Slashdot Mirror
Apple Builds Darwin For Intel
BluesHarp writes, "Apple's lead Darwin engineer Wilfredo Sanchez announced that he successfully built and has made available all of Darwin 1.0 for both PowerPC and Intel. Does this mean that OS X for Intel would be just a recompile away?"
From Sanchez's Avadgato diary:
Apparently a lot of people are under the impression that Apple isn't going to help out with reviving the Intel port of Darwin. This is false.Neat stuff.Getting everything built fat is a big step, but a lot of work remains. The next thing is to get installation bootstrapped so we can get Darwin onto an Intel system, and then to get the kernel running, since we haven't tested the new kernel on Intel yet, and there is limited driver support for Intel PC devices. I have a high degree of confidence that most of the user-space software will work without problems, particularly since a majority of it comes from the BSD world where Intel is the primary platform, but also because we've seen it work before in Rhapsody.
New XFMail home page
/bin/tcsh: Try it; you'll like it.
There was a time I would have agreed with you, perhaps, but that time has long passed.
Modern Apple hardware is not all that hot. Look at the quality of the components in the iMac, G3, G4. Nothing all that different than the stuff that gets put into most PCs. But still a bit more expensive (although less so than previously). The last *really* nice Apple hardware, IMO, was the 8500.
Apple made a business decision (and probably a wise one) to get more competitive price-wise with PCs, by becoming much more like a PC maker.
And as for people like me who build their boxes, there's still no comparison to what I can do with commodity PC parts. An SMP machine for less than $1000. Beat that with Apple hardware.
Heck, even most Sun hardware ain't what it used to be. Too bad.
New XFMail home page
/bin/tcsh: Try it; you'll like it.
Although, you never can tell what would happen now with the anti-trust trial and everything...
New XFMail home page
/bin/tcsh: Try it; you'll like it.
Yes it does. It is illegal to link to GPL code anything that is not GPL compliant. If this were not the case, we wouldn't have need for the LGPL.
...between MHz on different platforms doesn't mean that useful comparisons can't be made.
I fully believe that a G4 will beat an Athlon clock-for-clock in a lot of applications. How much faster is it, though? I don't know...perhaps 30% on some apps. So clock for clock, the G4 might be 30% faster. Granted 2x clock != 2x performance, but that still that doesn't come close to making up for the 2x clock advantage that the x86 chips currently have.
Don't believe the marketing hype about G3's being twice as fast as PIII's. That figure might be theoretically true in very contrived cases. In contrived cases, the Athlon may be twice as fast as the PIII as well. Benchmarks are a wicked game.
Quite a lot of a processor's performance is dependent on its architecture. However, the G4 isn't very different architecturally than the Athlon and PIII. The Altivec unit is the main departure. x86 chips have SIMD media units, but they are less advanced. But, at the moment, using *any* of these multimedia extensions involves hand-coding at the ASM level, so these extensions won't get much use for a while. There is a fair amount of work going into vectorizing compilers, but it is a *very* hairy problem.
The point of this all is that Motorolla has let the G4 fall embarassingly far behind the x86 chips. Its a darn good thing for Apple that Jobs has drawn people's attention away from system performance and moved it toward case-aesthetics.
One drawn to conspiracy theories might even infer a causal relationship there.
--Lenny
How possible (or desirable) would it be for someone to take Darwin for Intel and build another open-source OS around it?
Darwin is based on CMU's Mach microkernel, and FreeBSD. So, in "releasing" Darwin, Apple is pretty much releasing the changes they made to existing open projects. Mach already ran on x86, and FreeBSD, like Linux, started out on i386, so it shouldn't have been very difficult to build Darwin on i386.
Building an OSOS around Darwin would pretty much be reinventing the wheel. Just tweak FreeBSD to make it do what you need.
--Lenny
Been reading 'Zealotry For Dummies' much?
- Jeff A. Campbell
- VelociNews (http://www.velocinews.com)
- Jeff
Their stock price, having multiplied over 10x their all time low of a couple years back and hitting an all-time high last week, would seem to indicate that they have recovered.
Apple's marketshare, growth, etc. have all actually gone up in the last 2 years as well. All of the major players have commented on this, and raised their ratings in the process.
Take a look here and tell me Apple hasn't recovered. Even if you don't believe the charts, read the newsitems at the bottom and tell me Apple hasn't recovered. At worst you can state that Apple isn't going to take over Microsoft's position (for that, I'd probably agree).
http://biz.yahoo.com/n/a/aapl.html
- Jeff A. Campbell
- VelociNews (http://www.velocinews.com)
- Jeff
Right. People need to remember that the 'X' in 'MacOS X' is not an X as in X Windowing system. It's just a funky latin way to state a version number.
- Jeff A. Campbell
- VelociNews (http://www.velocinews.com)
- Jeff
The 8088 had a 16-bit memory addressing unit but only an 8-bit bus. The 8086 was exactly like the 8088 except it ran on a 16-bit bus. But, there were really 20 bits of address space on both of them, they were just divided into a psychadelic 4 + 16 with some overlap.
