[BBLISA] Desktop policies and UNIX-ish operating systems

[Edward Ned Harvey]

> I'm surprised at the amount of misinformation here.  Are you trolling?
> whatever- I'll bite.

I was just having fun, but I don't believe I spoke any misinformation.  I'll
take it more seriously now because I don't like being called a troll stating
misinformation.


> It's true that case-insensitive is still the default setting, but you
> can format it case-sensitive since 10.5.  Just don't plan on installing
> Adobe software if you do.

I didn't say OSX was incapable of using any case sensitive filesystem.  All
I said was (jokingly) "IMHO, you can't call it a unix with a case
insensitive filesystem."  That is not misinformation.  And yes, I do believe
that's un-unix-like.

If you wanted a case sensitive filesystem, you would have to go to
deliberate effort to make it so, and then the end result would be an OS
where landmines abound ... you never know what's not going to work
afterward.  That's simply an untested, nonstandard configuration.  So nobody
in their right mind would do it, except for the sake of exploring the
consequences of making your OSX installation case sensitive.  


> > your config settings are stored in a proprietary format in a
> proprietary
> > location instead of using /etc
> 
> XML serialized to binary is proprietary now?  /etc is still used for
> some things (hosts, resolv.conf, ssh, ldap, apache, php, cron, postfix,
> etc).  It's mainly GUI software that doesn't use /etc.  Many other *nix
> variants do the same thing.

Does anybody other than OSX use XML serialized to binary (or anything other
than ascii text), and use it as their config files for user management,
daemon/service management, startup scripts, filesystem mounts, and other
critical core services?  If not, yes it's proprietary.  Not exactly
something you can read with "cat"   ... that is un-unix like.

True a bunch of files exist under /etc, but most of them are ignored.  I may
be speaking out of line when I say "most."  I'll just name a few that I know
of ...  I think all the following are un-unix-like.
	auto_master (ignored)
	passwd (ignored)
	resolv.conf (ignored by most processes, but not all)
	smb.conf (ignored)
	sshd_config (ignored)
There is no cron under etc, but that doesn't bother me.  I only mention it
because you mentioned it.


> > OSX has no concept of package selection or
> > package management,
> 
> Apple takes a pretty spare course here.  You want [an app]?  Download and
> install it (and the app is responsible for checking for its own
> updates).  You don't want it?  Delete it.

Precisely as I said.  No package management.  I think this is un-unix-like.
Every unix-like system I've used in the last 10 years has at least some
basic (and standard on that platform) package management tools.

Regarding OS packages:  Whatever OS components you selected during OSX
installation, that's what you get.  End of story.  You can't reconfigure the
OS by adding/removing any of the OS components later without reinstalling
the OS.

Regarding 3rd party packages:  Those are equally annoying.  Install Growl,
TeX Distribution, Antivirus, or anything else that creates a System
Preferences panel ... When you "uninstall" by throwing the app in the trash,
it doesn't do a complete uninstall, because it leaves these remnants laying
around...  And sometimes autolaunch services still enabled, giving an error
on every bootup, etc.


> but you'd probably want to check out macports or fink.

I use both macports and fink.  3rd party tools to add some 3rd party package
management to the system, because of the total lack of anything built in.
Macports and fink are useful for some things, but hardly universal or
standard for the platform.


> > and you're a single-user operating system that cannot
> > allow multiple logins even if you try.
> 
> just wrong.  perhaps you mean only one concurrent GUI login?

OSX is not normally used remotely via ssh.  It is normally used via GUI.  I
understand you can have multiple ssh logins, but I say that doesn't count.
The gui is not run by X11 (this is un-unix-like) and as a result, there can
be only one GUI login.  This is un-unix-like.