be over ridden.

      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?

      Although Aliases are more powerful, but most Unix tools don't recognize them

      In what ways are aliases more powerful?

    9. Re:Where's my...Unix? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

      Aliases are sort of a hybrid between a symlink and a hard link. They keep track of the HFS file id of the target file.

      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.

    10. Re:Where's my...Unix? by Kiwi · · Score: 3, Informative
      One of the less common ones, so you may not find as many things compiling out of the box

      My experience porting my application 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

      --

      The secret to enjoying Slashdot is to realize that it should not be taken too seriously.

  6. Virtual window management? by piyamaradus · · Score: 5, Interesting

    I run entirely Solaris and Linux as my desktop environments. My wife has an iBook with OS X (not Jaguar yet). I do most of the administration on it for her, which has been fun since I hadn't used a Mac since 1989...and OS X is the most usable (for me) that I've found. I could almost use it as a workstation...except for screen real estate issues. I'm amazed that there seems to be no default way of running virtual screens in OS X -- which keeps me from being able to work effectively when I have to wade through dozens of terminal sessions on one box (and 'screen' isn't sufficient).

    Short of running one of the X11 WMs described, does anyone have a native Aqua virtual window tool?

    1. Re:Virtual window management? by 4minus0 · · Score: 3, Informative

      http://www.cocoaserver.com/virtualdesktops.html

      try this one
      open source too if'n you're paranoid :)

      --
      You've got an easy breezy wind at your back...most of the time.
    2. Re:Virtual window management? by iSwitched · · Score: 5, Informative

      I just plunked down a whopping $20 for Codetek's Virtual Desktop (www.codetek.com).

      Its a damn fine piece of software and was the final addon that made Aqua perfect for me.

      --
      "That naive cube! How long must I suffer this!" --Sheldon J. Plankton
    3. Re:Virtual window management? by PghFox · · Score: 5, Informative

      Space.app, which is free as in beer, in one such solution that provides multiple virtual desktops on Mac OS X. VersionTracker is to Mac OS X what Freshmeat is to Linux.

      --
      --- Fox
  7. Re:WHAT? by stratjakt · · Score: 5, Funny

    > The question that arises is not how to convert but WHY for God's name?

    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... .. a bummer.

    That and saving Christmas.

    --
    I don't need no instructions to know how to rock!!!!
  8. It has, and quite a few are, actually by burgburgburg · · Score: 5, Insightful
    Apple has produced a superior product.

    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.

  9. Talk about bad design... by Q2Serpent · · Score: 4, Insightful

    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

    1. Re:Talk about bad design... by xil · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Because aliases and symlinks do different things. Normally users want aliases, since they have been around on the traditional MacOS for years.

      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.

    2. Re:Talk about bad design... by moof1138 · · Score: 3, Informative

      As far as cp goes, most files will copy fine, but if you work with files that have resource forks (fewer and fewer as time goes by) then install the Dev Tools and use CpMac and MvMac, which handle resource forks properly. Or use 'ditto -rsrc' which handles forks as well.

      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.

      --

      Hyperbole is the worst thing ever.
  10. Re:I hate to state the obvious but.... by jukal · · Score: 5, Funny
    ...given that most Slashdot readers seem to be advocates of Open Source operating systems on commodity hardware, 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?

    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*.

  11. Excuse me... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Funny

    It's a directory dammit! Not a freakin' folder!!!

    Thank you.

    Now back to your regularly scheduled beowulf "jokes", first posts, goatse.cx links, trolls and astroturfers.

  12. Re:I hate to state the obvious but.... by Soko · · Score: 5, Interesting

    You are correct in what you're saying about Apple. Things would be a lot worse - in fact, we might not have much at all, just MacOS 7.xx on more expensive hardware. Or the PC revolution might not of happened at all. Who knows - and it's all academic anyway. Apple could not now - nor will they ever - have too much power in the PC space, so we can play with thier toys without needing to worry about feeding a monster.

    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

    --
    "Depression is merely anger without enthusiasm." - Anonymous
  13. Errors on the table in the aritcle by netringer · · Score: 4, Informative

    There's an editting error on the 2nd and 3rd lines of the table of directories in the article.

    AFAIK, it should read:

    .trash - This directory contains files that have been dragged to the Trash.
    ./vol - This directory maps HFS+ file IDs to files.

