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Questions tagged [unix]

UNIX is both the underlying code and architecture that makes up Mac OS X / iOS as well as a way of interacting with a Mac using the terminal app, X11 app, and various shells like `bash` or `zsh`. Whether you're logging into a mac using `ssh`, using `mdfind` or `tmutil` or using other open source software, you are doing things very much in common with other UNIX operating systems and toolsets such as Linux, GNU, and many, many others too numerous to list.

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270 votes
7 answers
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How to replace Mac OS X utilities with GNU core utilities?

I found there is some differences between the utility command I used on the mac OSX and linux. I want to make my experience united. How could I replace all my mac utilities with GNU utilities?
steveyang's user avatar
  • 2,865
264 votes
3 answers
184k views

What is the "rootless" feature in El Capitan, really?

I have just learned about the "Rootless" feature in El Capitan, and I am hearing things like "There is no root user", "Nothing can modify /System" and "The world will end because we can't get root". ...
Josh's user avatar
  • 8,714
178 votes
11 answers
367k views

How can I mount an ext4 file system on OS X?

Is there a safe, stable application for reading from and writing to ext4 file systems on Mac OS X? If not, what's the best way to access the contents of an ext4 file system on Mac OS&...
Evan Kroske's user avatar
  • 2,057
170 votes
4 answers
141k views

How do I delete all Terminal mail?

I set up a cronjob a long time ago that now doesn't exist. Whenever I open up Terminal, it now says "You have mail". I have something like 100 messages that all say the same thing. How do I mass ...
daviesgeek's user avatar
  • 39.3k
154 votes
9 answers
132k views

Is there a way to convert audio files in Mac OS X or the command line without using iTunes?

Now, I know I can use iTunes to convert music. But it's quite a pain.. All I'm asking is: Is there anything built into OS X or UNIX for converting files? Right now I simply want to convert .mp4 to ....
James Litewski's user avatar
136 votes
6 answers
81k views

Linux' `ps f` (tree view) equivalent on OSX?

How can I get a tree view like the one below on OSX? vartec@some_server:~$ ps xf PID TTY STAT TIME COMMAND 11519 ? S 0:00 sshd: vartec@pts/0 11520 pts/0 Ss 0:00 \_ -bash ...
vartec's user avatar
  • 2,348
89 votes
8 answers
116k views

How to monitor file access for an OS X application?

I am looking for the OS X corespondent of FileMon, that was later included in ProcessMon. BTW, it is essential to be able to filter by process.
sorin's user avatar
  • 30.4k
88 votes
11 answers
329k views

Copying ISO file to USB drive in OS X?

I have tried to copy an ISO file to a USB drive. I am unable to do it with Disk Utility. How can I copy the ISO file to a USB drive? But I get the below. I have enough space in the 16GB USB drive for ...
hhh's user avatar
  • 3,934
69 votes
9 answers
114k views

File can't be moved by root on OS X

I tried to move a few files to a subfolder on OS X. One refused to move. It said Operation not permitted. I tried again as root: $ sudo mv file subfolder/ mv: rename file to subfolder/file: Operation ...
eje211's user avatar
  • 833
55 votes
2 answers
81k views

Unix "ln -s" command not permitted in OSX El Capitan Beta3

I was installing nodejs for Symphony when I hit an "Operation not permitted" error. Anyone know why this happened? MacBook-Pro-de-XXX:~ XXX$ sudo ln -s /usr/local/bin/node /usr/bin/node ...
Kurr0's user avatar
  • 653
47 votes
8 answers
57k views

Linux on Mac hardware: How to remove caps lock delay on Apple MacBook Pro aluminum keyboard when booted to Linux

Apple's MacBook Pro has a slight delay on the caps lock key. That is, the caps lock key has to be held down slightly longer than normal to register the key press required to engage the caps lock. This ...
pnkfelix's user avatar
  • 598
42 votes
2 answers
49k views

