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How Good Of A Unix Is Mac OS X ?
Anonymous Coward writes: "Greg Knauss, a UNIX guy from way back and a contributor to Suck, TeeVee, creator of Metababy, etc., has written a piece for Macworld.com. He looked at the Unix underneath the new Mac OS X Public Beta and has generally positive things to say, with a few caveats." Among these shortcomings are the lack of the GNU tools, about which Knauss says "... [W]hile the arrival of the GNU tool set -- the mainstay of Unix development -- is inevitable, it's a shame that Apple didn't see fit to include it in the Mac OS X beta."
Ok, I finally found the paper I was citing. It's in postscript, but it's really worth reading at least once, even if it is from '95...
It's a good paper, but I'd like to see current results for the testing, too. I guess I should hunt down a copy of the FUZZ tools. I don't have a copy of NEXTSTEP, but it looks like they were using NEXTSTEP 3.2.
However, NEXT had the worst failure rate, at 43%. If they switched to the GNU tools later, well, that's fortunate, 'cause they were the best, at only 6%...
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pb Reply or e-mail; don't vaguely moderate.
pb Reply or e-mail; don't vaguely moderate.
Don't those FreeBSD people have any notion of binary packages? Or would that be completely non-portable now?
:)
I'm with the other guys: if they changed *that* much stuff, then grab a copy of Darwin; there are many crazier things out there. Otherwise, good luck writing a compiler (and an assembler, and an...) with the tools they give you. You might have more luck with a cross-compiler, in that case.
I completely sympathize; my school uses tcsh, and trust me, there's no good way to change that. (you can have tcsh run a bash, yeah, but then you have to port all the aliases and crud that's already set up) Whenever I want to do any real scripting, I run bash; I'm just more comfortable with it.
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pb Reply or e-mail; don't vaguely moderate.
pb Reply or e-mail; don't vaguely moderate.
I always thought A/UX was the coolest OS around. Apparently, very few people used or seen it. Our school (UCLA) got a bunch donated by Apple. They were great! UNIX underneath with the Mac interface running on top. Truly the best of both worlds, without the bloat and limited apps available for X. What ever became of A/UX? Did it evolve into OX X or is OS X something totally new?
Ajax said it was the best UNIX there he has ever used. I value his opinion; so should you.
Often wrong but never in doubt.
I am Jack9.
Often wrong but never in doubt.
I am Jack9.
Everyone knows me.
But NEXTSTEP used the GNU tools too (gcc, and so on). Read your NEXTSTEP license agreement before posting. :)
-David
> THIRD RULE OF SLASHDOT READ THE DAMN ARTICLE.
(Third rule of geeks in space.. don't talk about anything BUT geeks in space while on geeks in space) [CmdrTaco]
Rule 4.. Ignore rules 1-3.. existing posts.. and the artical itself
GCC will be available for MacOs X soon
I don't actually exist.
Hmm.. If only they had a normal 2+wheel mouse, then they would rock. I mean not some M$ or Logitech, but brand name Apple mouse. Then I would for sure switch from Windoze, to Mac for Java programming.
http://dtum.livejournal.com
I guess it would be too much to ask for Mac OS X to use rpm
.pkg (or at least they were in the developer releases). I don't know if the package management system has any special name beyond "package manager."
;) And despite the lack of package management, I still felt it was easier to find installed files on Mac OS than on Windows or *nix.
Not natively, but somebody could probably port it. Of course having two project managers on the same system is probably a bad idea, at least for non-hackers.
but I would be thrilled to hear that there is a real package management scheme built into Mac OS X. Is there?
Yes. The files are
A real problem with the Mac OS X of old is that it's waaay to easy to scatter installed software all over the place.
I assume you mean the "Mac OS" of old.
A real package system would also make it so convenient to upgrade the system, especially during the beta cycle.
I'm pretty sure it has signed internet-based updates (Mac OS 9 does). The help system is also dyanmically grabbed from the net, apparently. Though I hope there's backup access if TCP/IP is unavailable.
- Scott
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Scott Stevenson
Scott Stevenson
Tree House Ideas
Microsoft vs. carbon compliance...why is it I got a giggle off that?
"Damnit, Word just locked up on me again!"
"It's 'cause you're a 'carbon based lifeform', and Office isn't carbon
compatible yet."
To address your points one by one:
.app extensions, yes? Is n.3 really better than type/creator attributes?
- If there's a consistent interface, then where did my window managers and widget sets go?
Consistant doesn't mean identical. Almost no two mac desktops look the same today. What would make you think people won't customize them on OS X as well?
- If it's "easy to use", then where did my shell prompt go?
Nice use of sarcastic quotes, but easy to use means using the best tool for a particular job. With that in mind, go ahead and use a shell prompt when you want to. It's there and full-featured. What's the complaint?
- How do I turn these (*@#% tooltips off?
Ahh, that's not an OS X complaint, as MacOS doesn't have tooltips. That's more a Microsoft/Adobe/Macromedia complaint, yes? In point of fact, Mac OS X also does away with balloon help, so this is a good thing.
- How do I get a real, 8-bit-clean text editor?
Use TextEdit, the 8-bit-clean text editor that replaces SimpleText in OS X.
- Why does the shell bug me about 'filetypes' all the time? Why do I care?
It doesn't because you don't. You must have noticed all these
Linux does look pretty slick, but personally I've found that when I have work that requires my own skill (coding, composing text, etc) I use my Linux box, but when I have work that requires the computer's skill (page layout, gif animations, etc.) I use my Mac or Win laptop. The Linux OS is slick, the Linux tools are powerful, but the MacOS is friendly, and if it can give me power and slickness(?) too, I'll take it over the alternatives.
Kevin Fox
Kevin Fox
If you look at this page, you'll see right under 'Release 1.0' Apple says this:
[...]Preliminary support for Intel is provided, allowing developers to begin bringing Darwin to the Intel platform.[...]
Could this possibly mean they *are* interested in porting it to Intel? I sure wouldn't mind...
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GPLed POP3/IMAP/SMTP to Web/WAP gateway
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Tonight on Fox: Deadliest Executions Part XVII
Um... Wasn't the first web client and server -- built with NEXTSTEP at CERN by Tim Berners-Lee ? Without this 'not so great... desktop... Unix... that sucked", this page would not be here.
You're right it doesn't (we'll it does as long as you like products two versions out of date), I was merely replying to a post which I interpreted as saying an easy to use UNIX had never existed.
Yes, carbon is good - the Rhapsody model was asking to much of developers and probably would've killed Apple, and I'm glad someone at Apple got hit with the cluestick(tm) and saw that it would never really work and should be replaced with a more sensible one.
This space intentionally left blank.
No. The G4 is affordable. From the Apple store, you can get a box for $1,599. Used G4's are even cheaper and available from many sources online.
400MHz PowerPC G4
1MB L2 cache
64MB SDRAM memory
20GB Ultra ATA drive
DVD-ROM w/DVD-Video
RAGE 128 Pro graphics
Gigabit Ethernet
56K internal modem
Drop the 56k modem to save $50 more.
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He lives in a world where those who do not run the client software of the omnipresent meme are unacceptable.
Go to http://maximumlinux.com/content/news/2000/09/13/11 335 and have a blast with gcc on OS X public beta.
More importantly, it even comes with vi!
WARNING: there is a trojan on your
--Colbey
I use something like this every day - it's called IRIX
Ah yes, but IRIX doesn't have all the Mac software -- Adobe, Macormedia, MetaCreations/Corel, games, etc. This is why Carbon is good, and Rhapsody was bad.
- Scott
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Scott Stevenson
Scott Stevenson
Tree House Ideas
Actually, in the 80s, Apple planned to buy Sun and move the MacOS GUI to SunOS. I think they also toyed with Apollo.
The Sun deal fell through when Apple offered a ridiculously low price. Sun got them back by doing the same during Apple's low period in the 90s.
This is all in an old Wired article about Apple's decision not to allow clones in the 80s.
Perhaps they were afraid that, by including the GNU tools, Stallman would badger them into calling it GNU/MacOS X :)
----------------- "I have a bone to pick, and a few to break." - Refused -------------------
...Hummm...
:q!
"You don't sound like you've used it; perhaps you should, before you pass judgement?
Probably the best bet for now is to stick with LinuxPPC, something not blocked by Steve Jobs' arrogance
Unless you run it on an RS-6000...."
Are you looking at the same RS/6000 I am?
LinuxPPC runs quite well on the RS/6000. However, I am partial to AIX which was written from the ground up to run native on the POWER Architecture.
The problem with the RS/6000 is that it is not common in every household like a PC or Mac. AIX has a number of features that would be great in other *NIXes including Linux and maybe OSX...JFS is one.
vi
i
"Enter your comments here!"
ESC
vi
i
"Enter your comments here!"
ESC
This is the most entertaining Slashdot discussion I've ever read.
On one hand, you have Unix weenies who will swear forever that MacOS is as stupid and lame as a jar of rocks painted like jellybeans, even when they themselves have to resort to FUD.
On the other you have people who have actually taken a look at OS X and can see that Apple's done a remarkable job at modernizing their OS to a Unix kernel.
Apple's finally succeded at breaking the Unix ranks into those who like Unix because it's better and those who like Unix because it makes them feel superior.
Kevin Fox
Kevin Fox
I found this in a post from Holt Sorenson on MacWorld.
Why gnu tools weren't included
On another note, I think it's shocking that to this day I still hear talk about:
1. The price of Macs. You can scan this very list to see that it's really not an issue anymore for what you get. I think that people might just be irritated that even a low-end mac is a high-performance machine compared to a less expensive piecemeal Intel box.
2. The availability of software. In the old days, the argument was that critical apps weren't available and so the machines are fully proprietary. This is of course absolutely the opposite now. Most of the things you *can't* get now are shareware or small-scale development items. Kinda like DOS compatibility with Windows right now.
3. The quality of the operating system. The normal Mac OS has stunk for a while. But the Unix in Mac OS X has been well proven in the last ten years (since NeXT).
Here's the post I found:
Posted By: Holt Sorenson Date: 15-Sep-200011:26p.m.
At the 2000 Usenix Technical Conference, Wilfredo Sanchez of Apple gave a presentation on The Challenges of Integrating the Unix and Mac OS Environments. The paper can be found at: http://www.mit.edu/people/wsanchez/papers/USENIX_2 000/
An audio recording of the presentation of this paper at USENIX 2000, including the Q&A session, is available Dr. Dobb's TechNetCast at: http://www.technetcast.com/tnc_play_stream.html?st ream_id=332
During the questions period, he was asked if GNU tools would ship with OS X. He said that they would not because in an e-mail discussion with RMS, RMS insisted that OS X would have to be GPL'd if Apple included GNU tools.
