Basic questions 2

[Hussein Baghdadi]

Hi.
I have some basic -again- questions about Mac OS.
1. Does Mac OS has a concept similiar to Windows Desktop ?
2. Can we put shortcuts, folders and other stuffs on Mac OS desktop (assuming it has a one) ?
3. On Windows, we click on My Computer icon to view the contents of the HD, in Mac OS, it called Finder, AFAIK.
But when clicking on Finder, what we see ? partitions labled some thing like :
/user /bin ..... (instead of C: D: E: ... on Windows) ?
Any screen shots ?
4. When installing Mac OS, do we need to change the partitions (size for example) ?
5. Any free and good download managers for Mac OS ?
6. In Windows, we press control and the left button of the mouse to choose files, Is the same true for Mac OS ?
Thans alot...

[Pauline McNamara]

taking a crack at a few...

Does Mac OS has a concept similiar to Windows Desktop ?

Yep. It's called Desktop too, located in your user directory.

Can we put shortcuts, folders and other stuffs on Mac OS desktop (assuming it has a one) ?

Yep. You can save stuff to Desktop, or drag a file or folder from a Finder window directly onto the Desktop. Shortcuts are called Aliases. If you right click (control click) any file, one of your options is Make Alias. That will get you a file called "myfilename alias" which you can drag onto the Desktop.

On Windows, we click on My Computer icon to view the contents of the HD, in Mac OS, it called Finder, AFAIK.

You can also click on the hard disk icon on the upper right of the screen. That opens a Finder window. (I think of Finder windows as equivalent to Windows Explorer windows, though they don't behave exactly the same.)

But when clicking on Finder, what we see ? partitions labled some thing like : /user /bin ..... (instead of C: D: E: ... on Windows) ?

If you open a new Finder window (apple + N) on the left side you get a list of locations, each with an icon. On the right, what you see depends on which of 3 types of view you've chosen.

Any screen shots ?

Do you mean how do you make screen shots or do you want someone to post screenshots of a Finder window?

When installing Mac OS, do we need to change the partitions (size for example) ?

You don't need to but you can if you want to. It's up to you. (A little known rule of thumb that I learned the hard way: you should keep 10-15% of your hard disk free to keep the file system happy. I'm not sure if or how that would apply to any individual partition.)

Do you have a Mac already or are you considering moving to it?

[Hussein Baghdadi]

Do you mean how do you make screen shots or do you want someone to post screenshots of a Finder window?

I mean if some know some URLs contains some shots.

Do you have a Mac already or are you considering moving to it?

Well, I'm considering such a move (to Mini or eMac), so I'm trying to collect informations about Apple and their OS ...
Thanks for help ...

[Bear Bibeault]

If you do a google search I'm sure you will find tons of OS X screen shots!

Here's one I just "snapped" on my PowerMac G4:



It shows a Finder window in column view (my favorite). There are also list and icon views.

Along the left you will see (in the top section) icons for: my iDisk (a WEBDAV repository that comes with a .Mac account), Network (sort of like Window's Network Neighborhood, sorta), 4 disk partitions that span 3 physical volumes (the name of the machine is Yogi, so I named the partitions accordingly), my digital camera that just happened to be plugged into the USB port on the side of the keyboard), and the Unreal Tournament CD.

The bottom section of the left sidebar contains aliases to folders that I frequently access such as Applications, my development hierarchy, my Tomcat 5 installation and so forth.
[ May 04, 2005: Message edited by: Bear Bibeault ]

[Bear Bibeault]

Here's a "grab" of a Finder window in icon view.



Search and you will find many more.

And to your question:

n Windows, we press control

Under OS X, the Shift and Control modifiers do pretty much the same thing with regards to multiple selection as on Windows.

[Hussein Baghdadi]

Waw, thanks alot !
Well, another questions :
7. To install a software on Windows, we double clicked on the installer file, then we can you the wizards to provide some informations like the directory, create shortcuts .....
Does Mac OS X has a similiar concept (of course not exe files) ?
8.

4 disk partitions that span 3 physical volumes

What does this mean ?
9. So, we can use names like : JTApplication, JTMedia, JTSoft for HD partitions instead of C: D: like windows ?
(Well, AFAIK, we can use such names on Windows of C: D: ...)
Thanks again for your inputs ...
[ May 05, 2005: Message edited by: John Todd ]

[M Beck]

Mac OS X has an application installation system that i, as an old Unix advocate, really envy. most OS X applications come with everything in one single directory tree, and you just copy over that directory tree to your machine — and that's it, installation complete.

to make it even simpler still, directory trees that have a certain layout and structure (kind of like how a Java JAR is just a zip file with a certain internal structure) get displayed to the user as a single icon, as if such a directory is the whole application with all its prerequisites; just double-click on that icon and it'll run. needless to say, this is how most OS X applications tend to come packaged, for convenience.

it's a system that was first used on the NeXT computer way back when, and i wish it had become more popular.

[Bear Bibeault]

I agree with M. The application packaging mechanism used by OS X is simply briliant.

Many app dowloads come as disk images (virtual drives) that you merely open and drag an icon from the disk image window to the Applications folder. And you're done.

For more complicated installs, there's an installer program that walks you through the steps.

"4 disk partitions that span 3 physical volumes"

What does this mean ?

disk partitioning

[Bear Bibeault]

John, is there no place near you that sells Apple computers? I think a lot of your basic questions could be answered by just walking up to a display model and playing around with it. [Warning: could be hazardous to your wallet.]

Also, more information than can probably be dealt with is available at the Apple OS X site.
[ May 05, 2005: Message edited by: Bear Bibeault ]

[marc weber]

Originally posted by Bear Bibeault:
...The application packaging mechanism used by OS X is simply brilliant...

I'm 6 days new to Mac, and the installation process is incredible! No install shield, no wizards, no writing to the registry... Usually, it's just a drag and drop. That's it.

I replaced my IBM laptop with a Mac PowerBook, with the idea that if everything went okay, I would replace my Dell desktop with an iMac in a year or so. Already I can see that 12 more months on a Windows machine is way too long.

[Bear Bibeault]

No install shield, no wizards

To be fair, as I said in my reply, there are some installations that require a more complicated install mechanism than simple drag-n-drop (an OS update for example) that use the Apple installer script. But it's still incredibly easy in those cases. And yes, for a large number of installs, it is a simple drag-n-drop.

Aside from the beauty of the folder-as-package scheme, the avoidance of "DLL Hell" and the freaking Registry are some of the reasons, aside from the Unix under-pinnings, that OS X is so stable.
[ May 05, 2005: Message edited by: Bear Bibeault ]

[Rick Beaver]

John - Just go and buy one

You won't regret it.

Mac's are like Sex - you can never explain it nearly enough to give justice to the experience...
[ May 06, 2005: Message edited by: Rick Beaver ]