What is standard for OS X filesystem? e.g. /opt/ vs. /usr/

What does and should go into /opt/ and what should/does go into /usr/? My understanding is that /usr/ used to be for user home directories, but since they exist in /Users/ - what is the purpose now? ...
DilithiumMatrix's user avatar
42 votes
7 answers
68k views

As a developer, what will I miss on a Macbook Air? [MBA vs MBP] [closed]

I am an indie game developer. I am in love with the Mackbook Air [13 inch], and want to buy it. I was wondering: Will I miss the DVD drive, and upgradability if I am choosing a Macbook Air over ...
Hari Krishna Ganji's user avatar
41 votes
5 answers
19k views

How can I inspect the environment variables of a running process?

Is there some equivalent (CLI or GUI) to Linux's /proc/$PID/environ feature?
Daniel Serodio's user avatar
38 votes
1 answer
28k views

What is the modern equivalent of "ps aux" on macOS Sierra?

The BSD backend of MacOS has ps built in. The BSD General Commands Manual says that The biggest change is in the interpretation of the -u option, which now displays processes belonging to the ...
Jonathan Komar's user avatar
36 votes
4 answers
146k views

How do I remove the source (base) from my terminal?

I created some new aliases in my .bashrc file and did source ~/.bashrc Now, everytime I open my terminal it always comes with the (base) How do I remove that?
Agam Kashyap's user avatar
36 votes
1 answer
67k views

Is there a Mac OS X equivalent of the Linux iwconfig command?

I'm looking for a command line tool in Mac OS X that performs the equivalent of the iwconfig command in Linux. Example: kirkland@x220:~/src/byobu/byobu$ iwconfig wlan0 wlan0 IEEE 802.11abgn ...
Dustin Kirkland's user avatar
36 votes
2 answers
86k views

Can I remotely access my Mac from Linux using screen sharing?

I like to access my Mac from work (Linux) and I wonder if it is possible without installing additional software like TeamViewer or ChickenVNC. I also noticed somewhere that it is possible to wake my ...
DaPhil's user avatar
  • 1,173
33 votes
3 answers
42k views

Homebrew installed libraries, how do I use them?

I'm a bit confused. I've installed a bunch of libraries (e.g. vtk, gsl,...) that I need for a c++ project for school. I used homebrew to install them (luckily there were formulas available). My ...
romeovs's user avatar
  • 4,403
31 votes
5 answers
31k views

How do I change the time format used by ls command line on osx?

I want to make ls display time in ISO format (military format). How can I change this behavior? On Linux I knew that I could force ls to display time in long format by usin --full-time but this doesn'...
sorin's user avatar
  • 30.4k
30 votes
5 answers
26k views

Can Touch ID unlock a personal SSH key?

Is it possible to use the Touch ID fingerprint reader to unlock my SSH key? I have a MacBook Pro with Touch Bar, and I have a traditional text passphrase for my SSH key right now. I have noticed ...
Nate's user avatar
  • 555
29 votes
6 answers
94k views

How to select text with touchpad without pressing the "hard" key?

Now on OS X, when I want to select some text, I have to press the "hard" key on touchpad with thumb and drag through the text with another finger on touchpad. With linux on the same macbook pro, I ...
xgdgsc's user avatar
  • 751
26 votes
5 answers
39k views

Is there a way to access a USB-serial port by the device id, not by the tty.* port?

On linux USB-serial devices create two aliases to its serial port: /dev/tty* and /dev/serial/by-id/<my_usb_device_id> Is there a way on OSX to identify a serial port by the USB device id? Both ...
Johan's user avatar
  • 360
26 votes
5 answers
27k views

Cross-Platform File System file sharing between MAC, WINDOWS, LINUX?

