I've never used a Macintosh. I did not appreciate the original Macintosh at all. I felt they were charging a price premium for a system that was not open to hardware or software from other vendors. I chose MS DOS instead, then Windows, then Linux. Perhaps Macintosh is a bad idea whose time has come.
I'm working on a book manuscript about the computing environment of academic research and I get a lot of questions about Macintosh. I have to address this by walking a mile in their shoes. And I am writing it out now so I don't forget.
I came into possession of a MacBook Pro that's about 15 months old. It had another person's finishing touches on it, so I learned how to reformat, partition the drive, and then got a clean install of Mac OSX Mavericks, which was just released 2 days before I got this thing.
Coming from Linux, I was confident I could make this work because Mac is a glossy GUI on top of a Unix system.
First, note the system environment. Run Terminal, here it is:
$ cat env-mavrk-fresh.txt
TERM_PROGRAM=Apple_Terminal
SHELL=/bin/bash
TERM=xterm-256color
TMPDIR=/var/folders/90/03n12b2s705cb_1gpyhmvcj40000gp/T/
Apple_PubSub_Socket_Render=/tmp/launch-kl50om/Render
TERM_PROGRAM_VERSION=326
TERM_SESSION_ID=7FC9E7F9-22FB-49AA-BD4B-9B45CAD79DDF
USER=pauljohn
SSH_AUTH_SOCK=/tmp/launch-WixVbS/Listeners
__CF_USER_TEXT_ENCODING=0x1F6:0:0
PATH=/usr/bin:/bin:/usr/sbin:/sbin:/usr/local/bin
__CHECKFIX1436934=1
PWD=/Users/pauljohn
LANG=en_US.UTF-8
SHLVL=1
HOME=/Users/pauljohn
LOGNAME=pauljohn
_=/usr/bin/env
That's encouraging. Still BASH. Note the PATH is familiar.
I still see trouble, but I'm making this work.
The system has some of the features I've always hated (HATED) about the Mac GUI. It is horrible that the window is disconnected from the menu bar that goes with it. Got 10 windows open? Want to close one? Drag mouse to click the window, then up across everything else to close the thing. Bad design. That's a design for the "one program at a time" era of the early 1990s. Or cell phones. I ahve lots of things open at once and navigating is much worse in a Mac than any other OS. Even Windows. You can't just hit File -> Close, you have to highlight a window. This means that using a Mac requires twice as much clicking as any other OS. Choose a window, then choose form the menu.
Another bad side effect of the design is that you are forbidden from moving a window up so that its top is out of view. Sometimes I need to type while looking at a statistical result that is in the bottom of a window frame and that's impossible on a Mac. In Linux window managers, I notice they are imitating this bad feature, they make it tougher to turn off the "Y constraint" (in compiz, for example).
There are lots of other things that work nicely enough. Here's one that is fun. You can easily put different desktop wallpapers on various workspaces. How to get there is not obvious, but if you Google hard enough, you can make it work.
First, what about X11 support in the Mac these days. Here's what happens.
You find a big X under Utilities
"An application has requested access to X11. Would you like to install X11 now?
X11 is no longer included with OS X. Apple continues to support the development
of X11 on OS X with the open source community. Clicking "Continue" will
take you to an Apple Knowledge Base Article which provides information
about installing X11.
Link points at XQuartz-2.7.4.dmg
Safari doesn't let me specify "ask me everytime" on where to save downloads.
Inconvenient.
Did some exploring on dmg file format.
Inside Xquartz-2.7.4.dmg, there is a file XQuartz.pkg
pkg is an XAR file
tar xzvf XQuartz-2.7.4.dmg
cd to .pkg file in there, the thing Payload is actually a gz file,
rename as *.gz, then do stupid minuet
gunzip Payload.gz
cpio -iv < Payload
to extract it. Should learn to just view file list.
Install:
Aquamacs-emacs-2.5
From r-project.org's download page
R-3.0.2.pkg
gfortran-4.2.3.pkg
Verified that opening a *.R file in Aquamacs will activate ESS.
Can't figure out lots of other details in the setup.
That gfortran page points to other things required to build R packages.
http://R.research.att.com/libs/
Can't figure what to do with all those tar.gz files
XCode from Apple store.
See the advice page on att.com. It is apparent they and the R page
are not well coordinated. Each points at the other as the newest thing.
http://r.research.att.com/tools
See: http://www.tux.org/mactex
MacTeX.pkg
Lyx-2.0.6+qt4.dmg
See http://www.lyx.org
Please note that you need to install with Control-click. Otherwise,
Mac will reject you because this is not registered with the Mac company.
Aquamacs will not start from Terminal. In Aquamacs, run Tools pull down
to install command line tools
Otherwise necessary to run aquamacs from full path.
http://www.gimp.org shows 2 possibles. I choose
http://sourceforge.net/projects/gimpsonosx/files/Gimp%20Mountain%20Lion/Gimp-2.8.6p1-mountainLion.dmg
gimp-2.8.6
######
Consider Fink installer in future
######
Need VPN access, KU wants Cisco AnyConnect, download at
http://technology.ku.edu/kuanywhere/download
anyconnect-macosx-i386-3.1.0.01065-k9.dmg
## Same issue as linux, no 64 bit client. On Linux I dropped Cisco
## switched to Open Connect.
There is no way in hell I'm going to log into ku.edu and go through the
kuanywhere ritual every time I need a file. That's insulting.
kuanwhere.ku.edu can be entered in the VPN line, one can log in.
