Shutting down Gui

Kast

Registered
I am considering buying a tibook and installing OSX. I am really
just after a portable Unix solution. My question is can I shut down the cumbersome Mac Gui and just run a command line/shell?
Also, can I compile standard BSD apps, packet sniffers, etc....
Finally, does OSX ship with all the regular shell commands in place for a BSD Kernel.


Thanks All
 
yes you can shutdown the 'cumbersome' gui - login as >console.

OSX includes just about anything that's in any other BSD, but if you don't want the gui, just install darwin
 
If you shut down the GUI you only get one text screen, and <em>it's</em> cumbersome--slow scrolling, no buffer, etc. You're better off with a GUI and having multiple Terminal windows open.

At least, that's what I do on my TiBook.

Yeah, you can get the great little sniffer tools compiled. I put on libpcap and then tcpdump and tcpflow among others, though tcpflow is my favorite.

After you install OS X, be sure you install the Developer Tools from the devel CD.

-Rob
 
I bought a TiBook to run LinuxPPC. But while waiting I started working with OSX on another machine. I liked it so much I dropped the whole idea of GNU/Linux on the TiBook. Part of this decision stemmed from the quality of the Classic implementation, which I prefer to Mac-On-Linux. Another part was the surprising ease with which OSX installs. I wasted less of my employer's time just getting the basics of the OS working and was able to jump right into my customization (firewalling etc.).

If you want to forego OSX in favor of a more typical *n*x , consider LinuxPPC. It should perform better than Darwin and it has a moderately useful package management system (not that RPM is particularly great). It also more closely conforms ot the System V and BSD standards (some of each, but basically SV) with which you are familiar. Of course, never having used Darwin in the absence of OSX, I don't really know what I am talking about.

Although the TiBook is OSX/OS9, I have two other Macs which triple boot OSX/OS9/LPPC. LPPC is the performance king, but I spend most of my time in OSX. Almost all in fact. :)
 
Almost forgot...with the Linux kernel you get multiple virtual terminals. Each function key gives you a new login. Very useful in text mode. Even better if your X session locks up and you don't have a means of network access for purposes of process killing. Like if you were running it on a laptop on an airplane or something. I sorely miss this feature in OSX. The display manager has puked on me once or twice when I was not networked.

My advice would be to get a big hard drive and install OSX/OS9 and LPPC. You never know what you might end up liking. If you do so, make sure to put OS9 on an HFS, not HFS+ partition. Mac-On-Linux cannot yet read/write HFS+, so to run MacOS apps (MS Office), you'll need HFS. Have fun; the TiBook is a great little computer.
 
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