-- Eli Juicy Jones
I'm sorry, but I fail to see the analogy.
In terms of size and performance, UNIX installations can be small and nimble compared to MacOS X, which has to support a lot more "stuff".
In terms of software architecture, MacOS is a mess and a dumping ground of legacy technologies: microkernel, UNIX personality, Objective-C, Java, MacOS ROMs, etc.; no design or taste there.
In terms of appearance, there are plenty of pretty UNIX GUI interfaces.
MacOS X, with its consumer market share, may be an OK compromise for people who want UNIX reliability and some kind of consumer-oriented system. But I don't think people have been holding their breath for this; MacOS X isn't salvation for the UNIX users of the world, it's salavation for Apple: without it, the company would not have a competitive product at all. This way, they at least have a chance against NT and Linux.
of course, the one mouse button thing really sucks. thats why im using a PC laptop instead despite the nice long battery life of those powerbooks.
Anyone know if Apple are planning a port to x86?
Guess the chances are pretty slim, but it would be kinda cool.
NeXTstep (old spelling) was a fantastically clever GUI built upon Mach/BSD4.X and (of all things) Display Postscript. Everything I read about MacOS X tells me that the core ideas of NeXTSTEP remain buried under a slightly different Mac UI; nothing of significance has been removed. Mac OS X is NeXTSTEP.
Was the UNIX under NeXTSTEP bad? Not really. It was typically a year out of date in terms of the core utilities, but the kernel was unique (Mach) and quite powerful. If you had access to the source of BIND, Perl and other tools, you could update the essential sys admin and developer tools and be quite up to date. Remember, it was just emulating BSD 4.X (2, 3 & 4).
What makes me sad is how few of you actually got to work on the NeXT. This is like the Second Coming of NeXT, and as one of the few (lucky) ones who saw it in the Cube Daze, let me tell you, it's great to see it back.
The two most common things in the Universe are dark matter and stupidity.
As long as they used the tools from *BSD instead of the ones from NeXT, (which it sounds like they did) I have no problems with it.
Of course, I like the GNU Tools better, so I'd probably do what every other hacker stuck on a foreign platform would do: compile them.
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pb Reply or e-mail; don't vaguely moderate.
pb Reply or e-mail; don't vaguely moderate.
Enjoy!
--
ZP
We only can learn from our mistakes.
ZP
We only can learn from our mistakes.
XFree86 is being ported to OS X.
BSD won't be able to run OS X apps, because of the
gui and other closed-source libs, sure, but in
case you haven't noticed yet, OS X is _PPC_ only.
Old one:
Q:"Why do the British drink warm beer?"
A:"Lucas Refrigerators."
wow. How about you compare to a pre-built machine? It's exactly these false comparisons I was complaining about...
2 1337 4 u!
I figure the user interface in a year or two will be equal on Linux, BSD, BeOS, Mac and Windows.
I don't think so. Microsoft has been trying since 1984 to come up with something as good as a Mac, and the best they have got is still ten years behind the Mac. There are huge, perhaps insurmountable problems with the heterogenaeity of the application base in both Windows and Linux that make it very unlikely that anyone will ever match the Mac look and feel.
Yeah, but there's a hell of a lot more difference between BSD and MacOS then there is between win16 and winNT..
Bah my MG B looks good but runs like shit!
As I said earlier, this was in the midst of the UNIX war. I don't trust any of the manipulations that were done during that time. This backstabbing was the reason why UNIX fragmented. A common GUI would have helped. But the GUI war (that was only practical when workstation graphics matured) then reared its nasty head with the Motif/OpenLook division. NextStep would no have been adopted as the common platform. The PHB had already denuded themselves on the value to their inteface.
I write this rant, but I'm in agreement with your central premise,
One important feature that got left out of the article is the "Classic" mode of OSX. It basically emulates MacOS 9, and does a damn good job of it (think WINE written by Microsoft, instead of a bunch of reverse-engineering hackers). This, to me, is one of the most impressive elements of OSX. Never before has an operating system vendor so completely been able to offer full backward compatibility.
---- I made the Kessel Run in under 11 parsecs.
Pardon me while I get pedantic for a minute. No offense is intended.
One thing that people keep forgetting about Apple is that they are a hardware company. Heck, even Apple forgot that for a while and almost died as a result. Since Apple is in the business of designing, building, and selling non-commodity hardware (lets face it, intel/AMD boxen are commodity items), they are in the position of being in complete control of how the box works. Which means everything in the OS and apps should be tweaked down as hard as possible to get the best performance, right?
Wrong. Apple is in this for the long haul. Several times in their history they have had to completely redesign both their hardware and their software, while also maintaining that illusive requirement of Backward Compatability for the masses of Mac faithful (heck I know people whose primary home machine is STILL a MacPlus, and they are fellow techies!). That means that Apple is basically in a state of constant porting of their OS to whatever new hardware they decide to manufacture. Remember, Apple is trying to create a stable and flexible software system that supports their bread & butter sales: hardware. (yes, I know it is a bit more muddy situation than that, but that is closer to the truth than any other assessment).
A microkernal architecture does make porting a little easier by abstracting the OS interface to the hardware. Yes it slows things down a little, but not that much. You also get lots of nice advantages. Think of it as contingency planning:
- Apple might have to move off of the AIM PPC design to something else (a very real possibility if Motorola can't bump past 500mhz G4s very soon)
- They might choose to attempt a raid on part of an Wintel/Lintel/Sun/SGI market segment (I doubt it, but they might) and need to port over to some other architecture while still maintaining code compatibility with the MacOSX main branch
- They developed OSX with the promise that it would run on G3 machines or better (boy was there alot of grumbling about THAT. Mac people keep and use their machines a LONG time). Some of those machines are now 1&1/2 generations out of date (2+ years). It just makes it simpler to abstract not only the microkernal, but everything in the new OS that they can (which is what they have done)
- They need to plan for the unknown. They don't know what the future holds techwise. They want to make sure they can maximize their response as quickly as possible (say for example if USB2 supplants Firewire/IEEE-1394).
There are lots of other good business reasons as well. One is that by abstracting to a microkernal, they don't have to exhaustively test every stinking OS upgrade on every type of OSX legacy machine. They can instead pound the heck out of their currently manufactured machines and then do restricted testing on legacy machines. Since the microkernal is identical on the machines and the microkernal gets exhaustively tested on all machines (a much smaller job), it eliminates a whole class of hardware unique bugs. That saves both time and money testing as well allows them to bring more features to market faster.
Another reason is security. How many potential security holes can you plug by not letting ANY software, including the OS, touch the hardware? The answer, alot. Apple has a tradition of this sort of abstraction. How many older MacOS developers bypassed the ToolBox API to talk directly to the hardware, only to find that in the next machine their software broke? The answer: many. If Apple tells you "don't rely on attribute X being there in the future" then don't expect it to be there. Additionally, the various flavors of BSD are considered by many to be the most secure OS on the planet. Using a microkernal architecture to take away potential hardware backdoors should make it even more secure.
Anyway, that is my assessment of why they chose the microkernal direction. I could easily be wrong. It could be something much simpler than that: we have this NeXT code, lets use it.
Cheers,
IV
"These laws they're passing won't even compile anymore, let alone execute." - anon
I haven't played with a DP at all, but file extensions on the Mac kinda scare me. I hope you weren't insinuating that file type/creator codes are on their way out.
.html file, but that one having been created in dreamweaver, meaning that you're probably writing the page, then it'd open in dreamweaver. The same with almost everything else.
.xxx stuff.
I've always relished the type and creator codes, because files would essentially remember what program you used to create them. If you downloaded a page from the web and double clicked it later on, it'd open in Netscape. If you double clicked another
I want the old/current filesystem... none of this
A MAC is a computer for people like my mother. Someone who do NOT recompile there kernel on a daily basis. Please just calm down If apple does not include a compiler into there OS. That's why there is FTP, to download one.
hmm... for fun I enjoy launching DDoS attacks against 127.87.42.5
Actually, I think that MS did port NT to the mac, but it never sold well.
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100% pure freak
I'll sum up my opinion on QuickTime in one sentence: I love the codec and the format, but I hate the player.
"Ancillary does not mean you get to rule the world." --U.S. Circuit Judge Harry Edwards, speaking to the FCC's lawyer
No way really?
I'm a loner Dottie, a Rebel.
But I am curious. What about the file system? Do Macs still have separate resource and data forks with each file? Will this be supported by the file system in OS X? What about the app and creator 4-byte codes (which are actually in the resource fork). Will that be used, or will they move to the horrible filename extension crap that UNIX and DOS world suffers under? :-(
Many of you posting on the subject of Mac OS X on Intel seem convinced it will never happen. It may happen for the following reasons:
:^)
1.) the traditional argument about why Apple does not release a version of its operating system is that it would kill its hardware sales, and as a result, its revenue sream would dry up and it could not survive long enough to live on software alone. This used to be true. It is not true anymore.
Why? consider the traditional reason to buy a macintosh. the operating system was Apple's crowning jewel and the primary motivator for its sales. This is not the case anymore. Between its technical limitations and various incompatibilities (hardware, software...) and the ease of use of windows (ok, not as easy as the mac, but not too far off) the MacOS is not the driving force behind Apple's sales.
The driving force behind Apple's sales is its innovative hardware designs. Today, people buy a mac because it looks so damn cool. If the iMac (or cube, tower, etc) were running windows, people would buy it. If people can get the Mac OS on a white box PC, there will still be many many people that purchase iMacs and Cubes for style.
2.) The other thing preventing Apple from making a major push on to the PC desktop is the sheer breadth of hardware available on the PC platform and driver support. Delivering the level of compatibility that microsoft does with windows would be a monumental effort.
This is why Darwin exists. Apple hopes that the OSS process will apply to its darwin and individual developers will scratch their respective itches and bring breadth to darwin's hardware support.
This is where we come in. If we want to make OS X on Intel a reality, it is 90% in our hands. If we start scratching some driver itches, OSX/Intel will become technically feasable.
If the day comes when OSX/Intel is feasable, it will be in Apple's hands to actually deliver it. That much is beyond our control. But if you would like to see this, start looking at darwin. Subscribe to the developer mailing list. When the intel installer is available (currently its a real pain in the ass to get it installed on intel) throw it ona spare machine and check it out.
Come on, this is what OSS is all about.
As to the original poster's comments: if Apple had used their own proprietary compiler, then yes, it would have been sufficient to include that rather than gcc. However, they didn't use proprietary tools, they used GNU, so GNU should have been the tools to include (actually, they apparently used some proprietary tools in addition to GNU, but nevertheless, it definitely would have been better if GNU had been included, as well as the proprietary tools. But apparently, they are available through a free download, so it's somewhat of a non-issue, except that the ability of newbies to explore and learn programming has been somewhat inhibited).
