>I have an old linux desktop that I'm sure would work, but I'm wondering >if I should consider buying a new Apple laptop. Last time I used a Mac, >it was mostly tolerable for an old UNIX head like me. Are there any >issues running nmh on a Mac?
I'm typing this from a Mac right now (well, via exmh, but I still use bare nmh a lot). exmh has some challenges relating to fonts, of all things, but bare nmh works perfectly fine. Nmh is a package in Homebrew (I think the best open-source packaging system for MacOS X) and I expect it to be well-supported in the future. I view the issue of "Mac vs Linux" mostly as a philosophical one. Yes, there's a lot of Unix under the hood and as a fellow old UNIX head I make great use of that. The upside for me is there's a lot of support for "mass market" kind of stuff and you don't have to fiddle with things a lot as you might have to do under Linux. The downside is that there is still some hidden magic so it's not 100% Unix everywhere and it's not as customizable as a pure Linux system; you have to be happy with (or at least be willing to live with) some of the decisions Apple has made for you. At this point in my life I find someone else making a bunch of those decisions for me to be relieving; I am sure that plenty of people would find it stifling. --Ken