Mixed beginning - long term: High expectations
 

ITinfo is a small Danish system integrator. We are specializing in individual database and system solutions, where the standard systems isnt fitting or doing the full job.

Some of us has strong Mac experience, but the more technically minded people tend to prefer Unix/Linux. But a lot of our solutions involve relatively large FileMaker bases and some of them are working locally or via web, creating pdf and other graphical files. But Distilliller, FileMaker, PhotoShop etc. is only running on mainstream systems (Windows and Mac OS).

Here Mac OS X comes in as a very interesting platform - merging mainstream with the power and standards of unix, including the open source world.

We are already running some solutions integrating FileMaker and the other mainstream applications with Apache, PHP and mySQL.

In most cases our experienses are positive, but we had to wait a long time for acceptable backupsolutions (Omnigroups splendid backup application was discontinued after being marketed and running fine on the original pre Mac OS X release server).

But at the same time we must admit that we are puzzled by some problems we have seen ... one of them being Retrospect (backup application from Dantz) freezing and terminating file-server-services on OS X Servers ... forcing us to restart.

But we expect those problems to be version 1.0 .... related. Althoug this is exactly what one wouldnt expect from Unix.

Altogether, and in spite of some of the peculiarities, we see Mac OS X as one of the most important steps forward. Not because of its Unix, and not because it is mainstream ... but because it is mainstream and Unix!

Best regards

Carsten Levin
FileMaker Center Denmark
ITinfo A/S

For backup...
 

For backup try rsync, ditto, carbon copy cloner, imsafe, and the many MANY other shareware, freeware, and opensource solutions.

Peace,
Tai

I voted for the last choice, but it's not entirely true - I never really looked forwards to seeing UNIX and a "mainstream" system coming together. The only time I did anything with UNIX before OS X was to check my e-mail, and BetterTelnet worked just fine for that in 9.

Now though, I can't imagine computing without it. I'm not a professional user by any means, but scripts with more oomph than AppleScript is enough to make me never want to run Classic again. Not to mention all of the open source software that always seems to be there when I need it, like the gimp.

Also, fetchmail. Man do I love fetchmail. Not coming home and seeing Mail.app dancing around in the dock like a maniac because it got a timeout 4 hours before.

Now I'm rambling, so I'll quit.

I think its good that Apple used Unix as the backbone to there new OS. The advantages of porting alot of apps from the Unix background to the Mac is a plus and is easier to do

It is also giving people that know FA about Unix the chance to try it :) Which is a good thing and sometimes bad.

People dont want to learn to understand about what they use, they want what they use to understand them inna way.

OS X does this inna way. But you still see people booting into OS 9 to delete files and do things they shouldn't, but which let them in OS 9. Anyway, thats just bable..

Seeing games ported to OS X is one of the best things. Cos not many 'mainstream' games would get ported Linux. But in a way, they are with OS X ;)

It will be nice to see what 10.2 is like :)

Ever since the first time I saw AU/X I've been hoping for this combination to become viable.

I like where it's headed. I hope some of the AU/X features (commando) make it back.

Mainstream app person, here, but I think it's good that OS X provides such a versatile platform now, and I'm also satisfied with the stability, memory management, multi-tasking, and networking benefits that come from the Unix underpinnings.

Good poll!

Mac person since the 512Ke and System 3.

Having Unix underlying the MacOS environment is both exhilirating and terrifying. Exhilirating because of the promise of 4 or 8 processors running symmetrically, running my own web site on my own computer powered by my own database and sending my own mail and not needing an ISP. Exhilirating because of the possibility of concatenation of dozens or hundreds of tiny little Unix apps into a single wrapper with GUIs that can substitute for command lines and permission settings without replacing them -- a Unix that one could learn without ever opening a manual, with all the flexibility intact. Therefore making it less likely that Windows in some incarnation will take over all the big iron first. Exhilirating because the hope for massive scalability, of computers big enough to run the US Social Security Administration's entire systems on the same OS that I've got on my laptop. And therefore making it less likely that the MacOS experience will retreat into ever-smaller niches and die there.

