Mac and Linux

Hi, I recently switched from Windows XP and Ubuntu to Leopard, and it seem there's a lack of open source softwares in leopard.

I am curious since Leopard is now UNIX 100% compatible, does that mean I can run linux softwares on leopard? I mean without using parallel VMware.

Thanks

zenofex73 said:

Hi, I recently switched from Windows XP and Ubuntu to Leopard, and it seem there's a lack of open source softwares in leopard.

I am curious since Leopard is now UNIX 100% compatible, does that mean I can run linux softwares on leopard? I mean without using parallel VMware.

Thanks

Click to expand...

Yep, but you will need to compile it for the Mac. Check out DarwinPorts and MacPorts. Oh, and BTW, there is no shortage of Open Source software on the Mac. Most of the major packages like Open Office, The Gimp, etc have pre-canned Mac versions that are ready to run. OS X has always run on a FreeBSD variant known as Darwin, it just recently became certified.

Mac OS X is indeed a real UNIX and the DarwinPorts are the path to getting all of the gnu stuff on your Mac. It follows more the FreeBSD model of a 'ports' system in that you use the port command (which you also have to port over so you can get the rest of them) to install most open source type utilities. It goes to a repository on the net, downloads the source, compiles it with the included make files, then installs them in the appropriate location along with man pages or libs needed for whatever the dependencies are. Oh, you'll need the Xcode development package which came on one of your DVDs because it includes the gcc compiler so you can compile them in the first place.

I have a number of them that I install as I need them, like id3v2 which is a command line mp3 tagger, and some others that I forget at the moment.

Perhaps first you should be asking what programs you need and what OSX equivalents there are, rather than just assume there are limited open source apps for OSX.

In addition to darwin ports you may want to check out Fink ( http://www.finkproject.org/ ).

Check out the following for a guide to installing fink - http://www.macdevcenter.com/pub/a/mac/2005/09/30/fink.html

Steve

cwa107 said:

Yep, but you will need to compile it for the Mac. Check out DarwinPorts and MacPorts. Oh, and BTW, there is no shortage of Open Source software on the Mac. Most of the major packages like Open Office, The Gimp, etc have pre-canned Mac versions that are ready to run. OS X has always run on a FreeBSD variant known as Darwin, it just recently became certified.

Click to expand...

I made a similar change (Windows and Linux to Mac) a while ago, and at the time, I was very concerned about getting open source Linux software up and running on my Mac. I installed DarwinPorts, and built up quite an impressive collection of open source on my Mac.

Fast forward a year and a bit. I never use ANY of it anymore. There are native Mac equivalents for just about everything you used to do with open source. I simply find I no longer have need of it. It was like a security blanket at first. However, once you become fully immersed in the Mac world, you will discover that its richness and diversity eliminates the need for any additional open source.

mac57 said:

I made a similar change (Windows and Linux to Mac) a while ago, and at the time, I was very concerned about getting open source Linux software up and running on my Mac. I installed DarwinPorts, and built up quite an impressive collection of open source on my Mac.

Fast forward a year and a bit. I never use ANY of it anymore. There are native Mac equivalents for just about everything you used to do with open source. I simply find I no longer have need of it. It was like a security blanket at first. However, once you become fully immersed in the Mac world, you will discover that its richness and diversity eliminates the need for any additional open source.

Click to expand...

I made a similar switch. The only thing I would need Linux for now is to allow it to sync my cell phone with my computer. I am probably going to install either Fedora or SuSE to see if one of them works.