Now, the 80286 was a 24-bit processor. Yes, you read that right, it could address up to 16M of RAM.
The 80386 and up were fully 32-bit. Except for the P6, which was 36 (it could address up to 64G of RAM).
It isn't fair to compare clock rates.
Absolutely correct. The only good benchmark is how fast your app runs on a common data set. But, everyone is wondering why Motorola can't get the G4s up to the speeds the Pentium class chips run at. It seems that a simpler instruction architecture would make it much easier to ramp up the clock speed, unless they have a really deep pipeline or something, but I think Athlon's is deeper. Anyone have an explanation? It does seem IBM can get the G4s up to 1GHz, and put 2 of them on a single chip. Is Motorola incompetent?
Scuttlemonkey is a troll
Apple was unprofitable when PC companies were making a killing.
Now that PC Companies are losing a bundle, Apple IS profitable.
PC makers are killing themselves in the windows space.
If PC makers could sell comptuers at a profit without the hassles that windows brings then they probably would. Mac OS X and Linux are the two possibilities. Of that, the MacOS X has a better possibility of being profitable because of the Apple control on the OS, the established App installation, and the Cocoa Application layer.
Darwin will be ported, as for the rest of OS X? I doubt it. As many other have pointed out there is a driver problem. Apple would need to spend beaucoup cash writing at least generic drivers for the plethora of PC hardware lying around. Sure there is alot of non-Apple hardware you can stick in a Power Mac but then again, Apple doesn't write drivers for these things. I'm not even really sure anyone would use OS X on an x86 system. I also don't think Apple had portability in mind when they decided to use the Mach kernel for OS X, rather they chose a Unix kernel they owned that was stable and powerful.
I'm a loner Dottie, a Rebel.
Apple is NOT maintaining a version of "MacOS X" on Intel. The last system to run on Intel was "MacOS X Server" (can you say NextStep?). Darwin is the only thing that has been ported to Intel, and it's just the lowest layers of the new MacOS.
In addition, I don't know where you saw their "hints about dropping PowerPC", but it was probably some fictional prose you read on MacOS Rumors. Apple is quite devoted to the PowerPC processor -- they helped design it and they have 2 different companies to provide them chips.
Besides, it's not practical to switch processors like you do underwear. Imagine Sun switching to PowerPC -- the hardware and software rewrites would be enormous! Obviously, there will be layers that are much more portable to new platforms (Java/Cocoa), but there are bits that are simply impossible (Classic MacOS emulation).
I'm all for optimism, but let's not spread rumors.
Matt Slot / Bitwise Operator / Ambrosia Software, Inc.
It's not a silly question at all.
I certainly buy stuff cause of the OS; it's what supports the hardware and software.
So my next PC will be Mac, if only for their firewire support and graphics support. If BeOS were more mature, they would definitely be in the running(mature in market support).
For servers and such, Linux, of course. For games and minor productivity... Windows.
And didn't I read before that over half of the Slashdot community runs windows? Or is that an urban legend?
-AS
-AS
*Pikachu*
Dying? :)
:P </RANT>
Have you been reading old John Dvorak and Jesse Berst columns over on ZDNet again>
Hmm...lessee... Apple stock at record highs, selling at over twice their top price during their "heyday" in the mid and late 80's when every single PeeCee magazine columnist was stating that they were dead. yeah right.
The iMac line is one of the single most successful selling pieces of computer harware out there.
Most people who buy Macs (like me) do so because they don't want to run Windows! It has nothing to do with Linux or Intel or AMD.
As for having "clinched the market" I'll once again bring up the old sawhorse about market share: Apple has the equivalent marketshare in the computer world that Honda, Acura, BMW and Mercedez-Benz (sorry, not Daimler-Benz, just the Mercedes line), plus a couple of others, have in the auto world. Are you going to tell THEM to give up?
<RANT>Why do you uber-geeks always go on and on about how there should be more "competition" in the world, and then rag on Apple because they don't make the computers YOU want? I like my spiffy new G4 just fine, thank you, and I ain't conna be running Linux on it any time soon
Pope
It doesn't mean much now, it's built for the future.
How exactly, can Apple grow their marketshare in an era where corporate environments insist on standardizing on Windows? They can't get their foot even near the door.
And if "Tiny niche markets" can sustain a billion-dollar company, then why the hell not? How many Macs have shipped in the last year compared to, say, Silicon Graphics O2?
I don't worship at the feet of the Steve, and when I started working with Macs I didn't have a clue as to who was the CEO, or what their plans for anything were. I simply saw applications and interfaces that were miles ahead of anything I had used under DOS and Win 3.1. How more objective could I have been?
Pope
It doesn't mean much now, it's built for the future.
Not to mention that NetBSD runs on PPC, I think there may be another of the BSD clan that runs on PPC as well, but I don't recall offhand...
