After many years of poorly-concealed lust and envy, I finally have a shiny new PowerBook. I've worked my way through the setup and registration, and I've tweaked a few preferences here and there, but it's still in a very vanilla state at the moment.
So hook me up -- what do you hardcore Mac OS X folks recommend to get this machine ready for serious work, Perl and otherwise?
needed software
rjbs on 2004-12-01T00:27:04
I keep a OmniOutliner file of software I want/need on various kinds of computers. For MacOS:
* Desktop Manager wsmanager.sf.net
* Keynote
* LiteSwitchX
* MacSword
* MenuMeters
* NetNewsWire
* OmniGraffle
* OmniOutliner
* OmniWeb
* PDF Viewer Plugin
* Quicksilver
* SideTrack
* SSHKeychain
* SubEthaEdit
* uControl
If I had to pick just one? Quicksilver.
Re:needed software
sigzero on 2005-10-07T18:07:47
If it is a *new* Powerbook he won't need SideTrack as they come "out of the box" with that functionality (I think).
LAMP
phillup on 2004-12-01T02:04:01
Since most of my work involves Mason (and mod_perl)... the first thing I do on an OSX box is compile my own apache/perl/mod_perl.
You will especially want to
do this if you work with DBD and MySQL using the vendor Perl.
Unixify
schwern on 2004-12-01T10:45:37
Install X11, available here: http://www.apple.com/macosx/features/x11/
Install XCode 1.5 and the November 2004 gcc updater from developer.apple.com. Use "Download Software" then "Developer Tools". This will require signing up for an ADC membership. Do not be fooled by the $20 XCode offer on the front page. Install at the very least all the SDKs. If you can afford the space install everything including the documentation which contains some important POD files (perldiag.pod, without which diagnostics.pm doesn't work and perlfunc.pod without which perlfunc doesn't work). Now you have gcc, make and all the header files.
Get fink (fink.sf.net) for a Debian style package manager or Darwin Ports (darwinports.opendarwin.org) for BSD style. From these you can install all the Unix programs you expect to have.
Get MPlayer (mplayerosx.sf.net), VLC and (alas) Windows Media Player. This covers your video playing bases. Additionally grab the DivX (http://www.divx.com/divx/download/) and 3vix (http://www.3ivx.com/download/) Quicktime codecs. Between all that you can play pretty much everything.
For video encoding, ffmpegX (http://homepage.mac.com/major4/).
If you're into BitTorrent get Azureus (azureus.sf.net).
Firefox.
X-Chat Aqua (xchataqua.sf.net) for IRC.
Cyberduck. (ftp/ssh browser)
DeLocalizer. (Throw out language files you don't need)
MacStumbler. (To find wireless networks)
MisFox. (To play with Internet settings without having to fire up Safari)
OpenOffice
Postfix Enabler. (Switches from sendmail to postfix)
Rendezvous Browser.
Couple to add
Schwern's list is pretty good. After you follow that, you may want to add:
* Fugu
link
* DbVisualizer for DB stuff if you need it
link
* BBEdit (not free)
link
* FinkCommander for graphical fink
link
And once you get X11 and fink, you can get xemacs or any other unix utilities you want.
You guys rock.
wnodom on 2004-12-01T13:56:05
These suggestions are excellent. They're exactly what I needed.
Software
sigzero on 2005-10-07T18:12:47
Fugu
:: a free SSH/SFTP program
Transmit
:: a not-free FTP/SSH/SFTP program
BBEdit
:: It doesn't suck
Textmate
:: a cheaper editor that may have want you want
Plus a lot of the other suggestions...