I fully agree. Apple has finally gotten off their ass and "Thought Different" for the first time since their shining pinnacle of glory back in the beginning.
This OS is basically what Be strove to be, UNIX for the rest of us.. but it's not just for the rest of us. It's the real deal here folks. At the same time, we get a nice (themeable, did you know that? Macs went themeing many years ago with Kagi Software's Kaleidoscope) GUI and some good graphics performance. Ask anyone whos serious about *NIX, "What's wrong with *NIX?" and they'll say "Xwindows" right off the bat.
So now we have the best of both worlds here. I for one, am shelling out the cash for dual 500mhz G4 as soon as I get my next paycheck. The hardware is better, and now the OS is better too. What more reason do you want? You don't even need to settle for a 1 button mouse!
Just my rant.
- Paradox
Man of the C!!!
Slashdot. It's Not For Common Sense
In terms of size and performance, UNIX installations can be small and nimble compared to MacOS X, which has to support a lot more "stuff".
I agree. Particularly true in devices like Tivo. The author's metaphor is broken.
In terms of software architecture, MacOS is a mess and a dumping ground of legacy technologies: microkernel, UNIX personality, Objective-C, Java, MacOS ROMs, etc.;
I don't really agree with your assessment. There are only two real APIs to be concerned with for Mac OS X: Carbon and Cocoa. Carbon is a cleanup of Mac OS libraries so that old software still runs. Cocoa is a combination of OpenStep's Objective-C and Java. The reasoning for the inclusion of the BSD layer should be obvious. MOSX even comes with built-in Java 2 support. To the best of my knowledge, nobody else is doing that.
Nothing here is too ridiculous. People would be upset if any of this was left out. In fact, one could argue that deciding which Linux environment to develop for (GNOME, GTK) is more of a hassle. Not to mention all the basic services that X is lacking (or whoever is supposed to take care of fonts, printing, graphics, color correction, etc).
no design or taste there
I'm sorry, but I just don't feel Linux has much to say to Mac OS X in terms of design and taste. If you use the software, you'll realize this stuff has been very well thought out, and this is just the beta. Look for, example, at the fact that the configuration are XML-based, and are modified with an XML GUI front end. Linux would do well to learn from this. Consitency is certain an area where Linux could grow.
In terms of appearance, there are plenty of pretty UNIX GUI interfaces.
Pretty and intuitive are different things. Enlightenment is pretty (not as pretty as Aqua, though), but not intuitive. And frankly, that's not really E's fault as much as a function of that fact that it has to remain compatible with the way *nix is setup. Mac OS X does not.
MacOS X, with its consumer market share, may be an OK compromise for people who want UNIX reliability and some kind of consumer-oriented system. But I don't think people have been holding their breath for this
Hmmmm, even just reading slashdot posts (largely an Apple-hostive environment), I would think the opposite. Very interesting comments have also come from Carmack and other people at Id.
MacOS X isn't salvation for the UNIX users of the world, it's salavation for Apple: without it, the company would not have a competitive product at all.
I agree that Apple needs this product badly, but if you really want the Unix userbase to grow (in other words, anything that's not NT), than take a hard look at MOSX before you make sweeping generalizations. You don't have to like it if you don't want to. Heck, Linux might even learn a thing or two from it.
- Scott
(I've used/administered SunOS/Solaris/Linux/Mac OS X/Mac OS X Server and many others)
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Scott Stevenson
Scott Stevenson
Tree House Ideas
I thought of that one (adapted from a Jeff Goldblum line from Jurassic Park) because I was sick of software engineers coding stuff, "just because." One of my blaring examples was someone posting in the "Open MPEG-4 Contest," putting in a comment called "Write it in Java." Take a look at my reply to that. I think that my reply embodies my motivation behind my quote.
"Ancillary does not mean you get to rule the world." --U.S. Circuit Judge Harry Edwards, speaking to the FCC's lawyer
um...you didn't know i guess that MG's are notorious in the auto community for constantly breaking down and being just generally impossible.
sure are great looking though.
no... it actually took a bit longer for the emulation performance to catch up to 68k performance...
1st generation 6100/60, 7100/66, 8100/80
2nd generation 6100/66, 7100/80, 8100/100, 8100/110
3rd generation 7200/75 + 90, 7500/100, 8500/120, 9500/120, 9500/132
The first powerPC macs to beat out the Quadra 840AV in 68k performance were 604/PCI based machines, which didn't arise for at least (i'm guessing here - 2 years) after the NuBus PowerPC's.
If they migrate their OS anywhere from the PowerPC, let's hope they go to Alpha's...
Hear Hear!
I spent three summers and academic years programming both cubes & slabs, B&W and color, as an undergrad. Those machines were lucious.
I'm a PC guy now, but I'm hoping OS X is good enough to lure me away.
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D. Fischer
ShoutingMan.com
Only a Mac fanatic would ignore the working guts in favor of the cosmetic appearance. I have no knowledge of the working guts of any MacOS. It could be a beautiful design for all I know. But his whole approach is based on the GUI. That's like saying a spartan sports car is crap because it hasn't got fine Corinthian leather like his bloat barge rolling down the freeway. I know which one I'd take.
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Infuriate left and right
Where are all the moderators?
ThAT wASn'T ME I cAN bE StUPiD WIThoUT pOStING AnonYMOUSlY
Is Aqua just another kind of window manager?
- I don't care if they globalize against free speech. All my best free thoughts are done in my head.
Just the other day, I was reading the infamous Halloween Memorandum that MSFT released. (In case you don't know, it's a briefing for MSFT execs. on the OSS movement, with a particular focus on Linux). While, frightening in many ways, it brings up some interesting points about OSS, one of which in particular is that most successful OSS projects start out trying to recreate existing software.
While this replication may be viewed by some as a lack of creativity, those with an engineering backround will see the strength and resourcefulness of it.
As any introductory engineering text will tell you, the key to a succesfull, manageable project is having a well defined product specification. Replicating an existing product allows the OSS developer to focus on the early organization of the project, as opposed to fiddling over details such as the provided feature set (not to mention the lack of deadlines imposed by the financial side of things).
If Apple can make a marketable, user friendly Unix-based operating system, what's to stop us from doing the same? If nothing else, it will be an excuse to get rid of X Windows for good.
Apple's hit some major points with MacOS X, primarily of which is the inherrent strength of Unix, this is something the OSS community already knows about. The big thing here is that where Linux has been fighting to stay truthfull to the existing codebase, and continuing to use Xwin, OS X threw it away.
What's to stop somebody from developing a Linux Distro that mirrors OS X? We've been strugling for years to find the "Linux your mother could use", and Cupertino has shown it to us. All it takes is getting rid of the kludge that is Xwin, and comming up with a decent GUI (Speaking of, what ever happened to the Berlin project? I can't find any real info on it...) and some user friendly config tools.
As a bonus, we could engineer the new GUI to compatable with the Cocoa/Aqua APIs, allowing for source level compatability between the two systems, finally making Linux development justifiable to a large number of commercial software companies. Wham, two birds dead, and we've still got more stone to go.
Where right now, Linux is still the domain of 'geeks' (as most of the world considers those who can use a CLI), we wouldn't just be making the system 'user friendly enough' for mother, this might finally make Linux the user-friendly choice.
If linux drops the ball on this, there's always the Hurd, which, might arguably be a better choice for this than Linux, as both the Hurd and OS X are based upon the same micro-kernel...
Of course, with big names like IBM and SGI pushing Linux, I'm suprised this hasn't happened yet. Perhaps this is what Sun had in mind when they started their 'Gnome Foundation'...
my sig's at the bottom of the page.
Actualy, if you look, ALL the G4 towers have gigabit Ethernet. From the single 400 to the dual 500.
little endian
big problem
Honestly, this isn't that big of a deal. At work, we keep all of our driver/firmware/host code in the same files regardless of endian-order through conditional compilation, and adjust our makefiles accordingly. I wouldn't doubt the Mac guys did the same, you know, just in case :)
Any place you have assembly language, however, this could be a royal pain in the ass. But then again, you're porting to a *completely* different architecture, so its a pain in the ass regardless.
--The Timdog
Yup. They've used the Debian system.
Or did you actually think for a second that $800 for the lowest end of the entry level is cheap?
I didn't say "cheap," but I think "reasonable" is a good word. Also, unlike many sub-$1000 machines, this price is not contigent on signing up for three years of ISP service. The iMac also has built-in ethernet, speakers and FireWire, and ability to upgrade to wirless networking for $100. Find me another $800 machine with those features.
- Scott
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Scott Stevenson
Scott Stevenson
Tree House Ideas
Bash (and more) for Win32 is at Cygwin, many thanks to Cygnus. I don't know how I'd live without the GNU tools and Perl on my Win boxen. I tried to show a co-worker how to do something the other day and he asked me to use cmd.exe instead of bash (he didn't have Cygwin). It simply couldn't be done.
MacOS X could very easily be converted into a "server" mode by killing the GUI when "server" mode is required. Without the GUI, Darwin would be the raw unix running the various daemons.
This GUI->Console->GUI relationship would allow less gifted system administrators to configure and secure their systems using a GUI.
Without the extra GUI baggage, MacOS X would be the "perfect" server. All Apple would need are 4-way and 8-way PPC OS-X supported servers.
I would speculate that OS-X would be a great contender in the small-business server market along with NT & W2K.
I would also speculate that after an initial half a year of a stable MacOS-X rollout, they would release related server hardware making a Mac only environment more appropriate for companies. I would also imagine that their "server" hardware would be designed to be correctly stackable with appropriate power & monitor cables to make technical maintainaince easy.
Considering i've only ever tinkered with Apple hardware, but have extensive use of FreeBSD servers, I am seriously considering purchasing an apple when OS-X is preinstalled.
-Tim
So what are the cons?
I believe I covered that in the original post.
- Scott
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And to think, I thought that the Maximum Linux crew was too lame to even know what a compiler was.
Stating on Slashdot that I like cheese since 1997.
