5 ms·

I don't know if it really matters to the average user to have root on their system; for technical people it certainly implies "true ownership" of the whole stac

I don't know if it really matters to the average user to have root on their system; for technical people it certainly implies "true ownership" of the whole stack on the device. What I find bizarre and a bit unsettling is the appification of general purpose computing devices. When it was mobile phones, locking the user out (almost) made sense - the device was being financed by the carrier via subsidy, so they should have a bit of control. Then tablets came along and provided an identical interface in terms of restricting user access, but the user pays the entire cost up front[1]. Now Windows 8 (moreso RT, but even the x64 version) and Mountain Lion are moving to the walled-garden, segregated, impotent app approach. The best reason I can explain why this is terrible is XCode: I don't really develop for Mac, but there was a Linux tool which also shipped a 32-bit Darwin binary. I thought "I'd like to use that on my 64-bit Mac, surely I can just compile it with XCode". Downloaded XCode from the App Store (after giving my mother's maiden name, my blood type, etc.), and it doesn't appear on the PATH, because it can only write to /Applications/XCode. Jesus [2]. My point is, somehow subsidized phones turned into locked-down tablets, turned into a compiler that can't install itself to /usr/local/bin. That seems daft to me. 1. ASUS let me root my tablet for free, no strings. So it's opt in, but not terribly evil. 2. If anyone has a good Mac homebrew tutorial, I was wondering if I could compile with a different toolchain than Xcode? I'm really not up on this stuff, I need to learn.

