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Hacker's Guide to Setting Up Your Mac

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Re: Hacker's Guide to Setting Up Your Mac

#191

Post by the_gipsy »

davidw wrote: post #62
morganvachon wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I get the joke, and it was the first thing that popped in my head too. But in all seriousness, OS X is Unix as well, and can do pretty much any Unix based task that GNU/Linux can. Sometimes the best tool for the job is the one you already own.

Have the Mac folks got focus-follows-mouse yet? http://steve-yegge.blogspot.it/2008/04/settling-osx-focus-fo... In general, I don't think I'd ever give up Linux. It's a hacker's OS, by and for hackers. Being able to pick apart and fiddle with any portion of, from the kernel on up, is a wonderful, empowering feeling, and something that has proved useful both personally and professionally over the years.

iOS may be Unix underneath, but on the top it has a terrible WM that simply cannot be changed to behave like anyhting else. I'm using xmonad and while I may come off as pretentious, I do see that my colleagues that use mac constantly fight against the WM, searching for windows, moving them around, resizing etc.

Re: Hacker's Guide to Setting Up Your Mac

#192

Post by 72deluxe »

habitue wrote: post #127
jug5 wrote: post #6

Step 1. Install linux

It's just, look at all this fighting you have to do to get linux tools on your mac. It's not a hacker OS by default, it's a pretty, user-friendly OS by default, and you can use homebrew and these other tools to replicate many of the features you'd get on the actual hacker OS: linux. Unless you're developing for Mac, I just don't get why it's so popular with developers. (OK, that's not true, I get it. It's very cool l…

Why try to get Linux tools on your Mac in the first place? You don't see guys fighting to get Mac tools on Linux, so why does it happen the other way around? Perhaps they picked the wrong hardware and OS?

I don't understand what you mean by "hacker OS" though? If you mean an OS that I can write code on, all mainstream OSes apply. If you mean an OS that I can constantly fight to get hardware working on and where the windowing paradigm shifts according to the whims of the incoming teenage developers (see the CADT model), then OSX doesn't fit in. (I use Linux, just not any recent WM thanks).

But I agree with you otherwise; not trying to pick a fight.

Re: Hacker's Guide to Setting Up Your Mac

#193

Post by 72deluxe »

alayne wrote: post #168
habitue wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's just, look at all this fighting you have to do to get linux tools on your mac. It's not a hacker OS by default, it's a pretty, user-friendly OS by default, and you can use homebrew and these other tools to replicate many of the features you'd get on the actual hacker OS: linux. Unless you're developing for Mac, I just don't get why it's so popular with developers. (OK, that's not true, I get it. It's very cool l…

It's popular because it's Unixy without all the bullshit. I stopped running desktop Linux/FreeBSD years ago because the UI and system management tools in that world were such a clusterfuck. Now I can run commercial applications and not have to deal with all that configuration file nonsense. Honestly, it's quite insulting when you presume that people who use OS X haven't considered the alternatives, or are unfamiliar…

Linux WM development follows the CADT model, it seems.

Re: Hacker's Guide to Setting Up Your Mac

#194

Post by 72deluxe »

habitue wrote: post #175
tptacek wrote: post #145

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm confused by the idea that a platform with a published kernel development kit could be considered "locked down, discouraging tinkering".

The kernel is open source, how about everything else? To act like is OSX is open because Darwin is open source is pretty disingenuous.

True, but why does it need to be open anyway? The windows development industry has done well without being OSS, no?

Perhaps people should stop expecting OSX to be Linux. In the same way that nobody expects Linux to be OSX.

