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I have been enlighted, and so shall you. This sums up the history of Unix and the roots of Linux.
I was temped to go out and get OS X Leopard, the new update from Apple. Then I had to stop myself and ask, “Do you really need it ?”
The truth is I don’t.
I often return to OS X just to realize that all the things I need are available to me on Linux. Sure with a little work I could get OS X to work a little more like Linux. I mean the main things I enjoy are a terminal with tabs, gnu utilities, and access to lots of open-source software. All things that I can have on OS X. One thing, I don’t like chasing down software.
Some will say that it’s simple to install software on OS X, and it is. But after using a package manager, such as yum, one gets a little spoiled. For example using OS X, if I want to install a new program such as a different version of apache, I have to chase down the dmg file and double click my way through an install.
Easy, but not my style.
With Red Hat, its just a “yum install httpd” and I am on my way. The OS X approach is OK for one or two programs, but when I want to try out many things at once, its nice to be able to add them like this “yum install httpd dhcpd gcc firefox2 sendmail gimp”. Well you get the picture.
Don’t get me wrong, OS X is the best desktop in the game by far, but when it comes to using pure open-source software, and keeping with the UNIX philosophy, I think Linux wins hands down. I do have a bias towards using the command-line for system admin tasks, and I really prefer using the “RedHat” way of doing things. We I guess that means I will have Linux on my MacBook Pro.
Taking a break from sysadmin work, I want to learn a little programming. It seems that the C programming language plays a huge role in the Linux history and community so that will be my language of choice. The last couple of weeks I have spent some time learning C using the C for Dummies book written by Dan Gookin.
So far so good. The book has a slow pace that I do enjoy, the book makes sure you learn the basics by repeating key topics. This approach may drive some people crazy. I find it rather refreshing knowing that the author understands that we are “learning”.
Having a good background writing shell scripts, I find that learning C is a lot easier than I thought. It’s nice to see where at lot of other languages get their idea’s from. It also helps me understand a little more about how Linux works, and what “Open Source” is all about. It’s cool to have the source code, but it’s even better if you can do something with it.
