You hate macs, I hate macs, plenty of people hate macs, but that's not really what this topic is about, is it? He came here looking for help with a problem, not to be lectured about how Windows is so much more superior.
Thank you for keeping on topic. I'm not going to be installing Parallels or Bootcamp or whatever it is; I can muck around in the Terminal, thanks.
What happens if you try running xdelta from the terminal? Any output, or does it say it doesn't recognise the command? If the latter, what happens if you try running it with the full path? That's the obvious first troubleshooting step to take. Based on my experience with Linux, anyway.
If neither worked then my next suggestion would be to try running 'sudo apt-get install xdelta', (replacing apt-get with yum or whatever if needed) but I somehow doubt OSX is quite that convenient, so you'll have to figure out how to get it properly installed yourself.
Terminal says it doesn't recognize the command. I was able to run sudo and install xdelta just fine, so I don't know why it's not recognizing the command.
What do you mean "running with the full path"?
I meant try running "/usr/local/bin/xdelta" or wherever you have it installed, rather than just "xdelta". If wherever it was installed isn't in the system path, then you won't be able to run it just by typing the command on its own. Since it's just a single, simple executable, that's most likely the problem, and it should work fine like that.
Has it occurred to you that just clicking a few extra buttons, or mucking about in the terminal a bit, or whatever's needed is easier than downloading and installing a copy of windows to a usb stick, then rebooting the PC into it every time you want to use xdelta?
That's definitely false. Some things are either badly documented (ie hard as fuck to get running), or don't even exist on Mac/Linux. Can you explain to me how the hell spending hours on badly documented programs that you have to run from terminal is time-efficient? This is opposed to switching to Windows for a second, probably clicking one or two things, and then going back to Mac, when needed. In this case, a simple fix was found on our Wiki. Will that be true in all cases? I honestly really doubt it. After all, some specialty programs don't even exist on that OS.
Especially considering that Windows would refuse to read any files saved on the computer anyway, which means it'd be even more work.
It's called Fat32. You can run Windows on it. Mac can read Fat32.
Put files you want to fuck with on your USB. Boot Windows. Do things. Go back to Mac. Read files.
You hate macs, I hate macs, plenty of people hate macs, but that's not really what this topic is about, is it? He came here looking for help with a problem, not to be lectured about how Windows is so much more superior.
Can you explain to me how the second bit of my post was lecturing him about how Windows was superior, per se? I can't find that anywhere. The only thing I basically said was "use the most efficient tool for the job." It's called time efficiency. In this case, the BakaBT wiki provided a simple answer, but in the future what's the point of fucking around with things that take hours to get running in one OS that would probably take minutes in another? Unless you're doing the event on a very frequent basis, you probably won't break even on the amount of time you invested in fucking around in Mac in comparison to doing a boot into another OS and doing what you need to do. Not to mention, getting that Windows up and running is a one time investment that you could potentially use in the future.
For some things it might well be easier to install Windows. I imagine if you wanted to play Skyrim or some similarly intensive game, it would be easier to use a Windows install (though definitely not running from a usb stick if you want anywhere near half-decent performance). Something quick and simple like xdelta, however, is absolutely not worth the extra effort. And it
is extra effort. Hell, xdelta almost certainly runs flawlessly in cider, or whatever the mac port of Wine is called, even if you can't get the mac version to work. And either way, it certainly wouldn't take hours. The same goes for most applications.
EDIT: Actually, now I think about it, doesn't Skyrim have a mac version? That's probably not the best example then. Replace it with Battlefield 3 or whatever you like instead.
If you want me bashing Mac:
Mac can't run many things that Windows can, and it's much more limited in hardware and more expensive for what you get. Those are simply facts. They're pretty much not refutable. Point number one is especially relevant when trying to perform special tasks.
Possible pros:
Different interface, less prone to security issues, specific computer design visual appeal. Two of those are subjective issues. The only one that's somewhat proven is that it's less prone to security issues (probably? I haven't had any security issues on this Windows machine in ages and I'm not particularly careful).
These are all true, and I agree with them. Indeed, I think the different interface and specific design are cons rather than pros (I really hate the OSX GUI). But it's not really relevant to this discussion in any way - if he preferred Windows, he'd be using Windows.
