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I loved some of the concepts behind linux, but I think Linux's greatest advantage is also it's greatest weakness. The fact that there is no central governing body for most projects means that you get lots of fragmentation (X11: freedesktop.org, fresco, XFree; Distros: Gentoo, Debian, Mandrake, Redhat, etc) which makes it very difficult to stick to one standard. Thankfully, over time some projects fork (gcc) and wind up becoming the project that takes over. It's this fragmentation that helps linux adapt so rapidly. However because of all this, developers can't code for one toolkit api, one kernel api, etc. Mac OS X, to linux users, is like linux controlled by ONE group who says yes or no to all issues so that the complex fragmented software base can concentrate on one goal: a good consistent end user experience. I honestly would say Mac OS X couldn't exist without Linux or BSD because it wouldn't be where it was today without the OSS community. People complain that OS X is too proprietary, but i believe it is the perfect mix. On one hand you have OSS software. On the other hand you have commercial software. It's truely the best of both worlds! Isn't this what many linux users want? Linux grandma can use? Companies to write native software? Games? Gaim and KMail side by side with safari and photoshop? You don't have to wait if that's what you want. Linux is a great server OS, but mac os x has it by leaps and bounds as a good desktop platform. Am i saying Gnome and KDE should die off and we should all just use mac os x? of course not. But i am saying if you want a usable unix desktop now, not later, you don't have to look much further.

XPostFactoallows installation of OS X on *unsupported* Macs...not quite as old as your LC520, but it *should* allow for a certain degree of recycling...

I check all these daily:

MacInTouch
MacNN
MacMinute
MacFixIt
Mac OS X Hints
MacSurfer

Great software update resources:

VersionTracker
MacUpdate
OS X freshmeat

Other great sites:

O'Reilly Mac DevCenter
O'Reilly Mac OS X Page
Apple Mac OS X downloads
Apple Third Party Products Guide

Developer sites:

Mac OS X Developer Home Page
Mac OS X Developer Documentation
Darwin
OpenDarwin
fink

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You can partition the drives from the OS X installer CD, but not without erasing everything (Some commercial software probably does that, try searching google)You still can plug the iBook to your own PC through ethernet to back everything up prior to partitionning.

As for your sister wanting to learn linux for *political* reasons: I've been myself confronted to a similar situation: that is, I'm currently abroad without my much beloved mac, so had to buy a PC, with windows on it. I loathe Microsoft, but I don't have access to anything else than dial-up, so I can't even download linux to give it a try! (+ I'm not sure I could manage to use linux without a bit of outside help). So I decided to find a middle ground: leave windows installed, and replace as much Microsoft software I could. Outlook got trashed for Thunderbird, Explorer for Firebird, MSN for GAIM, and so on...

My point is, open source is cool and all, but I'm not sure it's good to have people give up on *usability* and ease of use just because the OS is GPL'd. (OS X is stil so much better than linux it makes no sense to trash it for linux) Mostly because this adds a somewhat disconforting "sect" aspect to the open source community. And being looked upon as a bunch of crazy fanatics is not so good (I'm a mac fan, I know what I'm talking about!!). And also because if she tries linux while it's still not easy enough for her (she's not a geek / nerd, you told), then she just might grow very frustrated with it, trash it, and never give it a shot ever again.

If you're not familiar with OS X, what's good about it is its versatility. If you want to use it as a grandma-OS, you can. Buy mac, open case, switch on, there you have it. (I like to tell my friends, "you can use Mac OS X when drunk.")
But you can also use it as an excessively geeky OS if you want to. They give you a nice terminal app, and it's plain-vanilla open-sourced BSD behind. X-11 is installed by default in panther. Fink is the direct equivalent of apt-get, you can use it with or without a GUI... Makes installing the GIMP easy, among other things. Darwin Ports does the same kind of job. A *lot* of open-source software has been ported (mPlayer / mozilla apps / open office / etc...), too.
You can also boot OS X without the Aqua interface ("evil" because non-GPL'd) and install gnome (said to be tricky). With that many open source tools & software, you're in open-source/UNIX-land alright, imho. And if you grow tired of it, you can still go back to plain OS X. If she wants to try linux, then she should, but I have a very hard time figuring how replacing OS X by a linux desktop would be better for her in the end. (the steep price of apple hardware being mostly justified by the OS).

