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Old 25th June 2008
Snoop1990 Snoop1990 is offline
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Default Mac Os X here we go

I am a Mac user at the moment but I am not that kind of typical mac user the one that can not live without the Apple symbol in each corner. So I want to try FreeBSD especially because it is open Source and I want to give open source a try.

Now what I am looking for ? I have the following Applications and I want to replace them with free open source, so tell what is best, or your preferred choice.

Mail, ical, Addressbook= mozilla collection, because that works best, or ?
itunes = banshee
Safari = Firefox
ichat= gajim (just wondering if it is possible to get a ichat skin for this application) or any other small jabber client
TexShop=a LaTeX with the result on the one side and the code on the other like this
textmate = gedit and this tutorial
photoshop= gimp
dashboard= the option to press F12 and have a bunch or small little applications that show for example the to do's for today, some notes, quick access to google and leo.org as well as wikipedia, maybe the weather, and rss feeds
dock= the bottom line in Mac Os X you know with the option to launch applications from and maybe also the option to have things like stacks.
quicklook = in mac OS X we have the feature to preview any kind of file by simply hitting the space key.
pages, Microsoft office = open office
cocoa Mysql= an mysql client that allows me to access mysql database through an ssh tunnel
some calculator that plots math functions and can calculate LaTeX code
skype = skype
windows emulation = As some people require me to have windows to be compatible I need some emulation running.

Sounds easy does not it so I want it a bit more specific I am going to use freeBSD + fxce + compiz on an PowerPc based mobile computer.

And the aim is to look like a Mac, behave like a Mac (stable and secure) but run even faster, much faster. Therefore the application should look nice but run fast.

I would be pleased to here your answers. And suggestions if you think I should take a look at some other applications.

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Old 25th June 2008
syrushcw syrushcw is offline
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For an itunes replacement I recommend amarok, i chat I like pidgin. Dock I use xfce 4 which does the job though its not as flashy its light weight and quick. windows emulation wine of course. I once wanted my desktop to look like osx but then I found xfce.
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Old 25th June 2008
Snoop1990 Snoop1990 is offline
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But amarok is KDE so this would required further binaries to be installed which slows down the performance, I guess.
About pidgin I agree with you, that seems to be a better choice!


SO I am still searching for :
a LaTeX enabled calculator
some quicklook replacement
and a mysql client

Or is quicklook already contained in Mac4Lin ?
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Old 25th June 2008
Snoop1990 Snoop1990 is offline
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I am also looking for a application to collect photos with. Some great database system where I can sort them by date location and so on ... any ideas ?

EDIT:
Maybe F-Spot ? native GTK and nearly as smooth as digiKam.

Last edited by Snoop1990; 25th June 2008 at 05:35 PM. Reason: Added important information !
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Old 25th June 2008
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Safari uses the Konqueror engine....but I like Opera.

Showimg for photos.
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Old 25th June 2008
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Konqueror in KDE3 uses KHTML and KJS for the redner and javascript engine.

Safari uses WebKit, which started life as a fork if memory serves.


When it comes to Amarok and Banshee, Amarok depends on KDE and Qt libraries but Banshee is a C# program dependent on mono and gtk bindings afaik.


If your planning on the Gnome route, Banshee would be a better idea; vice versa if going the KDE route; if not going either route, try both and keep the one you prefer ;-)
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Old 25th June 2008
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I'm a Mac user, a Linux user, and a FreeBSD user. Actually, I've probably tried most Unix operating systems out there. I don't know how attached you are to a GUI, but a full-featured command line environment is really all I need. I use Xfce 4.4 and Xterm + Screen + Zsh on FreeBSD, and I use standard interface plus the same on OS X. I use MPD for music with ncmpc client to manage on both platforms. Look into that, and see if you like it. It's a nice and elegant setup that hardly takes up much resources.
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Old 26th June 2008
Snoop1990 Snoop1990 is offline
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I am a web developer and I like the Mac to be fast, secure,stable and because of its nice applications, for example textmate.

But seeing the actual development process I do not want to be bounded to Mac OS X any longer, it is just to much ilife too much I do not need too much hidden under the hood, less options to customize and quite expensive.

Now I choose FreeBSD as it is unix and I like the changed changed copyright as this brings ZFS and other technologies to FreeBSD. I chose xfce because it is very fast.

As I am used to the Mac environment at the moment I like my to look similar, so the transmission is easier for me and maybe other mac users that join my way. It should be rock stable, faster as Mac OS X (which is not that difficult ), secure and highly customizable, to fit the workflow as best as possible. Mac OS X does these things out of the box, but the missing feature is the option of customization, it is all hidden behind this beautiful user interface.



About showimg and konqueror I think both of them are nice but both are based on KDE and I do not want to use KDE as it seems to be a bit slower than xfec. Therefore I want to stay with the GTK libraries as long as possible to keep the system slim and fast.

To sum up what I need is a full office, with calender, emails, notes, to-do, address book, web, instant messaging as well as a development area based on a text editor with code highlighting and project structure, that is what I like about textmate, a msyql client as I do not like to edit database queries in the command line, some windows environment for testing, especially for internet explorer, and maybe some emulation to run a web sever as a separated operation system. And finally I need some LaTeX environment again with code highlighting.

That is what I need but to make life a bit more enjoyable I also want music and a nice looking interface with some of those features Apple comes up with for example the quicklook. These things that make your all day stuff easier.