Classic support would never work, unless apple also wrote a PC emulation mode into it which ain't gonna happen. Carbon probably would be out as well. Cocoa would be fine, Cocoa apps can already run on Windows, apple just doesn't make the Win32 Cocoa implementation available (although you get most of it with WebObjects). Of course, most Cocoa/OpenStep apps don't really use autoconf, so you would just pop it open in project builder, change the target, and hit build. Of course, since OpenStep supports FAT builds natively, it would be a trivial matter for software developers to just build it fat for intel/ppc and then the user doesn't have to worry about it at all.
True, I'm not overly concerned about the processor speeds. Yet... Sure, AMD and Intel have 1 Ghz chips that you have to buy a dell or compaq server to get. Am I the only one who is a little worried about these chips? I mean, both companies announce they will have gig chips in like 6 months and then suddenly, wham they get into a pissing contest and they are here. Now, did they really bump up their release schedule 6 months without cutting any corners? I dunno... Plus with supply short on the higher speed PIII's, it's not that easy to get a super fast PIII.
Actually, IMNSHO, Apple really shot themselves one good when they dropped SCSI as the standard in every computer. Looking back as far as the late Performa series, IDE harddrives and SCSI cdroms. Today, it's IDE all over the place. IDE has a place in the iMac for certain, but not in the G4's. You're already paying the slight Apple Premium, you may as well get a decent harddrive with that price.
;-) As for USB, thank god they ditched ADB when they did. ADB was (and still is) better then any x86 peripheral hookup scheme, short of USB. PS/2, serial, parallel? Get 'em off my board, PLEASE.
If it was all about simplicity, we'd be seeing internal FireWire harddrives or some such loving
My real point is that lately, Apple is only a little better on hardware. They ship IDE for pete's sake, as a default on their most powerful machines. The only reason you don't see a proliferation of IEEE-1394 in the PC market is that Intel has a stick shoved up their ass. USB is common.
The 2 things that an Apple machine get you these days are a G4 processor and a veryvery nice case. These days though, they aren't worth the Apple Premium. And if Jobs decided to hype OS X to the masses, he'll be selling out on the hobbyists and specialists that pride themselves on the Quality of their Macs. Because, no doubt, Jobs will start wanting the Mac to reach out to more and more people, make it cheaper and cheaper. Here's to hoping he won't spoil the power range of Macs.
Modern Apple hardware is not all that hot. Look at the quality of the components in the iMac, G3, G4. Nothing all that different than the stuff that gets put into most PCs. But still a bit more expensive (although less so than previously). The last *really* nice Apple hardware, IMO, was the 8500.
Your statement here lead me to believe that you have never SEEN a G4 or an 8500.
Here is a RAM install on an 8500...
The 8500 requires 4 screws to be removed... to get the case off. Then you must force the case cover to come off - usually requires placing the unit on the floor betwen your legs, and swinging your arms across the case cover and grabbing it as your arms go by, to try to pry it off from the case. Then slide the case cover about 2 inches from the case, then pull off.
Then you need to disconnect the SCSI cable, power cable, and audio cable to the CD ROM drive.
Then, remove all PCI cards and the CPU daughtercard.
Remove the powerplugs into the motherboard.
Then, remove the screw holding the motherboard to the plastic backing.
Then, extracate the motherboard from the
whoops.. i just realized that your post is FLAMEBAIT because this is the stupidest fucking industrial designed computer that Apple ever made - and everyone knows it. The 8500 was the only Mac ever to cause people to curse 1/4 into the Ram installation process.
Apple has simplified where necesary - IDE vs SCSI, USB vs ADB.. but other than the mouse and keyboards, Apple hardware has only gotten better, stronger, and simpler to work with.
And as for people like me who build their boxes, there's still no comparison to what I can do with commodity PC parts. An SMP machine for less than $1000. Beat that with Apple hardware.
I can't recall a single person on the planet ever disagreeing that if you want to spend hours dinking with crufly little wrist-slashing homebrew PC cases to save a few hundred or to do some insanely odd job like a SMP box (except that SMP daughter cards are now available....) on a $50 budget... then don't buy a Mac.. buy a PC.
its like either BUYING a Honda or making a kit car... if you enjoy making kit cars - that's great. I used to do that and it was fun and ther'es nothing wrong with it. Some of us just want to drive cars even if we don't want to bother to make them. Its all just personal preference.
BTW: to finish... on the G4 - pull case tab, open case, install ram, close case.
guns kill people like spoons make Rosie O'Donnell fat.
How nice that you've convinced yourself of this. I wonder how many other half-baked prophecies you've acquired from Jesse Berst and friends?
Seems clear that you never read the business page.
Apple is, quite possibly, in the most enviable position in the desktop market. And they have nowhere to go but up.
The implication that all Apple is doing is porting software is patently absurd. Apple is succeeding in making a user-friendly Unix, which a lot of really smart people have worked really hard to do for decades (and failed).
Enjoy your Linux on your AMD box. Give a call next time you need to run, I don't know, Illustrator, a real word processor, games, etc. etc. etc.
one more thing, you have OSX on intel and a very good, reliable, fast win emulator will show up in a week. THEN you really start getting sales in by having the still missing critical mass of s/w apps for your OS.
