[BBLISA] Desktop policies and UNIX-ish operating systems

[Daniel Hagerty]

    You seem to have some confusion between your personal preferences
and facts.  I should also point out that while I often don't care for
apple's choices, I can see where they're coming from -- a lot of the
standard unix choices don't interact well with apple's actual target
market, which is not us.

> 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.

    Apple has to pick which universe it would like to have backwards
compatability issues with.  They picked a default that favors their
own installed base, which happens to be less computer savvy than the
average unix nerd.

> 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,

    Yes, they do.  What do you think tic does?  zic?  pwd_mkdb on the
*BSDs (see below)?  Sendmail (tongue in cheek)?

> 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)

    Apple disables passwd and other flat file directory services by
default.  You can re-enable it with directoryutility in
applications/utilities.  You'll still have to compile the
master.passwd file to the {,s}pwd.db binary files that the OS actually
uses (just like {free,net,open}bsd!).

> 	resolv.conf (ignored by most processes, but not all) 

    resolv.conf is a good example of "not well matched with apple's
needs".  Start a program that uses resolv.conf, change your DNS
configuration, and notice how nothing about DNS changes in the program
you started.  Now think about what happens to your webbrowser on a
roaming laptop.  How is tradition the right choice for a user base
that's most concerned with "work correctly and transparently"?

> 	smb.conf (ignored)
> 	sshd_config (ignored)

    Not true.  The issues I've seen with it are exactly the same as
using inetd to start ssh.  Configuration items relating to the network
are ignored, because sshd doesn't control them.  Config items that are
still controlled by sshd work as expected.


    I'll bet I can figure out the story behind auto_master and
smb.conf with a few more minutes, but I think you can get the idea.
You can't be bothered to figure out why it doesn't work by default
isn't the same as it doesn't work.

> 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.

    There are current unixes that have no OS level package support
whatsoever, you know.

> 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.

    Speak for yourself; I've spent more time on OS-X via ssh than in
front of it.  You can have multiple GUI logins on OS-X -- enable fast
user switching.