You a *nix lover?

[xineizer]

Geek time...

I guess with OS X all over the place and OS 9 in the background... are most of us really into the Unix/Linux environment already? If you've used various flavors of Unix or Unix-like environments... how would you rank them?

For me:

Server side:

1. Sun Solaris
2. IBM AIX
3. HP-UX
4. FreeBSD
5. Linux

Client side:

1. Apple Mac OS X
2. FreeBSD
3. RedHat Linux
4. Mandrake Linux
5. SuSe Linux
6. Slackware Linux

[ginoledesma]

Solaris. My my, I wonder why? :lol: As for me...

Server-side:
1. Linux
2. Mac OS X Server
3. FreeBSD


Client-side
2. Mac OS X
1. Linux
3. FreeBSD

[Adel]

Here I go bravely sticking my head into the rarefied air of The Geek Room:

Pardon the questions of this dummy.

I'm an armchair *nix student. I have books that I read and experiment with on Terminal. But that's like wading on the beach. I eventually want to swim past the sandbar.

I once loaded Red Hat Linux onto a PC and tinkered with it on a command-line level there, and remembered with fondness a younger me grappling with, and learning, the basics of CP/M on my old Apple ][+. That was a good, pleasant time, because back then my frustration levels were very high, and I was young, naive and hopeful.

I would like to try Unix on a Mac and study using it on one, and to try out available GUI front ends and apps for it.

Where can I download or purchase installers (or 'distros' I believe you call them) for Macs? What are the current versions, and which are good for beginners like me? Can I install it alongside OS X, or do I need a clean, clear system or a partition?

Be nice, now.

[mgd]

I think OSX (Darwin) constitutes as a Unix flavor/variant. IIRC, Apple used NetBSD as a reference system. Fire up the Terminal and most *nix commands will work (at least the ones I use often). I notice that top is different on OSX as compared to Linux (RH/Mandrake/Debian). I think it's a BSD thing. Nowadays, I just use the Terminal for sftp, ssh and the occasional ping, traceroute and chmod, all built into OSX.

If you want to try linux, Yellow Dog is a distribution (distro) made for the PowerPC chip. I believe you'll need a separate partition. In any case, it'd be a good move. Keeps things neater.

The one of fun things about linux is that almost all the Window Managers and Desktops out there run on it. Talk about customizing your desktop! Personal faves are Fluxbox, xfce, and windowmaker. Lightweight and slick . KDE and Gnome are really sophisticated desktops (they have Aqua themes too ).

Check out The Fink Project for more open source apps that you can run on OSX. Andami! :drunk:

Ok, this reply is long. Sorry, got nostalgic

Originally posted by Adel

I would like to try Unix on a Mac and study using it on one, and to try out available GUI front ends and apps for it.

Where can I download or purchase installers (or 'distros' I believe you call them) for Macs? What are the current versions, and which are good for beginners like me? Can I install it alongside OS X, or do I need a clean, clear system or a partition?

Be nice, now.

[berniej]

I'm a sort of a closet *nix lover... I've been pushing the use of Linux in our office and so far has succeeded in setting up a RH9 caching DNS server -- the first in our network. We however have several Sun servers but I have not had a chance to tinker with it(yet). Our Big Iron (an IBM Mainframe) is also running some UNIX service (such as ftp and telnet) but I wouldn't touch that behemoth with a ten foot pole -- mahirap na, I might screw up our ATM & Tellering network.

[Edited on 4-15-2004 by berniej]

[xineizer]

Originally posted by Adel
Pardon the questions of this dummy.

Dummy?!? Where's the dummy? I don't see any... :beer:

Can I install it alongside OS X, or do I need a clean, clear system or a partition?

If you're planning to really play around with Linux or other flavors on your Mac, then I would suggest that you have a separate partition for it. Many are saying that why even bother with Linux on a Mac considering OS X already has FreeBSD/NetBSD as its backend. You can even compile open source applications on OS X using GCC.

So....

Keep your OS X on the Mac and you can play around with its Unix backend via Terminal. Then, you can try out the various flavors of Linux, FreeBSD, NetBSD, OpenBSD, etc.. on the PC.

Even more... you interested in giving Solaris x86 a go? hehehe.. :lol:

[ginoledesma]

Side-Topic: Mac OS X and BSD

Mac OS X, when it was first called Rhapsody, was based on BSD Lite2 4.4 and the Mach 3.0 (OSFMK73) microkernel. When Mac OS X Server was first released, it borrowed heavily from FreeBSD 3.2. When Mac OS X (client) came out, it again borrowed heavily from FreeBSD but this time for the "userland" (or user-space) programs. So basically, Mac OS X at its core borrows from 4.4BSD and FreeBSD 3.2. Mac OS X 10.3 (Panther) comes with a lot of the features from the state-of-the-art FreeBSD 5 release.

While the *BSD projects (OpenBSD, FreeBSD, and NetBSD) are all related to each other, they all have their own specific goals and philosophies. Mac OS X is essentially FreeBSD and farther away from the other two.

On Topic

As much as I'm a Linux advocate, I just don't see the practicality of running Linux on a newer generation Mac other than if you're serious about it for the following reasons:
- Its much cheaper, more performant, and easier when installed on a PC
- Several graphical driver issues with later generation Macs -- sometimes no acceleration
- Mac OS X is "more than enough" to get people up-to-speed on basic Unix/Linux

The one thing with the FreeBSD core that I find a bit different is that it uses the BSD release of several popular Unix tools. I've grown quite fond of GNU's version of those tools. While they basically do the same thing, the GNU release tends to be much more feature-packed. Examples of these tools are ls (to list files), mv (to move files), rm (to delete files), date (to set/get the date with formatting options), top (to monitor performance), etc.

If you just want to venture around Linux/Unix, I say stick with Mac OS X , have the Developer's Tools and BSD base system installed, and then install Fink. Fink gives you access to several Unix applications that have been ported to Mac OS X. It resides in a separate folder within your hard drive, so it makes it easy to install. Plus, Fink allows you to install the GNU version of Unix utilities, which I find "essential."

[directX]

Server:
1. Linux
2. FreeBSD
3. Irix
4. Solaris
5. AIX
6. HP-UX

Tried all of the above on the workstation as well but add Mac OS X to it and I'd say, Mac OS X beats them all.

I am checking out Linspire's LindowsOS and it seems to be promising, at least for the 'ordinary' desktop user.

[Eric]

Originally posted by Adel
Where can I download or purchase installers (or 'distros' I believe you call them) for Macs? What are the current versions, and which are good for beginners like me? Can I install it alongside OS X, or do I need a clean, clear system or a partition?

Be nice, now.

I have a copy of Yellow Dog Linux lying around here somewhere. I believe its version 3.0 (Kernel 2.4.20) w/c includes over a thousand packages including Mozilla, Konqueror, OpenOffice, GIMP, PostgreSQL, MySQL, Gaim, etc. It even has Mac-On-Linux and detects your Airport card automatically. If I find it, I'd be glad to provide you a copy. Bought it direct from TerraSoft, so it'd be sure to work. No need to download and burn to cd's. Haven't tried installing it on my Macs yet though. You'll be my guinea pig. :evil:

You can check out the details here. Its even better than Red Hat 9 according to this dude here

Eric

[Edited on 4-16-2004 by Eric]

[Adel]

Originally posted by Eric
No need to download and burn to cd's. Haven't tried installing it on my Macs yet though. You'll be my guinea pig. :evil:

Hulog ka ng langit, kapitbahay!