Comment by bigyabai

4 days ago

macOS and Windows are both such a chore for development, though. WSL was the closest I got to an "it just works" dev environment, but it exposes just how bad native toolchains like Cygwin and git bash are. macOS is hardly any better, and once you manage to install all of the GNU utilities it just feels like a poorly-supported Linux distro. It's a bunch of wasted effort to imitate a fraction of Linux's power.

So what are we supposed to use? ReactOS? SerenityOS? The entire mainstream is a "you have to..." OS, I fear the day when I have to abandon GNOME for a desktop that treats developers like chopped liver. Your general preference is fine, but I'm surprised that it aligns with the OEMs that want to put advertisements all over your desktop.

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bigyabai

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nomel  4 days ago

> it just feels like a poorly-supported Linux distro.

That's because it's Unix, not Linux.

  • bigyabai  4 days ago

    macOS, as shipped, is only Unix-like. Even when configured to pass UNIX certification, it doesn't qualify without the temporary waivers:

      if you want your installation of macOS 15.0 to pass the UNIX® 03 certification test suites, you need to disable System Integrity Protection, enable the root account, enable core file generation, disable timeout coalescing, mount any APFS partitions with the strictatime option, format your APFS partitions case-sensitive (by default, APFS is case-insensitive, so you’ll need to reinstall), disable Spotlight, copy the binaries uucp, uuname, uustat, and uux from /usr/bin to /usr/local/bin and the binaries uucico and uuxqt from /usr/sbin to /usr/local/bin, set the setuid bit on all of these binaries, add /usr/local/bin to your PATH before /usr/bin and /usr/sbin, enable the uucp service, and handle the mystery issues listed in the four Temporary Waivers. [1]

    Maybe your installation of macOS is technically Unix, but mine sure as hell ain't. Desktop "Unix" in 2026 is little more than lipstick on a pig anyhow.

    [1] https://www.osnews.com/story/141633/apples-macos-unix-certif...

    • duskwuff  4 days ago

      As an aside:

      > ... copy the binaries uucp, uuname, uustat, and uux from /usr/bin to /usr/local/bin and the binaries uucico and uuxqt from /usr/sbin to /usr/local/bin ...

      This should be your hint that UNIX certification is more of a box-checking exercise than a real test of functionality. UUCP has been functionally obsolete since at least the mid-1990s; it's surprising that macOS even bothers shipping its binaries, and it's exceptionally silly that UNIX certification requires it to be present and installed in /usr/local.

      3 replies →

    • spockz  4 days ago

      I get most of this, but spotlight doesn’t need to be disabled altogether. That is a requirement for the verification, not the actually running as unix.

    • dwaite  3 days ago

      > it doesn't qualify without the temporary waiver

      The nature of temporary waivers makes this untrue per the post you cited - The Open Group only grants them for 12 months, and the post is over a year old.

      IMO, the only significant call-out is APFS case insensitivity by default, which makes the default volume a non-conforming filesystem. However, UNIX certification does not forbid you from mounting non-conforming filesystems (such as FAT32). Instead, this means the majority of software which makes certain assumptions about being used with UNIX conforming filesystems in addition to running on a UNIX conforming operating system are at risk of breaking.

      Let's just say I have my doubts the author would have written a similar post if the final HP-UX release had "lied" about their certification by shipping with root login disabled by default and ulimit -c defaulting to zero.

dhosek  3 days ago

I don’t use Windows so I don’t have advertisements on my desktop. I have had very little friction with using MacOS for development.