Anyhow, I wish you -and her, mostly- good luck! :)

Gnome2 is also available through DarwinPorts, FWIW.

1. reinstalling X11 via download from Apple (Fink attempt to install the GIMP had wiped it out)
2. installing X11 SDK from "Packages" folder of Xcode install CD
3. wiping out & recompliling Fink & Darwinports installs (including the /sw and /opt/local target directories, which had some ownership issues)

   I then proceeded to happily & peacefully install the GIMP 1.2.5 via DarwinPorts -- smooth sailing all the way. I am officially a DarwinPorts fan now; not as much detailed feedback as Fink but it "just works" (after two days of hair-pulling).

OpenDarwin.org maintains a database of x86 hardware that has been successfully used with Darwin.

http://opendarwin.org/hardware/

opendarwin

Interestingly enough, I tried to open the website to remind myself in which network their IRC channel is (so I could have a chat with Rob Braun on how he feels about it), but the opendarwin.org is down.

Apple didn't change the APSL because of you. Hell, Apple can't possibly think much of your project, considering they've since founded OpenDarwin, and are paying people to create DarwinPorts.

It's kind of sad you need to write these articles yourself. I mean, if people actually liked your distribution, they'd be writing these crappy articles for you! You don't see Linus submitting stories to Slashdot about Linux, do you?

Darwin already has a mature, GPL-licensed, Stallman-compatible software distribution: Fink. Hell, it' even uses apt, the favourite software management tool of people everywhere. There's also the aforementioned DarwinPorts project, for people that wish to use modern, ports-like system on Darwin.

Maybe GNU-Darwin should be focusing on important things: It's not part of MetaPKG, the massive collaborative Darwin software effort, which Fink and DarwinPorts primary members. Even the newcomer Gentoo has been invited to take part. But GNU-Darwin has not.

The future of Darwin software is setting sail, yet GNU-Darwin isn't on the boat. This can't possibly bode well for GNU-Darwin's future relevance on the platform. Maybe they should be working to become a part of that, instead of submitting rubbish to Kuro5hin, Slashdot and OSNews.

Right now, GNU-Darwin is totally irrelevant, and there's nothing on the horizon to change that. If it disappeared tomorrow, no-one would notice. Instead of trolling here at Slashdot, go do something!

Apple didn't change the APSL because of you. Hell, Apple can't possibly think much of your project, considering they've since founded OpenDarwin, and are paying people to create DarwinPorts.

It's kind of sad you need to write these articles yourself. I mean, if people actually liked your distribution, they'd be writing these crappy articles for you! You don't see Linus submitting stories to Slashdot about Linux, do you?

Darwin already has a mature, GPL-licensed, Stallman-compatible software distribution: Fink. Hell, it' even uses apt, the favourite software management tool of people everywhere. There's also the aforementioned DarwinPorts project, for people that wish to use modern, ports-like system on Darwin.

Maybe GNU-Darwin should be focusing on important things: It's not part of MetaPKG, the massive collaborative Darwin software effort, which Fink and DarwinPorts primary members. Even the newcomer Gentoo has been invited to take part. But GNU-Darwin has not.

The future of Darwin software is setting sail, yet GNU-Darwin isn't on the boat. This can't possibly bode well for GNU-Darwin's future relevance on the platform. Maybe they should be working to become a part of that, instead of submitting rubbish to Kuro5hin, Slashdot and OSNews.

Right now, GNU-Darwin is totally irrelevant, and there's nothing on the horizon to change that. If it disappeared tomorrow, no-one would notice. Instead of trolling here at Slashdot, go do something!

