Ask YC: Mac virgin wants to know, what would you install? • Hacker News Board

Re: Ask YC: Mac virgin wants to know, what would you install?

#21

Post by bayareaguy » Fri, Mar 07, 2008, 5:07 PM UTC

bayareaguy wrote: post #6

First, the basics: Signup with the Apple Developer Connection (ADC)[1]. After that you will want to install XCode. You can get that from the ADC or from the install cd. You should then install macports[2] so that you can easily get BSD tools and utilities. There is also a friendly GUI shareware app called Port Authority[3] you can use to maintain your ports tree. [1] - http://developer.apple.com [2] - http://www.macp…

One last thing: if you're going to play with Arc[10] you'll want MzScheme[11].

[10] - http://www.arclanguage.org

[11] - http://www.plt-scheme.org/software/mzscheme

Re: Ask YC: Mac virgin wants to know, what would you install?

#22

Post by ericb » Fri, Mar 07, 2008, 5:09 PM UTC

bayareaguy wrote: post #6

First, the basics: Signup with the Apple Developer Connection (ADC)[1]. After that you will want to install XCode. You can get that from the ADC or from the install cd. You should then install macports[2] so that you can easily get BSD tools and utilities. There is also a friendly GUI shareware app called Port Authority[3] you can use to maintain your ports tree. [1] - http://developer.apple.com [2] - http://www.macp…

I installed macports. Before I get to deep into this, is this error obvious to anyone? Note--I do see it's a missing folder, but what is unclear is why I don't have it, and whether it's a part of something larger I'm missing. When I run:

sudo port install putty ------------ Error: Target org.macports.extract returned: shell command " cd "/opt/local/var/macports/build/_opt_local_var_macports_sources_rsync.macports.org_release_ports_textproc_expat/work" && gzip -dc /opt/local/var/macports/distfiles/expat/expat-2.0.1.tar.gz | /usr/bin/gnutar --no-same-owner -xf - " returned error 127 Command output: sh: /usr/bin/gnutar: No such file or directory

gzip: stdout: Broken pipe

Error: The following dependencies failed to build: gtk1 gettext expat libiconv ncurses ncursesw glib1 pkgconfig Error: Status 1 encountered during processing.

Re: Ask YC: Mac virgin wants to know, what would you install?

#23

Post by bouncingsoul » Fri, Mar 07, 2008, 5:09 PM UTC

Honestly, I would hold off installing a bunch of software until you have a need for it – or at least until you can appreciate the problem it solves.

OS X comes with a lot of tools out of the box, and I think it'd be better to stick with that stuff until you outgrow it or are no longer satisfied with it.

For example, people will recommend the VLC player, but QuickTime with the Perian plugin is what I use: more stable than VLC and plays all the formats. And it's one less app.

I didn't use Quicksilver for much more than a launcher when I had it. The Spotlight menu in OS X 10.5 is pretty much as fast as Quicksilver for launching apps. So maybe wait to install Quicksilver.

Same with Adium: iChat is good enough for me.

And people recommend Growl, but I found it more annoying than helpful. Pretty much every third party app registers itself, which means seeing tons of alerts I don't care about. (Unless you go into the Growl preference pane and unregister everything, which made Growl too high maintenance for me.)

The only essential things I'd recommend (again, only get them if they make sense to you):

TinkerTool http://www.bresink.com/osx/TinkerTool.html – Gives easy access to hidden system preferences.

Perian http://perian.org/ – A plugin for QuickTime that lets it play all the formats it doesn't play.

Paparazzi! http://www.derailer.org/paparazzi/ – Makes taking webpage screenshots easy.

Service Scrubber http://www.manytricks.com/servicescrubber/ – Lets you prune the Services menu. (Don't worry about installing this until you see a need for it.)

TextWrangler http://www.barebones.com/products/textwrangler/ – Free text editor with terminal integration and excellent file search capabilities.

Transmission http://www.transmissionbt.com/ – My favorite bittorrent client.

Re: Ask YC: Mac virgin wants to know, what would you install?

#24

Post by hernan7 » Fri, Mar 07, 2008, 5:11 PM UTC

Learn some Unix -- Bourne shell and all the usual suspects like awk, sed, grep. OS X has Unix under the hood, you might as well make use of it.

Re: Ask YC: Mac virgin wants to know, what would you install?

#25

Post by curi » Fri, Mar 07, 2008, 5:11 PM UTC

ericb wrote: post #18

curi wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

you can swap cmd and ctrl keys if you want, in the keyboard area of system preferences. you can also change caplocks there to something more useful. for home/end is the problem them not moving the cursor? try cmd-up-arrow and cmd-down-arrow

I'll try the swap asap for command and ctrl. That's great-- Thanks! In windows, home and end jump to the end of line/beginning of line, so I frequently hit shift-home or shift-end to select a whole line of text, then I copy or cut and move it. I found app-specific hacks here: http://www.starryhope.com/tech/apple/2006/keyfixer/ but I haven't checked out how it works yet, as I think I can add Thunderbird and other prog…

for line, cmd + left/right arrow (+ shift)

Re: Ask YC: Mac virgin wants to know, what would you install?

