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Hacker's Guide to Setting Up Your Mac

lapwinglabs.com

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Re: Hacker's Guide to Setting Up Your Mac

#241

Post by bdash »

TickleSteve wrote: post #210
pothibo wrote: post #153

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree with you 100%. I bought a new mac book pro 2 weeks ago and it took me about 2 hours to get up and running. Because OS X is linux based (BSD but the difference is not relevant here), a lot already exists to make these kind of things work out of the box. Personally, I need two things to have my setup working: - Homebrew (OS X only but it's a given to anyone used to ruby) - dotfiles My dotfiles are on github and…

Oh dear... Its not even BSD-based... Its Mach based( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mach_(kernel) ) with a BSD userland. (Read BSD-API). So its "BSD-based" in the same way as Windows is Posix-based (as it too can have a Posix userland API). Linux != UNIX. BSD != OSX

The kernel is actually a hybrid of Mach and FreeBSD. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/XNU for details.

Re: Hacker's Guide to Setting Up Your Mac

#242

Post by habitue »

72deluxe wrote: post #194
habitue wrote: post #175

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I definitely don't expect Windows or OS X to turn into Linux. I think they each have advantages for the people who are using them. The grandparent was talking about hackability, and I was saying I don't think OS X counts as hackable just because the kernel is open source. There is a lot more that's closed source surrounding that kernel that makes it OS X.

Re: Hacker's Guide to Setting Up Your Mac

#243

Post by habitue »

wz1000 wrote: post #172
habitue wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The UX is amazing if you ignore gnome/kde etc, which are just imitations of windows and mac. I'd say the true linux UX is in tiling window managers. Just like the terminal and vim/emacs, tiling WMs have a steep learning curve and an amazing payoff where the computer becomes an extension of your will, rather than something you fight. I really recommend you try them. That being said, they don't look pretty, but they ma…

Well, they can look extremely pretty. Just take a look at some of the submissions on reddit.com/r/unixporn

You and I think they're pretty, but we're weird by most standards. If you're coming from the mac version of pretty, tiling WMs are a turn-off visually

Re: Hacker's Guide to Setting Up Your Mac

#244

Post by stefantalpalaru »

cbsmith wrote: post #170
drzaiusapelord wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Gentoo is for Ricers!: http://fun.irq.dk/funroll-loops.org/

Gentoo is for people who want their bash fixes in minutes/hours not weeks.

Re: Hacker's Guide to Setting Up Your Mac

#245

Post by walshemj »

nknighthb wrote: post #92
walshemj wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Try using cpan to install basic modules like MySQL

I've never gotten CPAN to work reliably with any OS's included copy of Perl. As with Python and Ruby, if you want to use things not available via the OS's package manager, you're best off installing a separate copy.

Works out of the box on Ubuntu LTS, Raspberry pi hell it even worked back in 2000 on Cygwin out of the box on win2k.

Re: Hacker's Guide to Setting Up Your Mac

#246

Post by klibertp »

sanderjd wrote: post #148
lelandbatey wrote: post #141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I feel there's two levels of the constant fiddler, one where their fiddling is fruitful, one where the fiddling is not. The difference, I feel, basically comes down to how much you document, test, and automate what you do. If treated like science instead of voodoo, messing with your computer becomes one of those "interesting things to be learning."

That's how I used to feel, and then (documentation and automation or not) it totally lost its interest for me! Creating software is just so much more interesting than configuring somebody else's. YMMV.

Programming is very interesting and enjoyable, but it's also quite hard. The road from idea to implementation is often long and filled with obstacles. It's well worth it to spend some time "fiddling" to remove some of them. In truth, I personally am not very interested in tinkering with config files - it's boring and frustrating at times - but I still do it. I feel it's my duty as a professional as well as a pride as a craftsman to keep my tools sharp.

People who refuse to do this scare me a little. They got something somebody else told them works and they learned to live with it even if it has flaws. Now I have to wonder: how many refactors weren't done, how much technical debt piled up just because they did the same when writing code?

Re: Hacker's Guide to Setting Up Your Mac

#247

Post by tvon »

eropple wrote: post #225
tvon wrote: post #221

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> /usr/local is wher you install your own packages. For example, if I'm installing something from source, that's where I'm going to install it. Right, that's what it's for, it's also why a 3rd party package manager shouldn't use it.

Homebrew is installing stuff from source, though. It's automating the task of me doing it.

Well, it usually installs from source, but that's not really the point. It's a package manager, it is trivial to give it it's own home, (and thankfully they made that an easy thing to do), but to throw it in that /usr/local bucket by default? It seems like a decision that requires real justification and the reasons I have seen seem pretty weak.

I mean, in the end it seems like almost nobody cares, but it's always been a pet peeve of mine.

Re: Hacker's Guide to Setting Up Your Mac

#248

Post by cbsmith »

stefantalpalaru wrote: post #244
cbsmith wrote: post #170

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Gentoo is for Ricers!: http://fun.irq.dk/funroll-loops.org/

Gentoo is for people who want their bash fixes in minutes/hours not weeks.

Agreed. I make fun of Gentoo because I use it (well, more like Funtoo).

Re: Hacker's Guide to Setting Up Your Mac

#249

Post by nknighthb »

walshemj wrote: post #245
nknighthb wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've never gotten CPAN to work reliably with any OS's included copy of Perl. As with Python and Ruby, if you want to use things not available via the OS's package manager, you're best off installing a separate copy.

Works out of the box on Ubuntu LTS, Raspberry pi hell it even worked back in 2000 on Cygwin out of the box on win2k.

> Works out of the box on Ubuntu LTS

Well, that's one I can personally tell you I've had problems with in the past.

> even worked back in 2000 on Cygwin out of the box on win2k

And also this one. That's even back around the timeframe I was actively doing Perl development while using win2k.

Re: Hacker's Guide to Setting Up Your Mac

#250

Post by sanderjd »

klibertp wrote: post #246
sanderjd wrote: post #148

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's how I used to feel, and then (documentation and automation or not) it totally lost its interest for me! Creating software is just so much more interesting than configuring somebody else's. YMMV.

Programming is very interesting and enjoyable, but it's also quite hard. The road from idea to implementation is often long and filled with obstacles. It's well worth it to spend some time "fiddling" to remove some of them. In truth, I personally am not very interested in tinkering with config files - it's boring and frustrating at times - but I still do it . I feel it's my duty as a professional as well as a pride a…

Interesting perspective! I think the analogy to refactoring is also apt. Keeping tools sharp is good, but (quickly, in my opinion) hits a point of diminishing returns. Refactoring is even better but also eventually hits that point (much less quickly).
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