    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.

    --
    Ever dream you could fly? Get up from the Flight Sim. I Fly
  14. Re:I hate to state the obvious but.... by chromatic · · Score: 4, Insightful
    ... given that most Slashdot readers seem to be...

    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.

  15. fwiw, there are other unix gotchas by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Informative
    FYI, the HFS+ filesystem has a hidden "feature": it is NOT case sensitive (just case preserving). So "SlashDot" is the same as "slashDOT" is the same as "/." Well, maybe not that last one. This reared its ugly head when using gcc (not Apples fake version) and autotools.


    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.

  16. CodeTek VirtualDesktop by burgburgburg · · Score: 3, Informative
    CodeTek VirtualDesktop 2.0B7

    Shareware ($20.00), but you can use it with two windows as nagware.

  17. Re:I hate to state the obvious but.... by Mononoke · · Score: 5, Insightful
    ...made by the poster-child for locking people into overpriced hardware?
    What overpriced hardware? Where?

    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
  18. My Top 10 by spoonist · · Score: 4, Interesting

    In no particular order:
    * Forget tcsh and get bash, copy it to /bin, add it to /etc/shells, and change root's shell and your shell.
    * Go to The Fink Package Database and snag a ton of cool Open Source apps.
    * Mount /home from somewhere.
    * Usually stay away from /etc 'cause most of that stuff is ignored.
    * 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 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.

    1. Re:My Top 10 by sulli · · Score: 3, Funny

      Just make sure that you're showing your pictures, not your (um) pictures on the screensaver.

      --

      sulli
      RTFJ.
    2. Re:My Top 10 by Twirlip+of+the+Mists · · Score: 5, Informative

      * Forget sudo and enable root access (I forget how, I don't have an OS X box in front of me), then use su.

      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:
      #

      --

      I write in my journal
    3. Re:My Top 10 by melatonin · · Score: 3, Insightful
      * Forget tcsh and get bash [sourceforge.net], copy it to /bin, add it to /etc/shells, and change root's shell and your shell.

      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.
  19. Re:Wow, slashdot hyping Mac OSX? What a shock. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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.

  20. Re:I hate to state the obvious but.... by p3d0 · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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....
  21. Not with Jaguar by burgburgburg · · Score: 3, Informative
    From their page:

    Warning: Virtual Desktops.app is not yet compatible with 10.2.

  22. tell me WHY before WHAT by axxackall · · Score: 3, Interesting
    Interesting article. It shows that *IF* I decide to move from Unix (actually from my Linux/PPC) to Mac OS X *THEN* I know where to get a help. But it doesn't help to answer to the question, which logically comes first: *WHY* should I migrate from Unix/Linux to Mac OS X.

    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?

    --

    Less is more !
    1. Re:tell me WHY before WHAT by mosch · · Score: 5, Insightful
      OS X runs Office, Quicken, Photoshop, Illustrator, Cubase, Logik, etc.... No more wondering if your resume is going to display correctly in Microsoft Word, or having to keep a Windows box around to make PowerPoints.

      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.

    2. Re:tell me WHY before WHAT by Macka · · 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!

  23. sudo rocks! by AT · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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.

  24. Re:WHAT? by chris234 · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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?

  25. Bash, tcsh, csh, ksh by burgburgburg · · Score: 3, Insightful

    You name it, OS X has it (or can get it with Fink).

  26. I would switch but... by kbielefe · · Score: 5, Funny

    I read on Microsoft's web site that you can only use roman numerals in OS X.

    --
    This space intentionally left blank.
  27. Smooth transition indeed! by brad-x · · 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.

    --
    // -- http://www.BRAD-X.com/ -- //
  28. Re:WHAT? by Twirlip+of+the+Mists · · Score: 4, Informative

    Friend, FreeBSD isn't UNIX. UNIX is a trademark, and FreeBSD can't be called UNIX.

    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.

    --

    I write in my journal
  29. Re:I hate to state the obvious but.... by archen · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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.

  30. Re:I hate to state the obvious but.... by toupsie · · Score: 5, Insightful
    ...given that most Slashdot readers seem to be advocates of Open Source operating systems on commodity hardware, 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?