This whole article is one giant piece of flamebait...GNU-Darwin is clearly crap, doing nothing that can't be accomplished with either FreeBSD or OpenDarwin and Fink. There is nothing newsworthy here, 5 years of an OS that has made significant inroads would be something...Linux certainly developed into something notable in five years beyond a curious *NIX-like OS...and BSD has been around for ages, powering Yahoo and Google et al.
Darwin has not managed managed to achieve anything other than curiousity status, IMO. I mean it's great when it's under OS X and it's cool that Apple is trying to provide an Open Source alternative for its hardware (ever think maybe all those G3s and G4s need to do something and it's easier to sell a G5 when that old computer can become a web server/firewall/mail server/file server for nothing and still use all the Apple hardware? Or let all those switchers do something with that x86 they now have collecting dust?) Plus, ya know, if the hardware market ever goes bust, Apple can always sell this nifty OS as an enterprise/opensource/consumer alternative depending on what they put in or take out...
(Posted from an iBook running Jaguar)

So called 'GNU-Darwin' is NOT OpenDarwin so far as I can tell from their respective websites. Apple is not associated with GNU-Darwin in any way, other than GNU-Darwin seems to have stolen the mascot, the name (adding GNU - how original and trademark avoiding), and the source.

Seems to me that this 'GNU-Darwin' is no more than a political website, probably distributing the stock Darwin unchanged.

Stupid, stupid people. This can of worms has been opened before - don't they know that polotics is not considered 'added-value'? And if they don't have anything substantial to add to the core Darwin, they won't last more than it takes for them to come up with some other bandwagon.

-Adam

This guy's pretty much a crank. He's not representative of Darwin in any way, other than that he put together a version of Darwin that has a bunch of GNU software. If you'd like to find something out about Darwin, check out either of Apple's Darwin site, or the Open Darwin site, which is a site for Darwin developers. Honestly, I think most people think of Michael Love as a troll; I don't know why he's getting play on slashdot.

GNU-Darwin also has a spotty history with replacing libraries with broken versions, installing stuff in /usr and /usr/local, and generally making a mess of the system. Please do not attempt to run GNU-Darwin and ask for support from the real Darwin folks; they will turn up their noses at you.

Pay no mind to Proclus's trolling. I'm just dismayed it ended up on Slashdot.

DarwinPorts will allow you to install ports from source, and appearently yum offers the ability to install binaries. The point being that Darwin is supposed to be a fully functional unix, not just the little bastard child that's kept in the cellar. Mostly useful I think when (as you pointed out) you want to keep multiple systems with identical configurations, or things that relate to administering or serving to os x machines, when you don't need the gui.

DarwinPorts will allow you to install ports from source, and appearently yum offers the ability to install binaries. The point being that Darwin is supposed to be a fully functional unix, not just the little bastard child that's kept in the cellar. Mostly useful I think when (as you pointed out) you want to keep multiple systems with identical configurations, or things that relate to administering or serving to os x machines, when you don't need the gui.

Good question. All I know is that earlier this summer, a GUI frontend for DarwinPorts appeared in a Panther build, only to be withdrawn later. I'd like to know what happened too.

Also, what's going on with the metapkg alliance? Sounded promising, but doesn't look like there's much activity. Looks like Fink is the de facto packaging standard on OS X for now.

Right, because everyone wants to spend days installing and weeks debugging an OS on their brand new Apple computer. Many of the THOUSANDS of apps for linux can be compiled on OS X either with fink, ports, or even a ./configure; make; make install.

If it weren't for Ben where would you be?

Cool, thanks for the info. How does DarwinPorts/PortsManager currently stack up against fink? Is it up to the same level yet?

And from what I recall, I think Jordan Hubbard (formerly of FreeBSD, now of Apple) is leading (or involved in) the DarwinPorts effort.

