- Joined
- Jun 17, 2010
- Messages
- 60
- Reaction score
- 2
- Points
- 8
- Location
- Moncton, NB, Canada
- Your Mac's Specs
- 13.3" MacBook, non-Pro, Snow Leopard
Hello, Mac world.
I'm a Linux user who just got a new Mac; so far everything's reasonably familiar. The dock is a bit more cluttered than I'm used to from AWN (and perhaps you can tell I've been thinking of going Mac for a long time when I'm configuring my Linux box to look Mac-like with AWN), but that's fine. I can fix that in my own time.
I realize this community is more used to helping people switch from the Windows world, so what I'm asking is probably going to seem a bit arcane, since the more important part of my query is something impossible to do at all in Windows.
The first snag I'm running into is navigation. The terminal is pretty familiar to me, of course, but if I use "cd .." I can access the whole filesystem of the computer as God intended, but in the GUI, it seems a bit more restrictive. In a new Finder window I can't seem to drill up any further than my home folder, or tell it in plain terms where I want to go. How can I access the entire system in the Finder the same way I can in bash?
Secondly, I intend to use my Mac primarily for web development (Specifically, playing with embedded Ruby). I like the fact that all 3 of my favourite programming languages (Ruby, Python, PHP) are installed by default, and that I can SSH into my web server without installing bugger all, but I'm also accustomed to being able to switch between command-line and GUI at will. Is there any way to make Finder connect to a remote computer via SSH? I know this can't be done in Windows without installing third-party software -- a pain in the ****, since I never use a Windows box unless it's someone else's and I can't install third-party software -- but I'm accustomed to being able to connect to my web host via Nautilus in a GUI and edit source files directly in gedit. I'm not yet sure what the Mac equivalent of gedit is (I literally opened up the box containing my MacBook an hour ago), but I'd like to be able to browse my web server in a GUI on my Mac as well.
I tried "Connect to a server" in Finder -- it's the same in Linux -- but it prepends afp:// to the server name I provide and I have no idea what the deuce afp:// is. Replacing it with ssh:// didn't help. Using afp:// failed to connect. I have no problem connecting via SSH in the command prompt, for the record. I'm thinking that probably my whole problem is that Finder is not the Mac equivalent of Nautilus, but without knowing what GUI app I should be trying to use, I also don't know how to google my question.
I intend to tackle using SSHFS to mount my web server as a directory on my Mac later, but it's getting late and I need sleep. I presume I'll need to install MacPorts to get that working. If anyone can anticipate any problems I have and provide pointers, I'll greatly appreciate it.
EDIT: Oh yeah: Is it possible to temporarily disable the trackpad on a MacBook (non-Pro)? My old Linux laptop has become a full-time media server, so I just hooked its mouse up to my Mac. I know the Mac's trackpad is more versatile than what I'm used to, but I want to get accustomed to Mac before I start exploring that functionality. A standard 2-button, one-scrollwheel mouse is more familiar to me for now.
I'm a Linux user who just got a new Mac; so far everything's reasonably familiar. The dock is a bit more cluttered than I'm used to from AWN (and perhaps you can tell I've been thinking of going Mac for a long time when I'm configuring my Linux box to look Mac-like with AWN), but that's fine. I can fix that in my own time.
I realize this community is more used to helping people switch from the Windows world, so what I'm asking is probably going to seem a bit arcane, since the more important part of my query is something impossible to do at all in Windows.
The first snag I'm running into is navigation. The terminal is pretty familiar to me, of course, but if I use "cd .." I can access the whole filesystem of the computer as God intended, but in the GUI, it seems a bit more restrictive. In a new Finder window I can't seem to drill up any further than my home folder, or tell it in plain terms where I want to go. How can I access the entire system in the Finder the same way I can in bash?
Secondly, I intend to use my Mac primarily for web development (Specifically, playing with embedded Ruby). I like the fact that all 3 of my favourite programming languages (Ruby, Python, PHP) are installed by default, and that I can SSH into my web server without installing bugger all, but I'm also accustomed to being able to switch between command-line and GUI at will. Is there any way to make Finder connect to a remote computer via SSH? I know this can't be done in Windows without installing third-party software -- a pain in the ****, since I never use a Windows box unless it's someone else's and I can't install third-party software -- but I'm accustomed to being able to connect to my web host via Nautilus in a GUI and edit source files directly in gedit. I'm not yet sure what the Mac equivalent of gedit is (I literally opened up the box containing my MacBook an hour ago), but I'd like to be able to browse my web server in a GUI on my Mac as well.
I tried "Connect to a server" in Finder -- it's the same in Linux -- but it prepends afp:// to the server name I provide and I have no idea what the deuce afp:// is. Replacing it with ssh:// didn't help. Using afp:// failed to connect. I have no problem connecting via SSH in the command prompt, for the record. I'm thinking that probably my whole problem is that Finder is not the Mac equivalent of Nautilus, but without knowing what GUI app I should be trying to use, I also don't know how to google my question.
I intend to tackle using SSHFS to mount my web server as a directory on my Mac later, but it's getting late and I need sleep. I presume I'll need to install MacPorts to get that working. If anyone can anticipate any problems I have and provide pointers, I'll greatly appreciate it.
EDIT: Oh yeah: Is it possible to temporarily disable the trackpad on a MacBook (non-Pro)? My old Linux laptop has become a full-time media server, so I just hooked its mouse up to my Mac. I know the Mac's trackpad is more versatile than what I'm used to, but I want to get accustomed to Mac before I start exploring that functionality. A standard 2-button, one-scrollwheel mouse is more familiar to me for now.