I mean really, does it matter if the OS doesn't port to Alpha, or Intel chips. So what if there isn't any GNU for all those too-much-time havin', Microsoft hatin', MP3 downloadin', late night hotline porn surfin', not satisfied with nothing... Sorry, I couldn't help it. Sometimes it just seems as though people, especially in the open-source community, aren't happy with ANYTHING that is released lately. As if these people actually helped develop anything other than a new way to hack a program into submission or force themselves past someone else's hard work so they can distribute it freely amongst one another. Don't get me wrong, I'm all for open-source. I just don't think people truly appreciate the effort that goes into an OS these days. Everyone and their best freind's dog was bitching about the stability of WIN2K and all of it's so-called bugs, it's like, "Can you do better? If not, shut up!" I was totally impressed with the final cut of that OS, and personally, I'll do the open source thing on my own time, but when it comes to Enterprise level OS's I'll let the big-boys handle it. And for OS X, I love the beta as I'm sure even the fellow who wrote the article of discussion did. But reading through the posts I have to say, "Do you think you can do better?" If anyone thinks so, please, release the source for such a marvel, I'm sure we would all love to pick it apart and trash all of your hard work...
"You are not a beautiful and unique snowflake."...Tyler Durden
You actually think we give a fuck whether or not *you* think it's funny.
Now that's funny.
Stating on Slashdot that I like cheese since 1997.
Yes really.
--
--
He lives in a world where those who do not run the client software of the omnipresent meme are unacceptable.
Hotline: Hello, Humor-Impaired Support.
User: Hello? I spoofed a post on Slashdot because I didn't think it was funny, and thought if I did it in a funny way, that people would see how stupid the original post was.
Hotline: *clears throat* And?
User: Everyone's calling me a lame-ass son of a bitch because some people thought it was funny. WTF is wrong with people?
Hotline: You're a lame-ass son of a bitch.
User: *hangs up*
Stating on Slashdot that I like cheese since 1997.
I'm not surprised that OS X isn't great as a Unix... it wasn't designed to be one. It was designed to be a desktop OS that just happened to use a *BSD base. I don't know if any of you have played around with NeXTSTEP, but it sucked as a Unix also. It was an *excellent* OS as far as the GUI went, and that's why everyone loved it... not because of it's *nixness. Things like no dev tools, nonstandard config files, no X, etc., don't do much for making *nix geeks happy, you know.
The only reason that MacOS X uses the BSD on top of microkernel design is because NeXT did. There are far better ways to use a microkernel, namely splitting the servers up into different executables. That gives you one of the primary advantages over macrokernels, the fact that major pieces of code can be overheauled without paying much attention to other pieces of code.
A deep unwavering belief is a sure sign you're missing something...
They have a beta for IPv6.
a man, a plan, a canal, panama
OK, it's Saturday. Save the logic humor for the week. :^)
Stating on Slashdot that I like cheese since 1997.
Follow the instructions here to restore the Unix development toolkit to OS X.
Fuck Slashdot
Office will only run in the Classic environment (RAM-hungry emulator running Mac OS 9) for about another year before Microsoft updates Office 2001 to be Carbon-compliant.
Actually, I think they are skipping Carbon compliance and going straight for Cocoa. I could have misread, so don't quote me.
Anyway, a good point to make is that even though Office will run in the Classic environment, it will probably still run significantly better and be more integrated than running Office 2000 on Solaris or Linux via a Win32 emulator. Plus, it doesn't have to run in a separate window.
Emulation is never optimal, however.
- Scott
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Tree House Ideas
And while the arrival of the GNU tool set -- the mainstay of Unix development -- is inevitable, it's a shame that Apple didn't see fit to include it in the Mac OS X beta.
The reason for this may be so that mortal users are not expected to actually compile their own software to use it. Example: Windows doesn't come with compilers, so virtually all Windows software (even Apache, PHP, etc.) come in binary form.
From what I understand, the dev tools: Project Builder and friends (and even gcc, etc) will be available for free download from the ADC (Apple Developer Connection) site in October.
I'm fairly confident that compilers, in one form or another, will be freely available.
- Scott
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What category do we put OS X under whenever somebody divides who holds desktop market share. Does this fall uner Apple's OSes or UNIX?
Just online? Shit... I'm still at work ;P
Also, Apple will release the developer tools to all online ADC members (free registration) in mid-October.
Before Apple bought NeXT, their short list of candidates for the "guts of the next-generation Mac OS" were NeXT, Be, Solaris, and NT. Bill Gates bugged Gil Amelio big time to go with NT, apparently. What finally nixed MS was that Gil felt that MS hadn't actually presented any good technical arguments ... any time an Apple engineer presented a sticking point like endianness, the MS guys just said things like "don't worry, we'll work that out, sign the contract". NeXT did well with Amelio because they came in and really detailed how their technology worked instead of talking only business.
There is more to a computer than its speed. Sure, good looks are nice to have, but I consider that secondary. What is it that makes a BMW different that a ford? It could very likely be that the ford gets better mileage, can go faster, seats more people, looks sportier, etc. Yet the BMW is `better', not necessarily in normal performance measurments, but in quality. The new fords are made of cheep components, put together in a cheep fation, so that they can be sold cheeply. BMW's are made with quality in mind, and the end product is something the driver can be proud of. Since I know next to nothing about cars, and even less about macs, don't take me too seriously. I think the idea might be about right though. One thing I can say, is that the new gateways are flakey. They do wierd things like stop responding for a few seconds, and crashing occationally with no reason. The CPU, RAM, etc tells me they should be good machines, but they left out the quality part, so the boxes are junk for my purposes.
Sometimes I've believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast.
Even figuring the fact that it's a $380 savings to go with a Mac initially you don't include the upgrade cost. When I upgraded from my PPro 200 to a PIII 750 it cost around $700, because all I bought was a new CPU, motherboard, and RAM. If I had upgraded my Mac it would have been $1549 for a brand new mac because I couldn't keep all of my peripherals. Admittedly this doesn't effect the average consumer, but it is a big deal to me.
For the whole of its existence, the Macintosh operating system has been a prime example of consistency and graceful design. And for the whole of its existence, the Unix operating system has been, um, not.
;)
Hey, hey! I beg to differ!
That's like saying Sendmail is not graceful... Oh... Wait...
Try to hack my 31337 firewall!
the MacOS is not the driving force behind Apple's sales.
I think that's a bit presumptious. I know the classic slashdot opinion is that the machines just sell because they're fancy colors, and while that may be a factor, it's not the only motivator -- particularly with long-time Mac fans.
Today, people buy a mac because it looks so damn cool.
That's nice and all, but that's know why I buy them. I buy them because it's the best tool for the work I do.
If the iMac (or cube, tower, etc) were running windows, people would buy it.
I disagree. In fact, one might look at the experimental industrial designs put out by other PC manufacturers (Compaq, Dell) that have failed.
This is why Darwin exists. Apple hopes that the OSS process will apply to its darwin and individual developers will scratch their respective itches and bring breadth to darwin's hardware support.
It's not just getting the drivers running on Darwin. Windows, in theory, has better driver support than anything else, but it still has tons of hardware/software compatibility problems. Apple would not be immune from this, and it would damage the brand name.
- Scott
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Scott Stevenson
Scott Stevenson
Tree House Ideas
So, the PHB has sprung a last-minute graveyard on you?
The part about the MAC ( pre os x i assume ) being a sport roadster and unix box being the pug-ugly workhorse
I think the author was referring more to the end-user experience than the kernel.
- Scott
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Scott Stevenson
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Tree House Ideas
What kind of geek worth his salt is in bed at 6AM?
True geeks don't even think about going to bed until about 8... geez.
-- Dr. Eldarion --
Of course, perl -e 'while(<>){print pack("H32",$_)}' can be replaced with perl -ne 'print pack("H32",$_)'. The -n flag acts a while loop around the script.
... promting their newest software as being more functional because there are more ways to mess it up at the core level? That's how the lUsers will see it.
Personaly, the less we say about the BSD backing on OSX, the better we'll all be in the long run.
The BSD (or really, Mach) side of things is good for 1) performance 2) stability and 3) porting of server applications.
Many iMac users won't care or know what BSD is.
- Scott
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Scott Stevenson
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Tree House Ideas
Actually, that's a NeXT thing.
Why is that? Many people would love a Unix with an elegant visual interface. Ease of use with the opportunity to get down and dirty in a shell sounds pretty good to me, as well as to folks who used gnome, kde, etc. I dream of the day when I don't have to keep switching back and forth between my Powerbook (graphics tools, authoring tools, etc) and my Linux laptop!
--meredith
--meredith
Sometimes a scream is better than a thesis
1) One thing nobody mentions, is that to a person obsessed with typographics quality (take a look at my machine, all folders are perfectly capitalized and punctuated) those capital "X"'s in from of all the function names are very jarring. The "gl" in front of all the OpenGL function names aren't offensive because they are small. All the B's in from of the BeOS class names aren't offenseive because people are used to seeing capital B's. However, in your daily reading, you almost never come across a capital X in a word, and that is slightly jarring. A small point, but it basically totally ruins X. (Sarcasm) Well, at least they don't have lower-case function names.
2) The programming isn't that hot either. True, I haven't programmed much, but it reminds me an aweful lot of Win32.
3) It's slow. It's really really slow. Even XFree86 4 is slow. Really really slow. You'd think that KDE2 running on XFree86 4.0 and kernel 2.4 (test8) would be fast. But it's not. It's slow. Really really slow. It's so slow, I'm actually glad to be rebooting back into NT. The last time I saw a file manager take as long to load as Konqueror was when I tried Active Desktop on an old 486. Every program seems to have a built in 10-second delay before it shows up, and when resizing programs flicker and rubber-band like mad. It's not KDE's fault (GNOME does it too) and nobody ever said the kernel was slow, so it has to be X. (One day, try resizing Konqueror (on a 300MHz machine) in a folder with a lot of files. Watch the flicker and rubber-banding. Now try the same in WindowsNT. Very little flicker, no rubber-banding. Try it in BeOS. No flicker whatsoever.
4) There are dozens of toolkits for it. What most people (toolkit writers) don't realize is that toolkits take RAM. It is silly that at any one time, I've got over 4 toolkits running concurently on my system. (TK, straight-X, GNOME, KDE, (and GTK and Qt if you count those as seperate, which in terms of size they are))
A deep unwavering belief is a sure sign you're missing something...
> Doesn't GNU stand for GNU's Not UNIX?
GNU's Not Unix... but having GNU on board has become the ultimate test of Unix fitness. Too strange for fiction, too funny for the real world.
And RMS can be taken up in fiery chariot now, his mission on earth completed.
BTW, the union of "Unix" and "Not Unix" is "everything", so the combination should be pretty darn hard to beat.
--
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
You know what would be really cool? If somebody wrote a Quartz-like display layer for FreeBSD (replacing X.) With that and a little work on the GNUStep project, we'd have our own little (probably faster) version of OS X on Intel (and portable to Alpha or whatever.)
A deep unwavering belief is a sure sign you're missing something...
