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Well, Software.com was started in the early 90's to sell software over the internet, but the 4 guys who started it consulted to pay the bills before the whole internet thing took off. They were setting up sendmail for someone when they decided that 'they could do it better'. That spawned Post.office a pretty nice mail system that was very easy to configure & run, though not super scalable. They merged with Accordance and created InterMail Mx, a _seriously_ scalable mail server system that would run distributed across a cluster and handle millions of subscribers without breathing hard. So no, we weren't a bunch of fucktards.

But you, posting on Slashdot from your mom's basement, you're another story.

I used to be a pretty hard-core Linux on the Desktop guy. Every PC I ever built or bought (laptops) dual-booted Windows and Linux. At one point in college, I was even writing my essays in HTML to print from within Netscape 4, as there weren't any decent Linux word processing software (that was free ;)) circa late 1996.

I kept Windows around because there was-and-is a lot of stuff that Linux doesn't do well, if at all; Photoshop (GIMP wasn't a contender until GimpShop, too little too late), Office, Final Cut Pro, StarCraft, etc. OpenOffice (NeoOffice) is finally to the point where it's almost an Office replacement (in my line of work, I have to volley a document back and forth a dozen times or more between my office and third parties', with Track Changes and Comments and those aren't in OpenOffice).

I returned to Mac (my last Mac previously was a PowerBook 5300/100 with System 7.5.x and MachTen (http://www.tenon.com/products/machten/) around OS X Jaguar, on an iBook G3/600. That thing was indestructible (fell off the back of my motorcycle at ~40mph and survived outdoors for a week before I recovered it, still works 4 years later), and led to a PowerBook, MacBook Pro, MacBook (engineering school tote-along), iMac, Mac mini HTPC...

What I love? Running Perl / Apache / PHP / MySQL / etc. in a comfortable "native" UNIX environment, while still having all my GUI goodness with Mail.app, Safari.app, Preview.app, Office 2004, StarCraft (yeah, I'm way behind the times in gaming, don't care, don't have time), etc., all a click away as native apps. Plus, now with VMWare and Windows, I can keep around the software I need for school (XILINX, Visual Studio Pro 2005, etc) on one platform. Front Row is a great HTPC interface. AppleScript lets me automate flipping between it and my Elgato EyeTV, with the sleek little Apple remote control. Awesome industrial design (Macs are pretty; most PCs look cobbled together, with the possible exception of the VAIOs).

I haven't run Linux in years, except at the office where we setup a big Linux file / backup server. Even my home server is now an old PowerMac G4 with matched (and software mirrored) internal hard drives and OS X Tiger Server. The UI is better, the third-party application support is there, and most software I want is either a single-click .dmg install or no more difficult to install than it is on Linux (through Darwin Ports and fink), often easier (fink vs. yum, for instance).

Most servers I'd deploy would still be Linux, as Apple's hardware is expensive in that market niche and there's no value add (I'm going to be running the same AMP software stack regardless of OS X or Linux as the underlying platform). But on the desktop, unless you're totally cash-starved, there's no compelling reason for me or most of the techie people I know to run Linux on the desktop, and lots of good reasons to use OS X instead.

This is a trend that's been building for a while (I jumped in 2002, the biggest geeks in my circle jumped shortly thereafter): http://apple.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=05/03/29/1818256

Tenon has had a web-based front end for Apache for many years now, originally on Mac OS, more recently on Mac OS X and Linux.
http://www.tenon.com/products/itools/

The web-based administration uses a separate Apache server, so you can start and stop Apache from the GUI. The GUI also lets you configure and manage DNS and FTP.

The reported threading problems were not, in fact, threading problems at all. Instead, they are the result of F_FULLFSYNC fcntl. You will probably find this thread interesting.

http://www.tenon.com/products/machten/

Of course, it's not Linux. Instead, it is based on 4.4BSD and the Mach kernel.

Regards,

Walter.

