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I was very excited to buy a Mac Mini the other day. I was very disappointed to learn over several weeks that, despite what Paul Graham and DHH and others say,

by ljlolel 18y ago

I was very excited to buy a Mac Mini the other day. I was very disappointed to learn over several weeks that, despite what Paul Graham and DHH and others say, OS X sucks for hacking. I experiment with a number of languages, I pull in many different libraries, I use various different tools and scripts and programs from the command line. Frankly, installing any one of these things onto a Mac is a pain. In Ubuntu, I simply do apt-get install. On a Mac, I have to download a tarball and compile it (their package management systems have many fewer packages, many of which are out of date). If I wanted to compile things, I would use Gentoo. Actually, Gentoo is much better since I think the portage package management system is very well-developed, up-to-date, large, fast, handles dependencies brilliantly, and has the option for some binaries. As for the general use of the Mac: if you want to do anything that is not the default, good luck. Learning all of the different ways you can do something non-standard on a Mac is like learning black magic. You have to Google around to find out the secret incantations. For example, to ask for the boot menu, you must psychically know to hold down ALT as it boots. The other day, I wanted to test out how well my site worked with Flash off, only to discover I couldn't. I found a site with some complicated instructions about how to go about disabling Flash on OS X. I just gave up and rebooted into Ubuntu. Basically, hacking on OS X is exactly like working with linux 5 years ago, when I had to be an expert on esoteric systems to do what I want. Just do what I do: dual-boot into Ubuntu. I boot into OS X when I want to use iTunes, watch TV/movies using the cool Mac remote, or develop iPhone apps.

mwerty 18y ago
Have you tried macports?
agentbleu 18y ago
I find Ubuntu much slower than OSX, Have you found this also?
- nailer 18y ago
  I find the opposite - but that may be more to Finder as a file manager compared to Nautilus, rather than Quartz compared to X.
nailer 18y ago
Summary of every bit of advice you've gotten, or will get, on this page: * Install a good package manager * Install all your dev packages * Install what was missing by hand * Install a decent terminal * Purchase Textmate * Find a hack to allow mouse button paste * Realize you're spending time trying to turn your OS X install into Linux out of the box. * Install Ubuntu.
gaius 18y ago
Erm, no, installing things is a breeze. Either use MacPorts (where it is as easy as cd to a directory and type "port install") or you get a .DMG file. Double click it and it mounts a filesystem, you drag from there to your Applications folder, job done. And holding down a key on boot has been around, since, well, as long as I've been using Macs, the early 90s. There are obviously going to be teething troubles on a new platform but "I don't know how" and "it sucks" are not causally related. For the record, on the Mac I use Carbon Emacs and various languages gotten from MacPorts (Python, OCaml, GHC). Back in the pre-OSX days I used CodeWarrior and Powerplant, so I'm confident I could use XCode easily enough - just don't do much C at the moment.
- nailer 18y ago
  The post you're responding to is aware of Mac packaging software - you don't seem to have read it.
  - evgen 18y ago
    No, the post he was responding to was markedly ignorant of the macports system and seemed to think that something as simple as apt-get was completely unknown in the Mac world.
    - nailer 18y ago
      Read it again: > In Ubuntu, I simply do apt-get install. On a Mac, I have to download a tarball and compile it (their package management systems have many fewer packages, many of which are out of date).
      - demallien 18y ago
        Which would be a lot more credible as a comment if he'd given any indication at all that he knew which package managers were available on a Mac, and giving specific examples of packages that are 'out-of-date' and by how much. Instead, there was a throw-away one-liner, which gives the impression that he doesn't know what he's actually talking about. All of which is to say that I personally think that the person you responded to had read the post, and came away with the same impression as me - that perhaps the OP needs some pointers in the right direction.

by ljlolel 18y ago

mwerty 18y ago

Have you tried macports?

agentbleu 18y ago

I find Ubuntu much slower than OSX, Have you found this also?

nailer 18y ago
I find the opposite - but that may be more to Finder as a file manager compared to Nautilus, rather than Quartz compared to X.

nailer 18y ago

Summary of every bit of advice you've gotten, or will get, on this page: * Install a good package manager * Install all your dev packages * Install what was missing by hand * Install a decent terminal * Purchase Textmate * Find a hack to allow mouse button paste * Realize you're spending time trying to turn your OS X install into Linux out of the box. * Install Ubuntu.

gaius 18y ago

Erm, no, installing things is a breeze. Either use MacPorts (where it is as easy as cd to a directory and type "port install") or you get a .DMG file. Double click it and it mounts a filesystem, you drag from there to your Applications folder, job done. And holding down a key on boot has been around, since, well, as long as I've been using Macs, the early 90s. There are obviously going to be teething troubles on a new platform but "I don't know how" and "it sucks" are not causally related. For the record, on the Mac I use Carbon Emacs and various languages gotten from MacPorts (Python, OCaml, GHC). Back in the pre-OSX days I used CodeWarrior and Powerplant, so I'm confident I could use XCode easily enough - just don't do much C at the moment.

nailer 18y ago
The post you're responding to is aware of Mac packaging software - you don't seem to have read it.
- evgen 18y ago
  No, the post he was responding to was markedly ignorant of the macports system and seemed to think that something as simple as apt-get was completely unknown in the Mac world.
  - nailer 18y ago
    Read it again: > In Ubuntu, I simply do apt-get install. On a Mac, I have to download a tarball and compile it (their package management systems have many fewer packages, many of which are out of date).
    - demallien 18y ago
      Which would be a lot more credible as a comment if he'd given any indication at all that he knew which package managers were available on a Mac, and giving specific examples of packages that are 'out-of-date' and by how much. Instead, there was a throw-away one-liner, which gives the impression that he doesn't know what he's actually talking about. All of which is to say that I personally think that the person you responded to had read the post, and came away with the same impression as me - that perhaps the OP needs some pointers in the right direction.