I've a laptop with triple boot, Yosemite, Windows 8.1, CentOS 7, and need a partition for sharing files between the 3 os's, i've been using exFAT, as it is supported by OSX & Windows but had some ...
Jonathan Solorzano's user avatar
25 votes
1 answer
8k views

To install unbuffer in OSX

There is the terminal command unbuffer in Linux Redhat, for instance. I did not find it in homebrew. How can you install unbuffer in OSX Yosemite 10.10.3?
Léo Léopold Hertz 준영's user avatar
24 votes
5 answers
14k views

Is there a native terminal in OS X, without having to load the desktop, window manager, etc? [duplicate]

FOr example, in linux you can boot to a terminal, you don't have to load a desktop, window manager, etc. Is there something like this in Mac OS X? And like in Linux, is it possible to switch to one of ...
trusktr's user avatar
  • 1,429
23 votes
13 answers
100k views

How can I transfer large files from Linux to iPad over a cable or wifi?

I am looking for a way to transfer large files to the iPad without using iTunes or pushing to and pulling from a remote server. I run an Ubuntu laptop as my only OS at the moment and want to be able ...
Stephen L's user avatar
  • 333
22 votes
5 answers
63k views

How to find all files that are larger than 1GB on the Mac HD?

It seems that either one of these commands can be used: sudo find / -size +1G sudo find / -type f -size +1G But when it gets to /Volumes, it actually look at all the back up files by Time Machine in ...
nonopolarity's user avatar
  • 9,628
22 votes
2 answers
10k views

Data Not Backed Up, Partition Type: FFFFFFFF-FFFF-FFFF-FFFF-FFFFFFFFFFFF

I was trying to install Linux on my MacBook for class when I bricked my computer, which now in an unbootable state. I made my partition too small, so I was going to delete and create a larger one. ...
HalfwayThere's user avatar
20 votes
3 answers
4k views

What are the downsides of putting GNU coreutills first in ${PATH}?

I'm coming from Linux to macOS, and many of my scripts assume GNU versions of the utils provided in GNU coreutils. I could just put the GNU coreutils bin directory in earlier in $PATH than /bin. Is ...
Tom Hale's user avatar
  • 331
20 votes
3 answers
37k views

Editing System Preferences via Terminal

Am looking to edit system preferences settings via the command line but cannot for the life of me find the correct names of variables. In Login Options under Users & Groups, I would like to be ...
Sinergi's user avatar
  • 201
20 votes
2 answers
86k views

How do I mount Ext4 using OS X Fuse

I installed OS X Fuse on OS X 10.9.4 as outlined in http://osxdaily.com/2014/03/20/mount-ext-linux-file-system-mac/ Unfortunately it does not mount any of my Linux filesystems (on external HD or SD ...
Milliways's user avatar
  • 8,072
19 votes
1 answer
3k views

How could macOS be POSIX compliant without vi?

As macOS is POSIX compliant and Unix certified, why does vi redirects to vim? As I understand, vim is not POSIX compliant. So how did Apple obtained a Unix certification without having vi installed on ...
Hugh's user avatar
  • 363
18 votes
5 answers
25k views

Mac OS X - How to Symlink /home to /Users

For those of us who dabble in penguins and apples, it seems very worth while to be able to use /home paths either out of habbit or for those odd cases where the value may have been sync'd somewhere ...
anthonyryan1's user avatar
18 votes
1 answer
46k views

Command line to find bluetooth device's MAC address [duplicate]

Is there a way to get the MAC address of the Bluetooth device in my Mac? I am using a MacBook Pro running macOS High Sierra. I am looking mainly for macOS but the command could also be for another ...
Aman Singh's user avatar
18 votes
8 answers
1k views

Can I use an iPad effectively without a computer to dock it to?

I'm interested in buying an iPad, but I'm trying to understand what the implications are of not synchronise/docking it with a computer. I only have Linux (Ubuntu) machines these days; I have nothing ...
user avatar
17 votes
5 answers
53k views

How to automatically mount NFS shares on OS X

I have a NFS server set up on my local LAN running on Arch Linux that I can connect to using OS X Mavericks by issuing the following command in the terminal: mount -t nfs -o resvport host:/srv/nfs4/...
Nicolas De Jay's user avatar
16 votes
10 answers
26k views

Where is "mkpasswd" for OSX?

