OS X Command Line Utilities • Hacker News Board

Re: OS X Command Line Utilities

#31

Post by ant6n » Sun, Aug 30, 2015, 3:09 PM UTC

scrollaway wrote: post #19

rattray wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm assuming the HN post has been changed since your comment (it's now "OS X Command Line Utilities"). What was it before?

It was what the article's headline currently is on the site: Eight Terminal Utilities Every OS X Command Line User Should Know

HN is awesome in that way, allowing browsing the web without too many clickbait articles. I didn't even notice the blob post's headline cuz I came from HN.

Re: OS X Command Line Utilities

#32

Post by algorithms » Sun, Aug 30, 2015, 3:13 PM UTC

rattray wrote: post #13

_paulc wrote: post #12

The first of these is easier as: open -a Safari

Agreed, I often use `open -a 'Google Chrome' ./index.html` or `open -a 'Google Chrome' http://0.0.0.0:8000`

I do the same so I aliased it to just "chrome", "firefox", etc.

Re: OS X Command Line Utilities

#33

Post by _asummers » Sun, Aug 30, 2015, 3:13 PM UTC

guan wrote: post #18

I would add caffeinate, which prevents the Mac from going to sleep. It can do this indefinitely, for a fixed period of time, or after a process is done running. You can even specify that process either as the PID of an existing process or by invoking it through caffeinate itself.

https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/caffeine/id411246225?mt=12

I use this all the time, it's the GUI version presumably.

Re: OS X Command Line Utilities

#34

Post by mistersquid » Sun, Aug 30, 2015, 3:15 PM UTC

As a longtime Mac user (as early as System 7) and aficionado of UNIX, I love OS X's CLI and its affordances. The linked article provides several well-packaged tidbits that might encourage users of other CLI-replete OS's to check out OS X.

More power.

However, I'm not a fan of the soft recommendation for Homebrew. I understand Homebrew places everything in `/usr/local` but software installs on Mac should generally conform to dragging and dropping bundles inside `/Applications`.

In my experience, requirements to install packages using Homebrew could be circumvented by searching for .dmg or .pkg equivalents. The benefit is that software so installed is much easier for intermediate users to track and maintain.

Re: OS X Command Line Utilities

#35

Post by dljsjr » Sun, Aug 30, 2015, 3:25 PM UTC

Does anybody know of a good alternative to "at" on OS X? I know it's there but not enabled by default, I went through the paces required to activate it long ago but it something in Yosemite seems to have broken atrun and I can't find anything about it anywhere online.

Re: OS X Command Line Utilities

#36

Post by rjeli » Sun, Aug 30, 2015, 3:27 PM UTC

pbpaste and pbcopy never really occur in ambiguous situations, so I wrote the following shell script:

  function clip { [ -t 0 ] && pbpaste || pbcopy }

This is easier to type and allows for the following:

  % echo hello | clip
  % clip
  hello

Re: OS X Command Line Utilities

#37

Post by jmount » Sun, Aug 30, 2015, 3:28 PM UTC

A nice complement to the command line "open" command is adding a shell launcher to OSX finder. I have some instructions how to do this here: http://www.win-vector.com/blog/2012/05/enhance-osx-finder/

Re: OS X Command Line Utilities

#38

Post by parasubvert » Sun, Aug 30, 2015, 3:29 PM UTC

mistersquid wrote: post #34

As a longtime Mac user (as early as System 7) and aficionado of UNIX, I love OS X's CLI and its affordances. The linked article provides several well-packaged tidbits that might encourage users of other CLI-replete OS's to check out OS X. More power. However, I'm not a fan of the soft recommendation for Homebrew. I understand Homebrew places everything in `/usr/local` but software installs on Mac should generally con…

The /applications folder is for .app bundles; Homebrew mostly installs Unix binaries which are appropriately placed in /usr/local , just like many Apple-supplied binaries are in /usr. The two conventions work well side-by-side.

The vast majority of Homebrew packages are not available as .dmg or .pkg ; installing that way also is a huge PITA when dealing with a myriad of small developer tools that require dependencies, whereas brew manages all of that for you, including upgrades.

Re: OS X Command Line Utilities

#39

Post by zwily » Sun, Aug 30, 2015, 3:31 PM UTC

kylek wrote: post #26

reuven wrote: post #4

This article was nice, but it indicated that you need to change the system preferences in order to change the voice. It turns out that you can pass the -v flag to use a different voice, or "-v ?" to get a list of names. So you can do say -v Samantha Help, I'm trapped in this castle! or say -v Princess Help, I'm trapped in this castle! But wait, it gets even better: The Mac comes with a number of voices for other lang…

I must say...being a sysadmin with the ability to ssh into developers' laptops remotely in our domain...this is one of the more fun commands ;)

I hope that ssh'ing into anyone's laptop using your sysadmin credentials in order to play a prank is a fireable offense at your company.

Re: OS X Command Line Utilities

#40

Post by jmount » Sun, Aug 30, 2015, 3:35 PM UTC

mistersquid wrote: post #34

As a longtime Mac user (as early as System 7) and aficionado of UNIX, I love OS X's CLI and its affordances. The linked article provides several well-packaged tidbits that might encourage users of other CLI-replete OS's to check out OS X. More power. However, I'm not a fan of the soft recommendation for Homebrew. I understand Homebrew places everything in `/usr/local` but software installs on Mac should generally con…

Without something like Homebrew you don't get any current Unix tools (OSX shell is way out of date) or anyway to systematically update them. This is a big benefit that far outweighs any perceived benefit dropping bundles into /Applications. And you get some attempt at installation of dependencies.