I also find it interesting that it doesn't work anymore. Since I never really understood how it worked in the first place, this makes almost no sense to me. Anyone feel like giving me a quick DNS lesson on what's going on here?
--Colbey
This is true. The way they accomplished this is nothing short of astounding. They took the best ideas of NeXT, which was the most usable UNIX, built some more stuff to make it more usable on top of that, took ideas from everywhere, and made what seems to be, from all descriptions, a great *usable* UNIX. Any person who is looking at making UNIX more usable has to look at this.
Hmm. Apache. What else do you want apart from QuickTime? Let me get this right, we get Linux people complaining that it's not available, yet also complaining when it's the standard on another platform. You also seem to be forgetting that QuickTime is far more than a media playback utility. It underpins the whole OS, and that while the player is. at times, a piced of shit, the underlying technology is still amazing. The player is, of course, nothing more than a front end for the technology, and anyone who wanted to could provide a replacement, as happened a few years ago with "Peter's Player". The TCP/IP stack is the one from Darwin, which is based upon FreeBSD, so do something about it and put in a replacement into the CVS ( http://publicsource.apple.com ) rather than just complaining about it!
The reason Apple has based MAC OS X on UNIX
Apple's Darwin team sort of answers this in the Darwin FAQ.
Apple wants to regain their hold on anyone using mac hardware, instead of having ppl using ported linux distributions, as *everyone* knows BSD now natively runs linux apps and is far more secure than linux.
I don't think Linux on PPC was a big factor. I don't think Linux was even really Linux actively used on PPC back in 1997 (when Apple bought NeXT).
Also they are hoping to gain a larger user base as many people who use *NIX will be wanting to give their new user friendly OS which is actually unix a try..
Certainly a factor.
now as they have ported everything to BSD does this mean BSD will now be able to run their apps?
probably not, you will need their own gui
It's much more than the GUI. There's also QuickTime (intergral part of Mac OS), Aqua, Quartz, Carbon, Cocoa. I think the only thing out of that list that might work on BSD is Cocoa via GNUStep.
this means you have no hope in running X apps on that
There are several efforts underway for this, as other posters have mentioned. You could probably get xclock running today if you wanted.
This would please me as their are a lot of mac apps out there which i would love to use on linux especially quick time.
QuickTime is much more than an "app." It's an entire multimedia infrastructure.
- Scott
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Scott Stevenson
Scott Stevenson
Tree House Ideas
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
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Tree House Ideas
But the cause (Open)BSD is more secure than Linux is not the kernel; it's the applications. If you run Linux applications under BSD, then your BSD system is about as secure as a Linux system. And anyway, most security holes are caused by misconfigurations, and no OS can't protect you from them.
I think that probably Apple chose BSD instead of Linux because of licensing, not because of security.
Any normal Mac file can still have type / creator information. On a HFS+ disk (the default disk format for MacOSX) this is held within the directory structure rather than the file itself. Different strategies are used on filesystems where this can't be done (such as having a document bundle - essentially a directory that looks like a document, with various bits held in differrent files inside).
The real improvement is this. When a file comes from a PC, or UNIX source and does not have type / creator info within it, the OS is able to understand the extension. Hence .app and the rest of it. The OS can also recognise some filetypes by scanning the first few hundred bytes of the file against a set of templates. Any files starting %%pdf are acrobat files, or whatever. There was a great review covering all this, and a lot more, on arstechnica.
> And for $1500 (us) I just built
Yes, but how much would you charge to build one for ME?
Of course, I want the thing to be quiet, so you'll have to build it without a fan. I can't leave it on all the time in my house if it's really noisy.
And I don't want it to be in one of those generic beige boxes. Makes me feel like I'm a business man, or that I'm living in an office. Ugh.
Of course, I want to be able to call you with problems for the first few months. I don't mind paying a nominal fee, like $35 or so per incident (may span multiple phone calls) later in the computer's life. I may call at inconvenient times, though.
I also want you to keep track of all the driver updates for the computer you build for me and create a system whereby my computer can check if there are new ones and install them automatically (like Mac OS 9 does and Mac OS X will), and I want these updates to just Work. Not that Windows Update crap that you have to sign up for, and which installs useless MS apps that wreck your other apps.
I also want you to stay on top of current events and technology and be ready with new stuff when I need it. Things like Gigabit Ethernet, 802.11 wireless networking, and FireWire. Tell me what it is, make it easy to use, and then show me how to use it.
Building computers for yourself is a fine thing, and I used to do it, too (got tired of it and use a Mac now, though). If you want to do it, then fine, but spare us with comparisons of your own personal price point and Apple's. Please. I know you're good with a toolkit and wrist-strap, but you're going to have to do better than that in order to complain that Apple is overcharging.
Just think of it: the lack of ftpd and httpd
Both come built-in. The former is Apache, btw.
nothing for media playback except for the proprietary QT4 player (hopefully optimized for OSX)
Download RealPlayer. Download Microsoft Media Player. Download Macster (for Napster).
and a TCP-IP stack that's about as stable as a tall stack of dimes
Uh, what? What makes you draw that conclusion?
All of this adds up to an unpleasant unix experience.
Doesn't really sound like you've used Mac OS X yet.
- Scott
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Tree House Ideas
I seem to remeber reading that Apple was using some (or all) of the Debian tools for package management dpkg, apt, dselect. I don't have any firm information though.
OK, MacOS X on the whole looks pretty nice, but there`s one thing I simply don`t understand: why are they using BSD on mach? I mean, I do not understand the benefit mach gives them. Nobody seems to want to run two mach-based os`s at the same time, and on the other hand mach would help with porting the whole thing, but nobody`s going to port this os (+ GUI) anywhere in the near future. Can you enlighten me?
Office will be Classic and Cocoa. No Carbon.
MS said quite some time ago that they Carbonized IE (already shipping in Mac OS X Public Beta) and then decided to go with Cocoa for Office. I guess most of the Mac-specific work is building the interface, and Cocoa makes that really easy.
Shame about the lack of gcc.
Not entirely: If memory serves me right, the system cc is a fork of gcc with better Objective-C support, but a bit out-of-date; the last time I heard anything about it Apple was trying to merge it with the GNU version.
Mac OS X Server came out in early 1999. It's at 1.2 now. When Mac OS X is released, there will just be the one Mac OS X, though.
You can think of it like this:
Windows 2000 + Windows ME = the long-awaited "unified" Windows
Mac OS X Server + Mac OS 9 = Mac OS X (the long-awaited "next-generation Mac OS")
Both Microsoft and Apple are working towards having "one OS", and then adding more things on top for high-end versions. The future of Mac OS X Server will probably be as an add-on for the same Mac OS X being run as a desktop OS.
Anyone know if Apple are planning a port to x86?
This gets asked constantly. The reality is it would probably be pretty easy to get Mac OS X to boot on x86 hardware, but it wouldn't be a sound business decision for Apple for a variety of reasons. The main one is that Apple is a hardware company. Selling Mac OS X for x86 would put them smack up against Microsoft.
Plus, you wouldn't have access to the existing library of Mac software. You'd only be able to run Cocoa apps.
- Scott
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Tree House Ideas
Well the reason as i see it is...
Apple wants to regain their hold on anyone using mac hardware, instead of having ppl using ported linux distributions, as *everyone* knows BSD now natively runs linux apps and is far more secure than linux.
Also they are hoping to gain a larger user base as many people who use *NIX will be wanting to give their new user friendly OS which is actually unix a try..
(hell i have never liked macs but want to try out their new macos X).
now as they have ported everything to BSD does this mean BSD will now be able to run their apps?
probably not, you will need their own gui which will come with a significant price tag, and of course this means you have no hope in running X apps on that.
of course i could be wrong, maybe their gui is based on X or uses X libs in some way.
This would please me as their are a lot of mac apps out there which i would love to use on linux especially quick time.
when everything is working perfectly.. BREAK SOMETHING before something else FUCKS up!
Hotline: Macintosh Support hotline! How can I help you?
User: Yeah, I am trying to use Perl to do some reporting on my apache access logs. But I have to recompile Perl to fix a bug in the regular expression matching, and there is no gcc installed on the system. What do I do?
Hotline: Ok sir is the computer plugged in?
User: Of course. (annoyed)
Hotline: Well, that fixes about 50% of the problems we get here.
User: But I just want to know how to install the GNU developer toolset.
Hotline: Ok sir, could you reboot the computer?
User: What the hell would that accomplish.
Hotline: Sir, please.
User: (pretends to reboot). Ok, rebooted
Hotline: Wow, you have a fast machine.
Did that fix your problem?
User: *dialtone*
What exactly is wrong with X windows again?
d emark-concerns-3D-toolkit.
I'll admit that just about everyone uses a toolkit on top of X windows for programming (for me, that's MESA, the OpenGL-like-yet-trying-not-to-say-open-GL-for-tra
Ohh, I'm so tickled. I could run a *nix on a PPC-platform and have access to MS office natively. (yeah, I know, they'll make it OS-X tool-kit dependent)
Heck, it's not like my desktop machine really needs all those "hard core" *nix features that Nextstep didn't have; that's what my LAN's server is for.
Soon as GCC and the rest of the GNU kit are completely available I won't have any problems running a G4 OS*niX as my pretty desktop machine. Ooh, the option of running X+Gnome, OSX or even the upcoming Aqua. I'm just tingly.
I've been on slashdot so long I'm starting to get out of touch with the cool stuff if it ain't on slashdot.
That is exactly the problem that mac-heads and wintel weenies run into: the mac people quote a price, the intel people counter with a home built, the mac heads complain "that's not a prebuilt", failing to realize THAT'S THE BLOODY POINT!!! You can't *get* a home built Mac, at least not easily, and that is why Mac hardware will *always* be higher priced than Intel's.
:-)
Now, the flip side: you Intel weenies, THAT'S THE BLOODY POINT!!! Using standardized hardware from one manufacturer allows Macs to have a *much* better interface when it comes to installing/configuring hardware, and maintaining consistency. That's why Intel hardware will *always* be flakier/more difficult/bass-ackwards when compared to the equivalent Apple stuff.
Now that I have offended everyone, I'll retire for the evening
Yeah? What's your phone number? How much money do you make? How often do you masturbate? Come on, give us some of that free information.
-Pete
It's alright. I've got csh and vi and all the JDK tools necessary for doing my homework and programming, but it's a bit bloated and, well, it's a /Mac/. Still, the UNIX is nice to see on there, especially since my school's main servers are all run on Win2k. I just enjoyed seeing the look on the lab tech's face when I asked if I could copy .cshrc and alias my own commands. I don't want to be typing 'vi foo.java' all the time and then 'javac foo.java', not to mention the times I type 'ls -ral |more'.
