We have a large scale K-2 program where the iPads are used in center-based learning. We have carts used for shared classes and we also have 1:1 deployments. Students don't take the devices home (which buffers the percentages quite a bit, I realize).
I wasn't really tossing the original comment in as any kind of "fact"; just anecdotal observation. Most of our kids come from economically challenged families -- and most of our instructors are exceptionally dedicated to their vocation. Student success rates, fiscal responsibility, best tool for the job and proper direction of education in public schools kept from this conversation; we just happen to have above average treatment of technology in the classroom.
...actually, the adults I'm referring to are mostly administrators (the kind that haven't seen a classroom in twenty years and twisted funding to acquire an iPad to go along with their desktop, laptop and smartphone...).
I've found both classroom instructors and students to be careful with equipment (I'm the Apple sys-admin, I really don't deal with the Windows side of the house -- so my exposure to the Dells (netbooks, laptops and desktops) is non-existant in my day to day operations).
Primarily, when I hear about an adult breaking or "losing" an iPad; it's dropping it as they get out of the car, loss at the gym/hair salon/grocery store, etc... not an instructor.
I've deployed around two thousand iPads in our district (and another 500 or so iPod Touches). 1700 (iPads and iTouches) or so to students, another 800 or so to admin/faculty.
Theft of device: Students: 2. Faculty/Staff: > 15.
Actually, in my experience, the teachers appear to be just fine; it's the administrators that are the muddled bunch. Granted, that might have something to do with those above them (could well be); but it appears that the further you get from the classroom, the farther you get from the whole point of education -- and by this I mean both in the educational field as well as outside (post-graduation, get a job, have kids, expect someone else to raise them...).
It's one of the reasons that I refuse to live by the sysadmin adage of "a good sysadmin never need be in the field". I'd rather be in the field, it reminds me of why I have the job I do, who it is I (ultimately) work for and what the point of it all is.
Perhaps we'd be better without constantly chasing technology into the classroom for the sake of modernization (personally, I agree -- much as a smoker, I agree with banning the sale of tobacco products completely, it sounds hypocritical, considering my profession, but there you go); but until that happens someone from up above keeps making the decision to spend the money on this shiny crap. It's not the teachers. And its those teachers that are forced to re-evaluate their procedures around this new influx of technology every year. "Oh, what? Now I'm supposed to hand out netbooks and use a SMART board?" "Wait, what? Now you're taking away my Dells and giving me iPads the week before classes resume?"
Think about it from all sides. Until the powers that be (which includes the voting public) truly give a rat's ass about the education of the next generation; we're getting exactly what we've asked for.
Many a day the notion of parking an Airstream alongside some gorgeous lake in Alaska crosses my mind.
Of course, those daydreams also involve me waxing philosophic while spinning deep cuts of great jazz and wondering how I'm going to get the cute pilot to stop wasting her time with the resident neurotic town MD...
When Apple is ready, XCode will be released for other platforms; much like Openstep Solaris and Enterprise. Perhaps (as amRadioHead suggested), iOS development will take place in the cloud (think of the control that would give Apple in development...), or perhaps we'll see "development boxes" specific for development. Who knows.
The point is, saying that Macs are central is a bit of a stretch. I think Apple's ultimate goal is more iOS in the palm of your hand and an iOS/OS X hybrid in a Macbook Air form factor. Do desktops and full OS laptops really play a part in a company that killed off their enterprise servers and haven't even bothered to mention a server version of their next major OS?
I think not.
I'm thinking that Apple is gearing up to become a consumer appliance company -- which sucks, because I happen to really like OS X (and I also make a living as a Mac sysadmin for a public school district). I'm afraid that the Mac is becoming the Apple II of today's Apple.
1. Your Mac Pro or iMac. 2. Your/significant other's macbook 3. Your system at work. 4 & 5: backups for when you forget (or are unable) to disable before you reinstall one of the above.
I'm far from defending it and I think it has a lot to do with an antiquated view of media ownership and hardware placement. I personally wish ICU handled app deployment, then I could ditch iTunes altogether. Apple appears to prefer that I view/listen to my media on their devices, not my workstation. I prefer to "share" media with my devices and keep it where it belongs, on my server (read: available everywhere I go).