So maybe it will eventually become the "official" Apple ports collection?

I've just used it.

Personally, I just use Finder to connect to http://packages.opendarwin.org/ via WebDAV, and install the .mpkgs of the software I require.

However, your comment highlights many of the issues facing the DarwinPorts project - do they wish to adopt the ease of the Macintosh, or stick to their stuffy, difficult-to-use BSD roots.

If anyone has run a beta release of 10.3, they've seen a very early build of the app that these groups have produced.

If anyone has run a beta release of 10.3, they've seen a very early build of the app that these groups have produced.

If anyone has run a beta release of 10.3, they've seen a very early build of the app that these groups have produced.

Really?

Open Source Projects at Apple.

Feel free to download the source code to the OS. They have an x86 version available as well.

Or, you can download a forked project at OpenDarwin.

By the way, OS X is based on FreeBSD and the Mach microkernel from Carnegie Mellon University, not Linux. Unix was open-source long before Torvalds learned how not to crap his diapers. Indeed, IBMs mainframe source code was open to their customers as well.

Closed-source is a Microsoft invention.

SystemStarter CVS

BSD Ports for Mac OS X (and Darwin) can be found here: http://www.opendarwin.org/projects/darwinports/

You can find it in SystemStarter directory of the CVS repository. (The above link is to the CVSWeb page .. you can also get direct CVS access)

Note that most of Apple's code relies on their CoreFoundation libraries, so you may have to snag those as well.

You can find it in SystemStarter directory of the CVS repository. (The above link is to the CVSWeb page .. you can also get direct CVS access)

Note that most of Apple's code relies on their CoreFoundation libraries, so you may have to snag those as well.

"The one thing I've never understood is the relationship between OpenDarwin and the distribution concerns."

"GNU-Darwin almost seems to be hindering the entire Mac OSS unix community."

"This almost surreal splintering can do nothing but harm the overall effort of ported OSS software for the Mac."

"If we can't agree that the PPC is the heart of the Mac, than what can we agree on?"

"The one thing I've never understood is the relationship between OpenDarwin and the distribution concerns."

"GNU-Darwin almost seems to be hindering the entire Mac OSS unix community."

"This almost surreal splintering can do nothing but harm the overall effort of ported OSS software for the Mac."

"If we can't agree that the PPC is the heart of the Mac, than what can we agree on?"

Looking under the hood, it gets worse. While all other *nixes use standard ELF binaries, Darwin (Apple's name for their proprietary "Unix" kernel) does not. Ummm, Darwin is open sourced, www.opendarwin.org. And almost everything is "standards" compatible. Run Samba or almost any other common unix app and it will go AND work. So quit your griping. Jeez, they just changed the "windowing" environment as you call it. And I think they got that from NextSTEP.

I used to follow the GNU-Darwin project quite heavily. I had installed it along side OS X and was even on the mailing lists. I must say that they do (or at least did) have extremely talented developers that have done a lot of good work for the project.

However, I found through the mailing list that the project is political to the extreme. Their most extreme bit of politics came when they decided to "discontinue" PPC development (as pudge mentioned) because they had issues with Apple. They were arrogant enough to think that this move would force Apple to backtrack on the things they had issues with.

It was about that time that I decided to drop GNU-Darwin completely. What kind of project drops support for the hardware that > 90% of their user-base is using? Well, from the looks of it they, not Apple, have backtracked and are still supporting PPC.

My advice would be to not take a second look at GNU-Darwin. Use Fink or OpenDarwin instead.

... or OpenDarwin

GNUDarwin.

I was thinking of Darwin (no OS X). I'd be willing to bet there are more x86 darwin boxes than HURD boxes. (I don't know why anyone would run Darwin on a PPC unless maybe they have a machine too old for OS X.)

OSX shows that Apple is committed to open source.