#26

Post by bouncingsoul » Fri, Mar 07, 2008, 5:20 PM UTC

ericb wrote: post #18

curi wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

you can swap cmd and ctrl keys if you want, in the keyboard area of system preferences. you can also change caplocks there to something more useful. for home/end is the problem them not moving the cursor? try cmd-up-arrow and cmd-down-arrow

I'll try the swap asap for command and ctrl. That's great-- Thanks! In windows, home and end jump to the end of line/beginning of line, so I frequently hit shift-home or shift-end to select a whole line of text, then I copy or cut and move it. I found app-specific hacks here: http://www.starryhope.com/tech/apple/2006/keyfixer/ but I haven't checked out how it works yet, as I think I can add Thunderbird and other prog…

Rather than rearranging everything to be like Windows, maybe you should learn to use things the way they are on Mac.

Just consider that every hack and customization you make will make it that much harder to use another Mac without all your Windows-y adjustments.

For example, on Mac you navigate around text with the Command and arrow keys. So:

                         Win        Mac
    Beginning of line    Home       ⌘←
          End of line    End        ⌘→
     Beginning of doc    Ctrl-Home  ⌘↑
           End of doc    Ctrl-End   ⌘↓

Re: Ask YC: Mac virgin wants to know, what would you install?

#27

Post by brianloveswords » Fri, Mar 07, 2008, 5:28 PM UTC

bouncingsoul wrote: post #23

Honestly, I would hold off installing a bunch of software until you have a need for it – or at least until you can appreciate the problem it solves. OS X comes with a lot of tools out of the box, and I think it'd be better to stick with that stuff until you outgrow it or are no longer satisfied with it. For example, people will recommend the VLC player, but QuickTime with the Perian plugin is what I use: more stable…

Oh I completely disagree about the Spotlight menu being as fast as Quicksilver for launching apps but even besides that Quicksilver can do so much more. You can: set global shortcuts for damn near anything you'd want to do; add a line to a text file (for quick note taking); send a quick email; move files...

And for the Quicktime+Perian vs VLC thing, Quicktime will be decent enough for xvid or divx (though you'll take a small performance hit for it), but if you use MKV you will definitely want to use VLC -- Quicktime doesn't give you the option of switching languages or embeded subtitles, and the performance is awful.

But I do agree with the Transmission recommendation, it's really a great BT client: clean, not nearly as bloated as Azureus. Unless you really need some of Azureus' more advanced functions, you'll find Transmission can cover everything you want.

Re: Ask YC: Mac virgin wants to know, what would you install?

#28

Post by optimal » Fri, Mar 07, 2008, 5:29 PM UTC

axod wrote: post #7

I don't actually bother installing much desktop software these days. Just a good text editor, browser, subversion...

That's where I'm at, too--just keep it simple. vim, svn, FoxBug, and I'm all set. I believe simplicity correlates with productivity.

Re: Ask YC: Mac virgin wants to know, what would you install?

#29

Post by ericb » Fri, Mar 07, 2008, 5:29 PM UTC

bouncingsoul wrote: post #26

ericb wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'll try the swap asap for command and ctrl. That's great-- Thanks! In windows, home and end jump to the end of line/beginning of line, so I frequently hit shift-home or shift-end to select a whole line of text, then I copy or cut and move it. I found app-specific hacks here: http://www.starryhope.com/tech/apple/2006/keyfixer/ but I haven't checked out how it works yet, as I think I can add Thunderbird and other prog…

Rather than rearranging everything to be like Windows, maybe you should learn to use things the way they are on Mac. Just consider that every hack and customization you make will make it that much harder to use another Mac without all your Windows-y adjustments. For example, on Mac you navigate around text with the Command and arrow keys. So: Win Mac Beginning of line Home ⌘← End of line End ⌘→ Beginning of doc Ctrl-…

I have had that thought, but I find the positioning of the apple key awkward. Also, 95% of my productivity is determined by how fast I get around my own machine, and also it's unavoidable for a while that I will be using my mac and other people's pcs.

Thanks for the translations.

Re: Ask YC: Mac virgin wants to know, what would you install?

#30

Post by brianloveswords » Fri, Mar 07, 2008, 5:30 PM UTC

bouncingsoul wrote: post #26

ericb wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'll try the swap asap for command and ctrl. That's great-- Thanks! In windows, home and end jump to the end of line/beginning of line, so I frequently hit shift-home or shift-end to select a whole line of text, then I copy or cut and move it. I found app-specific hacks here: http://www.starryhope.com/tech/apple/2006/keyfixer/ but I haven't checked out how it works yet, as I think I can add Thunderbird and other prog…

Rather than rearranging everything to be like Windows, maybe you should learn to use things the way they are on Mac. Just consider that every hack and customization you make will make it that much harder to use another Mac without all your Windows-y adjustments. For example, on Mac you navigate around text with the Command and arrow keys. So: Win Mac Beginning of line Home ⌘← End of line End ⌘→ Beginning of doc Ctrl-…

OR you can do: CTRL+e for beginning of the line, CTRL+a for the end, CTRL+k to kill from the caret to the end of the line, CTRL+u to kill from the caret to the beginning, CTRL+h to backspace one character, CTRL+w to backspace one word, CTRL+f to move forward one character, CTRL+b to move backwards one.

Many might recognize these from emacs.