For what it's worth, my workstation at home is also my DAW. I have a lot of money invested in pro studio quality monitors, D/A converters, power amps, etc... I don't want to sync audio to other devices and I don't want playlists (yeah, I'm weird that way. I like to walk over to ny virtual LP rack, pick an album and actually listen to it). Thankfully, I have Cog for my audio consumption. iTunes gets no use at all outside of my MBP for apps, podcasts, TTC lectures and a handful of weekly albums for the gym on the iPad/iPod Touch.
Sorry, long rant when weighing in on a single topic. Blame the sunday morning coffee...
is the game I've been playing lately, although I have been suckered into the expansion: VPN: Peerstone of the Kingdom. The odd thing? Not only has it boosted my career, my employers actively support my playing it!
For anyone that thinks WOW and the ilk are nothing more than task missions and time sinks, I laugh at your assessment. You do not know grinding until you've played the entire 12 hour bug hunting mission in one sitting and then jumped straight into the chaotic and twist riddled OD: The Binding campaign (spoiler: It turns out that OD was merely a henchman to the evil, bastard AD!).
So many people don't get this part of the argument.
I contract with a good sized school district (14k + machines), building out the Mac (1500 or so) deployment/support mechanism. I'd (and many instructors) would love to see an introduction of Linux and BSD systems in certain labs and for certain classes. However, those that sit in higher chairs have pulled out the Iron Glove of "No!".
As it stands, even moving forward with a proper Mac deployment/support structure has been a struggle that owes most of its success to the history of Mac support in the district (a combination of the fact that it was outsourced for years and that there is a giant unified voice requesting more devices). In many situations, I've brought FOSS projects to the table for specific projects and have been resolutely shut down.
If the powers that be had their ultimate say, every system in the district would run Windows XP only and those systems would be completely locked down, spending 90% of their time running McAfee and ten percent of their time denying user needs... Introduce Linux in a lab/classroom? Ha! The only way I can even have a Linux server is within a VM sandboxed away for testing on my primary workstation.
Out of curiosity, why would you install ARD on every workstation? If you need screen access within a group, there's screen sharing built in.
The problem I've seen so far is that many people who use ARD don't actually need ARD or don't get what it's real strengths actually are. When you're relying on ARD to monitor what's happening on the screen, or are attempting to do something that is quickly achieved by SSH'ing into the box... well, you're doing it wrong.
In our organization, a handful (I think around 10) unlimited ARD licenses are kept. Certain people that actually need to use them get them. If I step back into this role, I'll have two available to me --- one for the Mac Pro and another for a laptop. Personally, I think that's overkill, but it is, at least, convenient.
If there are more than fifty Macs on the network, I believe it's time to justify the cost of ARD to the brass. Once you hit the volume I'll be dealing with (1k+ workstations), it's not even in question. ARD is not a deployment tool, though. It can be a very useful tool for ad hoc package deployment and if I were to be using groups of location (and task) specific workstations updated via Radmind, it would be a very useful tool for updating the source box.
Which might happen... but I'm still leaning more toward DS.
How large? Currently, the network houses roughly 1k Macs. The windows side is much larger. Which brings us to your next questions...
Last year, I was brought in to put together a stop gap solution. Essentially, armed with a nonexistent budget, an old G4 Xserver found in a closet and a new iMac, we made the switch from 1:1 firewire image cloning to 24:1 (I had a spare 24 port gigabit switch at home that I brought in) via Netrestore. It was better than we started with, but still clumsy at best.
Overall, Macs have been overlooked and discounted by the existing staff as not worth learning despite the large financial investment that has been made over the years to introduce the systems to the network. Adding frustration, until quite recently, they have been supported by short term, low paid staff in an ad hoc department. As of a few months ago, the MIS department was directed to absorb the care of the Macs along with their Windows boxes.