Apple is not committed to open source, they use open source and there's a big difference. If they were committed to open source they would have gone with Linux. The reason they went with BSD is more likely that they don't have to release all their changes to the public and this would not be allowed with Linux. This is sure to garner the, "look at the Darwin project idiot" responses to which I reply, have you tried to compile your own Darwin kernel to replace your stock kernel lately? I didn't think so. (Btw, do not try this, you may hose your system because the stock kernel boot process differs from the Darwin kernel boot process, see the Darwin FAQ for more info on Open Firmware). I'm sure if BSD was under the GPL, Apple wouldn't have given it a second look. If Apple really wanted to impress me with their devotion to open source, they would drop the "we're protecting our IP" line and offer the option of a Linux or BSD kernel. All that aside, I think Apple makes good products and software, and compared to the big-M, they're Richard Stallman himself, but there's no way that they're committed to open source.

Nice try, troll. Apple has been using KJS as part of their JavaScriptCore framework for over a year now, and have been silently adding changes back without fanfare or press releases.

Yes, Apple publicly thanked KJS author Harri Porten, and TrollTech hired him.

Your point again was?

Eh? Color me white and call me yankee, but how 'secretive' is it to release the core of OS X, as in Drawin and OpenDarwin???

Apple is more or less part of the darwinports project (Jordan K Hubbard is one of its project leads)

Mmm, its darwinism in action!

GNU-Darwin just happens to be the best-selling UNIX on the market today mostly because of the Mac OS X GUI layer running on top of it.

No matter how much the GNU-Darwin people want you to think otherwise, Apple (more specifically OpenDarwin and people in the BSD group at Apple) are the ones doing all the work on Darwin.

It's amazing Shantonu even bothers making the OpenDarwin distribution anymore when the GNU-Darwin folks immediately start reselling it at a $15 premium (check the timestamps on those e-mails...).

GNU-Darwin just happens to be the best-selling UNIX on the market today mostly because of the Mac OS X GUI layer running on top of it.

No matter how much the GNU-Darwin people want you to think otherwise, Apple (more specifically OpenDarwin and people in the BSD group at Apple) are the ones doing all the work on Darwin.

It's amazing Shantonu even bothers making the OpenDarwin distribution anymore when the GNU-Darwin folks immediately start reselling it at a $15 premium (check the timestamps on those e-mails...).

GNU-Darwin just happens to be the best-selling UNIX on the market today mostly because of the Mac OS X GUI layer running on top of it.

No matter how much the GNU-Darwin people want you to think otherwise, Apple (more specifically OpenDarwin and people in the BSD group at Apple) are the ones doing all the work on Darwin.

It's amazing Shantonu even bothers making the OpenDarwin distribution anymore when the GNU-Darwin folks immediately start reselling it at a $15 premium (check the timestamps on those e-mails...).

First, we are making explicit and binding the following policy. GNU-Darwin will not support or distribute any software which links to proprietary libraries, and that includes Cocoa, Carbon, CoreAudio, etc. There will be no native package manager from GNU-Darwin (pkg_add suffices).

Second, we will be moving our operations to x86, and we are putting the ppc collection into maintenance mode

At the same time, I don't want to mess with Fink, it introduces complexity. For example, having two sets of binaries in different places doesn't mean you can run shell scripts without changing them if they were written expecting one set to be somewhere it isn't.

At the same time, I don't want to mess with Fink, it introduces complexity. For example, having two sets of binaries in different places doesn't mean you can run shell scripts without changing them if they were written expecting one set to be somewhere it isn't.

DarwinPorts

Apple's secret HFS+ code?

The APSL isn't quite GPL-compatible, but it's hardly secret, either.

And nothing is preventing you from making a compatible implementation, as long as you don't copy any of the code directly.

" I'd like to play with their unix too, but I'll be damned if I'm going to buy a whole new computer to do it."

No way. /. Frickin' hates Unix Based OSes that run X11.

Especially when they're based on an open system based on BSD, that ship with gcc, perl, python, Java, and apache