OS X - Apple's Fix-It List

[Phil A.]

4) Kernel - I read a lot about how "bad" the OS X Darwin/Mach micro kernel is. Is it really a bad kernel or is it all just FUD? And if it is bad 1) what kernel should Apple use (Solaris, perhaps?), 2) should they reinvent the wheel and make it from scratch, 3) how dificult is it to give OS X a kernel-transplant?

I think you'll find a lot of it is FUD - have a look here for a decent analysis of the OSX Kernel.

 

[SC68Cal]

Well, there are some performance issues with OS X compared to Windows and Linux servers, I can't remember the article location but they did a study in which they compared the three and OS X was the slowest under load.

 

[dusanv]

6.) Spotlight!!

 

[savar]

Yes, I too wish they would replace the bash shell interface with a secure shell client. Because that makes any sense at all.

Terminal.app is a terminal emulator, and so is PuTTy. It happens to have SSH built-in, but it also has raw, rlogin, and telnet to.

Moreover, I was referring to the fact that PuTTy has lots of features and "quickedit" mode...Terminal.app is like a beta xterm. I use PuTTy on Windows all day at work and it's 100x better than Terminal.app on my Mac at home.

 

[dpaanlka]

6.) Spotlight!!

Fix Spotlight?

 

[savar]

Unless I'm mistaken, PuTTy is just an SSH client. Have you ever used Terminal? Do you know what it is?

Wow, three replies on this one point.

My counter: have you ever used PuTTy?* If you had, you would know what I'm talking about.

*I'm guessing from the phrasing of your post that you haven't. PuTTy is a terminal emulator, exactly the same as Terminal.app. It also happens to support remote login by SSH (as well as Telnet, Rlogin, and raw).

Moveover, Terminal.app is not a "bash interface" as somebody else claimed. It's a terminal emulator...the name itself kind of gives that away.

I spend all day working on Unix systems at work (Windows client->PuTTy->Unix shell), and my Mac at home is also a Unix system. Head-to-head, PuTTy has faaaarrrr more features than Terminal.app (although it islacking transparent windows, agast!) and has much better tools for text selection/insertion.

I don't care if it's an SSH client or not, Terminal.app is underpowered. Compare it to xterm ... xterm is a nearer example if you can't wrap your head around the PuTTy comparison. xterm still has many more features.

[QUOTE="iancapable]At the end of the day a command line is a command line... Terminal serves it's purpose and is better than the equivalent in windows. However as a *nix user I would prefer to have colours (I think that's what he was trying to get at) as putty displays console colours when logged into a remote machine.[/QUOTE]

Yes, thank you. Not the colors in particular, but thanks for recognizing that a shell is a shell and a terminal is a terminal. I do the same things at home as I do at work, and I do it way faster at work because (like I keep saying) Terminal.app needs more features. (Cooler would be PuTTy ported to OS X.)

Like I said in my first post, it's a very small wish. But as somebody who uses the Terminal a lot, it would improve my experience greatly. As it is, I've started using my Windows laptop to login to my Mac just so I can use PuTTy.

 

[storage]

Per application/process audio volume would be a really nice feature.

 

[dusanv]

Fix Spotlight?

UI and general interface is *really* rough around the edges. I agree with what this guy has to say 100% and then some. Why is the results window not a part of any application (it just feels like a nasty hack)? Why can't I have more than one of them? Why aren't there any options on the results windows to cut down on number of matches (like file name, size or a phrase in the file)? I couldn't easily turn off indexing of my Windows drive (had to visit forums here). Spotlight shows promise but it's not quite there yet. It should be replaced by the Finder's 'Find...' window because that's actually very useful.