Guess what? There 'aint no Ghost, boys. The run it, break it, reimage it doesn't work the way they're accustomed to. Furthermore, these thousand odd workstations are spaced over thirty odd remote locations. Can I get an amen?
Unfortunately, my suggestion from last year of sending at least two of the MIS techs to Apple to be trained apparently fell on deaf ears, because I've been asked if I would be interested in coming back and writing the deployment policy from the ground up and bringing the MIS department up to speed in doing so.
On my last visit to this project, I was looking into both Radmind and Deploystudio as more robust, permanent fixes. Which is really why I threw the topic on the table. I was curious as to gauge the overall suggestion (and supporting arguments) mixed between DS, RM and Jamf IS. As these systems are used in small clusters of like groups, the need for modular packages is obvious. I'm personally leaning toward Deploystudio for automation and ARD for more immediate hands on control as needed -- but, again, I was curious to see what the consensus would return.
Oh, yeah... I forgot to add the fun part. It looks like there's a two month window to make it all happen.:D
There's this hotel... well, no. A LAUNDROMAT! And this guy is hired as a caretaker over... uhm... SPRING BREAK! So he and his family move into the apartment upstairs and instead of focusing on finishing his blog, he winds up in wacky adventures with ghosts from a tragic accident on a GGW video, four kids and a dog.
The whole thing ends up with a guy in a coyboy hat fighting off a giant sewer spider while a couple of old insomniacs are making out in a parking lot.
My agent tells me it's a winner. I'm personally leaning towards selling the concept straight to Syfy as a miniseries instead of dealing with the whole blah...blah...blah... writing thing.
I say this due to the fact that I'm about to go and see my grandmother for her 94th birthday and am currently reminded that no matter hold old you get, grandmothers rock.
As for you, SpectreBlofeld... be nicer to your grandma. If the Mac memory shock doesn't effect you, she should never even know about it.
...and not donwloading and installing every random application you see will generally keep any Windows system running along just fine.
You know... I have a problem with that statement. That's half of the fun of using a computer; trying out new stuff. It always has been and always will be.
Of course, the other half is tied between fixing what you've broken or learning to do the first half without breaking it at all.
My mobo is a couple of years old (MSI K9n), I currently choose first SATA for Debian, second for OS X and third for 2k8 Server.
The others are all data (which OS X and 2k8 share) and finally an external USB which houses music and tunes.
I keep thinking about swappable bays, switching ideas (like this one), etc... and always come back to the conclusion that it's already working just fine.
Not to mention, it looks a bit confusing to anyone who would try and boot my system... you know, extra security through obfuscation.;D
Pick up a UltraSparc IV+, install Solaris run BeOS inside a VM and load Sweet16 so that you can use AppleWorks to handle your spreadsheet, database and word processing needs (remember to configure at least 1 MB of RAM to get all of the zippy, tasty goodness out of AW!).
Also useful will be a TCP/IP stack for GS/OS so that you can access your properly configured BeOS network stack to pass off necessary bits via VMWare to Solaris so that you can utilize telnet to access a jailed telnet server to route communications to an SSH client on Solaris so that you can utilize PINE for email and Links2.
Should be pretty solid.
You can bypass the screenshots and just shoot some polaroids, or dust off that old betamax camera and post some converted video to animated GIFs to your local Fido node... or Usenet if you're really keeping up to date.;D
I was recently asked to setup several prototypes (Moodle, eGroupware and eTicket) at work. After a week or so, Moodle migrated to a VM down at county office and Joomla was installed as a front end for the other two. A week later, my desktop (iMac) was pulled away (I work for a school district, it happens), so I'm now based off my dev box -- first thing I did was install Xorg, WMII, GPM and MC. Everything I need for a "desktop" environment in a place where no sane desktop environment should exist: a server.
MC is fantastic, glad to know it's getting some love again.
That said, your line about a 'better unix' is just trash. Linux is a much better *nix, in just about every way. The Macs are great for providing a fairly sane and stable system in a package with well-supported hardware and a UI that 'joe and gramma' can use without too much handholding, but at the command line level it's missing a lot of stuff that on any other *nix system would be taken for granted - it's clunky and frankly just not intended to be used that way.