Geez. Will this myth EVER die? What mission critical apps are missing for Mac OS? I've managed to find an Application for every task I've attempted on the Mac.
Office productivity:
Microsoft Office 98 Mac Edition
-- Believe it or not, this is actually a decent
-- software title.
ClarisWorks / AppleWorks
-- Includes what is actually a pretty kick-ass
-- terminal emulator
Cross Platform database solution:
FileMaker Pro
-- Available for Mac and Windows
Network Servers:
AppleShare IP
-- a networking suite with just about everything
-- under the sun, including both AppleTalk and
-- Windows Networking filesharing, FTP, Web
-- server, and others.
WebStar
-- 3rd Party web hosting solution that supports
-- plugins for both AppleScript and Perl CGIs.
Internet Tools:
*** Web
Netscape 4.7
IE 4.5 (5 due out next week)
iCab
lynx
*** FTP
Network Browser
-- Built into OS, very basic FTP client
Anarchie
-- Kick ass shareware FTP client with built in
-- ping, traceroute, etc
Fetch
The list goes on.
woof!
>The choice that would face Apple is this: Do we, Apple, want to concede the hardware business?
...
>Sans doubt, Jobs says no.
You are, of course, referring to Steve Jobs.
- The same Steve Jobs that, when kicked out of Apple, started his own company. A company that built an excellent product with top notch (custom, 68K based) hardware and ahead-of-its-time (custom) software.
- The same company that, years later, gave up on the hardware business. Instead they porting their software from 68K to PPC, Sparc, PA-RISC and, yes, x86.
- The same company that, years later, was bought by Apple for 400M$ and tasked to create the next generation MacOS.
I'm not saying that Apple/Jobs is ready to give up on the hardware business, just remember that Jobs knows how and when to change tactics.
Drinking will help us plan!
Also check out this link. Briefly, Darwin is the open source part of the Mac OS X code base, which is based on BSD. The Projects page at the link above tells more about it. Apple has also released the code for their streaming server (not exactly the same as their commercial streaming server, which comes with Mac OS X Server), with binaries for Linux, FreeBSD, and Solaris.
Also, in case you haven't been following Darwin, there is some question as to why Apple is doing this. Many are skeptical of Apple's Public Source License, because it requires developers to submit modifications to Apple.
Darwin != Mac OS X
Just because OS X is optimized for whatever, or has the other layers, like Aqua, Quartz, and Classic compatibility environment, doesn't mean that Darwin has it too.
However, I would assume that you're right and the Altivec support is there. Since they're just beginning to port this to Intel, it's hard to say whether faster clock speed will more than make up for the lack of Altivec. For the usual real-world *nix applications, there is probably no real loss.
Accourding to macosrumors, there has always been an intel version compatiable os OS X foating around apple. Most of MacOS X has is already platform independent. Even Apples build tool Project Builder have a check box for building for intel software. IMHO, I think Apple is just keeps there options open.
Ceterum censeo Microsoftam esse delendam.
That should be www.xlr8.com.
And MacOS X is very accomodating of "fat" applications. The .app files (which are just folders) can contain subfolders for different architectures. This is, of course, inherited from NextStep, and was supposed to be exploited by Yellow Box for Windows.
.app files on other platforms? The internals are very well documented. And it shouldn't even be necessary to "emulate" Cocoa -- there's nothing that says the architecture-specific binaries have to use the same API. I can see this being exploited to create create a single executable that runs appropriately in Gnome/KDE/console/whatever.
But it seems that Apple (read, "The Steve) has decided against Yellow Box for Windows. So I was wondering the other day, why not take advantage of the incredibly flexible format of
Any sufficiently advanced civilization is indistinguishable from Gods.
The problem is the device drivers. x86 platforms are notorious for their wild array of devices and drivers. Even with Windows, there are plenty of devices that don't have drivers (especially with NT4) or have drivers that are buggy. But unless you support the overwhelming majority of hardware out there, you can't sell the OS.
So Apple would have to spend millions of dollars writing device drivers for their OS, because we all know that the hardware vendors aren't going to do it. IBM has to write most of the drivers for OS/2, and how many vendors do you know who make and support Linux drivers? I'm always at the number of people who laugh at OS/2 but make the same mistakes that IBM did with OS/2.
And for what? Another 1% market share? Windows dominates with 90%. Most of the rest goes to Linux and OS/2. Mac OS X x86 wouldn't even make a dent in this market.
And what about the applications? Sure, the OS is cool, but when was the last time Apple made anything cool that didn't generate a huge profit? And anyone who thinks that they could just recompile their OS X app for the x86 version is deluded. Remember OS/2 for the PowerPC? Ever wonder why most of the commercial Linux apps aren't available on non-x86 platforms?
I've been hearing talk like this for years. The only people who believe it are those who don't understand the technology and don't understand Apple.
