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MUCKYFINGERS

macrumors 6502a
Original poster
Jun 7, 2005
769
15
CA
with the beauty and simplicity of the aqua interface, why would anyone bother using unix?
 
I use terminal for programming and SSH into the school server for Web site updates all the time.

Some folks that are really good with a command-line interface, can totally smoke us GUI users in speed.

Plus there's alot of cool things you can do with Unix that you just can't do in a GUI.
 
oh yeah, i always ssh to check my work e-mail all the time. but other than that, i dont have any other use for terminal.
 
MUCKYFINGERS said:
oh yeah, i always ssh to check my work e-mail all the time. but other than that, i dont have any other use for terminal.
I have a number of utilities that come from linux that I use regularly, and a custom app from work that I ported over that runs in Terminal. I've also found running smblient from the command line to get me out of some Mac <-> XP network file sharing issues.

B
 
MUCKYFINGERS said:
with the beauty and simplicity of the aqua interface, why would anyone bother using unix?
Because there are a bunch of applications and services in OS X that are more accessible through the command-line. And believe it or not, there are a lot of coders out there much faster with the command-line than by moving the mouse around.
 
1. Cron scripts
2. copying/moving files between users home folders
3. editing .conf and .ini files (apache)
4. ssh, occasionally ftp
5. network testing (ping, ifconfig, host, etc)

Those are my top five, in that order. I love terminal.
 
Just for maintenance scripts every so often (okay, just once :p ). Most things in Terminal have had a GUI-based app developed for them. I love the Mac developer base, they're truly amazing. :)
 
Sometimes a GUI gets in the way of the beauty and simplicity of the command line :)
 
iMeowbot said:
Sometimes a GUI gets in the way of the beauty and simplicity of the command line :)


Agreed. But there's arguably less room for error with a GUI simply because it is less simple. In other words, it's slower which is a bad thing and a good thing because it also makes you think harder about what you're doing. Well, that's what I find anyway. :)
 
I use terminal quite a bit actually, mainly top and ssh, but occasionally for other things. Oh, and compiling and running Java (so much faster than using XCode).

mad jew said:
Agreed. But there's arguably less room for error with a GUI simply because it is less simple. In other words, it's slower which is a bad thing and a good thing because it also makes you think harder about what you're doing. Well, that's what I find anyway. :)

Error? What, just cause you can ruin your computer in a few keystrokes? ;)
 
Being a computational scientist I never not have the terminal open. I'm ssh'ing to supercomputers all over America checking on my code. Also writing and modifying code using Emacs. Believe it or not- text based interfaces are still the most powerful tools for many problems. I love OS X because I get the power of unix with the simplicity and beauty of the Aqua interface.
 
All the time!

I use the terminal, well actually X11 to run professional astronomy software e.g. IRAF - there's no other way to run it, unless someone wants to write me a GUI?!:rolleyes:
 
MUCKYFINGERS said:
with the beauty and simplicity of the aqua interface, why would anyone bother using unix?

MySQL commands. Testing and executing Perl scripts. Traditional UNIX utilities. All the things I used Linux for before switching!
 
MUCKYFINGERS said:
with the beauty and simplicity of the aqua interface, why would anyone bother using unix?

The fact OS X is a UNIX like OS is the reason I use it, if it wasn't I wouldn't use the OS at all.
 
I don't use Terminal though I know how useful it is to those you know the code. I can't help but always having this phobia that I could enter the wrong code and mess it up. Is that possible? :eek:
 
fayans said:
Is that possible? :eek:


Yes. :(

That's exactly what kept me away from it for years (well, months really). I was horrified by it but then I bought a second Mac and decided that I could use the first one for testing. Whilst the initial intimidation is justified (it's a very powerful tool), it can be very fun playing around with it all the same. With practice comes perfection... :p
 
anyone actually use terminal/unix for anything?

I use the command line all the time. In fact, my biggest complaint is that there is only a limited number of terminal windows that can be used--even at the maximum settings. I would really like to have about 200 terminal windows open, but somewhere around 50 they stop working.

I would also like a lot more user processes. The current ~2K/system and ~512/user is way too low. I can't even log on as myself remotely because of the ridiculously low limits so I have to set up a second ID for remote access. The limits should be something reasonable like 20K/system 10K/user and a few hundred psudo terminals.

The GUI is good for many applications, but the command line is just as important.
 
I use it for SSH and for X11 apps on the college of engineering's UNIX machine. Also, just general tinkering is always fun in the terminal. ~josh
 
jerry333 said:
I use the command line all the time. In fact, my biggest complaint is that there is only a limited number of terminal windows that can be used--even at the maximum settings. I would really like to have about 200 terminal windows open, but somewhere around 50 they stop working.

I would also like a lot more user processes. The current ~2K/system and ~512/user is way too low. I can't even log on as myself remotely because of the ridiculously low limits so I have to set up a second ID for remote access. The limits should be something reasonable like 20K/system 10K/user and a few hundred psudo terminals.

?! :eek:
 
uaaerospace said:
I use it for SSH and for X11 apps on the college of engineering's UNIX machine. Also, just general tinkering is always fun in the terminal. ~josh

Same here - when I work from home, I have a secure tunnel to my corporate network; ssh to my UNIX machines there. I'm usually more productive vs. working in the office on my Dell - it's hard to get anything done between SMS patch installations. :)
 
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