Post #45998

2025-12-09 17:41 UTC

Mac is very similar to Linux in that it comes with bash (these days zsh) and a lot of the command line tools you’d expect on Linux, including gcc No it doesn’t. The gcc command is a wrapper for clang, and the clang command is a stub that runs an executable used to install the “Xcode Command-Line Tools” It also uses the BSD coreutils, rather than the GNU coreutils present on most Linux distros. The two are only compatible up to functionality defined by the POSIX standard, and anything beyond that is an inconsistent mess. Windows is more difficult. The command line is very different (it inherits from DOS instead of Unix like both Mac and Linux). It doesn’t come with Python pre-installed If you limit yourself to not using WSL, sure. WSL 2 runs an actual Linux kernel with the same Linux executables you would find on any other distro. It’s still Windows and full of telemetry and AI garbage nobody wants, but it somehow manages to have better Linux compatibility than macOS.

Replies (2)

@WolfLink@sh.itjust.works 2025-12-09 17:49

I suppose my setup already has “Xcode command line tools” installed, so gcc works as expected. It’s been a while but IIRC the process for installing the command line tools is pretty self explanatory. I remember WSL being a whole process to setup, but it’s been a while, and as you might guess, I’m a lot more familiar with Mac than Windows. What I do know is I had to support a Python project on all 3 OSes and Windows was by far the hardest to get working. We were deliberately not using WSL for that scenario.

Open ##46013
@communism__dup_7961@lemmy.ml 2025-12-09 20:48

If you limit yourself to not using WSL, sure. WSL 2 runs an actual Linux kernel with the same Linux executables you would find on any other distro. I mean yeah but I don’t want to sit through instructing people how to set up WSL. I’ve only done it once years ago so maybe it’s simpler now—I don’t remember it being hard for me but for the average person I can imagine them getting confused at some point.

Open ##46509