And the men who hold high places must be the ones who start
To mold a new reality... closer to the heart
I think it would be great for apple to start selling OSX-intel boxes. They could sell a box with usb, firewire and scsi cards that they support. Apple would not have to write drivers for every possible card and thus, to have a PC that works well with OSX people would have to buy it from Apple allowing apple to maintain their hardware business model. If it takes off and people start writing drivers for all kinds of devices and OSX starts to spread to lots of desktops/configurations (imagine dell and gateway selling OSX compatible models that are also Windows compatible) then apple could start to have a business model that is software sales based.
I'd love to see it.
no sig.
But, if I were Jobs, realizing that x86 is a lame duck in the long run, I wouldn't bother making the commercial part of the OS x86 compatible. Of course, PPC seems like a good contender to replace x86, but its makers don't look like they're really trying that hard. So I would keep my options open.
Whatever replaces x86 in the long run, there is going to be a lot of work done on making sure that every geek OS out there compiles and runs like a steam engine on that platform. Therefore, it would be in my best interest to make sure that when x86 breathes its last, there is a sizable geek crew using Darwin. These geeks would then contribute a great deal of expertise to making my core OS port nicely, and since the commercial part of my platform compiles on top of Darwin, it would be relatively easy to bring everything else over in a nice timely manner.
This is just what I would do, but it loks kinda familiar to me...
On another topic altogether, all this talk of getting OS X to run on wintel PC's seems (to me, unless I'm really missing something) to be confusing the processor with the whole box. For example, sure the BeOS runs on PPC, but just try to get it to run on an iMac - the problem isn't what processor is in there, but the motherboard, peripherals, BIOS/firmware, etc. More than likely, Apple is making sure that they can switch processors in their still-proprietary hardware (to whatever architecture seems most promising - x86, sparc, crusoe, something else altogether...), should IBM and Motorola continue being unable to keep up with demand for both numbers and new versions.
What is the robbing of a bank, compared to the founding of a bank? -- Bertolt Brecht
Anyone who has written an app that has to run on multiple platforms has bothered with it. And the solution is downright trivial. Add a macro or function for swapping when saving/loading a structure to/form disk or to/from something that doesn't use your native format. Its NOT that big of a deal. Sorry, pet peeve. 40 lines of code later you can be endian-safe with a little bit of discipline to use it.
Sanity is a sandbox. I prefer the swings.
Software may be more profitable than hardware, but it is difficult to make money by selling an OS. Microsoft is probably the only company that has managed to do this. Except for the Linux vendors and the struggling SCO, I can't think of a company that is making a profit off selling a desktop OS. The companies that do make a profit tend to be niche companies.
Most of the commercial UNIX vendors (Sun, HP, IBM, SGI, etc) make money off hardware.
For a long time I thought Apple should be a software-only company, but now I really doubt that it would be possible for them to survive that way. There is not enough evidence to indicate that licensing the OS would be profitable.
This whole theory with "cannibalizing Apple hw sales" doesn't seem right to me. Well, maybe it would make a small fraction of those considering buying Apple hw change their minds, but I'm quite sure things would evolve differently in the long run. Releasing a low-priced x86 MacOS X would provide a chance to taste the system for those unwilling to buy a whole Apple system; I think many would become addicted, especially if the development tools are sold for a reasonable price (that would enlarge the apps pool too - every other development system looks crippled after using the NeXT dev tools and frameworks). Then many of the new addicts would buy Apple hw, coz that's the real thing ! I've been running NeXTSTEP/OPENSTEP on both NeXT and Intel hw, and while overall system performance/stability was close, installing the system and setting up peripherals on Intel hw was nowhere near the seamless, out-of-the-box-and-running feel of the NeXT hw.
Tuff that Smatters.
Darwin is the Apple's OS X "kernel" or better "core OS".
Here is a link to Apple (including some marketing crap).
-><-
Grand Reverence Zan Zu, AB, DD, KSC
Jobs, being a smart man, wants to have his options open, especially after the latest problems with chip supply. There are certainly a number of people working on X86 at Apple. THAT'S THE POWER OF MACH (beside being able to run 3 layers simultaneously). But X86 is dead and both Intel and AMD know it (look at their roadmaps). PPC isn't. Motorola is not alone - IBM is part of AIM too and they're good at cranking out chips. Apparently IBM's got a dual processor on a single chip running 2 GHz. And Motorola is having fab problem - hence there's talk that they'll liscence from AMD, which has a brand new fab.
Besides this processor speed thing tends to go back and forth like a pendulum. x86 is faster, then ppc, then x86 and so forth. Probably has most to do with development cycles. Besides Intel and AMD are pushing the definition of releasing a chip (anybody gotten any sort of quantity on 1 GHz chips? - anybody expect it any time soon?). I seem to remember hardware makers bitching about Intel not delivering in time for Xmas.
As far as Apple hardware goes, it's not as expensive as at first glance. Remember, you have to throw ethernet and firewire cards into a PC to do a fair comparison (probably around $200 for cards with equivalent chip sets).