You do know that OS X is Unix, right? Certified, verified and labeled as of 10.5. So, no, Linux is not a better *nix than OS X, Linux is your preferred operating platform as compared to Apple's flavor of Unix.
As for "missing" particular tools that you rely upon, well... I can sympathize there. But, in truth it's really just a matter of preferences. I like the way that Terminator behaves on Linux than on OS X. I also miss htop in place of top. But, again, those are preferences. For the most part, almost anything you need is invokable (with a quick apt-get/port), scriptable or buildable via source.
I support all the Macs in a (rather large) school district and, with the exception of ARD for package management and ASR for system imaging, rely more on my Linux laptop than I do Leopard Server. But, that's because I can use my laptop in the field. Most of what I really have to do involves SSH anyhow, and I'm finding that there's a certain amount of charm to my 24" iMac w/ 9 virtuals via spaces with terminals tiled all over the place.
Anyhow, please stop the fud. Most any *nix app you need is available on OS X and, if it isn't, you can always roll your sleeves up and either compile or port it yourself. All the tools necessary are readily available.
Actually, my personal preference would be a BSD girl who's a shell slinging CLI junkie with a penchant for wearing fishnets while figuring out exciting and unique cron jobs.
The above "love" comment was simply directed towards someone who remembers how wildly cool Infocom really was. Same as I'd offer love to anyone who understands that Blues to Elvin is the quintessential jazz cut, Last Rights was Skinny Puppy's finest album and that Francis Bacon's word was brilliant beyond creepy.
Of course, you're right. I am pathetic, which is why I'm sitting here typing this over a Guinness before I head out for an evening of conversational debauchery and musical madness.
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They run the full spectrum. K-12.
We have a large scale K-2 program where the iPads are used in center-based learning. We have carts used for shared classes and we also have 1:1 deployments. Students don't take the devices home (which buffers the percentages quite a bit, I realize).
I wasn't really tossing the original comment in as any kind of "fact"; just anecdotal observation. Most of our kids come from economically challenged families -- and most of our instructors are exceptionally dedicated to their vocation. Student success rates, fiscal responsibility, best tool for the job and proper direction of education in public schools kept from this conversation; we just happen to have above average treatment of technology in the classroom.
...actually, the adults I'm referring to are mostly administrators (the kind that haven't seen a classroom in twenty years and twisted funding to acquire an iPad to go along with their desktop, laptop and smartphone...).
I've found both classroom instructors and students to be careful with equipment (I'm the Apple sys-admin, I really don't deal with the Windows side of the house -- so my exposure to the Dells (netbooks, laptops and desktops) is non-existant in my day to day operations).
Primarily, when I hear about an adult breaking or "losing" an iPad; it's dropping it as they get out of the car, loss at the gym/hair salon/grocery store, etc... not an instructor.
Funny thing...
I've deployed around two thousand iPads in our district (and another 500 or so iPod Touches). 1700 (iPads and iTouches) or so to students, another 800 or so to admin/faculty.
Theft of device:
Students: 2.
Faculty/Staff: > 15.
Physical breakage (screen, headphone jack, etc...).
Students: 3.
Faculty Staff: > 20
Students have had devices for nearly three years. Adults, for about eighteen months.
Kids take care of the devices better than the adults (at least in our environment); weird, but there you go...
By and large, teachers are not a bright lot.
Actually, in my experience, the teachers appear to be just fine; it's the administrators that are the muddled bunch. Granted, that might have something to do with those above them (could well be); but it appears that the further you get from the classroom, the farther you get from the whole point of education -- and by this I mean both in the educational field as well as outside (post-graduation, get a job, have kids, expect someone else to raise them...).
It's one of the reasons that I refuse to live by the sysadmin adage of "a good sysadmin never need be in the field". I'd rather be in the field, it reminds me of why I have the job I do, who it is I (ultimately) work for and what the point of it all is.
