[NMUG] Darwinian nightmare

[Ken Hamer]

Steve,

Well, it depends on what you ultimately want to achieve.  There's 
nothing wrong with learning UNIX by using a Mac as long as you have an 
ultimate use for the Mac's abilities.  The mistake would be to choose 
the Mac platform with the sole aim of learning UNIX.  "Learning UNIX" is 
a bit of a vague ambition anyway due to the vast variation between the 
many versions of both the UNIX and UNIX-like OSs (Linux and OS X are 
UNIX-like, not UNIX).  There are, of course, similarities but you might 
want to consider what your ultimate goal is first before choosing which 
version to learn.  The Mac platform provides many advantages, not least 
of which is the limitless help available from the esteemed members of 
this mailing list.  If you can make use of a Mac (and who can't?), then 
there's no reason not to learn the OS X version of UNIX as you 
experience the enjoyment of using a Mac.

Your point about wanting to be in control is valid and true for all OSs 
including Windows.  It's always nice to know what is actually happening.

Regarding the configuration of a server, it is simpler than you think.  
As soon as you share a printer or a folder, you have configured a server 
whether you like it or not.

One critical issue is the hardware.  Many UNIX and UNIX-like OSs are 
multi-platform.  OS X is proprietary and only runs on Apple hardware 
unless you start getting very technical (His Steveness frowns upon 
people who do this and doth smite companies which lend assistance to 
such evildoers).   Of course, the advantage of Apple hardware is that it 
can run Mac OS X AND Linux AND Windows which a normal X86 box will not - 
easily.

So choose what you want to end up with.  Then choose your platform.

Ken

Steve Batch wrote:
> Hi Ken thanks for your input, sorry for the slow reply, I've been  
> working a lot of hours lately.
>
> Let me try to explain how I came to the obscure choice of Darwin:
>
> I want to use the Unix commands to complement and enhance my Mac  
> experience so rather than just learning about standard functionality  
> that is present on most Unix I actually want to learn about the  
> additional Apple commands.  (I know these are useless outside of OS X,  
> but that's ok).
>
> I want to feel in control of my OS and understand for myself what is  
> happening for example when file permissions go screwy or an  
> application behaves peculiarly without having to resort to third party  
> application downloads that perform the task for me, when I know that I  
> could simply carry out the task myself if I had a better understanding  
> of the commands.
>
> I don't have a desire at the moment to configure a server but in the  
> future that will most likely come up.
>
> I hear what you are saying about OS X not being the best place to  
> start, I am now thinking that because I have forgotten pretty much all  
> I learnt about Unix/Linux I should probably start from scratch and get  
> up to speed with a basic Linux distribution and then move on to OS X  
> once I have a better grasp.
>
> A friends once said that the best way to learn Linux is to complete a  
> 'Linux from scratch' system <http://www.linuxfromscratch.org/> he  
> swore by it saying he learnt so much from this approach.
>
> Steve.
>
>