Questions from a Linux user considering a Macbook

[S P Arif Sahari Wibowo]

On Fri, 20 Feb 2009, Aaron Vegh wrote:
> I'm not familiar with gvim, but there are GUI vim apps for OS 
> X. Here's an example: http://code.google.com/p/macvim/

There are also vim-app port from macports.

> There is fink for OS X, but the community prefers Darwin Ports 
> for running *NIX applications on OS X. http://darwinports.com/

I think it is officially moved to http://www.macports.org/ ; and 
the download from MacPorts does not ask for personal 
information, so I definitely suggest that.

MacPorts is a portage system: on installation it will always 
compile things in your machine, no prepackage binary around. 
However, if you want, MacPorts system can produce rpm binary, 
which then you can install in other OS X system without 
compiling (e.g. when security dictate a system without 
compiler).

Fink should have some prepackage binaries, but in my experience 
most things I want to install does not have binary available, so 
fink will compile it in the machine.

> Overall though, the environment is nearly identical to Linux; 
> you'll be comfortable and productive on the command line right 
> away.

There are some differences originally since OS X is a BSD system 
(on Mach kernel). However if it bother you, there are several 
sysutils packages / ports (such as coreutils, findutils, 
diffutils) which will make sure your tools work are as what you 
expected in Linux.

You can even install common linux desktop manager, such as 
Gnome, KDE, or XFCE. Haven't tried that, though.

> VMWare is what I use, however, and it works very well.

That's what I use as well. I tried QEMU but VMWare definitely 
much more usable.

> To my mind it's the perfect platform. It's the only hardware 
> that will (legitimately) let you run Mac OS X, while also 
> letting you run Linux and Windows easily and quickly.

My thought as well. As hardware I think it is generally a nice 
one in perfomance, reliability, and durability. At least 
comparable to non-Mac on the same price point.

Just a note: make sure you have more than 1GB memory, make a 
quite a difference. :-)

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                              (stephan paul) Arif Sahari Wibowo
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