If your OS X seems really slow, make sure you don't have a problem with your Classic environment. A couple of times, I've noticed that my machine took seconds (lots of them!) to do basic things like opening a window or an application.
In both cases, a look at the Process Viewer application showed the TrueBlue Environment was taking over 95% of both CPU and memory -- with nothing launched in the environment!
If this happens to you, quit Classic (gracefully via the menu if you can, or use Process Viewer to force it to quit) and logout/login. Also make sure that your Classic environment is running the minimal set necessary to support OS X -- I use "OS 9.04 Base" in the Extensions Manager.
[Editor's note: Lots of good info in the comments!]
I'm a new user to OSX, and for that matter Macs too. People keep talking bout how they need help understanding the unix command line, and I understand that (it wasn't that long ago I was in the same boat), But I'm the opposite... A Unix user looking for power tips on macs. I've only had small amounts of experience with macs and am wondering about the advanced features like configurations, cool quick keys, etc.
Could you also point me to resources on the developer side of Macs as well that would be much appreciated. (ie. what the heck is zapping the P RAM anyways- Aussies insert joke here-, or a developer button?!?)
I noticed that you talk about how to compile lynx. There is a *much* better text based web browser called "links" it resides at this URL. I downloaded and compiled it without any problem. It handles tables, and frames correctly. It is my browser of choice on OSX... it has yet to crash on me in many many hours of use.
Yahoo FreeBSD
Yahoo's FreeBSD (BSD is the core UNIX below OS X) category listing, including a selection of tutorials.
Note that none of the above are specific to UNIX under OS X, and may contain incorrect information, especially on more advanced topics. All, however, contain info on the basics of surviving in UNIX.
Offline, I've been using a book called Teach youself UNIX in 24 hours by Dave Taylor and James Armstrong. It's organized into 24 one hour lessons, and covers everything from the basics up through shell scripts and a bit of perl.
The following Apple TIL (Tech Info Library) article refers to Apache under OS X Server, but I would think (my opinion only!) that it would also apply to the PB. The article mentions that the location of the Documents folder affect the speed of the server. For maximum speed, it recommends storing the Documents folder at the root level of the hard drive, since path name resolution slows the server down.
It also discusses security and issues with memory management when restarting the server.
One giant step backward for OS X (beta, at least) is the need to restart when you tweak the network settings. This was always something I was able to mock Windows for - touch the Network control panel, reboot.
Luckily, UNIX gives the power to get around this (for the most part, there have been reports that not all pieces are restarted).
Contributed to osxfaq.com, this article explains how to create a stop and restart shell script for network services.
While goofing around in the finder today, I found a cool new way to colorize the terminal window. Sure, you can do it through the preferences dialog, but what fun is that?
Instead, pick Show Colors from the Fonts menu. Pick the color you want for a background. Now drag the color swatch to an open (non-text area) of the terminal window. To change the text color, follow the same process, but drop the swatch on some text in the terminal window.
osxfaq.com has provided instructions on how to compile lynx, an excellent text-mode web browser.
From a terminal, try this:
wget http://lynx.isc.org/lynx-2.8.3/lynx2.8.3.tar.gz tar zxvf lynx2.8.3.tar.gz cd lynx2-8-3 cp /usr/libexec/config.guess . ./configure make su make install
No guarantees, as I haven't tried this myself yet!
NOTE: You will have to have the compiler installed for this to work!
The compiler is available from Apple, and MacAddict has published a nice tutorial on how to install it. Again, I have not yet tried this myself (too much of a UNIX neophyte!).
SECOND NOTE: See the new tip on the 'links' text browser, posted 11/15/2000, for an alternative to lynx.
If you try to launch the terminal app, and it opens a window but then says "Process Completed" and won't let you do anything, it's probably a problem with your tcsh (shell) file.
You can use the default shell by picking "Run Command" under the "Shell" menu, and typing
/bin/sh
Once that starts, "cd /bin," and "ls tcsh." If the file length is zero, you have a problem.
If you want tcsh back, the only option appears to be reinstalling OS X. For some people (like me), this was trivial, and it simply repaired itself. Others lost all their settings and had to start from scratch.