While Apple doesn't have a multi processor system out right now, XL8 has shown off a Multiprocessing Carrier.
www.xl8.com
You put two G4s on a riser card and then plug that into an xl8 Carrier ZIF 2.0
"Using a multiprocessing ready version of its patent pending CarrierZIF, XLR8 showed a dual ZIF CPU riser concept card that allows its CarrierZIF 2.0 to implement multiprocessing using standard G4 ZIF CPU daughtercards. The XLR8 MP riser is designed to also support multiprocessing ZIF daughtercards in Apple's Power Macintosh G3 and ZIF G4 systems."
Lets see
;) )
;) sorta...
;) )
:)
;)
;)
;)
;)
If you've ever seen Virtual PC or one of the other PC emulators running on a mac, you can't help but be at least a little bit impressed. Now you run one of those with 128MB of ram for it... and the emulation simply flies.
Now... In some ways you could consider this to be a Red Box (The typical codename used for a mythical pc emulation box on macos's blue code base
Anywho... a Red Box... which is half decent for things you can't get native apps for... such as that silly Access database you've been using since the mid 90's.
Now Apple had a problem with the PowerPC. Namely their OS and ALL apps were written in 68k code! So they implemented a emulator at the lowest level of the system... Later version cached code, dynamically recompiled and all that juicy stuff.... And eventually native apps were released... and speed reigned... Life was good.
Then Apps got bigger. And things broke more often.
A Modern Core was required.
So the Rhapsody project was started...
Take OpenStep 4.2 (I think) which is a BSD based OS with NeXT object extensions running on x86... and port it to the PPC.
Great. But it doesn't run Mac Apps...
So make a Blue Box... its not an emulator as such... well it is... but it doesn't emulate the CPU... it emulates everything else
The point is you get native speed...
And because its running on top of a unix, it gets some nice features, like memory protection & a GOOD virtual memory system (relatively
So you just make the Classic MacOS think its running on a NICE piece of hardware with 1 gig of ram.
Add a few tweaks to the OS, so that when it goes into a delay spin it just sleeps.
And there you go. Working bluebox. But its very separate, just like Virtual PC.
Oh Well.
Enter MacOS X.
I won't go into Carbon... but carbon is cool
Basically means you can run the MacApps OUTSIDE of their little blue box
Its another API to the Unix... You have the Darwin API (BSD), You have the NeXT API (YellowBox/Cocoa) and you have the Carbon API (Cleaned up MacOS)
Cocoa is the nifty one btw.
Anywho... transparent blue box.
Basically you make the finder in the BlueBox (your desktop manager) invisible... so that the mac's windows float in MacOS X... almost like a real macos X app...
even tho they're being 'emulated' (we have to find a better term for that! Is 'Runtime Environment' it?)
Anywho...
This brings me to the next bit
Apple has all the technology required to make emulators and these Runtime Environments...
And in fact... Other companies offer VERY good PC emulators for traditional macos.
I think you would have to be insane to not believe that Connectix was currently working on a Carbonized version of Virtual PC.
And what would be really amazing is if they managed to turn Virtual PC (the Red Box) into a Transparent Red Box which is certainly possible.
This would give you your modern hardware which runs windows/macos/osx/bsd apps.
Of course, you could also run linux apps on their with sufficient development work
Oh yeah, Java too.
In fact, you might actually be able to run LinuxPPC as a separate Mach Process!
BTW, Aqua is even better in person!
---
Live Long & Prosper \\//_
CYA STUX =`B^) 'da Captain,
---
Live Long & Prosper \\//_
CYA STUX =`B^) 'da Captain,
Jedi & Last *-fytr
This is not the case. Apple does not currently sell any dual-processor machines, and has not since the days of the PPC 604e-based Power Macintosh 9x00, which ended in late 1997 or so.
The rationale for this is that the current Mac OS takes ill advantage of multiprocessors. It uses assymmetric multiprocessing, and the second processor sits idle for the vast majority of time. (Furthermore, the G3's 3-state cache coherency model is insufficient to support more than dual-processor configurations, although the G4's 5-state model is enough to support it very well.) Mac OS X will fully support symmetric multiprocessing, so expect this picture to change in the next year or so.
- Mali
I think you've seriously misclassified Wilfredo Sanchez. His job is managing Darwin and Apple's other recent public source projects. He (and now David Zarzycki) are the conduits through which Apple and the open source community communicate. He's quite dedicated, and this is a big step; cross-compiling an entire operating system is far from simply "a [single] bored engineer blowing off steam." This build required that Apple's core OS development team be fairly rigorous in writing and maintaining cross-platform code. (Admittedly, Darwin is itself a port of OpenStep/Mach's core OS to PowerPC from a codebase that ran on x86, SPARC, and PA-RISC, but many, many, many changes have been made.) Not only that, but the build infrastructure is now such that Apple's public and private CVS servers are largely unified for the core OS; we're getting a live view of of Mac OS X's core OS' development.
Meanwhile, the modified GCC which Apple inherited from NeXT has an engineer dedicated to merging the codebase into the mainstream GNU GCC, copyright reassignment and all. There is even serious discussion of bringing together the GNU and Apple Objective C runtimes.