anon1385 14y ago
Open the Xcode preferences and install the command line tools from the 'Components' part of the 'Downloads' section, although it does say this: Before installing, note that from within Terminal you can use the XCRUN tool to launch compilers and other tools embedded within the Xcode application. Use the XCODE-SELECT tool to define which version of Xcode is active. Type "man xcrun" from within Terminal to find out more. Downloading this package will install copies of the core command line tools and system headers into system folders, including the LLVM compiler, linker, and build tools.
- alanctgardner2 14y ago
  Thanks, that was a real RTFM moment.
- jonhendry 14y ago
  Yes, if you use the Terminal and cd to /Applications/Xcode.app/Contents/Developer, you'll see drwxr-xr-x 3 root wheel 102 Jan 25 14:52 Documentation drwxr-xr-x 7 root wheel 238 Jan 29 13:33 Library drwxr-xr-x 7 root wheel 238 Jan 29 13:11 Makefiles drwxr-xr-x 5 root wheel 170 Jan 25 14:53 Platforms drwxr-xr-x 3 root wheel 102 Jan 25 14:54 Toolchains drwxr-xr-x 22 root wheel 748 Jan 29 13:12 Tools drwxr-xr-x 7 root wheel 238 Jan 25 14:54 usr Inside ./usr/bin is gcc, git, etc. Basically the developer tools used to live by default in /Developer at the root of the filesystem, now the Developer directory is inside Xcode.
  - mhenr18 14y ago
    And if you install the command line tools they live in /usr/bin.
AngusH 14y ago
edit: anon1385 gives the same answer as I did, but wrote faster :-) I agree with you on the locking down issue. I don't like the ways things are going. :-( For Mac command line compiling, You need to install the xcode command line tools package In Xcode 4.5: see Menu->'Xcode'->Preferences->Downloads pane->Components tab. Then click the install button on the "Command Line tools" package This should give you a working compiler and tool chain (llvm or llvm-gcc) Hopefully, anyway. I think the package is actually available separately from the Apple developer tools site, although I don't have a link for it. Links on the ADC site tend to change so often, it's hardly worth quoting them.
drcube 14y ago
>I don't know if it really matters to the average user to have root on their system; for technical people it certainly implies "true ownership" of the whole stack on the device. The average user will find it very convenient when their technical friends can fix, upgrade or unlock features in their device. So even if the average user never uses it, they will benefit greatly by having root access to their device. Remember back in the day when your friends would have you fix their computer? Has that ever happened with phones/tablets? Why not?
- davidroberts 14y ago
  Maybe because the same user who broke things on the computer is locked out on the phone/tablet so they can't break things. If it's broken it'll either be hardware issue or a firmware/os/app problem that has to be solved by the maker/developer. In my experience supporting users of PCs, Macs, and Android and Apple phones/tablets, very few users have any desire for root access or any idea what to do with it when they have it. Their device is going to belong to others no matter what, maybe it's better for it to be Apple or Google or a somewhat vetted developer in a walled garden than the owner of a malicious bot-net.
pretoriusB 14y ago
>Now Windows 8 (moreso RT, but even the x64 version) and Mountain Lion are moving to the walled-garden, segregated, impotent app approach What can't you do in ML that you could in OS X 10.1? If and only if the app signing and approval by Apple gets mandatory to run apps, a la iOS, then you'll have a point. As for now, all the new signing etc are additions on top of the regular infrastructure, and the reason they were added was security. Most security nerds find app signing and sandboxing a good idea.
- deleted 14y ago
  [deleted]
- chimeracoder 14y ago
  > Most security nerds find app signing and sandboxing a good idea. Those same security nerds have been doing both on FLOSS operating systems (BSD, GNU/Linux) for years, so that point is irrelevant to the original discussion.
  - pretoriusB 14y ago
    Which is not the same at all with having thousands of proprietary third-party apps to distribute in closed source form (as opposed to having control of some open source repo with redistribution and re-compile/modify etc) right. So your point is even more irrelevant to the original discussion.
    - chimeracoder 14y ago
      > Which is not the same at all with having thousands of proprietary third-party apps to distribute in closed source form What are you talking about? Nothing about app signing and sandboxing requires open-source repositories.
vy8vWJlco 14y ago
"I don't know if it really matters to the average user to have root on their system" I don't think what matters to the average user should matter to any thinking person. You're right, freedom doesn't matter to lots of people in the western world or, for that matter, in China either. Lots of people choose to be powerless or have no desire to be. Lots of people simply fail to see the long-term implications of paying more and more for less and less freedom. If control is one definition of ownership and possession is nine tenths of the law, by giving up even the expectation of control, we are all abdicating ownership for good. "Good luck with all of the of that." Berners-Lee is right (and Stallman, etc...). Deliberately and only buying freedom is the only sensible investment; anyone and anything that tries to remove individual (user's) freedoms should be dismissed as absurd, IMHO.
- alanctgardner2 14y ago
  The thing is, freedom of speech, movement, etc. are much more obvious to non-technical people than freedom to run arbitrary software. I think it's sort of offensive to imply that because someone isn't aware of the implications of the app store, they aren't a "thinking person". There is no risk of being rounded up and sent to a labour camp for re-education because you jailbroke your iPhone. I'm not really sure where you're going with the possession thing, that's pretty much just a hand-wavey aphorism. Obviously possessing stolen property is not 90% legal. I agree with you generally, that we as technical people and experts need to be aware of, and create awareness of, these issues. I think you're falling into the same trap as RMS, which is to get absurd about the abstract notion of freedom, without making change attainable or actionable for the average user. If you want to have a massive shift in user attitudes towards the App store, you're not going to achieve that by comparing Apple to China. Nor can you simply 'dismiss them as absurd', because you're alienating your audience: they think Apple is reasonable. What I liked about Sir Tim here was that he makes the argument pretty reasonably: it sucks that apps aren't cross-platform, that you have to depend on a proprietary interface to save them, share them with other users, etc. He makes it relatable in the present, he doesn't just fall back on the dystopian slippery-slope argument.
  - vy8vWJlco 14y ago
jcromartie 14y ago
The moment an OS maker requires signed apps (on desktop) is the moment I jump ship. They know it's the death knell for desktop OSes though. I'd be really surprised if it happens. I'm not sure what you mean about Xcode though. It's the same toolset (minus private headers) that Apple uses to build their own OS X and iOS apps. There's one extra step to put all of the command line tools on the path for you (install the Command Line Tools package). Then just get Homebrew and you're all set. Open source components of Xcode (parsers, compilers, linkers, command-line tools) here: http://www.opensource.apple.com/release/developer-tools-45/ http://www.opensource.apple.com/release/developer-tools-45/ Homebrew: http://mxcl.github.com/homebrew/ http://mxcl.github.com/homebrew/
- orangecat 14y ago
  The moment an OS maker requires signed apps (on desktop) is the moment I jump ship. Why the parenthetical? What's different about a computer you can hold in your hand that makes it justifiable for the vendor to lock it down and advocate criminal penalties for attempting to run software of your choice? They know it's the death knell for desktop OSes though. "They" have already decided that desktop OSes for the general public are deprecated. Steve Jobs years ago said that PCs are "trucks" that most consumers shouldn't use, and Microsoft has no hesitation about sacrificing Windows 8 usability on desktops in favor of tablets. Even Canonical seems to be headed that way with Unity.
- spc476 14y ago
  I'm a bit scared of this myself. I forward the syslog messages on my Mac to another host (a Linux system) and I've found that /usr/libexec/taskgated logs (at level 'debug') "no system signature for unsigned /Users/spc/source/sysloginter/syslogintr[181]" (a program I wrote). It also logs that message for some other programs I've compiled (like Synergy [1]) and others I've downloaded (like Firefox). In fact, I've seen that message now for the past few years. I'm still awaiting the day when I can no longer run my own software. I hope it doesn't come to pass. [1] http://synergy-foss.org/ http://synergy-foss.org/
hexagonc 14y ago
This comment will be probably be unpopular but I think that root access is overrated. Not that it isn't useful in the appropriate hands, just that people make it out to be more than it really is. Like it is some magic wand that grants wishes. The fact is that there will always be gatekeepers, whether it be the OS maker, the firmware maker, or the chip makers -- root be damned. You'll never have true ownership of your device unless you created, understand, and own those three parts. Maybe I'm stating the obvious but, I think that phone OEMs and OS makers would do better to focus on making more function available that don't require root access. You shouldn't need root to install a tethering app or be able to uninstall some shitware that comes pre-installed by the phone carrier.

