What is macOS?
macOS (Mac or Macintosh)
is a Unix-based
OS. In the back-end, it is
FreeBSD with a modified (hacked) GNU Mach kernel, which is
not accessible off-hand. The end user interacts only with the
Aqua GUI and has no access to directories in the system other
than the home (~) subdirectory. macOS
is fairly closed only allowing applications from the Mac App
Store or identified developers. This limitation is disappointing
and annoying considering the high cost of MacBooks and other
Apple products even if done for the purpose of security or as an
expansion of the iOS
heavily restricted system mentality.
Since I got my second-hand MacBook running macOS Catalina (version 10.15, released on 10/07/2019) with the purpose of learning the OS and for programming, I installed the Homebrew package manager in order to install different applications like LibreOffice, Anaconda, MariaDB, DBeaver and PyCharm for Python3 — most of which are not available in the Mac App Store. Unfortunately, my machine is too obsolete although only four years old and is no longer supported by Apple or any vendor for that matter.
/bin/bash -c "$(curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/Homebrew/install/HEAD/install.sh)"
I had to install ranger — a CLI file explorer to
see the contents of directories outside home via the
terminal (zch).
brew install ranger
I dare say that I am disappointed. If I wanted to be limited
by an OS and only able to see the contents of my
home directory, I would have opted for another
chromeOS
laptop. Better yet, I could have set up
FreeBSD again after more than a decade — this time on a VDI
rather than on barebone hardware.
At least, I can use my MacBook to rewrite the curriculum for the SQL classes I teach. I want to move away from Microsoft SQL Server and into MariaDB since many students have MacBooks of their own.
By the way, my MacBook ("13-inch, Mid 2010" as listed in the Apple website, with a 2.4 GHz processor and 8 GB of RAM) is heavier than most desktop replacements — about five pounds according to Apple. Although I paid under $200 for it and it does not feel like the best purchase I have ever made.