-- Count Spatula: The Culinary Vampire "...because my cooking sucks."
????
I am very small, utmostly microscopic.
Java does support two buttons quite easily. So no worries about that. Now I enjoy working in JBuilder, and there having second mouse button is always a plus.
http://dtum.livejournal.com
> Back in the day when Apple was popular, Apple II
> computers came with two flavors of Basic
> interpreters (Integer Basic and Bill's Applesoft)
> and a mini-assembler, along with instructions on
> how to use them.
That was also back in the day when a much higher percentage of users were also programmers, and there was no World Wide Web to make it easy to distribute tools from a Web site.
These days, including AppleScript with the OS and asking people who want to go further into development to get the latest tools from a free Web site doesn't seem so harsh.
Mac OS has a feature called Software Update that contacts Apple for a list of OS updates. Should every graphic designer and musician on the planet have to look at a list something like this:
gcc 3.4a
bash 7.1
ProjectBuilder 5.2
Every time they want to make sure their video driver is up-to-date?
Imagine for a moment that Adobe suggested they include a few hundred megs of Photoshop in Mac OS X, waiting to be unlocked once you pay Adobe for it. That would actually be more useful for many current Mac users than including the developer tools.
And Gigabit Ethernet is an option on Cubes, too. There will be lots of design shops with G4 towers as servers and G4 Cubes as clients. It's really going to revolutionize some workflows. Suddenly, all the big files that artists work with seem small when you're moving stuff around that fast.
However, Microsoft doesn't make the YOU reformat THEIR documentation. If it did, it would catch hell from the press.
A deep unwavering belief is a sure sign you're missing something...
And for $1500 (us) I just built
:)
Snort.
For $12500 I could build a streetrod that would make a Porsche 911 huddle in a corner and beg for mercy.
I'd rather just go buy the stylishly packaged and quite sufficient for my needs alternative, thank you very much.
This is how a Mac user thinks. We're just not interested in being penny-scratching bottom feeders. You want to, hey good on you mate. Just don't ever think that you're going to make a Mac user do anything other than pity you.
(Moderators: This is not flamebait. Ask your nearest Mac user. Troll, maybe
The less application you have, or the less drivers you have, the better the stability. Hardware mp3 players NEVER crash and "boot" less then 1 second.
> I would be thrilled to hear that there is a real
> package management scheme built into Mac OS X.
> Is there?
Nine out of 10 apps on Mac OS 9 just installs to its own folder and lives quietly within there, following all the rules so the user can move or rename the apps or folder if they want to. The 1 out of 10 that sprays files everywhere drives users nuts, and leads to some of the problems Windows has, except I don't think I've ever had Mac app A overwrite a library from Mac app B or from the system.
Mac OS X uses "application bundles", similar to NeXT. They are folders containing everything an app needs to run, but they appear as if they are a single application file to the user. The user can move them around the disk, rename them, and interact with them by double-clicking, drag and drop, etc. Installing means just dragging the bundle from a CD to the hard disk, or decompressing an archive and then double-clicking the app, just like on Mac OS 9.
The truly great thing is that the bundle has spots for binaries for multiple platforms, and for resources for multiple languages. So you can make one app bundle that will run on any Mac OS X machine, whether PPC or not, using the user's preferred language. The sytem just uses the files it needs and ignores the others.
Also, the system has a central libraries folder, and if the libraries in the central folder are newer than those in an app's bundle, the system uses the newer ones.
Nah I don't really have a PHB. I work for a game company so I get deadlines from our publisher's milestones. Long hours but at least I'm having fun for the most part.
I can think of better things to be doing on a Friday night, though. Tradeoffs... *sigh*.
SEAL
Linux is only Free if your time is worth Nothing
Linux is only free if your time is of no value
Be in Your Senses
Let's see. Do you (a) edit 5-10% of your Classic Mac API code to match the Carbon API and run natively on Mac OS X while still running on older Macs? or (b) completely reengineer the entire product suite to run on a 100% new API that doesn't share really much of anything in common with the original code base which is probably weighs in at several million lines of code? Oo! Oo! An API for which the preferred languages are Java and Objective-C, not C++?
Errrr.... My guess MS is going for Carbon. I remember back in the days before Carbon when MS was reluctant to commit to moving to the native NeXTSTEP APIs (in Objective-C) for Rhapsody. These are the APIs that are now called Cocoa. When Apple announced Carbon, which is a new revision of the old Mac OS API set with all the crud removed, MS was one of the first supporters of the move. It's no wonder why!
If it's for-profit but free, you're not the customer -- you're the product (e.g., the Slashdot Beta's "audience").
>What's to stop somebody from developing a Linux >Distro that mirrors OS X? We've been strugling >for years to find the "Linux your mother could >use", and Cupertino has shown it to us.
Nothing, which is why I'm currently working on a linux distribution that incorporates essential ideas of mac interface design. I'm currently rewriting parts of gnome to make the stuff that looks like it was written by the folks in redmond look like the stuff written by the folks in cupertino. Then I'll throw it all into a nice distribution your grandmother can use
GNUStep is your only hope...
From what I understand, GNUStep would probably only help you run Cocoa applications. Most of the interesting stuff that exists today is written to Carbon. More Cocoa apps should appear as time goes on.
However, even if you got something to run Cocoa apps, you still wouldn't have Quartz or QuickTime.
- Scott
------
Scott Stevenson
Scott Stevenson
Tree House Ideas
Of course MacOS X will never be as "good" as the other *nixs, it's not meant to be.MacOS X isn't meant to replace Solarise,OpenBSD,Linux,etc, its for the average user, those who don't know the difference between a cracker and hacker. IMO MacOS X is a step in the right direction,it dispells all the myths of *nixs not being able to handle the home market.Although I don't see it replacing Windows, Steve Jobs won't allow that, but it does show what can be done.It can only inspire the KDE and Gnome developers to make better products, and lead to widespread use of *nix on the desktop, and world peace of course :)
The UNIX® system is optimized for footprint (it originally ran in 1 MB machines IIRC). The GNU system, OTOH, is optimized for speed. This "use more RAM if it'll improve performance and/or simplicity" mentality helps counter copyright infringement allegations by UNIX system vendors against GNU system developers who have never read UNIX system code.
<O
( \
XGNOME vs. KDE: the game!
Will I retire or break 10K?
I'm totally puzzled. Why are power and ease of use antithetical? If you take that argument to its logical conclusion, any programming or interfacing with the computer that you do should be in the form of 1's and 0's. Who needs chrome like a user interface anyway?
Why yes, I AM a rocket scientist!
When you throw out numbers for home-built systems like that, it show that you believe that your time has no monetary value.
How much time did it take you to research vendors, order components, assemble the components, and test and debug the components? Figure it out at $30/hour because that's the minimum you'd have to pay someone to do it for you.
On top of that, add the amount of time you've spent rooting around the Internet getting information. Is this RAM any good? Are there any problems with this video card and that motherboard? Does this BIOS have problems with Windows 2000 or Linux? Which hard disks are known to be crap? And so on. That kind of background knowledge in the real world doesn't come cheaply.
Now, add in risk factors. Even if something doesn't go wrong, the potential that it could can be assigned a cost. (This is how project budgeting works, or should work.): Will this vendor ship me a remarked part? Will the guy ship me a part at all in a reasonable time frame? Will the guy on Pricewatch in Arkansas steal my credit card info and commit fraud? Will I have to spend my time doing returns and exchanges? Will these supposedly incompatible parts actually be incompatible or problematic? And so on.
Larger vendors can afford these costs because they are spread across dozens or thousands of systems. You've only got one box when you are done.
So, by the time you have your PC, you've invested thousands of virutal dollars into the system. Great, if you have the time and inclination. But because you paid yourself $2500 to save $1000 doesn't mean you are necessarily smart, nor does it mean you got a good deal, and it certainly has no bearing on the real world prices of Dells or Apples.
When I hear the word 'innovation', I reach for my pistol.
Kaleidoscope is made by Greg Landweber and Arlo Rose, and kicks ass.
Insert wit here.
I'd feel sorry for you, but I'm suspecting you frequently play network Q3 on a LAN and a 21"... Bastard. :)
Solaris, for example, is unix and comes with cc. You can get some of the source code but there are strings attatched.
That the Mac team did not include these basic tools, opting for Apatche, FTP, and DNS servers is perverse.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
The PDP 11? Didn't that have a 2x32 KB memory layout? I recall one of my old professors (Hi Prof Vermuelen!) telling us about the weird architecture of one of his early machines. I think it was the PDP 11, which I think was one of the original target platforms for unix.
Notice how much of the above I thought rather than knew, and add salt to taste.
Johan
hrm.
Didn't the enoch root thing come about from cryptonomicron? Where was it in snow crash?
Mind you, I can't reconcile your user number (in the same range as mine) with cryptonomicon's publication date, so I guess I'm mistaken. I just can't recall that from snow crash. Hiro protagonist, yes. YT, yes. And rat thing, but no enoch. Help me out?
Probably the best bet for now is to stick with LinuxPPC, something not blocked by Steve Jobs' arrogance (wait a minute, the hardware is still under his wrath. Damn!).
I replied:
Unless you run it on an RS-6000....
I was referring to the hardware being under Steve Jobs' wrath, which the RS6000 certainly is not. Sorry for the confusion.
--
$x='S24;r)>63/* h@<5+oZ)32"5cz';$me='phroggy'x$];
$x=~y+ -xz+\0-Tx+;print$_^chop$me for split'',$x;
Its wierd. I get a good deal of "I hacked your firewall, you suck" reply's to my sig. Sometimes they get modded UP sometimes down, sometimes left alone.
;)
So, I don't hate you, I WuB j00.
I WuB j00 very much.
Try to hack my 31337 firewall!
I tried printing in dp4 to my usb laser printer a brother HL1240. Mac OS X recognized the printer and even named it correctly. But when I printed it spat out like 50 pages of gibberish. I know NeXT used to send postscript to printers, and my printer doesn't use postscript so I thought OS X may do the same, but since it uses pdf i doubt it. Oh and lpr doesn't work in darwin, but i didn't know how to config it either. -gabe
--------
get jiggy w/ ayn rand!
I have no idea where you're coming from now. Microsoft distributes help files in a variety of stupid ways (the Help program, HTML, evil hybrids, etc).
No matter what way I view it, the program i view it with is taking the documentation from file and formatting it to be displayed. Same as Linux, only on Linux, you have general tools to do the formatting that can be reused. Your argument is like saying "Dammit, I want to view Help files but I don't want to install the Help program! Boo hiss!"
Erm... dunno 'bout how you're set up, but my linux box uses magic numbers for (just 'bout) everything, not hidden metadata or filename extensions.
