Re: Macintosh for nmh?

[Ken Hornstein]

>I have an old linux desktop that I'm sure would work, but I'm wondering
>if I should consider buying a new Apple laptop.  Last time I used a Mac,
>it was mostly tolerable for an old UNIX head like me.  Are there any
>issues running nmh on a Mac?

I'm typing this from a Mac right now (well, via exmh, but I still use
bare nmh a lot).  exmh has some challenges relating to fonts, of all
things, but bare nmh works perfectly fine.  Nmh is a package in
Homebrew (I think the best open-source packaging system for MacOS X)
and I expect it to be well-supported in the future.

I view the issue of "Mac vs Linux" mostly as a philosophical one.  Yes,
there's a lot of Unix under the hood and as a fellow old UNIX head I
make great use of that.  The upside for me is there's a lot of support
for "mass market" kind of stuff and you don't have to fiddle with things
a lot as you might have to do under Linux.  The downside is that there
is still some hidden magic so it's not 100% Unix everywhere and it's not
as customizable as a pure Linux system; you have to be happy with (or at
least be willing to live with) some of the decisions Apple has made for
you.  At this point in my life I find someone else making a bunch of
those decisions for me to be relieving; I am sure that plenty of people
would find it stifling.

--Ken