[Kde-nonlinux] Considering Imac

[John Velman]

Thanks, Jonathan.   Comments from someone who recently transitioned from
Linux is particularly helpful.  Please see below.

On Sat, Aug 18, 2007 at 09:18:39PM -0600, Jonathan Stickel wrote:
> I just made the transition from Gentoo Linux, with heavy use of KDE 
> apps, to Mac OS X.  It has gone fairly well, but the Unix environment 
> that Mac OS X uses has a few "quirks".  For example, the way shared 
> libraries are handled is different in ways I don't understand, and the 
> file system is not case sensitive which can bite you now and again.  I 

I've been trying to find out about potential surprises.  This would
certainly be one!  I try not to give different things names that only
differ by case, but this could certainly cause a problem if doing so by
accident.  (Or accidently giving two versions of the same thing the names
Foo.hs, and foo.hs.)

> comment on a couple of your questions below.
> 
> John Velman wrote:
> >> Your KDE options for iMacs:
> >> 1: Install KDE4 via http://ranger.users.finkproject.org/kde/index.php/Home
> >> This is not the KDE desktop, rather it sits on top of OS X. You get all 
> >> the libs and apps.
> > 
> > This sounds pretty good, and I think I understand it!
> 
> I tried this out and found that it didn't work for me.  Perhaps this is 
> because it is still "alpha".  I also found the new "dolphin" file 
> manager to not work very well, at least not yet (konqueror is setup for 
> web browsing only in KDE4).  Maybe it will be better after bugs are 
> worked out.

Good to know.

> 
> > 
> >> 2: Install KDE3 via Fink or MacPorts:
> >> http://ranger.users.finkproject.org/kde/index.php/KDE_3_on_Mac_OS_X
> >> Fink is apt-get for OS X, with the difference that the graphical apps 
> >> require X11 xserver.b This means you can run them on top of OS X, as 
> >> with KDE4, or have the complete desktop environment.
> >> MacPorts is portage for OS X; haven't used it much so not quite sure how 
> >> it works.
> > 
> > What does it mean to use the X11 server and "run them on top of OS X"?  Is
> > the X server somehow in parallel to the native GUI or does one switch from
> > one to the other?  If using X11 does one still have all the nice MAC things
> > available?  This may be important to me, since it appears that some other
> > apps I want to run use X11.  
> 
> This all worked easily for me.  I don't know what is standard for OS X 
> 10.4 since I got a corporate setup Mac, but OS X development tools and 
> X11 were already installed and configured on my machine.  I tried out 
> MacPorts first, but found that Fink had more packages available and 
> switched over.  The KDE3 installed in either MacPorts or Fink works just 
> fine, other than trouble copying text from OS X apps to KDE apps.  You 
> can either run X11 apps directly inside OS X (same window bars and 
> stuff), or you can run X11 apps in it's own separate windows manager 
> that you get to with a keystroke.  I do the former and am satisfied. 
> The only negative is that when cycling through apps (cmd-tab), the X11 
> apps do not show, only the so-called 'X11' app.
> 

Also good to know.  
> 
> >> 3: Use a Virtual Machine.
> >> There's lots of VM systems for OS X: Parallels, VMWare Fusion, Virtual 
> >> Box. You're basically running linux (or BSD or whatever) in a window on 
> >> top of OS X. Full desktop environment. I use VMWare to run Kubuntu on OS 
> >> X, mainly because VMware cares about linux, especially Ubuntu. Virtual 
> >> Box is gpl, and Parallels only cares about running windows.
> >>
> >> http://www.vmware.com/products/fusion/
> >> http://www.virtualbox.org/
> >> http://www.parallels.com/
> >>
> > 
> > Do these run transparently on the OS X desktop?   Or are the apps
> > somehow "sequestered" in a separate window?  (Or a separate desktop or?)
> 
> I would avoid running a VM.  For me, the whole point of getting a Mac 
> was to run corporate apps AND unix apps without using a virtual machine.

Similar to one of my reasons for going to Mac, although VM sounds better
(if it works) than dual boot.  But as of now,  I don't think I'd like to
run Linux (or Windows) within Mac,  so based on your answers and my other
reading, I can stop looking into the VM route.

Best,

John V.

> 
> Regards,
> Jonathan
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