Other than that, there's not much to criticize in your post.
There should be a FAQ...
Anyone know if Apple are planning a port to x86?
No, they are not. It would be financial suicide since Apple is a hardware company. If Apple ever went to x86 -- say, if the other members of the AIM consordium don't come down from their server and embedded white towers to make a good desktop chip again -- it would probably be done in such a way as to require the OS to only run on machines for which Apple got a cut of the revenue. Apple cannot survive as just an OS vendor, and unlike MS, Apple does not have enough other high-priced, high-demand software to subsidize their OS development.
The History of Mac OS X and the x86 family
When Apple was shopping around for an OS to replace the Mac OS, they happened to be pointed the right way to NeXT, Inc. who sold this little known OS called OPENSTEP. OPENSTEP was a cross-platform, non-hardware dependent version of their original hardware-tied OS, NeXTSTEP. It ran on Intel, SPARC, m68k chips (and maybe a few others that I can't remember off the top of my head). Because of this, it had a beautifully portable code base. (It was also about $4000 per license, IIRC.)
Rhapsody is announced. Basically, this would be OPENSTEP on PPC and x86 which a Mac-ified interface and few new pieces of technology such as Java and Quicktime. The native environment will be known as the Yellow Box. All old Mac applications will run as second-class citizens in a seperate application known as the Blue Box environment. All new applications should be developed in the rich OPENSTEP APIs in Objective-C and, soon, Java.
Mac OS X would supposedly be the king of all Java platforms. If that wasn't good enough, the OPENSTEP APIs would be ported as an development layer for WinNT. (This was actually included for a while with WebObjects for NT.) This meant that there would be an extremely powerful and versatile set of APIs for universal Win NT and Mac development in two very clean OO languages -- Objective-C and Java. The first developer release of Rhapsody was shipped for PPC and x86.
Fast forward. Traditional Mac developers are threatening to abandon the Mac completely if they are going to have to abandon their old code base or forever have it run as a second-class citizen without the new benefits of the new Mac OS. Microsoft is one of these developers, and we all should know that if MS Office leaves the Mac, that's the death knell for the Mac -- at least at that time before the Mac's recovery had progressed far enough. Furthermore, MS was rumored to be upset at the prospect of the Yellow Box APIs for Windows and at having a viable competitor consumer OS on x86. Apple was also seeing little support for OEMs putting Rhapsody/x86 on their machines since they already had to pay MS for Windows on each one. Apple also realizes that if developers did adopt the new APIs, there would be less reason for people to by Apple hardware since they could get all the advantages without paying Apple -- especially since Rhapsody/x86 didn't require an Apple ROM.
So, all x86 releases are put on hold and cancelled. Rhapsody (a development name) is officially called Mac OS X (Ten, not Ehcks). The first developer's release of Mac OS X Server does not include an x86 version. In a year or two more, Yellow Box for NT would disappear from WebObjects. Originally, Mac OS X and Mac OS X Server would be different products, with Apple including licenses for some of their server software (WebObjects and Appletalk services) on the server version. Eventually, this is all scrapped in favor of one OS, since the distinctions between the two were minimal.
Fast forward. Apple releases the source code to the underlying BSD layer as they had previously promised as Darwin. Fast forward again. An Apple engineer boots Darwin on x86 and announces it to the world. Carmack does a little work on porting XFree86 to Darwin.
Fast forward to today. There is no x86 Mac OS X. There is an x86 port of Darwin. No, this is not the same. There is no Apple graphics layer and no Mac or OPENSTEP APIs included -- just BSD level stuff. There will probably never be an x86 Mac OS X. It would destroy Apple financially unless they take measures to secure revenue from Mac OS X sales in ways that would also make them unpopular, such as ridiculous prices for the new OS or only letting it run on machines with a special Apple ROM for which they charge money.
In the end, Mac OS X would always be more expensive than Windows since Apple does not have Office and other software to prop up its OS development, and most OEMs have to pay the Windows tax anyway. I repeat, Apple is a hardware company. Seperating the OS and the hardware divisions into two companies or eliminating one will kill them both. Apple needs a superior OS to sell their more expensive hardware, and they need to sell their hardware to pay for developing the OS. United, they stand, divided they fall.
As an aside, this is why Apple will never open the source to the higher level APIs. If you could remove the dependency on Apple to get Apple's OS, Apple would not get any more money. Apple would die. While many Open Source advocate would have no problem with this or even love to see it happen, Apple is not that stupid. This would be destroying the OS side of Apple. See the above paragraph for what would happen to the hardware side. It won't happen -- get over it.
If it's for-profit but free, you're not the customer -- you're the product (e.g., the Slashdot Beta's "audience").
Did anyone else find the beginning of the artivle a little painful. Unix users and there system was painted in a rather less tha flattering light at first, then followed up with how good unix makes os x.
The part about the MAC ( pre os x i assume ) being a sport roadster and unix box being the pug-ugly workhorse leaves a sour taste. I also find the analogy of 'sport roadster' to be little unprecise. I think a better description of the pre BSD blessed Macintosh is a garbage can, a toilet, and if you're sticking with the car analogy a broken down scooter that even the windows 2000 guys are laughing at.
To be a little more precise: Unix is beautiful in its simplicity and power. It is not a ugly work horse, but a sleek muscle car.
And you can stick that in your in your gui and smoke it you unoriginal, mac loving bastard.
The Mac version of Helloworld was an Applescript - a standard, really useful and wildly easy scripting tool that is included with every Mac.
What was your example using?
No, but that actually *is* the most powerful and flexible way to program, as well as the most hostile.
The analogy holds, and no one needs chrome.
Apple doesn't expect it's regular users to build software; they will install pre-built binaries. That, combined with the enormous size of all of the development tools and documentation
That can be put in HTML or even PDF (with all the PDF support in the native rendering system, they could probably write Acrobat in about 1000 LOC). An extra CD in the distribution costs less than $1 (probably much less) to press. Call it an "Unsupported Extras" CD if you're worried about supporting it.
is the reason why the consumer versions of the OS won't have the tools. The development tools will always be something seperate for developers.
Back in the day when Apple was popular, Apple II computers came with two flavors of Basic interpreters (Integer Basic and Bill's Applesoft) and a mini-assembler, along with instructions on how to use them.
<O
( \
XGNOME vs. KDE: the game!
Will I retire or break 10K?
All ADC Premire and Select members are getting an extra CD with this stuff on it. The CD that will be sent to the lowly masses excludes them. Apple has already said that they will become avalible in October, which to me means that they are building a graphical front end to them. This is Mac OS not *nix. There are people like me that are just learning a cli or haven't seen one. Besides this is the first *nix for the masses. Joe Shmoe that wants a blue computer doesn't need gcc and everything else.
11 was a racehorse
12 was 12
1111 Race
12112
3c905c NICS are 10/100, the G4 ships with 10/100/1000 ethernet. You also made no mention of firewire which comes standard on the G4.
Once you add both of these factors in (another post listed $200 for the GB ethernet and $80 for an adaptec firewire card sounds right), you come up with a competitive solution by buying from Apple. It's not going to be everybody's cup of tea but I don't see any large disadvantage to it
DB
Anyway, the deal is that the development tools aren't in the public beta you can buy from the Apple Store. However, registered Apple developers get all of the development tools, which includes a very nice IDE that is brand new and not based at all on the old NeXT ProjectBuilder.
Apple doesn't expect it's regular users to build software; they will install pre-built binaries. That, combined with the enormous size of all of the development tools and documentation, is the reason why the consumer versions of the OS won't have the tools. The development tools will always be something seperate for developers.
Burris
Well, there are actually quite a few:
... surely they should be beautiful? MacOS X is, and that's a good reason to give it a shot.
(1) It's hideously ugly in most incarnations.
(2) People who try to make it pretty, like those nice folks who created Enlightenment, wind up producing something bloated and inefficient due to the basic design of X.
(3) Font support is mind-bendingly bad; there are hardly any fonts available that don't hurt the eyes just to look at them.
Now, it's true these problems are being worked on, but I have yet to see a solution that works well enough for me to find it appealing.
In striking contrast, MacOS X was designed from the ground up, as a major requirement, to be beautiful. And this is a job that, quite frankly, we can trust Steve Jobs to do. He may be a maniac about those poor rumors sites, and he may be a bastard to work with, but he sure does know how to design pretty stuff.
We look at our computers so much
(I have a dual G4/450 I bought about a week ago, and it's a fantastic machine even running the ancient MacOS 9).
D
----
They are working with NetBSD, FreeBSD and OpenBSD to unify the package management of all *BSD. There was a story on /. a few days ago.
If I want to get a good but not outrageous system, Macs generally cost about $2,500 and PCs around $ 1,200.
However, if I want to keep myself reasonably modern, I have to buy a PC about every year, while I only have to buy a Mac every other year. Also, a year-old PC is worth basically $ 0, while a two year old Mac is worth about $ 500.
Add this all together:
PC
$ 1,200 Year 1
$ 1,200 Year 2
----------
$ 2,400
Minus circa $200 as value of year-old system
$ 2,200
Mac
$ 2,500 Year 1
$ -0- Year 2
-----------
$ 2,500 Total spent
Minus $ 500 salvage value old machine
Net expenditure $ 2,000.
So with the lesser amount of built-in obsolescence the Mac has, it's actually slightly cheaper for me to run than a PC that's kept up to date.
Of course I could upgrade my PC, but I'm not sure how much sense that makes. After all, to take advantage of the latest technology has to offer, you really need entirely new components: Motherboards, CPUs, disk drives, memory and video cards are all getting better and better. And I really doubt you could replace all those components for less than what a completely new system would cost.
D
----
OSX should be Free (you know what that means).
;)
Apple's a business. And a profitable one at that. They have shareholders.
And quite frankly, I'd be scared to see what all the hackers would do to the Mac OS X UI.
And Mac hardware cost a small fortune.
iMacs start at $799, and you can get a tower G4 for $1600 with single CPU, or $2500 for dual and gigabit ethernet built-in.
- Scott
------
Scott Stevenson
Scott Stevenson
Tree House Ideas
Oh God yes. There was a time when just about every commercial app would also install Simple Text, just to be sure that you can read their "Read Me". What's the largest number of different versions of Simple Text that you've seen on one drive? Computer lab Macs can easily reach dozens.
A current bad one is Netscape Communicator. For unknown reasons the installer is NOT labeled "installer"; it just says "Netscape Communicator". This summer my dad asked me to fix his iMac. I found SIX copies of Communicator all over the place, including one installed directly to the Desktop Folder (components and folders were scattered everywhere). Ugh. Deleted all his installers that day to save myself future headaches.
