www.byzcath.org Forums General Discussions Geek Hall Gee, I bought a mac (again)

I was ambushed a couple of weeks ago in Frys.

How was I supposed to resist an $800 macbook?


I'm already developing a love-hate relationship. While the interface beats windows by a healthy margin, it's still lacks significant functionality I'm used to on unix.

But, wow, the battery life. And the display quality is what I came to expect from Apple . . .

This is my first mac since 1994 . . . and the least I've ever paid for on. ($2200 for the last one, a 33mhz Powerbook 180 with 4mb [which I expanded to a whopping 14] of ram and an 80 mb hard drive. And an amazing 4 bit gray-scale active matrix display).

If I can really adapt to the limitations, I'll probably get the 27" imac for my desk.

Lead me into temptation - I'd love to get the 27" job. Not that I don't love my MacBook Pro - I certainly do!

Fr. Serge

Which limitations do you mean relative to unix? Do you mean relative to the all open source pure unix/ linux approach?

Some stuff you'll find useful:

Your system disks should include an optional X11 installer. Install it, and unix apps for intel BSD should run as is; others will need a recompile.

The installer disks should also have the dev tools; if not, you can d/l them from apple. Includes the GNUCC.

http://winebottler.kronenberg.org/ runs WINE, in such a manner as to allow you to install Win apps in ways to launch them as if they were Mac apps. Also installs WINE. Not everything runs yet, but lots of stuff does.

In /applications/utilities is the terminal. there's your access to command-line apps.

either Fink or MacPorts can be installed to get a lot of the unix stuff going. Don't do both; it confuses them both.

And most linux/unix software these days has a mac port.

Aramis is right,

If you are used to Unix, then terminal will be your friend.

Your install disks will have the Dev Tools on them they are under Optional Installs.

Mac Ports is part of Mac OS Forge, you can get to it from here:

http://www.macosforge.org/

I'm trying macports, but it appears that I have to pay to be an apple developer to get access to the "free" download I need (xcode, or some such).

It's pretty clear at this point that I'm not going to be taking a pure mac solution. The dearth of keyboard accelerators, lack of focus follows mouse, and extra work for cut and paste are driving me nuts!

hawk

You can get the dev tools for free from apple; registration is required but was free. (The paid pro level gets you additional support features.)

Dev tools have been on every install set I've gotten from apple since 10.1; for 10.0, they were in a zip on the HD of the computer.

*sigh*

Yet more research time.

All I really *need* is pdf2ps (to make epsi that I can embed w/ openoffice).

I badly *want* to be running unix-style firefox & openoffice. Under kubuntu linux/kde, If I ctrl-click on a link to the ecf/pacer system documents that the court emails me, it opens with the adobe plugin in another tab; I can just flick through several and then save them. Under firefox/mac, ee thought I'm set to open in new tabs, cmd-click pops up an external window asking what to do with it, which in turn (when I hit save) pops up another window warning me that it's an internet script (w. no option to ignore this from this site and just do it in the future), and then pops a screen in front of me, which must be moved aside, and then I must click yet again i the original window to regain focus.