[Gllug] Apple

[North London John]

On Monday, January 12, 2004, at 10:51  pm, Simon Faulkner wrote:

> Hi All,
>
> We are encountering evermore Apples in our travels so I figure I will 
> have to buy one and learn a bit more about it.
>
> Is OSX like Linux?
>
> Will I be able to run Linux software like OOo on it?
>
> Any other thoughts?
>

OS X is based on a *BSD(darwin), using the Mach kernel. So it's all 
open *nixy goodness beneath the (closed) desktop.

Fink (1) is the most widely used ports collection, with which you can 
run Gnome, KDE, Gimp, etc, on OSX, using Xwindows (Xfree86 or Apple's 
own X11) - but not with the lickable-but-proprietary Aqua interface. 
There's a version of OOo as well. Also a (growing) number of natively 
ported free apps are turning up. (*alpha* binaries of various 
KDE/Koffice apps have recently been made available. (2))

(1) http://fink.sourceforge.net
(2) http://kde.opendarwin.org/

OS X was my escape from windows and introduction to gnu/*nix/free 
software - I'm very much enamoured of it.
(dons flame-retardant *pinstripe* suit.)

John

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