Comments on: 8 things Mac OS could do better

By: Zak Mandhro

Zak Mandhro — Sun, 04 May 2008 13:29:58 +0000

The other way around:
“Switching From OS X to Ubuntu: 10 Things I Miss”
http://www.starryhope.com/tech/2007/switching-from-os-x-to-ubuntu-ten-things-i-miss/

By: Zak Mandhro

Zak Mandhro — Sat, 03 May 2008 15:12:57 +0000

See http://www.nabble.com/Inkscape-native-Mac-OS-X-build—look-improvements-td14733036.html for an update on Inkscape native UI for Mac OS.

By: Zak Mandhro

Zak Mandhro — Sat, 03 May 2008 12:57:46 +0000

It’s May 2008, and I finally have Java 6 on my Mac. I’m not holding my breath for Java 7.

Carl: Thanks for the great tip! Regarding X11, I am running Leopard and X11 is just as bad. I am glad they moved to Xorg, but the Mac OS graphical shell is still not integrated with X11.

By: Carl Williams

Carl Williams — Wed, 30 Apr 2008 15:18:21 +0000

re: the startup scripts, the startup and shutdown scripts on my version of OS X (10.4.xx) look for and, if they’re present, run /etc/rc.local and /etc/rc.shutdown.local, so if you want you can drop in shell scripts like the ones on SysV systemsto scan through scripts in an rc directory and run them in order according to name. (You could replace /etc/rc and /etc/rc.shutdown, but these might be altered by software updates)

There are no runlevels on a BSD based system like Mac OS X, so no point in SysV’s multiple rc directories.

I think the X11 issue is being worked on – OS X 10.5 (leopard) has a different X11 implementation based on Xorg rather than XFree86, though it was a bit buggy at release. (Not tried it personally – I’m using 10.4)

By: Tom

Tom — Sun, 30 Dec 2007 18:31:58 +0000

Go back to linux.

By: M0les

M0les — Sat, 04 Aug 2007 14:33:45 +0000

Hear hear!
I especially am peeved by the X11 situation. Just look at how well Cygwin’s X11 can work under Win32 (Hide that root window!).

By: Zak Mandhro

Zak Mandhro — Sat, 21 Jul 2007 19:26:14 +0000

Thanks Jonathan, I am using fink, which also provides apt-get. The problem is that the repositories are very limited and the X11 applications don’t work very well on Mac. On a positive note, I accidentally typed “sudo apt-get install graphviz” on my Mac, thinking I was on my Ubuntu ssh, and voila, it just worked!

I love QuickSilver; I haven’t seen my Dock in months! :) I will try some of the other apps you recommended.

By: Jonathan Andrew Wolter

Jonathan Andrew Wolter — Sat, 21 Jul 2007 03:25:50 +0000

Zak,

Several good points you have. For a better package management system, have you looked at Fink Commander? It’s like Synaptic, but for the Fink repositories (which may be built on macports, my knowledge is shallow here.)

Also, I’ve grown to like Safari for it’s speed and reliability. Firefox is always loaded down for me with plugins and development tools… plus it’s a memory hog and slightly unstable in my configuration. And with the iPhone Safari platform, I don’t think we’ll see it going away any time soon.

Several other programs have greatly helped me: QuickSilver, OmniFocus (alpha), OmniGraffle, Fink Commander, DoubleCommand Preference Pane, a slick Microsoft natural ergonomic keyboard 4000, SuperDuper, Adium, pdfpen, pdfview, chm viewers (xchm?), App Delete, Colloquy, write room, and vmware fusion.

Good luck,