VIM ('Vi IMproved') is a replacement for vi that features a ton of enhancements, including colored syntax highlighting for a number of languages (Java, C/C++, HTML, PHP, PERL, etc) and the ability to save edited files as HTML with syntax colors. If you like using vi, you'll love VIM. Thanks to macosxhints reader jpzr, a friend from Poland, for the information on how to get this working! I followed his tips, tweaked a couple of things, and installed it with no problems.
Read the rest of this article if you'd like the step-by-step instructions on installing VIM for OS X. NOTE: You need to have the developer tools installed to compile VIM, and you should be fairly comfortable in the terminal ... then again, if you're using vi, you're probably quite comfortable in the terminal!
Webmonkey has posted an in-depth article covering Apache, PHP and mySQL on Mac OS X. It's written with a UNIX novice in mind, and walks you through the steps required to get each application running. It also includes an overview of Tenon's iTools.
A good read, and helpful if you're just getting started with this stuff.
How can one kill a root-owned process? I installed mysql and have it loading itself automatically on login. However, I need to kill it to reconfigure it and I realized I can't do so. In process viewer it shows that it's running, and that it's owned by root, but it won't let me kill it because I'm not root. If I use terminal and use the su command to become root, it doesn't show the mysqld process, only ps and tsch.
Any ideas how to either kill the process from within OS X or how to switch to the root user in terminal such that I can see the processes?
If you're a software developer using UML, you may want to know about ArgoUML, an open-source Java CASE tool available from Tigris. It lets you draw different views of your project and such.
Version 0.8.1 appears to work fine using their install steps when running it from Terminal, or you can use MRJAppBuilder to create a clickable application if you have installed the Dev Tools CD.
Read the rest of this article if you'd like instructions on installing ArgoUML on Mac OS X.
If you're like me, you are lost without the beloved Korn shell. Oddly enough, it's not included with OSX (of course, that statement most likely points out my lack of knowledge in BSD).
Anyway, I found 'pdksh', and was able to successfully compile it on my OSX 10.0.1 system.
I had to tweak a few things, such as add a .profile to my home directory. You also need to use the Terminal Preferences to change the shell of the shell (?) to /usr/local/bin/ksh. I also updated /etc/shells, although I'm unsure whether or not that was needed.
Of course, make sure you are root during the install process.
I also might add that I haven't done any extensive testing of the ksh, but so far it behaves as I expected, and also runs various shell scripts I had written on Solaris 2.x.
Mac OS X contains built-in firewall software, known as ipfw. You can use this to protect your machine from outside entry, but it's not trivial nor GUI-friendly. If you want that, go get Brickhouse from Versiontracker.
If you'd prefer to work directly with UNIX, Daniel Cote has published his ipfw configuration file, along with some tips on how to use ipfw in Mac OS X - you can read the article right here.
NOTE: You should really understand exactly what it is you're doing before you going mucking about with the firewall software! For a more simplistic approach, try Brickhouse or any of the hardware routers.
When running the autoconf configure script, it will likely fail to identify the host type using its config.guess info. The error message it will produce is the following:
configure: error: can not guess host type; you must specify one
To get past this error, run the script with the host argument:
./configure -host powerpc-apple-bsd
This should allow the configuration script to complete, and when cc (the one that Apple ships, based on gcc) runs, it should compile.
I've been trying for 2 days to compile the latest postgresql after having installed "readline-4.0.2" (if you use the psql utility you'd know why I want the readline support). Anyway, after having installed readline-4.0.2 postgresql could never complete the 'make' process, all sorts of errors. On a last ditch effort, I downgraded readline to 4.0, and postgresql compiled just fine, and I'm one happy camper now.
This tip allows for easy editing of files such as ~/.tcshrc or ~/.bashrc, so you can click an icon in the dock, and the file will open in TextEdit. Read the rest of the article if you'd like the step-by-step instructions.
For those of you fortran heads, here's good news. FSF GCC now officially supports Darwin/OS X, meaning that you can grab latest source at gcc.gnu.org and build a version of gcc, including fortran (g77), on your OS X box.
Although I don't personally use fortran, this would be a breakthrough for scientists and engineers who use Macs and have *a lot* of fortran libraries. Read yourself Stan Shebs' comment at darwin dev list.
