Unix (desktop and servers)
- Servers
- FreeBSD minimalist network services (x86) - Running FreeBSD single board computer as a network gateway. (January 2019)
- Minimalist automounting NFS synology-to-macOS - It seems that a UNIX-level auto mounting NFS export from Synology NAS to macOS client is the best "no hassles" way to access a NAS on macOS (and Linux too). (August 2018)
- FreeBSD
Vermaden: Bhyve Virtualization → USB pass through; FreeBSD Desktop Series.
FreeBSD Foundation: Bhyve running minimal Linux to support Xilinx Vivado
- FreeBSD Package Updates
- Package management systems will generally make the management of software tools close to automatic. On FreeBSD and macOS, there is pkg and homebrew respectively. Typical update commands:
- (FreeBSD:) pkg update ; pkg upgrade
- (macOS homebrew:) brew update ; brew upgrade
- The "pkg" tool itself is ready to use on FreeBSD but you need to manually install the "brew" tool on macOS (see below)
- Thinking BSD Unix with Linux and macOS
- Linux systems have package management built-in but, if you want a BSD type experience, then "homebrew for Linux" is recommended. The one-line install command is at brew.sh
- The "brew" command is similar to the FreeBSD "pkg" command
- You gain access to the usual build tools (and easy selection of versions)
- Using Unix with macOS
- The essentials are homebrew and XQuartz ...
- macOS Workspace Setup by Nenad Novaković covers the basic install of Xcode (command line tools), the package manager homebrew (with great hints for brew command use for common unix tools and also macOS GUI tools), and support services like up-to-date Apache httpd, dnsmasq, php, etc. (written July 2018).
- OS-X/macOS hacks
- Windoze applications can sometimes be run in WINE and packaged up into standalone OS-X applications using WineBottler.
- OS-X miscellaneous: Open generic files in a preferred app via Services (or search); Mac Book OS-X can't boot due to missing disk? Try fixing any intermittent connection to the disk as per ifixit instructions.
- Hacking (often with help from support.apple.com and/or stack-exchange):
- Create a new admin account
- restart holding down the Command+S keys for Single User Mode
- check the filesystem via fsck -fy
- remount / as writeable via mount -uw /
- clear a system setup flag so an admin user is added at restart so enter rm /var/db/.applesetupdone and reboot
- Unlock drives
- sudo chflags nouchg / or /usr/bin/sudo chflags nouchg /
- mount -uw /
- chown root /
- chmod 1775 /
- Use of resetpassword recovery command
- Firmware password removal
(remove/change RAM, power up with PR ram clear, restore RAM)
- Wine Bottler is a macOS tool that automates the repackaging of Windows apps into standalone macOS apps (essentially packages them with all necessary WINE run-time components). This can be very useful in restricted engineering teaching environments.