    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.
  31. Re:I hate to state the obvious but.... by Moofie · · Score: 5, Interesting

    But they DON'T have MS's monopoly, and so therefore they actually innovate and improve their products. Linux, on the other hand, does a good job of scratching other people's itches. I'm not a programmer, nor do I wish to become one, and the slapdash nature of the Linux/FreeBSD/whatever UI is not appealing to me. No dis, mind you, it's just not for me.

    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.

    --
    Why yes, I AM a rocket scientist!
  32. Re:I hate to state the obvious but.... by Scrameustache · · Score: 5, Interesting

    OSX - a closed source operating system

    Can you say "open"?

    People might like to think that Apple is somehow better than Microsoft

    If you work for Microsoft and are trolling /. to promote your dark overlord, please say so.

    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.

    --

    You can't take the sky from me...

  33. Re:tsch as the default shell by Twirlip+of+the+Mists · · Score: 3, Informative

    Are you positive about that? When I bought my last machine, it came with 10.2 installed, but the developer tools hadn't been installed at the factory. It had /usr/bin/bash on it.

    --

    I write in my journal
  34. tip: command line fun by chmod+u+s · · Score: 5, Funny

    wanna irritate a 'switching' unix geek?

    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!

    1. Re:tip: command line fun by khuber · · Score: 5, Informative
      Also remember that the program will never see your quotes or backslashes which is why all the things you tried are equivalent to rm -rfp. -- tells rm "no more options follow", and ./-p gets passed in directly and it doesn't look like an option to rm.

      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

  35. Re:I hate to state the obvious but.... by megaduck · · 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.

    --
    This .sig for rent.
  36. I just can't understand what they were thinking... by Featureless · · Score: 3, Interesting

    They reorganized almost everything, so that everything from cp (only "ditto" copies metadata) to shutdown (not rewritten to care about Apple's replacement for /etc/init.d) to /etc/passwd (user information is now stored in "the NetInfo database") is now useless, and worse, vestigal (!), but everything new they introduced makes the previous unix "non-naming schemes" and disorganization look great by comparison. ".vol" is where trashed files go? It's ".DS_Store" rather than ".Finder Settings"? For that matter, why on earth are we still prepending periods to hide files? Or hiding /usr and /tmp at the application level rather than having a legacy emulation layer and just doing it right? Aliases don't work at the "unix level," and symbolic links work everywhere, but we're once again back to things that break when you move the target... This is the freakin 21st century here.

    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.

  37. Transition? by g4dget · · Score: 4, Interesting
    I think use of the word "transition" illustrates the pipe dream that Apple has: UNIX users will leave UNIX in droves to commit to using Mac OS X.

    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.

    1. Re:Transition? by mosch · · Score: 3, Funny

      Is there some sort of geek mafia that I'm not aware of? If so, could somebody make one of those Apple 23" HD flat panels fall off a truck for me?

  38. Re:I hate to state the obvious but.... by bnenning · · Score: 5, Informative

    Macs are definitely more expensive, but it's not quite as bad as your numbers indicate. You ordered extra RAM and hard drives from Apple; *never* do that, their markups are insane. A stock dual 867 with a GeForce 4Ti is $2050. From third parties, get 1 GB of ram for $250, 2 80 GB drives for $250, a Firewire CD-RW for $150, and you're at $2700 with a better system than you got from the Apple store. Still more than the Dell, but the difference is reduced by half.

    --
    How to solve most of our problems: 1.Lots of nuclear plants. 2.Cure aging.
  39. Not Linux, but DEFINATELY Unix by kakos · · Score: 3, Insightful

    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.

  40. Throwing Around "UNIX" by ablair · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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.

  41. This isn't a real virtual desktop by jkujawa · · Score: 3, Informative

    This program has exactly the same limitation of Space.app: Windows from one program can only be displayed in one workspace. So, for instance, you can't have Terminal windows open in more than one workspace.

    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.

  42. no.... by netsrek · · Score: 4, Informative
    Actually, you weren't half right, you were not right at all.

    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,
    Dictionary: "Network Configuration"
    LookupOrder: Cache FF DNS NI DS
    _config_name: Network Configuration


    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...
    --

    i don't read slashdot anymore.
  43. Re:you're missing the point by Type-R · · Score: 4, Informative
    Uh... The slash does escape the character...
    echo $TERM
    xterm

    Obviously the dollar-sign is a parser character right? Watch this:

    echo \$TERM
    $TERM

    Right? Okay...

    echo -
    -

    Hmmm, obviously the - is not a character that the shell thinks is special, it just passed it straight through to echo

    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!