anon1385 14y ago

Open the Xcode preferences and install the command line tools from the 'Components' part of the 'Downloads' section, although it does say this: Before installing, note that from within Terminal you can use the XCRUN tool to launch compilers and other tools embedded within the Xcode application. Use the XCODE-SELECT tool to define which version of Xcode is active. Type "man xcrun" from within Terminal to find out more. Downloading this package will install copies of the core command line tools and system headers into system folders, including the LLVM compiler, linker, and build tools.

alanctgardner2 14y ago
Thanks, that was a real RTFM moment.
jonhendry 14y ago
Yes, if you use the Terminal and cd to /Applications/Xcode.app/Contents/Developer, you'll see drwxr-xr-x 3 root wheel 102 Jan 25 14:52 Documentation drwxr-xr-x 7 root wheel 238 Jan 29 13:33 Library drwxr-xr-x 7 root wheel 238 Jan 29 13:11 Makefiles drwxr-xr-x 5 root wheel 170 Jan 25 14:53 Platforms drwxr-xr-x 3 root wheel 102 Jan 25 14:54 Toolchains drwxr-xr-x 22 root wheel 748 Jan 29 13:12 Tools drwxr-xr-x 7 root wheel 238 Jan 25 14:54 usr Inside ./usr/bin is gcc, git, etc. Basically the developer tools used to live by default in /Developer at the root of the filesystem, now the Developer directory is inside Xcode.
- mhenr18 14y ago
  And if you install the command line tools they live in /usr/bin.

AngusH 14y ago

edit: anon1385 gives the same answer as I did, but wrote faster :-) I agree with you on the locking down issue. I don't like the ways things are going. :-( For Mac command line compiling, You need to install the xcode command line tools package In Xcode 4.5: see Menu->'Xcode'->Preferences->Downloads pane->Components tab. Then click the install button on the "Command Line tools" package This should give you a working compiler and tool chain (llvm or llvm-gcc) Hopefully, anyway. I think the package is actually available separately from the Apple developer tools site, although I don't have a link for it. Links on the ADC site tend to change so often, it's hardly worth quoting them.

drcube 14y ago

>I don't know if it really matters to the average user to have root on their system; for technical people it certainly implies "true ownership" of the whole stack on the device. The average user will find it very convenient when their technical friends can fix, upgrade or unlock features in their device. So even if the average user never uses it, they will benefit greatly by having root access to their device. Remember back in the day when your friends would have you fix their computer? Has that ever happened with phones/tablets? Why not?

davidroberts 14y ago
Maybe because the same user who broke things on the computer is locked out on the phone/tablet so they can't break things. If it's broken it'll either be hardware issue or a firmware/os/app problem that has to be solved by the maker/developer. In my experience supporting users of PCs, Macs, and Android and Apple phones/tablets, very few users have any desire for root access or any idea what to do with it when they have it. Their device is going to belong to others no matter what, maybe it's better for it to be Apple or Google or a somewhat vetted developer in a walled garden than the owner of a malicious bot-net.

pretoriusB 14y ago

>Now Windows 8 (moreso RT, but even the x64 version) and Mountain Lion are moving to the walled-garden, segregated, impotent app approach What can't you do in ML that you could in OS X 10.1? If and only if the app signing and approval by Apple gets mandatory to run apps, a la iOS, then you'll have a point. As for now, all the new signing etc are additions on top of the regular infrastructure, and the reason they were added was security. Most security nerds find app signing and sandboxing a good idea.

deleted 14y ago
[deleted]
chimeracoder 14y ago
> Most security nerds find app signing and sandboxing a good idea. Those same security nerds have been doing both on FLOSS operating systems (BSD, GNU/Linux) for years, so that point is irrelevant to the original discussion.
- pretoriusB 14y ago
  Which is not the same at all with having thousands of proprietary third-party apps to distribute in closed source form (as opposed to having control of some open source repo with redistribution and re-compile/modify etc) right. So your point is even more irrelevant to the original discussion.
  - chimeracoder 14y ago
    > Which is not the same at all with having thousands of proprietary third-party apps to distribute in closed source form What are you talking about? Nothing about app signing and sandboxing requires open-source repositories.

