Stuck with a Mac...

Tom Marshall

Tom Marshall

Actor!!!!!!
I was given a macbook pro at work to use. It's not mine to keep, just to use. That's ok, I don't want it anyway.

My issue at the moment is when I try and start Firefox, I get no fonts on the page. I'll go to "Terminal" and start it from there, and I get the following error:

ATSFontGetFileSpecification failed: error -5000

What the hell is that supposed to mean?

I hate macs... maybe it's because I'm what you would call a "power user". I use UNIX (Linux) all the time at home and was kind of excited to play with mac's BSD based os... but without a c compiler installed, it's pretty much useless. And it's missing a bunch of standard UNIX commands (pkill for example). And it doesn't seem to set a standard PATH variable so that I can't even start an app without typing the full path to that app. What a joke...
 
Never seen that issue on firefox. What version are you running, 2, or the beta for 3?

Are you running Tiger or Leopard?

I know Leopard has a lot of UNIX improvements, but not sure if it has what you're talking about. I use mine for work/editing, not typing stuff in the terminals... I dunno, I think MACs are awesome.

Good luck.
 
Firefox version is 2.0.0.11. It was working before, but suddenly quit showing the fonts. Maybe rebooting would fix it... I don't know.

"About This Mac" says it's 10.4.11. I don't know which one that is.

I'm probably the odd man out trying to run within the UNIX subsystem on a Mac. I'm sure it wasn't designed to be used that way. I would just think that if they're trying to take advantage of a BSD base, then they would seamlessly integrate the entire system together. I mean, how hard can it be to include some sort of development environment and provide a c compiler?
 
10.4.11 is latest version of Tiger.
10.5.2 is latest version of Leopard (actually it might be 10.5.1, but 10.5.2 will be released imminently).

Leopard added a LOT of stuff for Unix and was the first one to recieve official UNIX certification. Might want to research that. You may also do a google search, perhaps a 3rd party created some free apps for Tiger to do at least part of what you're talking about...


Yes, I'd try a reboot. Haven't had your problem before.
 
I have no clue how to upgrade the OS. What's the cost of the upgrade? I'm probably better off just installing the 3rd party stuff, but what a PITA...

I rebooted and Firefox is working properly.

I don't know... maybe I'll get used to this Mac thing... maybe not...
 
Installing stuff on a MAC couldn't be easier, not really a PITA to do something it was designed for if you find an app to allow it on Tiger for free.

Go to the Apple store and use one of their computers, they all have leopard installed. You can see if it does what you want. You could also research online, but I'd check in store to make sure as well. Leopard is $129 retail, not sure what the upgrade price is.
 
Tom Marshall said:
I'm what you would call a "power user". I use UNIX (Linux) all the time at home and was kind of excited to play with mac's BSD based os... but without a c compiler installed, it's pretty much useless. And it's missing a bunch of standard UNIX commands (pkill for example). And it doesn't seem to set a standard PATH variable so that I can't even start an app without typing the full path to that app. What a joke...
Click to expand...

I just went and threw my college degree in the trash.
 
Tom Marshall said:
I hate macs... maybe it's because I'm what you would call a "power user". I use UNIX (Linux) all the time at home and was kind of excited to play with mac's BSD based os... but without a c compiler installed, it's pretty much useless. And it's missing a bunch of standard UNIX commands (pkill for example). And it doesn't seem to set a standard PATH variable so that I can't even start an app without typing the full path to that app. What a joke...
Click to expand...

You cant think of a mac as Unix Based, it really doesnt operate the same way i good Unix / Linux OS should.
 
Rick Meyer said:
I just went and threw my college degree in the trash.
Click to expand...

Sorry, Rick... lol

MiniMan13 said:
You cant think of a mac as Unix Based, it really doesnt operate the same way i good Unix / Linux OS should.
Click to expand...

Well, yeah. A lot of aspects are different. One of the main things is you don't have a native X11 installation (that I'm aware of). Also, it would be nice if I could get a tarball of something and compile it, but I can't. My favorite FTP client, yafc, which is a command line program, should be installable. By when I ran the configuration script, I got the 'no c compiler found'. There isn't a make command either.

Maybe the developer kit would have that stuff though. But on a positive note, ncftp was available as a pre-compiled binary which had it's own install package. I mean, if I can download a binary rather than being able to compile it, then that should work...

Speaking of which, I wonder if there's an X client on a Mac. I'd love to be able to run X11 apps from my Linux box on the Mac display. Anyone know if that's possibile?

Michael Friedman said:
There are really great resources from O'Reilly for Unix geeks moving to OS X.
Click to expand...

I might have to pick up something from O'Reilly. I've always found them to have the best books on technical subjects.

There's the Fink project that. I ran across yesterday. It's supposed to make a Mac more UNIX friendly... sort of an oxymoron... :grin:
http://www.finkproject.org/
 
mac's are so easy....but I'd advise to watch out for some of the third party stuff. Stay all Apple and you will be ok.

Stuck with a Macbook pro,,,,I don't feel sorry for you!!
 
Luis Caffesse said:
Is this what you need?
http://www.apple.com/support/downloads/x11formacosx.html
Click to expand...

Thanks, Luis. Very helpful. :)

Zim said:
mac's are so easy....but I'd advise to watch out for some of the third party stuff. Stay all Apple and you will be ok.

Stuck with a Macbook pro,,,,I don't feel sorry for you!!
Click to expand...

I'm not looking for something easy. I'm looking for something powerful. An easy operating system is very boring to me. I want to be able to do whatever I want. I want something flexible as well. With a UNIX based OS, I should be able to... that's kind of what I'm saying.

With my Windows XP laptop, I've replaced the Windows Explorer interface with bblean, which is basically Blackbox, a UNIX window manager, ported to Windows. If you looked at my Windows laptop, you wouldn't be able to tell it's Windows just by looking at it. I have no start menu. My windows don't look anything like Windows windows... :) I can configure it to do whatever I want with as many virtual desktops as I want, behaviors, etc.. That, to me, is pretty powerful. That's what I want from an OS.

EDIT: I was browsing the Install disks that came with the Mac and found all of the "Developer Tools" on the disk. Makes sense that all the packages wouldn't be installed by default. I mean, how many people use Macs for compiling and developing their own software? :)

I might not hate the Mac as much as I though I would...
 
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