[NCLUG] OS X isn't Unix

[Terry M. Gray]

For a laugh? Sounds like you're pretty serious there, Paul.

BTW, all of the "missing pieces" are easily installed (especially for 
anyone who can handle a linux-distro). Being a UNIX person and a Mac 
person, I'm not so sure that the average Mac user needs or wants the 
stuff (even root access)--so why not leave it out and let the UNIX 
person install it with the little bit of extra work that it takes.

Netinfo is the only significant difference as far as I can tell. I'm 
more familiar with the /etc stuff too, but I'm getting used to it.

You wrote:
>O'Reilly is wrong about Apple's possible markets. Apple may have a 
>market in desktop users who want some of the stability and 
>flexibility a Unix-based operating system affords them. They may 
>even have a market in Unix users who want a desktop-focused platform 
>for their home or desk at work, but they will never find one in 
>Unix/Linux users who want a desktop environment.

Believe it or not the scitech community is pretty gung-ho about OS 
X--computational chemistry, bioinformatics, structural biology (those 
are the ones I'm familiar with). Probably not a huge market, but this 
is an important part of the traditional UNIX community that's taking 
OS X quite seriously (as a UNIX platform). Here at CSU we're already 
moving most of our UNIX-based number crunching from aging SGI 
machines to OS X. Linux would have gotten our business had OS X not 
come along, but the combination of the Mac desktop (and commonly used 
software availability) and Unix is compelling to us.

I guess it's hard to take a major defection like O'Reilly

TG



>For a laugh:
>
>http://freshmeat.net/articles/view/557/
>
>Later,
>Paul
>   -----------------------------------------------------------------------
>   J. Paul Reed                 preed at sigkill.com || web.sigkill.com/preed
>   Wait, stop!  We can outsmart those dolphins.  Don't forget: we invented
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>
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-- 
_________________
Terry M. Gray, Ph.D., Computer Support Scientist
Chemistry Department, Colorado State University
Fort Collins, Colorado  80523
grayt at lamar.colostate.edu  http://www.chm.colostate.edu/~grayt/
phone: 970-491-7003 fax: 970-491-1801