Dima Shcherban <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes:

> Questions:
> 
> 1. Are there any real differences bertween that MAC version of UNIX with
> conventional UNIXes, which we are accustom to?

I've been running it since last April. It's a decent Unix system under
the hood. The GUI environment is essentially a Display PDF environment
that doesn't support X out of the box; however, there's a decent port
of XFree86 4.2.x that works great, and has an option to run "rootless"
so the X windows can coexist with the MacOS windows. Basically the 
rootless mode means there's no root window for the window manager to
work with.

> 2. Is underlying UNIX usable by itself, or not? 

Yes, it works quite well.

> 3. Is it possible to build any third party software of this UNIX. How
> about X?

Yes, I've built a number of packages successfully. All the standard
BSD development tools are there, along with gcc 2.95.2.

Also, there's an add-on called "fink" that's basically a stripped-down
Debian package manager along with all the traditional GNU tools.

> 4. Is it setup simillar to NeXT, previous attempt of "Macintosh UNIX"?
> 
> I would appreciate any pointers.

Yes; it still uses a bunch of NeXT tools like the IB and the Mailtool,
and the networking still has NetInfo underneath. I haven't looked at
the NetInfo parts recently, but when I first installed the system
about a year ago, it looked like NetInfo was client-only, and wouldn't
act as a NetInfo server. The rest of my network is all Linux and 
Solaris, so I didn't bother messing around with NetInfo past my initial 
exploration of the system.

There's one thing I still find mildly annoying: I've always preferred
the FocusFollowsMouse behavior in X, and MacOSX is strictly ClickToFocus.
But that's a pretty minor thing.


-- 
John Abreau / Executive Director, Boston Linux & Unix 
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