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Apple macOS

A proprietary, Unix-based operating system. Nobody really likes this one.

Apple designed macOS for it's Mac computers. A proprietary, closed-source graphical OS, like Windows, designed for workstations and embedded systems. Mac workstations use their own file system (from macOS 10.13 forward), called the Apple File System (APFS). It's important to remember that APFS and other file systems used in Windows and Linux aren't compatible with one another. MacOS can't write to a Windows/Linux file system and vice versa.

From 2006-2020, Apple used Intel processors for their workstations. This allowed users to install and use Windows on a Mac laptop/desktop. However, in 2020, they announced the usage of their proprietary M1 processor, which no longer allowed Windows to be installed.

File Types

Apple uses a different program executable file from Windows, which has the .exe extension. Instead, it uses .app extensions. App files on Apple are actually specialized Unix directories that store all the information needed to run the app, including the Unix executable itself. The OS treats it as an app instead of a directory, however.

.dmg

Apple disk image, used to install app files. Serves as a mountable image file used to compress installers and packages. The equivalent of a virtual disk drive that stores everything necessary to install an app.

.pkg

Equivalent to Windows' .msi installation programs.

Gestures (Raw Lesson Content)

Gestures are specific finger motions you can use to perform a specific function on a Mac OS system. You can use Gestures on Apple systems that have an Apple Multi-Touch trackpad, a Magic Mouse, or a touchscreen. Following are some of the gestures that are available on Mac OS.

  • Right-click: Tap with two fingers to right-click.
  • Smart zoom: Double-tap with two fingers to zoom in on a web page, image, or document. Double-tap again to zoom out.
  • Scroll: Slide up or down using two fingers to scroll up or down.
  • Zoom: Spread two fingers apart to zoom in. Bring fingers back together to zoom out.
  • Page navigation: Slide two fingers left or right to navigate between pages in a document.
  • Mission Control: Slide four fingers straight up to open Mission Control.
  • All apps: Slide four fingers straight down to display all windows of the active app.

*CMD + OPT + ESC: The macOS equivalent of Alt + F4.

Boot Camp

Feature that allows for the installation of Windows 10 through the creation and management of a BOOTCAMP partition on the hard drive. It requires an Intel-based Mac, a 64-bit version of Windows 8 or later to install, and 55 GB of freed storage space.

Storage Optimization Process

macOS is especially good at storing and retrieving files, so optimizing their storage disks is usually unnecessary. However, there are still things you can do to speedup and repair drives on macOS. To view storage information across all directories on macOS, you'll need to access the About this Mac > Storage menu using the Apple Menu in the top left of the screen.

To access the Disk Utility to repair drives, you'll search for the Disk Utility app through Spotlight. You can then select the volume you'd like to repair, then click the First Aid button in the top right.

To ensure that the entire disk has been checked and verified, make sure to run First Aid while booted into Recovery Mode. Using normal boot settings, macOS' security settings might prevent First Aid from checking certain system files and programs for errors because they're in use or protected by the OS.

Since macOS is a Unix-based OS, there is a terminal you can access to run the fsck command to manually check volumes for errors. To do this, you'll need to boot into macOS in single-user mode, opening the terminal for the root user. There, you can run the fsck -fy, which runs the error checking utility on all connected storage devices and tries to fix any errors it might've came across.

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