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I guess it won't hurt to explain the joke. The Mac has what is sometimes called a "BSD userland" with the result that cp, rm, ls, grep, etc work basically like
by frank2 6y ago
I guess it won't hurt to explain the joke.
The Mac has what is sometimes called a "BSD userland" with the result that cp, rm, ls, grep, etc work basically like they do on FreeBSD. But some Mac users prefer the GNU versions of those commands. To avoid breaking scripts that depend on the BSD behavior, when Homebrew installs the GNU versions, it names them gcp, grm, gls, ggrep, etc.
- LeoPanthera 6y agoYou used to be able to chose the prefix, until Homebrew removed build options. (You still can on the BSDs.)
- skissane 6y agoNot just macOS. At my first full-time job, I was introduced to Solaris. I had been using Linux for years, and been using GNU utilities for even longer (through EMX, which is like Cygwin but for OS/2). And the lack of options I was used to from the GNU versions infuriated me. They told me, "just put a g in front". Although it wasn't a standard part of Solaris install, the sysadmin had installed several of the GNU utilities (from sunfreeware.com) and they were present with that prefix. This custom, of installing GNU utilities with a g-prefix, isn't just on macOS and Solaris, but also on other UNIX flavours as well.