Re: Hacker's Guide to Setting Up Your Mac

#195

Post by peakdarkpattern »

drzaiusapelord wrote: post #85
astrange wrote: post #30

This "cool hacker settings for your Mac" script turns off your laptop's power saving features (sleep, display dimming, hibernation even though sleep was off(?)), removes at least three kinds of backups for data loss (MobileTimeMachine, Resume, hibernation file), and changes AppKit settings in a way your customers will never be using (by turning off Automatic Termination, which is pretty harmless). Please don't run sc…

Just like PC's, Macs have entered the world of, what I call, "car guys." Car guys are always fiddling with things for a tiny performance or perceived security boosts without really thinking things through. In the Windows world you'll hear them tell you how you must disable the UAC, must install registry 'cleaners', must use $av_vendor_x because $av_vendor_y sucks, fiddle with some obscure registry change, use drivers…

Anyone who was ever 1k short of EMS to get TIE Fighter booting became a 'car guy' :)

Re: Hacker's Guide to Setting Up Your Mac

#196

Post by johncoltrane »

davidcelis wrote: post #98
johncoltrane wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People don't really dislike Macports, they just like shiny new things on github.

Homebrew isn't exactly new

Homebrew was new 5 years ago when a whole new generation of Mac-using front end developers discovered the command-line (and git, and tmux…). MacPorts worked perfectly well but hey! how can an old tcl-based, svn-using package manager compete with a new ruby-based package manager that's on GitHub?

Re: Hacker's Guide to Setting Up Your Mac

#197

Post by ubar »

swah wrote: post #81
function_seven wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Assuming you have uBar installed, is there anything about it that makes it feel like an add-on? Or does it feel like it's really a part of the desktop environment? (I'm not talking about design aesthetic or anything like that, just wondering if it gets wonky sometimes)

That's what I want to know too.

Hi there, I'm the developer of uBar:) uBar is made to totally feel like part of the system. Please feel free to check out the 4 week trial, and take advantage of the The Talk Show coupon! And if you have any suggestions or feedback, you can send them via Twitter or email using the Send Feedback item in the uBar menu. Just see the release notes to see how much user feedback gets incorporated into updates:) Regards, Edward

Re: Hacker's Guide to Setting Up Your Mac

#198

Post by ubar »

ics wrote: post #169
dekz wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I use a auto-hidden dock which has nothing in it. It is populated by running programs and is not used as a launcher. For launching I use a tool like Quicksilver or Alfred of Spotlight. This way I get more screen realestate, I see no point staring at a dock icons all the time. My dock resembles Command-Tab.

Same; though upon browsing the support page for uBar, I stumbled on this: defaults write com.apple.dock autohide-delay -float 1000 && killall Dock Make sure to use a lowercase 'd' in 'dock' in the identifier– it matters on Mavericks.

Thanks ics I updated the support page.

Re: Hacker's Guide to Setting Up Your Mac

#199

Post by ubar »

leviathant wrote: post #110
swah wrote: post #46

Do any of you use Dock replacements? I'm faster with the Windows-style taskbar and uBar ( http://brawersoftware.com/products/ubar ) was the sponsor of the last episode of John Gruber's podcast.

Thanks for linking to this, I just picked up a copy. I switched to a MBP retina two months ago, and have made an effort to keep it fairly vanilla and figure out how to do things in OS X... without diving into OSXvsWIN, let's just say I'm super glad to have found this add on. It'd be even better if it updated to mimic Windows 8's taskbar (popup previews of windows, mostly), but I'll take what I can get for now. Easily…

Hey leviathant, window previews are being worked on - expect them in an update to uBar:)

And don't feel bad - if NeXT had had a taskbar, we would all have been using a taskbar for the last 14 years!

Re: Hacker's Guide to Setting Up Your Mac

#200

Post by alphadevx »

72deluxe wrote: post #181
alphadevx wrote: post #176

If you are a hacker would you be running a Mac? I'll stick to Linux and OSS, thanks.

Why? Did you know that you can write code under Mac OSX too?

Hacker ethos to me is supposed to be about free computing, sharing, open sourcing you code, building communities etc. Closed source platforms like OSX and Windows are in conflict with that ethos in my opinion. Nothing to do with writing code, more to do with sharing it.
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