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Porting Unix Command-Line Tools to Mac OS X
An anonymous reader writes "Over at Apple has posted a technote on porting Unix programs to Mac OS X. Nothing earth-shattering, but nice to see it all collected."
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Why don't they just do it their selves and add more value to their "distro"? They could easly take all the popular GNU tools and port them to Darwin. Then we wouldn't need to use fink.
Karma: The shiznight, mostly because I am the Drizzle.
its about time. i figured with the BSD core they would be a lot quicker at it than this.
Especially trying to support some new servers
Either way, this may help the adoption of the Apple into the IT industry a little more.
It'll be interesting to see whether or not they're included into the next release of X.
Get paid to code OSS
stuffing hot grits down my pants while watching *BSD die.
What is this? Retro-trolling? If you're trying to keep up with the latest trolling trends at least make the hot grits stuff you down its pants or something.
You seem to think this story represents some kind of "move" that it does not. I'm guessing you're not all that familiar with OS X. Fro example, there is no "hiding" of the command line. There's an application called "Terminal" that, when launched, gives you a standard tcsh command line. It no more "hidden" than their "add a printer" utility.
I recommend you try OS X sometime. You might like it. At the very least you'll understand a little more than it's a bona fide Unix operating system and hasn't been "dumbed down" as you seem to imply.
You like your Macintosh better than me, don't you Dave? Dave? Can you hear me Dave?
The reason I use OS X is basicly because I have access to the UNIX command-line tools and I can usually easily port them to OS X. OS X has a nice set of application that are comericalially available Like Photoshop (I know the gimp is close but Photoshop works better for me) so I can do my Unix stuff at the command line and have access to some good comerical software. It is like having the best of both worlds. That and sometimes having the ability to pipe information is really good.
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
It used BSD tools, not GNU tools.
Deal with it.
It hides the command line about as much as a KDE system hides the command line
Open the terminal app and there's a BSD command line/Open Konsole and there's a Linux command line
Login to a console instead of Aqua and there's a command line/Login to a console instead of XFree86 and there's a command line
I believe the AC was trying to poke fun at Microsoft for moving away from command line while at the same time Apple is moving towards it. Compare Windows 98 to XP and OS 9 to OS X.
You seem to be under the mistaken impression that a UNIX OS cannot have useful well written applications or it's not a unix. That kind of false restriction on development is one of the things that's kept unix boxes in the desktop backwaters for decades. OSX has both worlds, and does it quite simply because those worlds are not exclusive. Open up OSX and run a terminal window or console login. hell, run 5 of the things and you're in as geeky a land as any Linux system. On the other hand, run Safari, Office v.X, Dreamweaver, Photoshop and Pro Tools if you like - and there's your polished slick app land.
There is nothing whatsoever preventing you from doing both if you need, or even mixing further. My OSX runs OSX only apps (in Aqua), fink apps including GNU commandline utils, KDE, Gnome and macos Classic apps, all at the one time. It's the most flexible mix I've ever used in 20 years of my computing experience.
- Texshop is a wrapper around Latex.
- cocoaspell is a wrapper around the Unix spell checker aspell
- GPG Mail is a wrapper around the Gnu PGP implementation so that Mail.app can handle PGP.
Those are just the first that came to my mind, there are many others. The fact that program interfaces are different does not mean that porting applications and components is useless, it simply means that a new interface will be needed.The intersting thing is that the service menu is something very Unixish, many command line utilities would make good services. For those that don't know OS X, services are components that take the current selection and apply some treatement on them. There are services that search google, do text transformation, ec...
Well, if your a unix head, using a mac, and have been under a rock for a long time, here ya go
r macosx.html An x11 server that uses quartz extreme (or whatever you want to call it)
http://www.osxgnu.org/ Go here for packages to install.
http://fink.sf.net Wow, apt-get for os x
http://finkcommander.sf.net Wow, a gui for fink
http://www.apple.com/downloads/macosx/apple/x11fo
There are many other things to use, too
I believe the AC was trying to poke fun at Microsoft for moving away from command line while at the same time Apple is moving towards it. Compare Windows 98 to XP and OS 9 to OS X.
