I'm Hooked

[sharpstick]

Can anyone suggest a good starting point for learning Unix commands as they relate to X11, and where I can find software to run on it. I'm not interested in writing programs, just getting comfortable enough with it to use it well.

Thanks,

sharpstick

[OPENSTEP]

I'm glad you're hooked! Actually, I think it's wonderful that OS X allows some wonderful Linux applications to move to it without any problem.

Another top-quality X11 app is The Gimp...it's an image processing application similar to Photoshop:

http://www.macgimp.org

You can also look through the X11 stuff available on DarwinPorts:

http://www.darwinports.com

There's a lot of good quality stuff coming out of the KDE projects. When you start getting a little more comfortable using Terminal, you should also probably check out the Fink project:

http://fink.sourceforge.net

While I think theoretically Fink is a member of darwinports, there are still several projects available through fink that aren't available through darwinports.

The inclusion of X11 and the unix underpinnings of OS X have allowed all kinds of fun things to move to the Mac from the trivial but ever-amusing xeyes to the indispensable return of MATLAB.

Average Mac end-users just looking for a free office suite may balk at the "difference" from regular Mac applications, but it really is a testament to OS X that such a wide range of open source and commercial applications are now available for the Mac that previously would have been abandoned or never even available at all.

ed