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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?
I'm kidding, I'm kidding... jeez...
-B
Ash and Hickory, straight-grained and true, make excellent bludgeons, dandy for the cudgeling of vegetarians.
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.
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?
Actually its Option - Apple - Esc. That gets you to 'force quit'.
> The question that arises is not how to convert but WHY for God's name?
.. a bummer.
Because all other OS's go beep beep beep and eat your paper, and it was a really good paper. then you have to do it again and its not as good because you did it fast this time which is...
That and saving Christmas.
I don't need no instructions to know how to rock!!!!
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.
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)
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*.
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
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?
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.
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.
I read on Microsoft's web site that you can only use roman numerals in OS X.
This space intentionally left blank.
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.
it uses NetInfo instead of /etc/hosts, /etc/group and /etc/passwd.
/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.
I do feel compelled to point out that OS X actually uses lookupd for host name resolution, and lookupd can be configured to use any number of sources for name-to-address mappings. Under 10.2 and later, lookupd is configured to look in
More info can be found in the lookupd man page.
I write in my journal
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.
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!
OSX - a closed source operating system
/. to promote your dark overlord, please say so.
Can you say "open"?
People might like to think that Apple is somehow better than Microsoft
If you work for Microsoft and are trolling
In the meantime, Apple is better than Microsoft, and not just "somehow". They have better software, better hardware (althought I am using a microsoft mouse with my mac...I love the little wheel), their stuff looks better, works better, is more innovative, etc.
I've been using Macs and PCs since the 80's, I've followed the evolution of both, I'm not some one-side zealot. I'm telling you: The only things Microsoft has over the mac are 1-Popularity (more people use it because more people use it, vicious circle), 2-Cheap ass hardware (you get what you pay for), and better CD management (but the floppy thing is lamer than a one-legged lemur). Oh, and 4-Wheely mice (although they do make mac drivers for 'em, yay!).
if they had Microsoft's monopoly, their behavior would be no better
There are so many things wrong with this sentence, I'm having trouble replying. Ok, lets see...
Many people HATE microsoft, while many people are just in love with apple. Why is that? Because of Microsoft's behaviour. The very behaviour that led them to a monopoly position. So if Apple had the same attribute as Microsoft (a lousy attitude and a monopoly), people's attitude to Apple would be the same as it is towards Microsoft. Big fat DUH.
Your FUD bothers me.
You can't take the sky from me...
* 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
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.
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!
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
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.
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.
But GNU's Not Unix, damn it!
You say
of course for the sake of keeping up, here's my top ten:
That's more or less true. If you ignore the fact that pretty much every Unix system that has a GUI except Apple's uses X11 the differences from "Apple's Unix" to anyone else's isn't really any bigger then the differences between any two other Unix-like systems. Sure Apple uses NetInfo, but it really isn't any different from Sun's YP or NIS. Yes, Apple has a ton of GUI admin tools that whizz all over /etc, but what is IBM's SMIT? Or HP's...er...what does HP call their admin tools again?
If you are talking about command line tools, Mac OS X is "just another Unix", period. One of the less common ones, so you may not find as many things compiling out of the box, but that isn't because OSX is more different from whatever Unixish system the author used (most likely Linux these days) then, say NetBSD or SunOS is, but just that whatever 3 random things that always seem to trip people up when going to a new platform weren't already spotted and fixed.
I remember when SunOS was king, and it was a slight pain to port stuff to Ultrix (DEC's Unix). This is no harder. Straight down to programs sometimes forgetting a htonl or the like.
Once you get to GUI's then it's a whole different thing (unless you remember when Suns came with Sun Tools, DEC had X11, AT&T had the BLiT, and everyone else had their own thing too). OSX is way different from other Unix-like systems. You could install X11 on it, but X apps will never feel like native apps, and most apps that are written for OSX that you might want to modify won't be using X. Then again, it's nice to learn a new thing once in a while, isn't it?
In what ways are aliases more powerful?
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.
Sapere aude!
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.
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?
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?