vy8vWJlco 14y ago

"I don't know if it really matters to the average user to have root on their system" I don't think what matters to the average user should matter to any thinking person. You're right, freedom doesn't matter to lots of people in the western world or, for that matter, in China either. Lots of people choose to be powerless or have no desire to be. Lots of people simply fail to see the long-term implications of paying more and more for less and less freedom. If control is one definition of ownership and possession is nine tenths of the law, by giving up even the expectation of control, we are all abdicating ownership for good. "Good luck with all of the of that." Berners-Lee is right (and Stallman, etc...). Deliberately and only buying freedom is the only sensible investment; anyone and anything that tries to remove individual (user's) freedoms should be dismissed as absurd, IMHO.

alanctgardner2 14y ago
The thing is, freedom of speech, movement, etc. are much more obvious to non-technical people than freedom to run arbitrary software. I think it's sort of offensive to imply that because someone isn't aware of the implications of the app store, they aren't a "thinking person". There is no risk of being rounded up and sent to a labour camp for re-education because you jailbroke your iPhone. I'm not really sure where you're going with the possession thing, that's pretty much just a hand-wavey aphorism. Obviously possessing stolen property is not 90% legal. I agree with you generally, that we as technical people and experts need to be aware of, and create awareness of, these issues. I think you're falling into the same trap as RMS, which is to get absurd about the abstract notion of freedom, without making change attainable or actionable for the average user. If you want to have a massive shift in user attitudes towards the App store, you're not going to achieve that by comparing Apple to China. Nor can you simply 'dismiss them as absurd', because you're alienating your audience: they think Apple is reasonable. What I liked about Sir Tim here was that he makes the argument pretty reasonably: it sucks that apps aren't cross-platform, that you have to depend on a proprietary interface to save them, share them with other users, etc. He makes it relatable in the present, he doesn't just fall back on the dystopian slippery-slope argument.
- vy8vWJlco 14y ago

jcromartie 14y ago

The moment an OS maker requires signed apps (on desktop) is the moment I jump ship. They know it's the death knell for desktop OSes though. I'd be really surprised if it happens. I'm not sure what you mean about Xcode though. It's the same toolset (minus private headers) that Apple uses to build their own OS X and iOS apps. There's one extra step to put all of the command line tools on the path for you (install the Command Line Tools package). Then just get Homebrew and you're all set. Open source components of Xcode (parsers, compilers, linkers, command-line tools) here: http://www.opensource.apple.com/release/developer-tools-45/ http://www.opensource.apple.com/release/developer-tools-45/ Homebrew: http://mxcl.github.com/homebrew/ http://mxcl.github.com/homebrew/

orangecat 14y ago
The moment an OS maker requires signed apps (on desktop) is the moment I jump ship. Why the parenthetical? What's different about a computer you can hold in your hand that makes it justifiable for the vendor to lock it down and advocate criminal penalties for attempting to run software of your choice? They know it's the death knell for desktop OSes though. "They" have already decided that desktop OSes for the general public are deprecated. Steve Jobs years ago said that PCs are "trucks" that most consumers shouldn't use, and Microsoft has no hesitation about sacrificing Windows 8 usability on desktops in favor of tablets. Even Canonical seems to be headed that way with Unity.
spc476 14y ago
I'm a bit scared of this myself. I forward the syslog messages on my Mac to another host (a Linux system) and I've found that /usr/libexec/taskgated logs (at level 'debug') "no system signature for unsigned /Users/spc/source/sysloginter/syslogintr[181]" (a program I wrote). It also logs that message for some other programs I've compiled (like Synergy [1]) and others I've downloaded (like Firefox). In fact, I've seen that message now for the past few years. I'm still awaiting the day when I can no longer run my own software. I hope it doesn't come to pass. [1] http://synergy-foss.org/ http://synergy-foss.org/

hexagonc 14y ago

This comment will be probably be unpopular but I think that root access is overrated. Not that it isn't useful in the appropriate hands, just that people make it out to be more than it really is. Like it is some magic wand that grants wishes. The fact is that there will always be gatekeepers, whether it be the OS maker, the firmware maker, or the chip makers -- root be damned. You'll never have true ownership of your device unless you created, understand, and own those three parts. Maybe I'm stating the obvious but, I think that phone OEMs and OS makers would do better to focus on making more function available that don't require root access. You shouldn't need root to install a tethering app or be able to uninstall some shitware that comes pre-installed by the phone carrier.