"ps aux" works but "ps -aux" doesn't
Solution 1
man ps
will give you this:
The biggest change is in the interpretation of the -u option, which now displays processes belonging to the specified username(s). Thus, "ps -aux" will fail (unless you want to know about user "x"). As a conve- nience, however, "ps aux" still works as it did in Tiger.
Solution 2
Back in the day (from the late 1970s), there were basically two varieties of UNIX, the AT&T version from Bell Labs and the BSD version from UC Berkeley. The options to ps were different in the two versions. OS X now mostly conforms to the modern UNIX standard which follows the AT&T options to ps. But since the BSD ps didn't require a leading '-' option and so many people were used to typing 'ps aux', Apple has decided to leave that sequence with its original BSD interpretation.
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Comments
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Steve over 1 year
This might seem like a silly question but I haven't been able to find a clear answer.
This website states that the dash is optional in
ps aux
However,
ps aux
works butps -aux
brings up the errorno user named 'x'
. Any ideas what the issue may be here? Running Mac 10.8.2. Thanks -
Steve about 11 yearsbah thanks, i'm still a newbie when it comes to UNIX commands