Ahhh this was a fun endevour that kept me up all night!
http://www.xfree86.com/Basically it's an X windows server for OS X. After reading thrugh the forums and being impressed by all the StarTrek technobable coming from the likes of VoidMain and other Unix types, I wanted part of the archaic action myself.
This stuff is incredibly cool! I can run X11 unix apps on my mac without a hitch! they run native, and the windows float over, and between your OS X windows as if they were normaly there. You can even boot your computer into X11 if your so inclined.
The basic window manager for X11 is way primative, and that's all I got so Id be nuts to run it full screen
... I went ahead and located apps for download (BTW Unix and GNU sites are incredibly hard to navigate! I know you guys are technical types, but please get someone with some design sense (more on this later)! Minor note from an artist
), I got AbiWord, a near exact clone of M$Word, that eats only about 30MB. Pretty nice little program I was impressed! A deffinit keeper, snaged a copy of the GIMP. Impresive for a two man show, but I'm getting PS7 OS X, while cool the GIMP is still no Photoshop-killer.
I downladed GTK and windowmaker but couldent get them to run. I'm sure this is only a result of my limited UNIX skills (I have basically tought myself thrugh trial and error and various FAQ's), and with time I'll be more adept at getting things to work how I want them to.
Now, this all brought me to an interesting realization. Now that the *NIX community has us Mac people on their side (though many Mac people don't know it yet), they should start catering to them a little. I mean we have been using GUI's exclusively for years, perhapse a simple step by step site and the like. I mean even the Mac *NIX/XDarwin sites were written by tech heads.
Then again, I suppose this sort of simplification and popularization may be the legacy left up to the new Mac comunity joining the *NIX comunnity. If we bring our design savey, ease of use, and elegance, to the technical, diverse, and software resplandant UNIX universe there is no telling were we will go!
I mean seriously, taping the power of UNIX in OSX pretty much makes the Mac, one of the platforms with the MOST software available for it. This is incredibly promasing stuff, I can't wait till this stuff starts getting more popular amongst users.
Once I get better versed in using *NIX\Darwin, and am able to start programing for it (yes, I program C, for the older MacOS's), I think I may be starting a site devoted to educating the common user about the power underneath the GUI
. Making apps, to make things simpler, and generaly make using *NIX stuff and MacOS stuff pretty darn seemless. And seeing how easely portable between flavors it all is, perhapse some of the Mac magic will fall on the other UNIX types, those who once calld our little machines Beige toasters
.
Pretty cool stuff. Im all too exited about it!