Perhaps we'd be better without constantly chasing technology into the classroom for the sake of modernization (personally, I agree -- much as a smoker, I agree with banning the sale of tobacco products completely, it sounds hypocritical, considering my profession, but there you go); but until that happens someone from up above keeps making the decision to spend the money on this shiny crap. It's not the teachers. And its those teachers that are forced to re-evaluate their procedures around this new influx of technology every year. "Oh, what? Now I'm supposed to hand out netbooks and use a SMART board?" "Wait, what? Now you're taking away my Dells and giving me iPads the week before classes resume?"
Think about it from all sides. Until the powers that be (which includes the voting public) truly give a rat's ass about the education of the next generation; we're getting exactly what we've asked for.
sussudio?
Many a day the notion of parking an Airstream alongside some gorgeous lake in Alaska crosses my mind.
Of course, those daydreams also involve me waxing philosophic while spinning deep cuts of great jazz and wondering how I'm going to get the cute pilot to stop wasting her time with the resident neurotic town MD...
When Apple is ready, XCode will be released for other platforms; much like Openstep Solaris and Enterprise. Perhaps (as amRadioHead suggested), iOS development will take place in the cloud (think of the control that would give Apple in development...), or perhaps we'll see "development boxes" specific for development. Who knows.
The point is, saying that Macs are central is a bit of a stretch. I think Apple's ultimate goal is more iOS in the palm of your hand and an iOS/OS X hybrid in a Macbook Air form factor. Do desktops and full OS laptops really play a part in a company that killed off their enterprise servers and haven't even bothered to mention a server version of their next major OS?
I think not.
I'm thinking that Apple is gearing up to become a consumer appliance company -- which sucks, because I happen to really like OS X (and I also make a living as a Mac sysadmin for a public school district). I'm afraid that the Mac is becoming the Apple II of today's Apple.
You, sir, are an enemy of the people.
Please don't speak on this subject again.
I've asked the question myself so many times.
My guess (as worthless as it is) is this....
1. Your Mac Pro or iMac.
2. Your/significant other's macbook
3. Your system at work.
4 & 5: backups for when you forget (or are unable) to disable before you reinstall one of the above.
I'm far from defending it and I think it has a lot to do with an antiquated view of media ownership and hardware placement. I personally wish ICU handled app deployment, then I could ditch iTunes altogether. Apple appears to prefer that I view/listen to my media on their devices, not my workstation. I prefer to "share" media with my devices and keep it where it belongs, on my server (read: available everywhere I go).
For what it's worth, my workstation at home is also my DAW. I have a lot of money invested in pro studio quality monitors, D/A converters, power amps, etc... I don't want to sync audio to other devices and I don't want playlists (yeah, I'm weird that way. I like to walk over to ny virtual LP rack, pick an album and actually listen to it). Thankfully, I have Cog for my audio consumption. iTunes gets no use at all outside of my MBP for apps, podcasts, TTC lectures and a handful of weekly albums for the gym on the iPad/iPod Touch.
Sorry, long rant when weighing in on a single topic. Blame the sunday morning coffee...
You've never deployed a crate of iPods, iPads or a mass of iMacs or Powerbooks I take it.
Good for the purse, the same old pain for the back end crowd. Of course, Apple has no interest in Enterprise, so my point (n their eyes) is moot.
is the game I've been playing lately, although I have been suckered into the expansion: VPN: Peerstone of the Kingdom. The odd thing? Not only has it boosted my career, my employers actively support my playing it!
For anyone that thinks WOW and the ilk are nothing more than task missions and time sinks, I laugh at your assessment. You do not know grinding until you've played the entire 12 hour bug hunting mission in one sitting and then jumped straight into the chaotic and twist riddled OD: The Binding campaign (spoiler: It turns out that OD was merely a henchman to the evil, bastard AD!).
Thank you.
So many people don't get this part of the argument.
I contract with a good sized school district (14k + machines), building out the Mac (1500 or so) deployment/support mechanism. I'd (and many instructors) would love to see an introduction of Linux and BSD systems in certain labs and for certain classes. However, those that sit in higher chairs have pulled out the Iron Glove of "No!".