There is a well-known unix utility called mkpasswd available on many *nix systems. I was just trying to use it from terminal on an OSX 10.10.5 Yosemite (Early 2015) machine, and it is nowhere to be ...
Dɑvïd's user avatar
  • 449
16 votes
3 answers
6k views

Why does OS X add extra '._<filename>' when I tar a directory?

I'd just like to know why if I tar -czf a file/directory, OS X adds **._<filename>** for each file? I see these when I untar in Linux. Or when I work with the uncompressed project in Eclipse ...
Dark Star1's user avatar
16 votes
3 answers
29k views

iOS7 won't trust linux computer

iPhone 4S iOS7 Linux Mint When I plug my phone into my Linux machine I get the following message "Trust this computer?" No matter how many times I tap "Trust" the message comes up again. I do not ...
BenC's user avatar
  • 161
16 votes
2 answers
43k views

How to create a USB installer for multiple OS on an OS X system?

I would like to be able to create a disk image (that I can transfer via Disk Utility.app to a large USB storage thumb drive) which is a multiboot installer for provisioning various operating systems ...
chillin's user avatar
  • 2,877
15 votes
4 answers
18k views

Is it possible to ditch OS X and install BSD on my 3rd Gen Macbook Pro

I would like to run BSD on Mac hardware. I'm unable to locate a version of BSD that runs on any MacBook Pro. I'd like a native install, replacing OS X entirely and not doing a Boot Camp setup or ...
MDMoore313's user avatar
  • 1,058
15 votes
3 answers
23k views

Is there an equivalent utility to Linux's tracepath for OS X?

I'm attempting to determine the path MTU from my Mac to various sites, and can't find a built-in utility to accomplish this. In Linux, I would use a utility like tracepath, but I"m wondering if there ...
reedog117's user avatar
  • 193
14 votes
2 answers
17k views

What does 2>&1 | tee mean?

I read the answer by @grg to question “brew formula” installation logs: brew install <formula> 2>&1 | tee install.log So where exactly is this install.log file going to end up, and ...
Lucifer Morningstar's user avatar
14 votes
8 answers
96k views

How do I make my 1.5 GHz PowerBook G4 boot from a USB stick?

I actually want to boot Linux but since that is not working I'm thinking some one might know on the Apple end. If there's a way to boot Mac from a USB stick, then booting another operating system ...
Joshua Robison's user avatar
14 votes
1 answer
24k views

What is the difference between the sudo and su command?

What is the difference between the sudo and su command? Why does OS X handle these different than Linux?
whitefleaCH's user avatar
14 votes
2 answers
15k views

Does Mac have something similar to a Linux loop device (alternative to losetup)?

I am trying to work with some CD and hard drive images that I will run inside of QEMU. On Linux, I mount the images using the losetup command, but I notice Mac does not have this. Is there something ...
foobarfuzzbizz's user avatar
14 votes
2 answers
33k views

What is the wheel user group for?

The output of groups after sudo bash lists the following groups: wheel daemon kmem sys tty operator procview procmod everyone staff certusers localaccounts admin com.apple.sharepoint.group.2 ...
codecowboy's user avatar
  • 3,302
14 votes
1 answer
13k views

How can I use command+tab to switch between windows of the same app in addition to all the other apps? [duplicate]

Possible Duplicate: Best app to switch between all open windows (alternatives to Witch) I would like to see all the windows, including from the same app, when I switch between them (command+tab). ...
AlikElzin-kilaka's user avatar
14 votes
1 answer
14k views

How do I use my existing KeePass database on my new iPad without iTunes on a computer?

I'm a Linux user who bought an iPad. I'm also an Infosec pro who uses the KeePassX password manager. All my passwords are too long to type on the iPad - so I want to use my password manager on iPad. I ...
Sas3's user avatar
  • 191

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