Weird, but the first time I run Cicso AnyConnect, it reaches KU and says it needs to install version 3.1.04066.
please wait, over and over.
Note that the KU RINGS system is incorrectly described in the ku pages.
It does not check your computer. It checks your name.
I don't mind Safari, actually. But I don't want to use a browser on
only one platform. I read that I can transfer Mozilla profiles
from my Linux system to this Macintosh.
Firefox
mozilla.org download:
Firefox 24.0.dmg
Thunderbird 24.0.1.dmg
Those run from the Finder/Applications.
So far, 2 most frustrating things about Mac are
1. It is not possible to do X11 style window move and resize. Can't
click in middle of window and move with key & mouse combination. That's
super inconvenient.
2. Most programs cannot be run from the Terminal without a battle.
They are installed and linked to the Finder I don't mind Safari, actually. But I don't want to use a browser on
only one platform. I read that I can transfer Mozilla profiles
from my Linux system to this Macintosh.
Other things are frustrating, it is tedious to get several terminals
open side by side. Tough to cycle from one to other.
Frustrating to move windows to new desktop
Cant open terminal in one desktop if terminal already running in another.
Trying to open terminal just snaps to other workspace where it is
open.
MUST have Truecrypt!
www.truecypt.org/downloads
Note that hits an install snag if you just double click through, it is
like Windows saying the app is unapproved. So double click the package, it reveals a file "TrueCrypt 7.1a.mpkg". That will reject you if you double click.
So Control-Single click (or other method of right clicking) and choose open.
It will work after that.
That's a problem because I don't really want a mac filesystem in
a tryecrypt. The only alternative is FAT, which is bad for other
reasons.
Look for sshfs support
http://osxfuse.github.io
Package we are aiming for is sshfs, osxfuse is a pre-cursor
osxfuse-2.6.1.dmg
SSHFS-2.4.1.dmg
In osxfuse, I chose option to turn on the gui interface to osxfuse
config and update. We'll see what problems that causes.
SSHFS runs into same permissions problem because it is from an uknown
developer, so use control-click trick.
For Secure FTP, I looked at various. Filezilla is familiar.
http://filezilla-project.org
But I was relly tempted by the Ducky
http://cyberduck.ch
The image viewer Preview in Mac is not great, can't cycle through
images quickly. I'm looking for alternatives.
Word is that Xee is ok. At least it has fast cycling through images.
http://xee.c3.cx
That is a trial version, may cost me $3.99 to keep using it.
Solved one really irritating feature of the Mac. I've found how to
create multiple desktops, but I hate this feature. Open a terminal on
workspace 1. Go to workspace 2. Click terminal in the dock to open a new
one. WHAM. Mac sends you back to workspace 1.
In OSX 10.9, Mavericks, there is a setting to change. Click the apple
top left, then System Preferences, then Mission Control. I unclicked the
2nd and 3rd buttons. Especially, Unchoose
"When switching to an application, switch to a Space with
open windows for the application".
I also turned off "Automatically rearrange Spaces based on most recent
use." I was really frustrated that workspace 2 was not "staying put".
Maybe that will help.
Oh, well. That was a good try. It worked for 10 minutes. Now system
changed back.
The Xee image viewer can't send a program to Gimp to edit, that's
crappy. Googling for "GQView for Macintosh" I found this project
MacPorts: Http://www.macports.org. I think I'll take the plunge, see
what happens.
MacPorts-2.2.1-10.9-Mavericks.pkg.
I watched that a long time. It's compiling a linux distribution
worth of tools. GTK, everything. I tried to install Gimp, it
failed on aalib, claimint that malloc.h was missing. Quick google
indicates this has been an intermitent problem. One bug report
suggests it is necessary to run:
$ sudo xcode-select --install
I think I did that already, lets try again. After that, aalib compiles,
so far as I can tell.
It looks to me like Macports is the equivalent of Cygwin or such,
which build unix tools on Windows. These things are not native,
after installation. But I've not found the equivalent of
cygwin.dll or such to glue them with the OS, either. So perhaps
they are more like the GNUWin32 tools.
Install "caffeine" from App Store (free)
Why? I started a long job and then machine turned itself off while
it was doing calculations.
iTerm2: a terminal program alternative. Supposed to have more Unix-alike
select & paste behavior, customizable background images.
http://www.iterm2.com/#/section/downloads
Installing iTerm: copy to Applications folder. Appears no way to install
for one user only? Must be all? No HOME/bin or such?
Spectacle: better window manager. That's encouraging
http://spectacleapp.com
#####################################
Aquamacs slow scrolling made me wonder about the "real Emacs"
and I was pointed to Vincent Goulet's website
http://vgoulet.act.ulaval.ca/en/emacs/
Emacs-24.3-modified-3.dmg
###################################
RStudio
RStudio 0.97.551.dmg
###################################
KeePassX password safe
KeePassX-0.4.3.dmg
Supposed to be compatible with my Linux KeePassX file.
##################################
gfxCardStatus for monitoring the graphics card
http://gfx.io
That doesn't seem to install, its an executable you run, from wherever.
It indicates this MBP has no discrete graphics card.
I'm removing it. Actually, quitting from the "i" applet, removing file
should be sufficient.