As it stands, even moving forward with a proper Mac deployment/support structure has been a struggle that owes most of its success to the history of Mac support in the district (a combination of the fact that it was outsourced for years and that there is a giant unified voice requesting more devices). In many situations, I've brought FOSS projects to the table for specific projects and have been resolutely shut down.
If the powers that be had their ultimate say, every system in the district would run Windows XP only and those systems would be completely locked down, spending 90% of their time running McAfee and ten percent of their time denying user needs... Introduce Linux in a lab/classroom? Ha! The only way I can even have a Linux server is within a VM sandboxed away for testing on my primary workstation.
Out of curiosity, why would you install ARD on every workstation? If you need screen access within a group, there's screen sharing built in.
The problem I've seen so far is that many people who use ARD don't actually need ARD or don't get what it's real strengths actually are. When you're relying on ARD to monitor what's happening on the screen, or are attempting to do something that is quickly achieved by SSH'ing into the box... well, you're doing it wrong.
In our organization, a handful (I think around 10) unlimited ARD licenses are kept. Certain people that actually need to use them get them. If I step back into this role, I'll have two available to me --- one for the Mac Pro and another for a laptop. Personally, I think that's overkill, but it is, at least, convenient.
If there are more than fifty Macs on the network, I believe it's time to justify the cost of ARD to the brass. Once you hit the volume I'll be dealing with (1k+ workstations), it's not even in question. ARD is not a deployment tool, though. It can be a very useful tool for ad hoc package deployment and if I were to be using groups of location (and task) specific workstations updated via Radmind, it would be a very useful tool for updating the source box.
Which might happen... but I'm still leaning more toward DS.
Thanks for the questions.
How large? Currently, the network houses roughly 1k Macs. The windows side is much larger. Which brings us to your next questions...
Last year, I was brought in to put together a stop gap solution. Essentially, armed with a nonexistent budget, an old G4 Xserver found in a closet and a new iMac, we made the switch from 1:1 firewire image cloning to 24:1 (I had a spare 24 port gigabit switch at home that I brought in) via Netrestore. It was better than we started with, but still clumsy at best.
Overall, Macs have been overlooked and discounted by the existing staff as not worth learning despite the large financial investment that has been made over the years to introduce the systems to the network. Adding frustration, until quite recently, they have been supported by short term, low paid staff in an ad hoc department. As of a few months ago, the MIS department was directed to absorb the care of the Macs along with their Windows boxes.
Guess what? There 'aint no Ghost, boys. The run it, break it, reimage it doesn't work the way they're accustomed to. Furthermore, these thousand odd workstations are spaced over thirty odd remote locations. Can I get an amen?
Unfortunately, my suggestion from last year of sending at least two of the MIS techs to Apple to be trained apparently fell on deaf ears, because I've been asked if I would be interested in coming back and writing the deployment policy from the ground up and bringing the MIS department up to speed in doing so.
On my last visit to this project, I was looking into both Radmind and Deploystudio as more robust, permanent fixes. Which is really why I threw the topic on the table. I was curious as to gauge the overall suggestion (and supporting arguments) mixed between DS, RM and Jamf IS. As these systems are used in small clusters of like groups, the need for modular packages is obvious. I'm personally leaning toward Deploystudio for automation and ARD for more immediate hands on control as needed -- but, again, I was curious to see what the consensus would return.
Oh, yeah... I forgot to add the fun part. It looks like there's a two month window to make it all happen. :D
Or Gilligan's Island.
There's this hotel... well, no. A LAUNDROMAT! And this guy is hired as a caretaker over... uhm... SPRING BREAK! So he and his family move into the apartment upstairs and instead of focusing on finishing his blog, he winds up in wacky adventures with ghosts from a tragic accident on a GGW video, four kids and a dog.
The whole thing ends up with a guy in a coyboy hat fighting off a giant sewer spider while a couple of old insomniacs are making out in a parking lot.
My agent tells me it's a winner. I'm personally leaning towards selling the concept straight to Syfy as a miniseries instead of dealing with the whole blah...blah...blah... writing thing.