I don't think Apple would use Safari
Internet Safari is already a web browser.

I don't think Apple would use iTools
iTools is already a Suite of server applications for macs.

I don't think Apple would use Apple
Apple is already a record label.

I don't think Apple would use System 9
System 9 is already a the name of an OS by Microware.

Anymore out there ;)

4. The ability to run *nix apps.

Quick, how many FSF programs run on pre-OS-10 MacOS? Think about how long it would take to implement a Cygwin-like Unix compatibility layer for the Mac before you answer that question.

Such a compatibility layer has existed for a number of years- you can even run X11 apps. It is called MachTen. With it, one can run almost any FSF program, although I'm sure there are some which need a bit of fixing- be it Makefile tweakage or something a little more.

Other than that, a handful of FSF programs have been ported to Mac OS. Most hadn't been needed, considering the fact that Mac OS classic had a wealth of decent applications for it covering the same functionality, although with a different interface. There is functionality on either side with no equivalent, that goes without saying.

I'm really surprised that no one has mentioned XTools by Tenon.

They suckered lots of people (me included) into paying $99 to $199 for a product that has never passed beta.

The delays have gotten so bad that the only new posts on their discussion board are discussing class action suits, not software.

See here.

The closest thing I've seen to that is OroboroX which makes things look nativish. Or you can use Tenon X tools Click Here which apparently is built using Carbon/Quartz

Not intended to be a troll - but it was a response to what was effectively a troll. The limited functionality claim was effectively made by the message I responded to: no command shell, no security permissions (all code running as root). So, it seems like the way to hack it would be to find an ISP foolish enough to use it, get an account, and take it from there...

I'll add another limitation, which is no multithreading. I can't imagine a Webstar server doing a good job of being a web application server, i.e. where it's doing something much more substantial than serving static pages. I'll admit I haven't tried it. But I've done a fair amount of server-oriented system level coding, and am very familiar with concurrency issues and the various kinds of APIs on multiple platforms, and cooperative multitasking is not going to cut it in any kind of high-demand situation.

For some testimonials, try this page: "iTools/Apache has been much more reliable than WebSTAR. WebSTAR used to tank (especially on the SSL side) twice a month at least. Under heavy load the SSL side tended to crash"; or, "I had...the same 'tanking' problems which [put me] twice a month in front of the computer to fix what had to be fixed."

4D even promoted WebStar v4.5 as "more stable" - an interesting tacit acknowledgement. Perhaps Mac vendors are just more honest... BTW, WebStar V is multithreaded, so clearly 4D are aware of the problems inherent in the prior Mac architecture.

Whether there is one Mac webserver or one hundred million, secure is secure is secure.

I think you're missing the logical point on a number of fronts. The Fort Knox example is actually a good one - no-one knows how secure it is in reality, because it hasn't suffered any serious attacks. For all we know, it might have a horrible Achille's heel. You can only make claims and assumptions, and "impenetrable" is a clearly invalid claim. Impenetrable to what? The U.S. Army? A fleet of killer radio-controlled vehicles?

As I said, you could have made a claim about the security of Windows, back around '96, and the empirical evidence would not have disagreed with you, simply because net hackers were not yet seriously targeting Windows machines. Similarly (almost conversely), the fact that you didn't succeed in cracking WebStar means very little. Without a hacker population attacking WebStar with the same gusto that they attack Windows and Unix servers, the empirical evidence is of limited value.

That all said, I'm perfectly willing to concede some basic points: a biggy is that use of the Pascal string convention is certainly less likely to suffer from buffer overruns than the C convention, and that's a major source of holes right there. I'm not saying that Webstar isn't more secure in general or by default than your average C-language web server on Unix - it may very well be. But so what? It's a bit like saying that living in Siberia, you're less likely to be mugged. True, but irrelevant to most people.