Terrifying because I'm not going to feel sufficiently geeky and at ease until I can start off with a CD full of loose unorganized files and recognize them and create directories and put the right files in the right directories and assign the right permissions to them and edit the ones that need editing and get it to boot and run correctly. I want to know where everything goes and what it does and why and what to fix when errors occur and what you can do and what you can't do without unwanted side effects. And I'm such an incredibly long long way short of that.

I may be in the minority, and get yelled at by unix purists, but I'm hoping that Apple wraps "all things unix" into pretty aqua colored interfaces. I want to see the man pages re-written into real english. Problems with sendmail? Well then just open the sendmail preference panel. Oops, don't see that one...
I am hoping for multiple user modes where admin accounts get an "advanced" set of preference panels and gui access to advanced unix functions. As long as the terminal remains, all standard unix rules can still apply.
I actually love OS X right now, at version 10.1.5. The system can only get better, so I forsee great things in the future.
If anyone can make learning/using unix fun, it's Apple.
(apple user since the ][e)

mac-->NT-->Solaris-->Macos X
 

I'm a former photographer who used classic mac all the time...power user.
Left photography to learn networking, got an MCSE and never used it cuz I got my first job at UU.net. Got thrown into an exclusively Solaris environment then firewalls on Solaris...so MacOS X is like coming home and not coming home;-)

Well same here, AK. I really don't see ordinary home users learning Unix, but I don't see them setting up sendmail either! ;)

I'm surprised by the results of the poll. It seems there are quite a few people who are looking for a Unix/mainstream combo, which bodes well for OS X expanding its market into Unix-land.

OTOH, the poll results might say more about who visits this forum than anything else. :confused:

i.e. The majority of the people who are compelled to visit this forum, are those delving into the unix parts of the system?
I voted for a unix/mainstream combo, but only because of unix proven stability. That's about all I wanted, I didn't really care how Apple provided it. The fact that I have a *small* bit of unix knowledge made me excited that OS X is unix based, as the fear factor was reduced to nill for me. Do I have a use for most of the scientific type free apps already ported across? Nope. But if Apple gets this right, we should be able to add up all macintosh users, and all *nix users, and arrive at the new improved Apple marketshare. (not very accurate, but you get the point..)
Boy... What does this poll tell us?

unix is not to be feared
 

First of all I don't think Unix should be feared. I doubt there is much in the Unix underbelly that most users need to concern themselves with anyway. Based on what I've seen, if a user needs something there, wrapping a pretty gui around it won't make it any easier to understand. Understanding is the key here.

Since UNIX is the foundation of OS X I've found the desire to delve into it enough to not be intimidated. Though hardly beyond baby steps, I do have one partition which is devoted to UNIX experimentation, command line efforts and ports. On it XDarwin, GIMP, OroborOSX, and the like and provide interesting opportunities for study and experimentation. However I'm building up my primary OS X partition with mainstream apps all of which have a graphic interface and familiar Mac style. That will be the one I use primarily as graphics are my primary work. Frankly, while GIMP is an open source wonder, for a variety of reasons (no CMYK support to name one) it isn't close to Photoshop and Illustrator or the other highly developed commercial applications. That isn't to say that the practitioners of the app create some grand artwork!

When I can shift to OS X full time, it will be my graphic interface version in which I'll work. It's a right brain thing...or is that left brain?

Cheers!

I'd definitely like a GUI wrapper for Unix. A hierarchy of subjects or types of commands, a mouse-selectable menu of commands within those categories, and a command window in which you see the raw command-line parameters that are assembled by what you picked. Man pages (with very robust boolean search tools) directly integrated into the same GUI environment in which you select and implement your commands.

More "applications" that are actually front ends to dozens of little Unix microprograms, with GUIs put together to give an appearance like any other singular integrated application, but (again) with a window showing you what command-line string is being passed whenever you click the button / select the menu item / make the selection / whatever.

The little windows that show you what comand-line parameters are being passed would be areas into which you could type, same as Terminal, of course, in much the same way that the URL location field in your browser will let you type in URLs as well as displaying the results of picking something from your "Hotlist" / "Favorites" / "Bookmarks" or clicking "Home" or whatever.

If I had that, I would be better able to control my environment without having to run off for manual or helpful web page tips between commands, and at the same time would learn from observation what commands perform the actual procedures I've selected in the GUI.

