An interesting question

[Chooco]

so MacOSX is basically BSD with a nice GUI? kool!

[voidmain]

You got it.  Something I thought M$ should have done years ago if they really wanted a good OS and play along with the others, but their motives are far from "standards".

With the new Mac OS X you can run Xwindows along side the proprietary GUI and most of the open source apps are being or have been ported so you have the best of both worlds...  One of these days I'll get one....

[Chooco]

so are you saying that MacOSX can run Linux programs?
if so, i think we have found the ultimate operating system

[voidmain]

No, I am saying that OS X can run Open Source applications (which also happens to be what GNU/Linux is made of).  You know, like Apache, Xwindows, etc, etc. Not everything has been ported yet, but it surely will be in short order.

[chris_h]

quote:Originally posted by Chooco:
so are you saying that MacOSX can run Linux programs?

In a manner of speaking.  Linux programs have to be recompiled for the PPC processer.  The majority of programs can be recompiled with very few changes, if at all.

The Fink Project is a group of people who recompile, and make easily available, tons of linux software (with more added all the time).

All your major stuff is already recompiled... things like Gimp, hell even KDE itself.

 

quote:Originally posted by Chooco:

if so, i think we have found the ultimate operating system

Correct.  I won't even bring up running windows in VirtualPC (it's somewhat slow, but great for most apps). You can have apps from MacOS, OSX, linux, and windows all running side by side.

 

quote:Originally posted by VoidMan:

But it was my understanding that only gets you to "single user mode". In which case networking and other things would not be started. Is that correct?

No.  What you're thinking about is holding down Apple-S (at _boot_ time only).

Typing >console at the login screen (which you can get to any time) will give you a text login, where you still have to type in a username and password.
From there you can get online with lynx, start XFree86 with KDE, and so on.


 

quote:Originally posted by VoidMan:

And what if you want it to automatically boot up to a console login when powered up (acting as a GUIless server for instance)?

That is possible.  I don't remember the exact command though.

 

quote:Originally posted by psyjax:

They are very diffrent from Linux commands, that is, as diffrent as standard UNIX commands are from linux.

true, but a begining linux user probably wouldn't notice any difference at all.

[Calum]

quote:In a manner of speaking. Linux programs have to be recompiled for the PPC processer. The majority of programs can be recompiled with very few changes, if at all.

misleading. You mean that GNU programs can be recompiled to run on OSX, and so can other open source programs, so long as they are compiled for the new system. As you say, you can get them precompiled, or if you have the source (not usually with win32/DOS programs, a normal occurence with many *nix/all GNU programs) you can recompile yourself.
Linux programs cannot be recompiled for OSX, in the same way that windows apps cannot be recompiled for it. If, however, you have the source code, they can be recompiled but *then* they will no longer be linux/windows apps.

CDEX is a windows program, and it's open source too, i say it's a windows program because it can be downloaded as a win32 executable, but if i knew how, i bet i could get the source and recompile it for BSD/GNU/Linux/OSX whatever.

Sorry to sound like i am laying into you but i think it is important not to be misleading or ambiguous when it comes to this sort of thing. Ambiguousness only leads to a false elitism.

[ June 20, 2002: Message edited by: Calum ]

[psyjax]

None the less, changes to source code are few if any. This is very true, and a definit plus side for OSX. Programmers don't have to work to hard to port programs....

Hmmm... there is the word! Port, recompiling is essentialy porting   . That's not misleading.

But ya, GNU and OpenSource apps are what he is refering to. At least that is the impression I got.

[mormop]

No one physically forces users to use Windows but the fact that M$ refuses to release file formats to competitors leaves business users (the rich end of the market) to keep using MS so they can open their old MS Office docs without spending months coverting them.

I sell Linux for a living and their are lots of people who would swap to Linux if they could be sure they'd be able to open their old files.

Opening M$ file format specs would be the only way to level the playing field.

Go on judge, make my day!