Learn how to use your Mac Mini as a media server from the the How-To Geek himself. Part I in a series, this article shows how to set up VNC and FrontRow.

Posted at 11:27 AM PDT with these tags: mac, media

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An eWeek article on Apple’s potential plans for an Intel-based Xserve leave a lot to the imagination. While Apple servers bearing Intel processors are widely expected to be released this year, there is no word from Apple or even from less-trusted sources as to when the Xserve might be refreshed or what the specifications might look like. Given that the iBook and Power Mac models are probably the next in line to be fitted with Intel innards, the Xserve will most likely be the last Apple computer to witness the migration to an Intel CPU.

With many folks holding off on Xserve purchases until an Intel-powered model is released, one wonders how long it will be before those folks decide to stop waiting and opt for less expensive boxes running FreeBSD or Linux. Hopefully, the new Xserve will be released soon enough and with a strong enough value proposition to prevent such defections.

Posted at 6:27 PM PDT with these tags: mac, hardware, xserve

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This tutorial covers the introduction, installation, and configuration of DarwinPorts, a software package manager for the Tiger 10.4 version of Mac OS X, and a requisite tool for nearly all subsequent Server Codex tutorials.

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Posted at 6:00 AM PST with these tags: darwinports, mac, cli, tutorial

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MacDevCenter is host to an informative five-part series on using the Terminal in Mac OS X 10.4 — Tiger. Given that the tutorials found on Server Codex usually assume a basic familiarity with the command line, folks who haven’t spent much time in the Terminal should at least check out Part 1 below.

Part 1 - Basics

Part 2 - ssh, scp, sftp, and rsync

Part 3 - Network tools

Part 4 - Shell scripting

Part 5 - cron and launchd

Posted at 10:45 AM PST with these tags: mac, cli

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The Locomotive project provides a Mac OS X package for easy installation of Ruby on Rails, lighttpd, FastCGI, and other supporting libraries and database drivers. The roadmap indicates that while the current release is mainly intended for use with SQLite, future versions will include better support for PostgreSQL and MySQL.
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Posted at 6:30 AM PDT with these tags: rails, mac, web

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This article is a round-up list of Mac OS X hints, most of which are related to servers of some kind or other. For those running OS X 10.4, there is also an ever-growing list of Tiger-specific hints.
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Posted at 11:12 AM PDT with these tags: mac

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These “Ask Slashdot” links are old, but the resulting discussions were lively and still contain a bunch of useful information:

Replacing FileMaker with Free Software
Windows to Mac Migration Guide/Advice
Multicast Imaging for Mac OS X

Posted at 8:50 AM PDT with these tags: mac, database, tools

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Gentoo has announced the release of their Portage package management system for Mac OS X. Now available for download, Gentoo Mac OS X is a package manager that installs and updates Unix/Linux software on Mac OS X. Why do we need another package manager when Fink and DarwinPorts already exist, you ask? First of all, all three solutions are working together under the auspices of the Metapkg Alliance. Moreover, according to the Portage Manual, Portage offers a number of advanced features: multiple versions and revisions of the same package in the tree, conditional dependency resolution, fine-grained package management, sandboxed safe installation, and configuration file protection. There is a related wiki, as well as a number of screen shots: [1] | [2] | [3] | [4] | [5] | [6] | [7] | [8] | [9]

Posted at 11:06 AM PDT with these tags: mac, cli

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Ernest Rothman has an excellent tutorial on managing Unix software packages via DarwinPorts. DarwinPorts often complements Fink in that one sometimes offers ports that the other does not, and it seems they can be made to co-exist peacefully.

Posted at 3:08 PM PDT with these tags: mac, cli

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For those who may have missed it, Kevin O’Malley has put together a great guide to BBEdit and Unix for MacDevCenter. Part I is an introduction to BBEdit’s Unix support features, while Part II drills down into filters, scripts, and Emacs key bindings.

Posted at 2:38 PM PDT with these tags: mac, tools, cli

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