Its about the gui and the compleete concept
 

If its only a matter of giving a graphical userinterface to make possible the use of applications like Gimp or office applications, then Linux/Unix on any fast grey box would be my preferred solution.

But thats not what Mac OS X is about. Its a concept, a total system, like the system introduced by Apple in 1984 and mimicked by Microsoft.

But its important to know the difference: GEM, TOS and all the other graphical shells was inly skin deep covers for old fashioned systems. The same is in my opinion the case with X windows ... if you can please forgive me for being so blasphemic.

Windows, Mac OS 1-9 and Mac OS X are more than that. They are full blown systems with relatively well functioning drivers for thousinds of hw units and with really well integrated system and application software.

And thats whats makes the meeting of the Mac and Unix so unique. It is a true modern system based on the strongest possible basis. And thats what makes me patient and convinces me that its worth waiting for all the small and not so small problems to be solved.

the Unix way
 

The thing is wrapping gui's around the command line interface is really not the "unix" way. The whole philosophy around Unix is small tools, that do one thing and do it very very well, that you can chain together in a script....
Check out "The Unix Philosophy" by Mike Gancarz
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/AS...254166-5588944

back in A/UX, there was a GUI app called 'Commando' (replete with camouflage window decorations) that enabled you to construct command line args.

it could help a user to see the atomic structure of a command, but very soon you would find yourself just going to shell because you would grok command line.

i'd like to point out that there is a corner to turn with using the shell, and that if you dedicate 15 minutes a day in shell exploring what you know and expanding on that, the corner approacheth sooner, and you will then eschew the overhead of a GUI app just to get your disk usage or memory usage or view a log file, etc.

shell is just another tool. don't fear it. and refrain from bad-mouthing it.

i'm all for the re-birth of the 'Commando' app if one of its goals is to facilitate this journey towards the corner.

Re: the Unix way
 

I think most of us understand the "unix" way, but we own apple computers, not solaris machines. Believe me, I know the power of the unix command line: being able to script, to compare files, and even modify data. However, I only tolerated that way because there was no better (read easier) way. I don't want to deal with complicated functions on the command line while at home.
If apple wants to keep their existing customers, they better *not* try and force the "unix way" down our throats.
I want unix the Macintosh way.

edit: Were we badmouthing shell? Sorry shell! We love you!

Re: Re: the Unix way
 

what you're driving now is closer to a Unix/solaris box than any OS9 install. it just happens to have a good, professional UI that emulates what Mac users expect in an interface.
alas, i'm afraid this is darwinism in action. no force other than what is natural. choose, and adapt or perish. i'm not saying you must learn unix, but, since it's under the hood, it would behoove you to have a glancing familiarity about it. it will make you a better supportable customer, at least.

Notice that the platform is called "Darwin". sit quietly and contemplate the implications of that for a moment. i don't think it was chosen by a dart in a dictionary. it is radically different from pre-OSX, a mutation, if you will.

i would hope that OS9 would be open sourced at some point in the future (so that it could live on as it is a reasonable OS for some users, and a lesson on how easy it is to code yourself into a corner). but, i tend to think that it will remain dormant for a while so that the "Darwinism" can go forth and be fruitful (cull the defectives from the herd).

i realize this is uncharitable language to some, but, perhaps you could look at this in terms of the "long-run", which was possibly no Mac OS at all, Windows conquering all other platforms, bar none.

there's still a good fight to fight, and now, we have additional alliances in the Unix camp. let us not start infighting, but join arms with the Unix professionals and route the unwashed windows miscreants from their foxholes.

hmm, i'm not sure i even want converting windoze users polluting the gene pool :D aren't they innately defective?

i think for how young OSX is, we do have Unix the Mac way.

Merv, I think we actually agree on almost every point you make. However, I'm not sure the 'casual' user is going to agree.

I can't wait till the day my dad can't empty the trash, and the phone will ring. It's not that it's a big deal to fix, but as a macintosh user, he expects to click the mouse and have the system respond, not go digging for command line solutions.

From the apple website:
The terminal is (arguably) simplicity, but I don't think it will ever qualify as elegance.

I just want Apple to fullfill the promise of their quote, and I'm 100% certain that they eventually will.

In the meantime, thank god for these forums!