What is Mac OS X? What's Darwin? What's Rhapsody? Why should you care? (Okay, I can't really answer the last question, but I will take a shot at the others.)
| version | codename | build |
|---|
| Developer Preview |
| Public Beta |
| 10.0 | Cheetah | 4k78 |
| 10.1 | Puma | 5g64 |
| 10.2 | Jaguar | 6c115 |
| 10.3 | Panther | 7b85 |
| 10.4 | Tiger | 8a428 |
Mac OS X, released on 24 March 2001, is the first viable Macintosh operating system based on UNIX. (Yes, I used A/UX - Apple Unix - and it wasn't viable in any sense of the word :-) Roughly, Mac OS X is composed of Darwin, its open source UNIX underpinnings, and Aqua, the Apple proprietary graphic user interface, the look-and-feel. As I understand it, Darwin is basically a variant of FreeBSD running on top of the Carnegie Mellon University Mach microkernel.
Mac OS X Server, the business version of Mac OS X, is based upon Rhapsody. Sadly, I can't tell you the difference between Mac OS X and Mac OS X Server, nor the difference between Rhapsody and Darwin. I've been too busy with Mac OS X to research these things, since I've been consumed with bringing all my development tools under one roof. Much of my efforts have been finding ways of moving tools from other UNIX distributions to this new environment, which is not yet supported far and wide.
So far I've divided my notes into two groups, one dealing with the core operating system itself, the other dealing with third-party tools I'm using. I hope you find these step-by-step instructions helpful to what you're looking to do.
Setting the Mac OS X Hostname
22 March 2001
Of course Apple's implementation of UNIX can't confrom to standards which are decades old; it's job security to shuffle things aroound. Sigh. Anyway, the mystery of how to setting your hostname on Mac OS X has been solved.
Mac OS X in my hands TWO DAYS EARLY!
21 March 2001
Due to an inventory control error at the Staples chain of stores (and someone's post at MacNN) two or three copies of Mac OS X have been sold on Tuesday or Wednesday, several days before the planned release date of Saturday 24 March 2001.
I'm one of the lucky few. After reading the post I called our local Staples, only to be told they didn't have it. Seeing as others had needed to ask in person, I drove across town to do the same. The clerk asserted that they hadn't received anything recently. When I told him what I'd read, he checked a nearby location; they told him they'd sold their two boxes yesterday, on Tuesday. He didn't believe them, so he went to check the last shipment (without telling me; I just saw him dissapear). I hung around for about five minutes, browsing the shelves, trying to look non-threatening. When he returned I noticed he was carrying a cardboard box with two Mac OS X cartons. I whipped out my credit card and walked out with it. I think this clerk knew about the restriction on selling it before Saturday, but he, like most Staples employees - from what I've read - don't really think Apple will impose a $500,000 fine per copy sold early (as the contract reputedly stipulates).
I've installed it on bothy my Lombard and Pismo, and both seem to be quite happy with it, excepting the Microsoft Internet Explorer 5.1 "preview", which seems to have issues :-) In getting my machines up and running I've encountered the following issues (with solutions provided should you be following in footsteps similar to my own):
