differences between linux and Mac OS X?

[twoodcc]

i am not trying to start a war between which is better or whatever.

i know linux has come a long way in the last few years, and it seems to me that linux and Leopard are very similar.

now, the reason i am even asking this question is this: i could use Leopard without ever touching the terminal, and would usually be just fine. but i feel that in order to expand my overall computing abilities, it would be good to learn to use the command line more.

now, after saying that, how do some of you use the command line and the rest of Leopard together?

and, would it help me to learn better by installing some form of linux and using that?

 

[Eidorian]

OS X has a more refined selection when it comes to applications. This is even true with freeware/open source software.

I have to edit plenty of files in the wonderful world of UNIX system folders. It's much easier to manage the system using the command line in my opinion. I'm not talking about System Preferences but I don't really trust some GUI magic when I can enter my own arguments and numbers.

 

[twoodcc]

OS X has a more refined selection when it comes to applications. This is even true with freeware/open source software.

I have to edit plenty of files in the wonderful world of UNIX system folders. It's much easier to manage the system using the command line in my opinion. I'm not talking about System Preferences but I don't really trust some GUI magic when I can enter my own arguments and numbers.

thanks for the reply. i can do some basic commands in terminal, and have even been experimenting with shell scripts.

have you used linux recently? or do you think you can do everything that you can in linux in leopard's terminal?

 

[twoodcc]

well i am now using ubuntu on my macbook air right now. and the fans aren't on will surfing the Internet!

 

[andreab35]

Wirelessly posted (iPhone: Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; U; CPU iPhone OS 2_1 like Mac OS X; en-us) AppleWebKit/525.18.1 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/3.1.1 Mobile/5F136 Safari/525.20)

And you can't forget it's free!
You can also modify Linux to look like a Mac with Mac4Lin. You can find it when you google it. It's pretty neat!
But for me with Linux, it's pretty speedy which is what I like. However, I do not like the interface. I think OS X has a cleaner, brighter, and more crisp interface.

 

[chagla]

if you want:

latest and the greatest, bells and whistles, best looking linux > Opensuse http://en.opensuse.org
rock solid, stable, slightly older packages > Debian http://debian.org
hardcore geek > slackware. http://slackware.com

 

[hankolerd]

do you think you can do everything that you can in linux in leopard's terminal?

Pretty much. The one main one I can think of is apt-get. As far as I know there isn't an equivalent in Leopard, if there is let me know. But they are both Unix systems, so they operate very similarly.

 

[jzuena]

Pretty much. The one main one I can think of is apt-get. As far as I know there isn't an equivalent in Leopard, if there is let me know. But they are both Unix systems, so they operate very similarly.

Fink is an OS X equivalent of apt... it even has an /etc/apt directory. And MacPorts is an OS X equivalent of BSD ports.

Technically Leopard is UNIX (it is a certified Posix UNIX operating system) but Linux (and older versions of OS X) are not.

 

[twoodcc]

Fink is an OS X equivalent of apt... it even has an /etc/apt directory. And MacPorts is an OS X equivalent of BSD ports.

Technically Leopard is UNIX (it is a certified Posix UNIX operating system) but Linux (and older versions of OS X) are not.

oh, i didn't realize that Linux was not UNIX certified. interesting.

 

[detz]

I love MacOS because it gives me a nice clean consistent UI while working with major apps. If I had a dollar for every time I had to fiddle with Flash or stupid cups in Linux... Now that MacOS is based on Unix and I can use the command line for anything I see no need to go back to Linux, all though my work machine will stay Fedora(for now)

 

[QuantumLo0p]

IMO, one is ready for prime time and one isn't.

 

[notjustjay]

IMO, one is ready for prime time and one isn't.

Well, hopefully Snow Leopard will make things a little better.

 

[jodelli]

When we were discussing Terminal I mentioned to one of the local Mac User Group execs that I played around with the Linux terminal because if I screwed up its OS it was no big deal.
I wouldn't do something like that in the OS X terminal for fear of messing up the Mac interface. Other than proven commands and work arounds posted elsewhere.

One time I didn't 'exit' the Linux terminal before rebooting into OSX. The blue screen started up, and then lines of code started scrolling, including something to the effect of 'Darwin cannot execute the previous code'.

Didn't think this would happen as a restart should clear the ram.

 

[twoodcc]

I love MacOS because it gives me a nice clean consistent UI while working with major apps. If I had a dollar for every time I had to fiddle with Flash or stupid cups in Linux... Now that MacOS is based on Unix and I can use the command line for anything I see no need to go back to Linux, all though my work machine will stay Fedora(for now)

interesting. thanks for the reply. this tells me that you can basically do anything in leopard that you can in linux.