  44. A wonderful full-screen console by caseyc · · 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.

  45. developer woes by gol64738 · · Score: 4, Interesting

    our entire development department and company backend is 100 percent linux (mostly RedHat). we just hired a new developer whose laptop is running OSX.
    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?

    1. Re:developer woes by WatertonMan · · Score: 4, Informative
      If this was back in the OSX 1.0 days you are right. With 10.2 it comes standard with a full Python distro along with the latest GNU tools. Further Fink has pretty much every tool compiled and debugged and installs them for you. This inlcudes X11 apps which admittedly once were a pain to run on OSX.

      So this isn't a problem anymore and hasn't been for quite some time.

    2. Re:developer woes by Darchmare · · Score: 3, Informative

      It probably depends on what kind of development your developer is trying to do, but...

      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.

      --

      - Jeff
    3. Re:developer woes by BlueGecko · · Score: 5, Informative

      Did you introduce him to fink? By default, the Mac comes with the entire GNU toolchain, plus perl, python, and a ton of other utilities. If he needed newer versions of perl or python, or if he something else (Ruby, MySQL, PostreSQL, X window, Ant, OCaml, LaTeX, even KDevelop and KDE for Pete's sake!) he just types in

      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?

  46. Mac OS X Hints website by develop · · Score: 5, Informative
    a great website for these kind of tips is http://www.macosxhints.com. it has tips and advice coming in daily from all over the place and a forum to give your opinion on the tip. i really suggest folks interested in the article check it out.

    of course for the sake of keeping up, here's my top ten:

    1. kill processes by name
    2. fixing command-line typos before hitting enter using Option-S
    3. creating a talking cat in Jaguar
    4. use gcc_select to switch compilers
    5. open urls from the command line
    6. search macosxhints from the commandline
    7. Replace iTools with your own web and mail servers
    8. Run Software Update from the Terminal
    9. Correct command line typos with carets
    10. AND THE BEST ONE! running the screensaver as your background
  47. Have you ever actually examined Apple hardware? by lkk17 · · Score: 3, Informative

    I used to think what you say above, until I bought a Mac.

    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.

  48. Re:I hate to state the obvious but.... by Graff · · Score: 5, Informative
    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.
    Actually there are many other intresting elements to Darwin, which are being given back to the community in open-source form. Several of the more notable contributions are Rendevous (Zeroconf), Open Directory, the Darwin Streaming Server, OpenPlay, and the Objective-C extensions to GCC.

    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.
  49. Re:I just can't understand what they were thinking by JMax · · Score: 4, Informative

    ...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.

    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.

  50. Re:I hate to state the obvious but.... by stripes · · Score: 5, Insightful
    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.

    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?

  51. Debian for Mac OS X == Fink by tm2b · · Score: 3, Informative
    from the um,-install-debian-instead? dept.
    Why instead? You can get most of a debian distro on your Mac OS X by using fink. Hell, you can even run X11 on Darwin and eschew Aqua if you are so deeply in the Free-as-in-Stallman-uber-alles camp.
    --
    "It is our blasphemy which has made us great, and will sustain us, and which the gods secretly admire in us." - Zelazny
  52. bash is included in 10.2 by acomj · · Score: 4, Informative

    Bash shell is included in 10.2

    [Computer:~] acomjean% bash
    bash-2.05a$ yes
    y
    y
    y
    y
    y

  53. Re:Wow, slashdot hyping Mac OSX? What a shock. by lemkebeth · · Score: 3, Interesting

    One correction.

    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.

  54. Re:I just can't understand what they were thinking by Featureless · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Of course I've "*used*" it. I've spent quality time with people who are programming against it, and I've read much of the developer literature. I see a lot of ambivalence about OSX. I don't think the OS9 cruft is eliminated; I believe that it's all still there, both in the Classic emulation layer and in the APIs which (in earlier drafts I read were simple, beautiful, and well-organized, very Java-like) Adobe forced Apple to cruft up to make native ports of their software easier... and then took their sweet time with those native ports to boot.

    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 /usr at the application level means that the user is guaranteed to see it at some point and be confused... I don't understand why they didn't approach unix more like they approached classic. With some containment. Seems like that would have been simpler, more much compatible, easier to use...