Getting started with MacOSX - the hard way

[johnix]

Hi all,

I'm coming here for help.

I know it's my fault. I bought a 2011 Macbook Air just because of the great hardware and the (relatively) low price tag. I just wanted to get Linux running and be done.

But I should have known this was Apple, and Apple means trouble. One week later, I'm stuck with crappy video drivers, a worse-than-nothing touchpad and a keyboard map that can't be fixed without breaking something else. In addition, because I went for the latest drivers, I chose Ubuntu 11.10 beta, and now every day, another vital part of the system breaks apart.

So I figured, I might as well try to use MacOS X Lion. They say it's Unix... and apart from the Wifi that keeps disconnecting and no accents on my Dvorak keymap, it's running fine. I just have to re-learn 10 years worth of shortcuts...

Now, if only I could get basic software onto my MacOS. You know, OpenOffice.org, GnuPG, Thunderbird, wget, Gimp, a torrent client, OGG player, Anki, rsync, and the 1000 others one can't live without. But Macports has a dependency list long like my complains list, and Fink binaries seem to have stopped at 10.4. And installing every software package by hand is not an option for someone who has been using a Debian package manager for the last 10 years.

Is it true that there's no software on MacOS, and that you have to purchase every package one by one from Mac Store and install them manually?

Please, someone, give me hope! Where do I find software for MacOS Lion?

 

[lighthouse_man]

Welcome to Earth,
You know there is this thing called Google, it's a search engine and it's found at google.com where you can search for the apps you want and you can find their respective websites and download them. Many of the software that you mentioned is also available on Mac.

For example, a simple Google search resulted in finding:
http://www.mozilla.org/en-GB/thunderbird/
http://porting.openoffice.org/mac/

and by the way this is not the right part of the forum to ask about Lion; try here:
https://forums.macrumors.com/forumdisplay.php?s=&daysprune=30&f=152

 

[likemyorbs]

So basically you're complaining that mac os doesn't come loaded with free software? Which btw it does if you buy a new mac. But why would you not just use google? There is also tons of free software in the app store.

 

[-tWv-]

I'm sorry to say, but there isn't much that you can install through things like macports. I tried out ubuntu and that was one of the things I loved about it, but with a Mac you are going to have to install programs by themselves. This really isn't that bad because either you do it through the app store or download the application from a website, copy it to the applications folder, and you are done..

I know that I was able to get ubuntu fully functional on my MacBook about a year ago, I searched around the ubuntu forums for a while to find what I needed, but it worked. Have you looked at the apple section of the ubuntu forum?

You could also run ubuntu on your Mac as a virtual machine with virtualbox if you wanted. You can set it to run fullscreen and it's like having a whole ubuntu machine inside the Mac OS. I've used this a lot just to try out operating systems and ubuntu works particularly well. I have never had a problem with it, I would give it a try

 

[ender land]

I'm pretty sure your OP actually convinces me even more strongly that I should like Macs.

All the crap you listed would be things I would have to spend time going through and removing... and since it's not installed I don't have to!

Also, you chose a beta OS for your ubuntu... don't be surprised if you have problems and the "system breaks apart."

 

[AnimaLeo]

You bought a Mac before researching this kind of thing? PCs are way better for this sort of thing, and cheaper.