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themexican · Feb 19, 2007, 01:01 AM

i'm compiling a list for a PC friend who is considering switching but is worried he won't be able to geek out on OS X the way he could with under windows... So I'm going to blog a list of geeky things he can do... Anything I'm forgetting. Here's my list:

1. Install Linux on partition

2. Install Windows on a partition

3. Triple boot into either Linux, Windows, or OSX. (or run windows side by side with os x)

4. Install Fink.

5. Install KDX under fink.

6. Install vMac to run 68000 programs. (does this run on intel machines btw?)

7. Put console info on the desktop.

8. Show verbose startup.

9. Install MySQL.

10. Install PHP 5.

11. Install Ruby on Rails components.

12. Install Fuse for access to alternate file systems (ie use gmail in the finder)

13. Play Tetris in the terminal

14. Install movable type or typepad locally.

15. Theme it with shapeshifter

16. Work on remote machines via remoteaccess.

17. run lynx in the terminal

18. use the motion sensor in your portable for a variety of geeky fun things like turning your mac into a light saber.

19. Use alpine to check your mail

20. Run virtual desktop

himself · Feb 19, 2007, 01:33 AM

switch between OS X and Windows or Linux with a smack

besson3c · Feb 19, 2007, 01:41 AM

Unix. If your friend was really a hardcore geek, this would be reason enough!

themexican · Feb 19, 2007, 03:49 AM

he actually runs linux mainly (accessing windows through wine)... so he knows about the unixy stuff... the list is mainly for fun, to get him excited when he comes over to the fold. He's been anti-mac for years so i'm having a bit of fun with it.

besson3c · Feb 19, 2007, 09:49 AM

Originally Posted by themexican

he actually runs linux mainly (accessing windows through wine)... so he knows about the unixy stuff... the list is mainly for fun, to get him excited when he comes over to the fold. He's been anti-mac for years so i'm having a bit of fun with it.

Well, if he's really a Linux geek you should also hip him to the downsides of running OS X. It ain't all roses.

monkeybrain · Feb 19, 2007, 10:13 AM

You can play Tetris in the Terminal? How?!

besson3c · Feb 19, 2007, 10:26 AM

- He definitely needs to check out iTerm, that would be the very first app I suggest he installs (multi-tabbed terminal environment is awesome)

- The OS X X11 environment

- MacPorts (although both Fink and MacPorts are weaker than many of the package installers on various Linux distros)

- SSH Keychain

- Platypus

- VLC (or mPlayer)

- TextMate

- Growl

Simon · Feb 19, 2007, 10:34 AM

If he uses Linux, he might be surprised by 'say'. Do a 'man say' to find out more.

mduell · Feb 19, 2007, 11:26 AM

Is "install $random_piece_of_free_software" really that impressive or geeky?

wataru · Feb 19, 2007, 11:29 AM

Originally Posted by monkeybrain

You can play Tetris in the Terminal? How?!

emacs

besson3c · Feb 19, 2007, 11:30 AM

Originally Posted by mduell

Is "install $random_piece_of_free_software" really that impressive or geeky?

If it's a really nice/useful piece of software that the Linux user was happily running under Linux, sure!

besson3c · Feb 19, 2007, 11:32 AM

Man, emacs is a beast... It's like an entire operating system, you can do so much stuff with it, it's ridiculous.

Emacs also features a Breakout/Pong game, but I don't understand why this is a big deal, you can play all off the same games and do the same stuff in Emacs under Linux/Unix, how is this a unique feature to the Mac?

P · Feb 19, 2007, 05:44 PM

You can play sokoban in a terminal as well, it's in at least one of the ports collections. There are a LOT of old games in some of them, especially the FreeBSD ports one. More geeky, though: you can connect a USB-to-serial adapter and log in on a serial port with a regular terminal. Anything that will run a terminal emulator can be a client - I thought about using my Palm to do that back in the 10.0 days, when you sometimes needed a terminal to do kill -9. Rather pointless usually, but you can.

Another vote for say, by the way - you can pipe things to it as well, such as the output of a script to alert you when it's done. I wonder how that works if you log in remotely - it would be amusing if you could make the computer say stuff to the person currently logged in locally.

Chuckit · Feb 19, 2007, 06:07 PM

Originally Posted by besson3c

Well, if he's really a Linux geek you should also hip him to the downsides of running OS X. It ain't all roses.