I say this due to the fact that I'm about to go and see my grandmother for her 94th birthday and am currently reminded that no matter hold old you get, grandmothers rock.
As for you, SpectreBlofeld... be nicer to your grandma. If the Mac memory shock doesn't effect you, she should never even know about it.
You know... I have a problem with that statement. That's half of the fun of using a computer; trying out new stuff. It always has been and always will be.
Of course, the other half is tied between fixing what you've broken or learning to do the first half without breaking it at all.
It is the word, after all.
My mobo is a couple of years old (MSI K9n), I currently choose first SATA for Debian, second for OS X and third for 2k8 Server.
The others are all data (which OS X and 2k8 share) and finally an external USB which houses music and tunes.
I keep thinking about swappable bays, switching ideas (like this one), etc... and always come back to the conclusion that it's already working just fine.
Not to mention, it looks a bit confusing to anyone who would try and boot my system... you know, extra security through obfuscation. ;D
Okay...
;D
Pick up a UltraSparc IV+, install Solaris run BeOS inside a VM and load Sweet16 so that you can use AppleWorks to handle your spreadsheet, database and word processing needs (remember to configure at least 1 MB of RAM to get all of the zippy, tasty goodness out of AW!).
Also useful will be a TCP/IP stack for GS/OS so that you can access your properly configured BeOS network stack to pass off necessary bits via VMWare to Solaris so that you can utilize telnet to access a jailed telnet server to route communications to an SSH client on Solaris so that you can utilize PINE for email and Links2.
Should be pretty solid.
You can bypass the screenshots and just shoot some polaroids, or dust off that old betamax camera and post some converted video to animated GIFs to your local Fido node... or Usenet if you're really keeping up to date.
Not just headless...
I was recently asked to setup several prototypes (Moodle, eGroupware and eTicket) at work. After a week or so, Moodle migrated to a VM down at county office and Joomla was installed as a front end for the other two. A week later, my desktop (iMac) was pulled away (I work for a school district, it happens), so I'm now based off my dev box -- first thing I did was install Xorg, WMII, GPM and MC. Everything I need for a "desktop" environment in a place where no sane desktop environment should exist: a server.
MC is fantastic, glad to know it's getting some love again.
You do know that OS X is Unix, right? Certified, verified and labeled as of 10.5. So, no, Linux is not a better *nix than OS X, Linux is your preferred operating platform as compared to Apple's flavor of Unix.
As for "missing" particular tools that you rely upon, well... I can sympathize there. But, in truth it's really just a matter of preferences. I like the way that Terminator behaves on Linux than on OS X. I also miss htop in place of top. But, again, those are preferences. For the most part, almost anything you need is invokable (with a quick apt-get/port), scriptable or buildable via source.
I support all the Macs in a (rather large) school district and, with the exception of ARD for package management and ASR for system imaging, rely more on my Linux laptop than I do Leopard Server. But, that's because I can use my laptop in the field. Most of what I really have to do involves SSH anyhow, and I'm finding that there's a certain amount of charm to my 24" iMac w/ 9 virtuals via spaces with terminals tiled all over the place.
Anyhow, please stop the fud. Most any *nix app you need is available on OS X and, if it isn't, you can always roll your sleeves up and either compile or port it yourself. All the tools necessary are readily available.
But, once and for all... OS X IS Unix.
Ugh... work, not world. Although, I think his world was must have been both creepy and brilliant as well.
Bad, bad, bad pint. Making me fingers type wonkiness.
Actually, my personal preference would be a BSD girl who's a shell slinging CLI junkie with a penchant for wearing fishnets while figuring out exciting and unique cron jobs.
The above "love" comment was simply directed towards someone who remembers how wildly cool Infocom really was. Same as I'd offer love to anyone who understands that Blues to Elvin is the quintessential jazz cut, Last Rights was Skinny Puppy's finest album and that Francis Bacon's word was brilliant beyond creepy.
Of course, you're right. I am pathetic, which is why I'm sitting here typing this over a Guinness before I head out for an evening of conversational debauchery and musical madness.
Thank Bob that pathetic suits me. =D