As I've said in other posts, I don't specifically do not believe Mac OS X will be running on Intel at any point in the forseeable future, but it is my opinion that you've sorely misjudged the rest of the situation.
- Mali
People need to understand that Apple doesn't need to overthrow Microsoft in order to survive. They can very comfortable survive as 'the other consumer platform'. Their marketshare now isn't too bad, and while I'd love to see it grow a few more percent, it's not hard to find anything I've needed for the MacOS (except for games, but that's improving as well).
If Apple can maintain 5-10%+ marketshare, then they'll be around for some time. If they can hit 15%, then things will be perfect. You don't have to have a monopoly to survive.
(BTW: People have been anticipating Apple's death for 25 years - I would hope that they'd learn by now that it's just not happening)
- Jeff A. Campbell
- VelociNews (http://www.velocinews.com)
- Jeff
There's no point in that really. OSX uses a seperate backend display system to draw everything to the screen, this is really the only thing where most of the work needs to be done to run with a different graphics environment. There is already a yellow box for windows that allows Cocoa apps to run on win, I think you have to buy WebObjects to get it though, apple hasn't really decided what to do with it.
For example, the variations in GUI interface from product to product/release to release -- one has gnome and E, another KDE, and the newer stuff will have sawmill and gnome...these larger companies don't want to drop big changes on the employees whenever some distro changes their desktop functionality. The mac and Win GUIs are far more stable than the free/open systems.
I definately agree. I think the GUI on linux is really going in a bad direction in that there are too many parallel efforts. The desktop environment is really where linux sucks right now. Yeah, I said it. But, consider cut and paste. Cross-application cut and paste is pretty weak in linux. Sure, you've got the middle mouse button, but to paste a url from a terminal to netscape means you
- selected the test in the term
- bring up netscape and click the middle button at the end of the url
- delete the old url
This is not ideal. And what about cut and paste, and universal helper applications? These are things that Gnome and KDE are addressing, but how compatable are we talking? What if I want to run WindowMaker? Will I only get the benefits of gnome's app integration with gnome apps, and kde's with kde, etc?
What we really need, IMHO, is a standard for system wide application integration and communication rather than several competing efforts.
BeOS? It's not being used by enough people to be taken seriously. And the last time I looked at their developer area, I think I saw they lean toward objective C. Regardless of the qualities of the language, PHBs want to see C++ prominently displayed in the developer area, like it or not. They don't want to retrain the less gifted developers.
Well, there is Obj-C++ (shudder)... Obj-C is a great language and I really hope apple can begin to better market it rather than turning to Java. I know a lot of people don't take OpenStep stuff into consideration because of this crazy Obj-C thing, hopefully that will change...
The final issue is the toughest to face -- price. No one will like to hear this, but for OSX to rapidly gain acceptance, Apple will need to sell a $19.99 unsupported version. It's the only way to load the home and corporate desktop with this OS. Even the full version can't sell for $199. That's more than Win2K. And they can't sell it for $99; Linux and BSD will beat it to death as their desktops stabilize. They can't make it by selling it as a server OS for the back office only. That philosophy will lead to nothing.
I think more important is for them to beef up developer support and keep the dev tools free (interface builder and project builder). Interface builder is by far the best RAD GUI develpment app in existance. Project Builder is pretty cool, but supposedly there will be a beefed up version for OSX which will improve some of it's weaknesses. Anyway, I think the key to the success of OSX is getting developers interested in Cocoa and the OpenStep way of doing things. Microsoft got ahead because of great developer support, apple needs to do this now. Not charging for the tools and updating some of the old OpenStep docs will do a lot I think.
I don't think sales cost is really going to be a big deal at all. It will probably be under $100 as past versions were, and hopefully a good upgrade price. I really doubt a super low cost is going to help them make it much more of a success. Attracting developers is going to be the big thing. The more developers they have, the more apps they have, the more people will want to use OSX with advanced new apps, the more computers they sell... People aren't going to want to run out of date apps in the BlueBox forever, and I don't know how long anyone is going to want to maintain carbon apps...
Darwin is an OS. Go check it out. It's not just a kernel. The only major thing missing from it is a windowing system. It includes a kernel, shells, compilers, drivers, servers, editors, etc etc. Please at least look into things before making uninformed statements.
a percent of the code? No, darwin includes most of the lower levels of OSX. The things it doesn't include consist mainly of the window system, Cocoa and it's frameworks, the bluebox, Carbon, and Aqua. Of course John Carmack has devoted himself to porting X to darwin with it already running on OSX Server, so I suspect it won't be long before we have a window system for it.
The gcc port for PPC pretty much blows. If you do some benchmark under MacOS vs Windows on Intel, the mac will kick butt for the same processor speed (as it can do more per clock cycle). However, if you do something like run nbench on LinuxPPC vs Linux on Intel, the intel will probalby pull ahead because the compiler doesn't do optimizations very well for PPC. It kinda bums me out that I have this nice fast Mac but there's no real advantage using linux on it because the performance boost from the hardware just isn't there.
