[kooBi]

Those of us that are new to Unix and command-line interfaces in general are faced with a dichotomous future, especially those of us that have traditionally used third-party solutions, and a little light tweaking to get the most out of our machines. Mac OS X, as we have seen, has opened up a world of opportunities in terms of the manipulation of our machines - opportunities that for many of us simply didn't exist. Granted, the CLI has a steep learning curve, but once learnt, it is actually quicker than doing everything "the long way". Learning CLI commands can lead to an interest in programming, and other areas such as compling applications or porting apps to the new OS. The point I'm trying to get at is, to be 'good' with Mac OS X is not difficult - even if the sweeties make it gooey But to be 'really good', you either need to be willing to learn to use the CLI (which, I'll admit, is actually pretty interesting & enjoyable), or have a Unix background. Does this mean that the concept of 'super-user' that we've come to know and love under OS (X-n) has been redefined? Do you need to have:

a) Your own original custom theme,
b) Your own, self-compiled apps,
c) A tendency to boot holding Cmd-V,
d) A [i]very[i/] dusty mouse,
e) An apple cinema display, to accomodate all the terminal windows you have running concurrently,
f) In your garbage can (the real one), a little booklet saying "Welcome to Mac OS X"
g) all of the above.

Originally posted by kooBi:
a) Your own original custom theme,
b) Your own, self-compiled apps,
c) A tendency to boot holding Cmd-V,
d) A [i]very[i/] dusty mouse,
e) An apple cinema display, to accomodate all the terminal windows you have running concurrently,
f) In your garbage can (the real one), a little booklet saying "Welcome to Mac OS X"
g) all of the above.

Hmmm...I guess I'll settle for being a 'power user' rather than a 'super user'.

a) Not even attempting that, though wouldn't mind Apple opening up theme support for people who have some amount of artistic ability.
b) Not compiling my own, though I can usually get command-line installs working if they're pre-compiled binaries.
c) Naaah. Did it once, watched all the pretty text scroll by _way_ too fast for me to read or for it to serve any purpose beyond 'cool' factor.
d) Hrm - does a dirty trackball count?
e) God I wish - if I can just steal the one from my friend that he has sitting unused on the floor next to the G4 he picked up for free from the failed dot-com he worked at (unused 'cause he's having too much fun playing with his Sun boxes), I'll be happy.
f) Well, it's in the box, not in the trash, but I only cracked it open once...it was pretty useless after running the beta since it was released.
g) You're kidding, right?

Okay - so I can and do have fun with the command line, and am pretty knowledgeable with things after a long time of heavy Mac usage and occasional *nix usage...can I just be a 'power user'?

[Gavin]

Pre-requisites of a Mac OSX super user? hmm...

How about having a shell script that you keep on your iTools disk which quickly sets up all your custom prefs, desktop pix, and nifty unix shortcuts for your guest accounts on all your friends' OSX boxes.

To qualify you have to be able to explain to a novice how to run it via Script Editor from memory over the phone.

Dork city!