Yeah, he might have to deal with a decent user interface. O NOES!

chabig · Feb 19, 2007, 06:12 PM

Play Quicktime movies in ASCII!

http://developer.apple.com/samplecod...ple/index.html

walkerjs · Feb 19, 2007, 07:16 PM

You really don't need to do anything to a Mac to geek it out. I installed the Darwin Ports and then it's pretty much a standard UNIX under the hood. All my bash scripts I wrote on Linux run without modification.

Or run virtue desktops and dedicate one of them to one, large, Terminal window.

besson3c · Feb 19, 2007, 07:42 PM

Originally Posted by walkerjs

You really don't need to do anything to a Mac to geek it out. I installed the Darwin Ports and then it's pretty much a standard UNIX under the hood. All my bash scripts I wrote on Linux run without modification.

Or run virtue desktops and dedicate one of them to one, large, Terminal window.

Except Macports and Fink repositories are often lacking in being up-to-date and building software cleanly, and there is still a fair amount of stuff that doesn't compile for OS X by hand without some additional work (ditto for FreeBSD, in many cases).

All of this, and Aqua being such a resource hog often keep some Linux users unsatisfied.

Chuckit · Feb 19, 2007, 08:23 PM

Originally Posted by besson3c

Except Macports and Fink repositories are often lacking in being up-to-date and building software cleanly, and there is still a fair amount of stuff that doesn't compile for OS X by hand without some additional work (ditto for FreeBSD, in many cases).

All of this, and Aqua being such a resource hog often keep some Linux users unsatisfied.

If somebody who used to run Linux — an OS that you have to recompile just to install a device driver and have to **** with the window libraries just to get a display recognized — is complaining about having to tweak a poorly written config file to hand-compile programs on OS X, I'm going to LOL at them. It's the Linux "Aww, let the user fix it" mentality that causes such issues.

walkerjs · Feb 19, 2007, 08:27 PM

Originally Posted by besson3c

All of this, and Aqua being such a resource hog often keep some Linux users unsatisfied.

Then throw more resources at it. We aren't living in a 'run Red Hat 5 on a 486DX2 with 32meg RAM' world anymore. At least I'm not.

I've had to manually compile a few broken ports here and there, it really didn't bother me much.

SSharon · Feb 19, 2007, 09:40 PM

Originally Posted by P

Another vote for say, by the way - you can pipe things to it as well, such as the output of a script to alert you when it's done. I wonder how that works if you log in remotely - it would be amusing if you could make the computer say stuff to the person currently logged in locally.

I do this whenever I get the chance, it is tons of fun.

As for geeky things to do, I don't know unix as well as I would like to but I have fun with applescript. I use it to send prewritten instant messages to people from my remote control (sure beats getting out of bed).

besson3c · Feb 20, 2007, 02:32 AM

Originally Posted by Chuckit

If somebody who used to run Linux — an OS that you have to recompile just to install a device driver and have to **** with the window libraries just to get a display recognized — is complaining about having to tweak a poorly written config file to hand-compile programs on OS X, I'm going to LOL at them. It's the Linux "Aww, let the user fix it" mentality that causes such issues.

No, I'm talking about software that flat-out won't build at all, often because OS X is not really supported or tested. Getting software to build on OS X (or any other Unix OS) that is croaking for reasons other than path related problems is far more involved that tweaking a config file.

besson3c · Feb 20, 2007, 02:36 AM

Originally Posted by walkerjs

Then throw more resources at it. We aren't living in a 'run Red Hat 5 on a 486DX2 with 32meg RAM' world anymore. At least I'm not.

I've had to manually compile a few broken ports here and there, it really didn't bother me much.

I was referring to the light-weight window manager crowd who just want the basics with no dressings. This is a legitimate preference. Apple should have built in options into OS X that would help it scale better.

- - e r i k - - · Feb 20, 2007, 03:39 AM

Originally Posted by besson3c

I was referring to the light-weight window manager crowd who just want the basics with no dressings. This is a legitimate preference. Apple should have built in options into OS X that would help it scale better.

Yes, sure. Apple should of course cater to the linux-fetishists which wants the absolute minimum bare-bones system possible.

Chuckit · Feb 20, 2007, 03:53 AM

Originally Posted by besson3c

I was referring to the light-weight window manager crowd who just want the basics with no dressings. This is a legitimate preference. Apple should have built in options into OS X that would help it scale better.