If I finally go with the PowerPC or with the X86 structure is a decision of lifestyle for me. Because I like the PowerPC as it is the theoretically more effective environment but the point is there are not that many PPC computers available on the market. I do not need the newest, as speed is not that important (I choose a fast operation system to be able to run on a older chip) but the problem are all these things around. If you look at older ppc mobile computers, they all have reduced screen resolutions, about 800 x 600 or 1024 x 768 especially the smaller ones ... Therefore I maybe choose a X86.
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Old 27th June 2008
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You do realize that Apple develops Darwin, their own open source flavor of Unix. They use some FreeBSD technology in it on top of the mach kernel. You can download Darwin sources, compile it, and run it on your system if you want. Apple uses Darwin as the base for Mac OS X on which they add on they're own proprietary libraries and user interface and such, then it becomes OS X. Mac OS X is Unix, as much as Unix as FreeBSD or any other flavor for that matter.
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Old 27th June 2008
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Snoop1990 View Post
If I finally go with the PowerPC or with the X86 structure is a decision of lifestyle for me. Because I like the PowerPC as it is the theoretically more effective environment but the point is there are not that many PPC computers available on the market.
You may also want to consider the fact that the FreeBSD PPC port is a Tier 2 port. In less words, it means it is not fully supported. I would recommend sticking with x86 if you are new to FreeBSD. More people are familiar with it and you will likely encounter fewer issues with ports and the OS itself.
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Old 27th June 2008
Snoop1990 Snoop1990 is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by ninjatux View Post
You do realize that Apple develops Darwin, their own open source flavor of Unix.
I know darwin, but that is not the way I want to go, as there are some things in Darwin that to me seems to be done to give more power to the graphical user interface. I am looking for a clean Unix = FreeBSD

Quote:
Originally Posted by BSDKaffee View Post
You may also want to consider the fact that the FreeBSD PPC port is a Tier 2 port.
Ok, that is sad for the old Apple PowerPc computers but thank you for this advice.

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Old 27th June 2008
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Darwin is a clean Unix, and it performs very well. Apple develops Darwin with a different purpose in mind. Mac OS X is not the fastest operating system in the world, according to microbenchmarks, but that's because the developers don't want to "waste" time implementing features that may not translate into a real-world performance increase. If you want to switch to FreeBSD because Mac OS X's interface gets in the way, then that's a good reason, but if you want to switch because FreeBSD is Unix, then that's the wrong reason because you have all of that functionality available to you on OS X.

I don't know if I'd stick with PPC, though. If you're a web developer, then lack of flash might be interfere with that, if you ever need to use it.
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Old 28th June 2008
Snoop1990 Snoop1990 is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by ninjatux View Post
I don't know if I'd stick with PPC, though. If you're a web developer, then lack of flash might be interfere with that, if you ever need to use it.
yes I need flash ...

The reason why I want to switch is the performance and the price for further computers. My business is quite small at the moment, only two Macs so I am at the beginning and now the question is: Is is possible to use Open source only software for web development, to reduce costs to a minimum. And while switching from closed source on the mac side I noticed that I do not have to persuade a Mac to have all those open source applications they are all available on freebsd as well. So if it is possible to get the same fast workflow (which is based on the graphical user interface) on an cheaper computer that would be perfect ! And I guess a lot developers on the Mac side think similar, there is so much user entertainment stuff in nowadays Mac OS that slows down the system and I do not need all these. I want more performance instead and more options to customize my operation system. So as Apple locks down the customization I am looking for an alternative operation system to replace the Apple system.
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Old 28th June 2008
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Mac OS X actually performs quite well, even on older computers. Also, for open source applications, install pkgsrc on Mac OS X, and you're good to go. If you want something easier, but less flexible, then install MacPorts. I understand where you're coming from, and for price reason, any BSD is great.
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Old 29th June 2008
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>Mac OS X actually performs quite well, even on older computers.

That's rather 'nonsense', trying Leopard on my G4 will blow it away (to some extent).

>install pkgsrc on Mac OS X

Use fink or macports - made with Mac OS X in mind.

>according to microbenchmarks, but that's because the developers don't want to "waste" time implementing features that may not translate into a real-world performance increase.

Another nice marketing saying of Apple. You want to learn something about FreeBSD (as mentioned in another posting), try Mac OS X first. We have some 8-way core machines at our institute because of some Apple-maniac (it's in fact a good friend of mine). It doesn't scale well with two cores (compared to other operating systems) and it is at its limit while using more than two cores. You cannot even use more than 4G of RAM because the kernel _is_ 32 bit. So in fact you can, but it's something similar like PAE - in the end another performance hog. But using this machine together with Linux ... speed, just pure speed :-) We will get more of 64 bit with snow leopard and someday they will even implement a proper scheduler.

By the way we're using this machines as render slaves. So if you want something for the Desktop and you do like blackboxes and don't want to bother with configuration etc. well get some Apple. But if you want something similar to UNIX or you do like the console, then get some proper hardware and something similar to the original UNIX spirit, not the trademark and some UNIX03 paper.

That said, I like some technologies of Apple, like Webkit or the iPod (touch), even the 8-way core is some real nice hardware if you're using this power-horse together with some proper 'power-horse operating system'.
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Old 4th July 2008
Snoop1990 Snoop1990 is offline
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And that is exactly the reason why I want to leave Mac OS X ! I chose it two years ago because I thought it is a pure unix with the ability to run commercial software. But the more I looked inside Mac OS X I noticed that is not that kind of unix I was looking for. I want the speed and the customizability of unix and that is what is not available in Mac OS X. Mac OS X runs out of the box, but that is the only option, there is no way to change Mac OS X it is always like you get it when opening the box

As I am more familiar with unix now I decided to choose FreeBSD but I have to replace some apple applications I use everyday and that is what this thread was desired for.
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