Beside, a big problem with the original message I responded to was the implication that other servers couldn't be configured to be as secure. That, I dispute strongly. None of the servers I maintain have ever been hacked, even when boxes on either side of them have been. I know of many other servers that have never been hacked. The way to be secure is to have an understanding of what makes you secure, and to act on that, not to blindly purchase something because it says "secure" on the box, shut your eyes, and hope for the best. I've maintained secure Windows servers, secure Linux servers, secure BSD servers (various flavors). I'm tempted to say something like "software doesn't make boxes insecure, people make boxes insecure." It's close to the truth.

It was really the entire combination of specious claims and invalid assumptions that caused me to react to the original message.

perhaps you should just fork out some cash and buy Tenons Xtools X server for X

No, he shouldn't.

Tenon has all but abandoned Xtools. There hasn't been an update since last September, and the currently available version (1.0.4p1) is horribly unstable.

Xtools was useful for the 6-month window between the initial XF86 port to Darwin and the release of XFree 4.2 (which integrated the rootless quartz server into the main code tree). Since then, however, it's rotted. At this point, OroborosX is faster, better-featured, and much more stable.

Too bad anyone with $2000 (back in 1997) worth of powerbook 1400 rubble liing around are STILL screwed. Check out the hw-support

Oh well...there's always other options:
Apokalypse linux
MachTen

That "horribly expensive proprietary Unix for Macs" is named "MachTen" and was made by Tenon.
Once Machten reached version 4.1ish, it wasn't that bad. I could use a unix mach kernel at blazing fast speeds on my mac's PPC processor WAY before OS X.

Just my two cents.

The ``horribly expensive proprietary Unix for Macs'' you're thinking of is probably A/UX, Apple's implementation of SVR3. This ran native on the 68030/040 Macs, but it could also run Macintosh applications right alongside X11 apps.

The product most similar to MOL was Macintosh Application Environment (also from Apple), which let you run System 7 in an emulated 680x0 in a window on RISC workstations, e.g. Solaris on SPARC and a couple of others

Both of these are quite out-of-date and, to my knowledge, no longer sold, though A/UX still has some fans.

If you want to go the *nix on Mac route, Tenon Intersystems still sells MachTen, a 4.4BSD/Mach implementation that runs as a process under Mac OS 9 and earlier on PowerPC and 68K.

Exciting as this is, if you dig a little deeper, it isn't all that exciting. Exciting would be GIMP running as an Aqua application. As it is, you still need to run an Xserver on your OSX box, which means you either have to shutdown AQUA and start up the Xserver, or use a rootless Xserver.

Shutting down AQUA doesn't sound appealing at all. Running a rootless Xserver is better, but you still have to run a seperate window manager to manage the Xapps. Aqua won't do it.

And face it, most Mac users will give you strange strange looks when you mention needing an Xserver. Unless their installed covers instalation of the Xserver and GIMP, GIMP on Mac won't replace Photoshop. And everyone who "thinks different" will mostly ignore the GIMP port.

Most Mac users are going to want Aqua applications, not Xapplications. Xtools from Tenon Intersystems or eXodus from PowerLan might make the idea of using an Xapplication on your OSX box more apealing due to tighter AQUA intigration, but will be turned off by having to purchase the product.

Yes it's cool, but it's not terribly exciting.

It is commerical though, but that is the way things are sometimes... However the product looks as if it's worth the money.

It is commerical though, but that is the way things are sometimes... However the product looks as if it's worth the money.

It is commerical though, but that is the way things are sometimes... However the product looks as if it's worth the money.

Tenon came out with one of these for MacOS X Beta a while back. Tenon's MacOS X Beta X server

You can run the VNC Server and view the X environment in a window, exit the GUI to the command line and startx, or run X-Tools

Mac OS X is basically BSD under the hood, so source compatibility should be good. I was able to compile and run most of the Obfuscated C Contest entries without a hitch. XFree86 has already been ported to OS X in full-screen mode; a hot key toggles between it and the normal OS X interface. Tenon is working on a (commercial) rootless X server for OS X, they have a beta available here.