I don't. I think the AC doesn't yet know the difference between a command line interface and a command line tool. He'll learn, he's in the right place.
I'd shy away from making the Win98:WinXP::OS9:OSX analogy, if I were you. Too many lusers will take it too literally./p.
I use GPG Mail with Mail.app and it's great, combined with GnuPG for OS X.
I also use Tiny Fugue in the terminal to connect to a journal community chat server. You need Apple's free Developer Tools to build it though, but it works perfectly.
I also use NcFTP for all my ftp needs. It used to be included with 10.1.x, but Apple stopped shipping it with 10.2.x, instead favouring the basic BSD ftp, which they improved in Jaguar. I prefer NcFTP though, and had no problems building it from source with the Developer Tools.
The huge bonus I've found with OS X's terminal is the way it integrates with the "consumer" side of the OS making command line work more conveinent. For example, if I'm not in the mood to drill down into a directory to upload a file in NcFTP I can just drag it onto the terminal after typing "put [space]". I can also command+click links in TF to open them in my browser. These tricks work in the shell too, often handy for perfoming operations on files deeper in directories that I don't want to navigate to by typing them out. (Yes, yes, I'm lazy).
I hate Grammar Nazi's
DarwinPorts
DarwinPorts FAQ
Interview with Jordan Hubbard on DarwinPorts (Slashdot article)
If you want Unix tools and don't like Apple's, get Yellow Dog Linux and install mac-on-linux. I run my iBook that way and I have instant access to both OS's. No need to reboot to get to the other. OS X runs at near native speeds on top of MOL.
In versions of MacOS before OSX, the command line was called MPW - you could download it from here.
Admittedly, installing a development environment is a little overkill to just get a command line, but it would give you one...
"Currently" supported? What does that mean?
It means that at one time, there were more archs supported. NeXT/Open Step ran on ix86, m68k, powerpc, mips, sparc, etc.
It doesn't seem like such a stretch to assume that other architectures are officially not out of the question, with a hedge statement like this one. Very interesting...
I wouldn't be too surprised if Apple has most of those running internally. I also wouldn't be too surprised if they release a server based on something that isn't powerpc, but the client is out of the question.
I also wouldn't be too surprised if an unreleased version of Windows 2003 Server runs on PowerPC and MIPS.
God save our Queen, and Heaven bless The Maple Leaf Forever!
Have you noticed that Apple tends to only include highly-polished software? There's a reason they built their own KHTML based browser, rather than just porting Konqueror. They have really high standards for the usability of their software, so any non-command-line tool would need to be entirely redesigned to fit their standards, which introduces a lot of work.
Even for command-line programs, once Apple releases something themselves, they implicitly take responsibility for it. If they start doing half-assed ports, then their whole "it just worked" thing goes down the tubes because if their stuff doesn't work, people will hold it against them. They'd probably have to carefully QA every port they did in extensive detail, and that would be expensive. Then there's technical support, maintaining the ports, etc.
There's lots of stuff I'd like to see built into darwin, but I can understand why it isn't really their priority. As has been pointed out, most people who need additional command-line tools can get them themselves and I think apple would rather put their energy into making the tools they do have easier to use by building helpful GUI front-ends for those of us who either don't know how to use unix well, or just find it a lot less enjoyable.
Not to moderators: It's a Joke. Laugh.
I am TheRaven on Soylent News
eek! You're right! I installed OS X 30 days ago and now it's telling me I have to phone Apple, long distance, to "activate" it or somethingwith my Social Security Number, my passport details, my dna, the rights to my first born child and two side orders of onion rings.
I need to write my term paper and I'm like, bummer, they're engaged.
OS X is not a Unix like cigarettes don't cause cancer.
Sure the top layers are proprietary, but the Darwin level is all open source. Hell, you can download it from Apple's site and install it yourself.
Or install OS X itself and compile all those useful tools designed for BSD-style unix OSes.
They keep the top levels closed for a reason - to make money, and to ensure that the overall feel of the system stays the same.