[ale] OSX

[Dow Hurst]

My co-worker has a one of the pretty laptops.  I've had a chance to use 
it and was impressed.  Once your in the shell you can do what you need. 
 I asked a developer and found out that most open source apps will 
compile and run.  It is BSD with a pretty UI on top.  Apple was smart in 
piggy backing.  I would say the long battery life and solid design make 
it worthwhile.  Remapping a few keys won't hurt for all the benefits. 
 The laptop I worked on had wireless which worked flawlessly with the 
KSU campus network on the first try.  We just pushed the button to turn 
on the Airport function and wham! the guy was DHCP'd into Net freedom. 
 I haven't looked at the security side of the equation.  You would need 
to research that.  I would approach the laptop from a BSD perspective 
rather than a Mac OSX perspective when researching questions and apps.
Dow


Tom Cross wrote:

>Is there anyone on this list who has taken on OSX? 
>
>I'm interested in getting a real critical view of the platform from a UNIX 
>person. Most of what I've seen is marketing hype, happy reviews from 
>"mac people," or people who may be trying to convince themselves that 
>their expensive investment was really worth while. Few authors are willing 
>to gripe about it. It CAN'T be THAT perfect. 
>
>I must say on the surface the idea of having a system that is a reasonable 
>desktop environment AND a reasonable server environment is really 
>attractive. (Please don't bother trolling about Gnome.)
>
>However, when I look at MacOS carefully there are all kinds of red flags. 
>There is no package management system, no service shutdown facility, no 
>second (third?) mouse button... All of these things have work arounds, 
>but if they are missing all of these things, then I have to wonder what 
>ELSE are they missing? 
>
>I guess the biggest red light is the keyboard on the laptops. (I don't 
>use desktops. I'm not a gamer, so who needs a UI that you can't carry into 
>the kitchen?) The escape key is half sized. Obviously these people don't 
>use vi. Yes, you CAN remap it, but what is this telling me? Their keyboard 
>design is fundamentally BAD for UNIX. What else am I likely to find when 
>I dig deeper?  
>
>Can I get real UNIX work done on this machine, or am I going to spend more 
>time fiddling with it and "working around" then actually working?
>
>  
>
>
>
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-- 
__________________________________________________________
Dow Hurst                  Office: 770-499-3428
Systems Support Specialist    Fax: 770-423-6744
1000 Chastain Rd., Bldg. 12
Chemistry Department SC428  Email:dhurst at kennesaw.edu
Kennesaw State University         Dow.Hurst at mindspring.com
Kennesaw, GA 30144
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