I really tend to judge OS's by looks a,d not substance I suppose, which is why I like gnome and Macs and not MS so much.

I hope you're not implying that MS wins on substance :)

I'm sure its been posted here before, but can someone update me with what unix apps will be able to run on OSX when its done? I think I remember apache and a few other things being available but what about other main stream apps. Is it just a matter of a recompile or is the BSD part too nonstandard to port to.

Most command line apps should recompile either out of the box, or with a little nudging. Apache comes with the OS, and I believe Fred Sanchez is making sure new builds continue to work. MySQL has built some OSX binaries, but most of them appear to be for the older OSX Server 1.x (Mach 2.5-based, no Aqua). Somebody is working on PostgreSQL.

The X11 apps are a different story because you have to get your hands on a X server first. There are several different efforts/approaches to this. The most seamless is a relatively expensive ($300) commercial product from Tenon. It runs X apps alongside native OSX apps. You can exit to raw Darwin and run something like XFree86, but you cannot run any OSX native GUI apps until you launch back into the window server.

Overall, anything that runs on *BSD should be able to make its way to OSX pretty effortlessly. Some of the remaining kinks should be worked out by the time the shrinkwrapped product hits shelves on March 24, and I'm sure things will continue to evolve via Darwin. Work done on Darwin is routinely synced with the OSX tree and vice-versa.

Also note that the revamped version of Mac OS X Server, which will come up several weeks after March 24, will be based on the same core as consumer OSX. It will add server-specific packages and some very cool GUI tools for things like Apache and IP filters. It comes with PHP, Tomcat, and MySQL preinstalled. WebObjects with an unlimited license is also included (previously, a 50 client connection per minute limit), as is a mail server, ftp server, and samba. The last three have UI interfaces for them.

A have a full write-up of this new version of OSXS2 on my site. It's slick.

- Scott

--
Scott Stevenson
WildTofu

As some others have pointed out, this announcement doesn't bring Aqua and X together, but Tenon has a neat product called Xtools which basically lets you run X programs seamlessly under Aqua. I'm using it now and it is pretty impressive.

This is NOT Aqua support! This is XFree86 running on Darwin!

Er, no, it's running on CoreGraphics, aka "Quartz". Quartz is not part of Darwin.

So, you can have X on your screen, or you can have Aqua on your screen.

Or you can have both.

Either way, you're limited to programs compiled for what's on the screen.

No. The above link works for free now, XTools works for money now, and direct support in future Darwin XFree86's is planned.

Then again, if tenon's xtools were free in its final release, as it now is in beta...or some other coca-x server wrapper library that was free is implemented, osx users could get the best of both worlds.

Granted, newbies aren't going to be out there compiling new apps right and left, but we experienced users can...and then post the binaries, or write small installers, and then...osx==gnu/mac hybrid.

that's my plan for my next box!

Then again, if tenon's xtools were free in its final release, as it now is in beta...or some other coca-x server wrapper library that was free is implemented, osx users could get the best of both worlds.

Granted, newbies aren't going to be out there compiling new apps right and left, but we experienced users can...and then post the binaries, or write small installers, and then...osx==gnu/mac hybrid.

that's my plan for my next box!

Tenon has a beta of Xtools available for download.

According to their press release it is a:

full implementation of the X Windows system running on Mac OS X. Based on X11R6.4, Xtools inherits the clean, fast, stable, and portable codebase from Xfree86. Integration with the Aqua environment is enabled by building the X server on top of Cocoa and QuickDraw, providing a rootless X windows display while still retaining the ability to use native applications.

Of course, it costs real money, but it seems to be a smoother solution than VNC.