Hopefully some of apple's changes being incorperated to gcc will fix this, but I doubt it. The compiler on OSX Server isn't so hot either. Of course, it is based on a really old gcc, so I suppose it's possible that they've been tweaking up a moder and super fast gcc for OSX. one can only hope...
it is only a small part of the (future) MacOS. This does NOT mean that the Mac as you might know it will run on Intel. Apple is a hardware company, the chances of them risking the cannibalization of their HW sales by having a full MacOS running on intel is pretty slim, IMHO.
Point and Grunt
Darwin was cross-compiled, using a PPC, into binaries for both x86 and PPC.
Apparently, the majority of Apple's profits come from their mildly over-priced hardware. As of right now, Apple has a very limited foothold in the land of x86/PCs.
This foothold is limited to Quicktime and a few other proprietary formats that, while wonderful in their own right, have a limited lifetime (as everything in the computer industry does).
Were apple to suddenly decide that it were to be quite profitable on their part to sell OS X as x86 compiled code, they might get a larger install base of software. However, they would not do this because they may lose business on the hardware front.
Think about it: Apple's OS X is going to be a Big Thing. It is going to be hyped up the arse. The only way to use it will be to run on Apple hardware. Apple sells machines to the unwashed masses so that they can use the over-hyped software (conveniently also provided by Apple.) Apple makes a killing.
Where is the advantage of selling the software? Perhaps if they implemented a licensing scheme like Microsoft, or perhaps a help scheme like RedHat (which would be a terrible idea because Macs are so bloody easy to use).
I'm terribly sorry to say (I love apple, and I would love to see OS X running on my Intel box) but this is just another case of a bored engineer blowing off a little steam.
Rami James
Pixel Pusher
Altec Lansing R&D, IL
--
rJames.org - illustration
Just out of curiousity:
I took it for granted that Mac OS X would be utilizing Altivec's special capabilities to make some significant speed boosts. When recompiling for x86 compatible machines, wouldn't those speed boosts be lost? And therefore wouldn't the version that runs on Apple hardware be significantly faster?
Just curious; I don't really know that much about Altivec and Apple's coding practices..
Rami James
Pixel Pusher
Altec Lansing R&D, IL
--
rJames.org - illustration
I saw a demo of OS X just a few days ago. I must say that I was stunned at it's features. I guess what I quoted above is partially correct. If you listen to everyone talking about Linux, then there will be a lot more people. But how many of them actually get it? Most of them are just going along with it because every one else is. If they saw the capabilities of OS X, they'd be singing a different tune rather quickly.
I have been a PC guy, but after seeing OS X in action, I have to say that it really is a powerful system and should not be overlooked just because you don't like Macs.
John Lavoie
Ithaca College
Although it is a step in the right direction, I honestly wonder how far they will go with it after the darwin effort is completed. I don't believe that we will see full blown MAC OS chugging along on Intel for the long haul. I don't see where the shift in platform fits in to Apples longer range plan. They have been making much headway lately with the flavors of the month and continuing to provide for the apple following, not no be a sad ass, but moving to full intel compatability just doesn't seem to fit into their business model which seems to be working pretty well for them. If it's not broken, don't fix it.
More race stuff in one place,
than any one place on the net.
I understand that the apple s/w and h/w marriage is a key element in their success, it was also a key element in their failure the last time.
last time I checked, software was much more profitable than hardware since it costs so much less to produce and distribute. if you sell s/w that's not tied to a hardware, you sell your stuff to anyone and are not limited by the production limitations found in the h/w business. plus your margins are much higher if you sell enough (after covering development)
think about this, if they sell OSX only for apple h/w owners, and they are the sole providers of apple boxes, then they'll sell as much s/w as they can build boxes, which have a completely different business model (based on low volume, high margins vs. high volume decent margings).
after all microsoft made its money selling software when the internet wasn't even around and computer usage was just a fraction of what it is today, but it took a revolution, new economy, new age, the internet, etc. for cisco to have as much money as they do today sellin hardware.
IMHO: keep selling apple h/w adn s/w turnkey solutions, AND sell OSX for Intel for those who want it. whoever was going to buy an apple box will still probably buy it, the rest of us that would like to give it a shot but would never spend on their hardware (i love my custom built PCs) will probably shell out $50 for their s/w.
one more thing, you have OSX on intel and a very good, reliable, fast win emulator will show up in a week. THEN you really start getting sales in by having the still missing critical mass of s/w apps for your OS.
There are two kinds of people in the world: Those with good memory.
"Darwin" is only a small part of OS-X. Just because it compiles on Intel doesn't mean that the rest of Apple's code will. Apple's new OS is a lot more than just the kernel.
+--------------------- You idiot! I told you we were facing the wrong way!
What's next after Darwin? Maybe a school in Kansas will bans Macs?
dragonhawk@iname.microsoft.com
I do not like Microsoft. Remove them from my email address.