Why? That isn't what they're going after. Trying to make a program that is 100% perfect for everybody is the best way to make one that's actually useful to almost nobody.

glypht · Feb 20, 2007, 08:20 AM

Originally Posted by P

it would be amusing if you could make the computer say stuff to the person currently logged in locally.

Originally Posted by SSharon

I do this whenever I get the chance, it is tons of fun.

So I'm not the only one who enjoys a bit of SSH mischief! It really freaked my girlfriend out the first time the computer started talking to her...

glypht · Feb 20, 2007, 08:29 AM

Originally Posted by chabig

Play Quicktime movies in ASCII!

http://developer.apple.com/samplecod...ple/index.html

Now that's geeky!

(I love it!)

besson3c · 09:50 AM

Originally Posted by - - e r i k - -

Yes, sure. Apple should of course cater to the linux-fetishists which wants the absolute minimum bare-bones system possible.

People have been requesting something along these lines for years, and many of them Mac users, so that OS X works better on older hardware.

If you search this board, I'm sure you could find these threads.

This need has become less and less of one with faster hardware constantly being released, I know, but there was a time when people referred to OS X as a pig, and in relative comparison to the hardware that was ubiquitous at the time, they were right.

themexican · Feb 20, 2007, 06:18 PM

Someone suggested writing custom screensavers with quartz composer... which is definitely one for the list.

besson3c · Feb 20, 2007, 06:35 PM

Originally Posted by Chuckit

Yeah, he might have to deal with a decent user interface. O NOES!

Decent as in easy to use, but not necessarily the fastest or the most streamlined for various workflows, which is often even more a concern for Linux users.

Linux users are generally computer savvy users that don't really care about anything beyond what a computer will do for THEM that is desirable. If an OS X interface or application doesn't have the features they desire, being nice and clicky and user friendly doesn't benefit them in the same way it benefits Grandma.

Linux OSes, apps and window managers often trade off user friendliness for flexibility and capability. This has its pros and cons overall, but direct comparisons usually don't accomplish much - Linux was designed for a different market and has a different set of goals.

TheoCryst · Feb 21, 2007, 03:54 AM

Install GNOME in X11 and run it as root:

Yes, this screenshot is native from OS X, and not Linux/BSD/VMWare/etc.

- - e r i k - - · Feb 21, 2007, 04:02 AM

Originally Posted by besson3c

People have been requesting something along these lines for years, and many of them Mac users, so that OS X works better on older hardware.

Why would Apple care about you running OS X on older hardware?

Anyway, I know what you are saying. But for those users, OS X isn't the choice. It's not a viable or even desirable target market.

angelmb · Feb 21, 2007, 07:47 AM

Originally Posted by chabig

Play Quicktime movies in ASCII!

ASCIIMoviePlayerSample

How am I supposed to run-try that without Xcode?, I have tried to run ASCIIMoviePlayer from the Terminal but I got a command not found message…

glypht · 12:13 PM

For testing: open terminal window, drag ASCIIMoviePlayer from it's disk image to said terminal window, drag quicktime movie to said terminal window, switch to said terminal window if not already there, hit enter, enjoy!

Or, for permanent use: in Finder select Go To Folder, type /usr/bin, drag ASCIIMoviePlayer from it's disk image to /usr/bin, authenticate, use command ASCIIMoviePlayer from terminal followed by path to quicktime movie.

angelmb · Feb 21, 2007, 01:58 PM

haha awesome, thanks siMac

MindFad · Feb 21, 2007, 01:59 PM

That is really cool, the ASCII movie thing.

besson3c · Feb 21, 2007, 02:05 PM

Originally Posted by - - e r i k - -

Why would Apple care about you running OS X on older hardware?

Anyway, I know what you are saying. But for those users, OS X isn't the choice. It's not a viable or even desirable target market.

Right, I agree...

I'm just accounting for the lightweight window manager Linux crowd, since we are talking about switching from Linux.

prashant · Feb 21, 2007, 03:41 PM

Program the keyboard backlight.

voiceofra · Feb 22, 2007, 03:16 AM

Originally Posted by TheoCryst

Install GNOME in X11 and run it as root:

Yes, this screenshot is native from OS X, and not Linux/BSD/VMWare/etc.

I run my share of X11 apps on my MB, but I think that's about as geeky as you can get.