-Andrew

here, this is an X server for OS X, without the VNC overhead:

http://www.tenon.com/products/xtools/

You're too late. Tenon has already done this:
http://www.tenon.com/prod uct s/xtools/pre-release_beta/
Simultaneous execution of X- and Aqua-based applications is provided. Support for both copy and paste functions is provided between X and native applications.
Tenon plans to add full support of OpenGL, as well as more convenient way to close X applications and start remote X clients. Although no widget libraries have been ported, these too are planned.

Tenon Intersystems recently released a public beta of Xtools, which is indeed a Darwin X Server.
Check it out.

As far as an X11 -> Quartz compatibility layer, that would be great. Tenon (www.tenon.com) has created an X server that runs on OS X and sounds like it integrates pretty well. They have a description & screenshots here.

As far as an X11 -> Quartz compatibility layer, that would be great. Tenon (www.tenon.com) has created an X server that runs on OS X and sounds like it integrates pretty well. They have a description & screenshots here.

Any X that winds up in there will be by the grace of Carmack.

There are others doing this, including a commercial effort from Tenon, which is famous for providing Unix compatibility on the Mac.

- Scott

------
Scott Stevenson

(btw, any chance of an X-compatibility layer or 'wrapper port'?)

Assuming you mean X11 (damn that's confusing -- does "X" mean OSX or X11?), there are several efforts underway. The commercial one is from Tenon, and there are some other floating around. Carmack did one for Darwin, I think.

- Scott

------
Scott Stevenson

BTW, there is a bug in slashcode. I assume your HTML code is not

<A HREF="http://www.tenon.com/TARGET=_blank">http://w ww.tenon.com/ </A>

but

<A HREF="http://www.tenon/com" TARGET="_blank">http://www.tenon.com/</A>

But slashcode generates http://www.tenon.com/ anyway.

Tenon announced a future release. Some may remember them for machten.

http://www.tenon.com/

(most likely because standard Mac OS X will not have an X server IIRC)

MacOS X will not have an X server as an integral component: however, a company called Tenon produces an X server that will run on MacOS X.

-steve

From what I've read, MacOS X doesn't use X; but it's own display system. I can't remember if this is Display PostScript or something else.

How hard would it be to write an X server that ran inside this display system?

Tenon Intersystems has already announced X (as in X11R6.4) for X (as in Mac OS X).

Therefore, for simple ports, it should be a no-brainer.

Carbon or Cocoa ports will demand a wee bit more work, depending on the app.

Tenon Intersystems has already announced X (as in X11R6.4) for X (as in Mac OS X).

Therefore, for simple ports, it should be a no-brainer.

Carbon or Cocoa ports will demand a wee bit more work, depending on the app.

Look before you leap! Check this out for Apache for Mac.

In fact, I can run about every net service that a Linux box can on MacOS 9. I have even written a Telnet server for mac that makes the machine appear to Un*x-like when a user connects.

P.S. If you can't find Mac Software, just head over to Download Dot Com and search. It shouldn't take long to find what you want.

Tennon MachTen runs BSD Unix on top of MacOS.

In addition, MacOS X server does run a 'virtual machine' to boot the classic MacOS environment. A/UX did something similar.


--

Apache is already included with the MacOS X versions released so far, and will continue to be bundled as part of it.
There is also a MacOS version of Apache, called WebTen. It's a *NIX -like environment for running Apache within MacOS, just like another application.
Tenon also makes MachTen, a *NIX environment based on BSD4.4 and the Mach kernel. Neat stuff!

Pope

Apache is already included with the MacOS X versions released so far, and will continue to be bundled as part of it.
There is also a MacOS version of Apache, called WebTen. It's a *NIX -like environment for running Apache within MacOS, just like another application.
Tenon also makes MachTen, a *NIX environment based on BSD4.4 and the Mach kernel. Neat stuff!

Pope

On a typical work day, I'll have 3 operating systems booted simultaneously on my Mac G3: The MacOS, SoftWindows95, and MachTen (BSD 4.4).

This seems to be an example of someone else trying to catch up to the same idea.