The man is literally a rocket scientist (designs chips and components for satellites), but he still can't program a VCR. I wouldn't want him to deal with a home computer that came with a compiler preinstalled.
tell application "Finder" to display dialog "Hello World!"
Much easier to understand then MsgBox...at least to a newbie.
My English teacher once told me that two positives don't make a negative. Two words for her: Yeah, right.
I believe Aqua is the closest equivalency to X-windows. If not I am looking for said closest equivalent.
One of the features of *NIX and X-windows is the location independence. By this I mean the ability to run programs remotely from another box(telnet/X-windows).
That said does anyone here know of a comparison between Aqua and X-windows(with Gnome or KDE or other)? Specifically in terms of ability to run programs remotely, ease of doing so, security(they do include SSH), Network load?
This, I would think, would make OS X much more attractive to corperations, and educational institutions.
Actually, I believe in the Version 6 era, it ran on machines with ~64K of memory.
The GNU system is actually built around "no arbitrary limits." Go read the man-page for tail on a SunOS machine (ok, those are rare these days, but not so rare at the time I learned UNIX®), and it'll say something about lines being limited to 1024 characters or thereabouts. GNU saw that the functionality provided by the UNIX® toolset was desirable and the mindset of "a sharp tool for each task" was powerful, but also saw that arbitrary limits really dulled UNIX®'s blade. Therefore, as the limitations imposed by small memory and expensive CPU were no longer present, GNU optimized their efforts for flexibility rather than size.
I'd say it was the "right way" in many ways, although the featuritis in some programs has served to dull GNUs blade in other ways.
--Joe--
Program Intellivision!
I don't know, which one is more likely to cause a purchase and bring a higher price?
I do not have a signature
Unix is a multi-user OS.
all i have is DP4, but cc is gcc. the debugger is gdb. i don't know if the linker is gnu ld, but i suspect it is. sounds like another crappy article off slashdot... what happened to the good stuff?
The article is correct. DP4 had gcc, etc. because it was intended for developers. The public beta does not, however the tools will be available for download in mid-October.
- Scott
------
Scott Stevenson
Scott Stevenson
Tree House Ideas
If the final shipping product still contains the same tool set, I might get my mother and Apple with OSX on it. Heck, I may even buy myself one (Apples are too expensive though!)...This looks too cool...
I'm sure everyone who writes linux software will probably port. The damn thing even comes with emacs!!!!
Palin...
More like Ferraris and MGs
With one you pay way more than necessary to go really fast, and pick up chicks.
But with the other, a thirty year old car still works really well, and picks up just as many chicks...even if the paint job is not quite that shade of red.
imagination is more important than knowledge --Albert Einstein-
The only con is extra disk space. I would leave off all the documentation (which is about half of it). The rest is probably tiny compared to all the free movies and sounds and images and ads and other stuff that is going to be on there!
I think pretty much every Mac user in the world agrees with you. Fortunately, they've made it a bit better in OS X -- the look is the same, but the interface actually makes sense now.
/Brian
Hd's are huge now, there really is no reason to compare 400megs to 200megs. Maybe a few years ago, but now?
If the final shipping product still contains the same tool set, I might get my mother and Apple with OSX on it. Heck, I may even buy myself one (Apples are too expensive though!)
Prices have come down a lot. As I side in another post: iMacs start at $799, a single CPU G4 tower is $1600, and a dual G4 with gigabit ethernet is $2500. You can get a Radeon card installed in the towers now, as well.
- Scott
------
Scott Stevenson
Scott Stevenson
Tree House Ideas
They are a business. And they do have to make money. But you can make alot of moeny from free software. Its not like they're NOT going to sell macos just because its Free. I mean, if software is really good I'll give money. I've given money to the FSF but Ive never given money Ive made to Microsoft. (For software, I did buy the Itellimouse. ) And its no secret that you could always build a pc comperable in performance to a mac for cheeper. Thats not always an issue for some consumers, but it is for me. You didnt even mention the periphials. As for hackers, I think hacking the UI would be great. One thing that a Free Mac OS wont give apple the power to do is make you buy a new OS after a major hardware upgrade. Boo-hoo.
"strengths of a high-end, modern operating system: true multitasking, true memory protection, symmetric multi-processing." Those were features of a "high-end" operating system 20 years ago. BSD brought those features to the low end.
The TCP/IP stack is the one from Darwin, which is based upon FreeBSD
Which is based upon BSD, which is a damn good TCP/IP stack.
I have a feeling that the original poster hasn't a clue about just what OSX is...
--K
You don't know how hard it was not to write 'which is based on the stack that Jack built'...
---
One of the things that a lot of people fail to realise about the whole "X Sucks" thing is that there's just no practical way to get rid of it. There are alternatives (Berlin, for example), but none of them are good enough at present to compete, and ultimately they're all trapped by the enormous amount of legacy code - people _have_ to be able to run their old X apps, simply because there aren't any alternatives.
This reminds me of a piece of wisdom that Hannibal of Arstechnica produced when discussing the future of the x86 ISA: What was once part of the solution to a set of problems has become a part of the problem space that any new solutions have to work in. Dealing with X's legacy is something that any new solutions have to handle, in the same way that any serious alternative to x86 has to enable people to use their legacy x86 apps. We _can't_ just start from scratch, unless we do something like what Apple has done (which isn't possible for something as uncoordinated as the free software world) - we have to work with what we've got.
As for the various problems of X, I think a large part of them are due to the implementations, particularly in the design of extensions. Good implementations make a vast difference to how X behaves - I'm using XFree86 4.0.1b with DRI at the moment, and it's incredibly fast compared to 3.3.6. It also handles modelines infinitely better - I don't have to hand-hack modelines to get reasonable performance out of my monitor now. It's just all round better, but not because of any underlying changes to X (aside from DRI for 3D stuff), merely because of a better, cleaner implementation.
Fixing X isn't a matter of throwing it away and starting from scratch anymore: you've got to make the thing work properly within the bounds of the system itself. Nothing else will work in the real world.
himi
--
My very own DeCSS mirror.
User: Hello? You guys own Slashdot.org, right?
Hotline: Yes, sir, we do. Is there a problem?
User: Well, you see, I own Slashdot stock, and...
Hotline: Huh. There's no such thing as a stock hotline. The author of this post is such a moron.
User: Shut up, bitch!
Enoch Root: Yeah!
User: Anyway, I went on Slashdot the other day, and there was this post marked Funny...
Hotline: Yes, that's call moderation. What about it?
User: Well, it wasn't funny. It was just this guy calling a hotline, and then making references to the article, but the conversation was really dumb.
Hotline: I'm sorry to hear that.
User: The worst was, it had no punchline. And it lasted too long.
Hotline: Oh.
User: Yes. Without anything happening.
Hotline: Oh.
User: Yes.
Hotline: I see.
User: Anyway, I want a refund.
Hotline: No. User: *dialtone*
chmod +x outfile
Then here's the cute comment at the bottom:
/************************************************* ***************************** ***************************/
* This little piece of software was brought to you by a DNS server.
*************************************************
--
"A witty saying proves nothing" - Voltaire
Holy cow, is it mandatory? to say this now? It's like there are folks who know next to nothing about macs but feel compelled to post, so they fall back on the "too expensive" thing because they heard somebody else say it. Ack!
Let's actually look at the product shall we? For $3500 cdn I got a dual proc 450 machine with 128mb a 30gb hd, dvd, firewire (2), usb, gigabit ethernet (yes, gigabit) and a damn fine optical mouse. That's a lot of computer for the money. The thing to remember is that, until this recent batch o' iMacs, apple didn't really have a "low" end.... they started at mid-range and went up.
2 1337 4 u!
Doesn't GNU stand for GNU's Not UNIX? Then why are we basing the purity of MacOS-X based on its lack of GNU programs? Is this the new standard now, for all UNIX systems to come with gcc? Does this mean that Windows *with* a GNU compiler is more of a UNIX than Solaris *without* the GNU compiler?
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The World is Yours.
I had the chance to use Mac OS XPB Friday, and I'm happy to report that the XLR8 two button wheel mouse worked fine with no special drivers. When booting from the Mac OS 9 partition the mouse needed XLR8's driver for the 2nd button and wheel to work. In OS X however the mouse just worked. Odly though, the wheel didn't scroll in Internet Explorer, but it worked in the Omniweb browser.
I could get rid of TK if the kernel X config didn't use it
You can get rid of Tcl/Tk. Is there a reason you can't use make menuconfig in an rxvt or other X11 terminal?
I could get rid of gawk, bison, m4, groff, etc if there wasn't exactly one (like man and groff) program that didn't use it
GNU man calls groff so it can format man pages. If you format man pages itself (from .../man? to .../cat?) you can do away with both man and groff, as GNU Texinfo's info can read manpages.
<O
( \
XGNOME vs. KDE: the game!
Will I retire or break 10K?
Mac OS has a feature called Software Update
Just like Windows Update, Helix Update... Continue.
Should every graphic designer and musician on the planet have to look at a list something like this:
Not necessarily. Mac OS Software Update could presumably have a single package "GNU Software."
<O
( \
XGNOME vs. KDE: the game!
Will I retire or break 10K?
I think it was fairly stupid of apple to not ship at least cc and make with the beta, this prevents non-apple paying developers to actually port anything.
Dev tools will be downloadable in Mid-October. You only need an "ADC Online" account to get to the files, which can be had for free.
Or you can get the dev tools from Darwin right now.
- Scott
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Scott Stevenson
Scott Stevenson
Tree House Ideas
You said it's not really necessary as binaries are the normal way of distributing software. So what are the cons?
I think you may have interpretted my posting differently than I meant it. Here's the meaning I intended:
If compilers are included, some developers (particularly long-time *nix developers) may expect users to just build their own software, and deal with any builder errors that come up. This would not be a good user experience. This is the main con. However, leave the compilers out (as Windows does), and more likely than not, all Mac OS X software will come in binary form, saving users a ton of hassle. And the type of software I'm chiefly concerned with, by the way, is non-GUI server software like Apache, PHP, MySQL, etc. All of these things come in binary form for Windows, largely because there are no compilers included.
The developer endures very little hassle by comparison. At the very least the "hassle" is placed a very small group of people versus the entire Mac OS X population. Developers can either grab the compilers from Darwin (for free), or download them from ADC next month (also for free). Or, you can also pay a few hundred dollars and get all sorts of developer tools mailed to you each month on CD, as well as getting OS updates before everyone else.
As for the other cons -- they are minor like extra hard disk space being consumed, more files to deal with during searches and backups, etc.
- Scott
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Scott Stevenson
Scott Stevenson
Tree House Ideas
I believe Aqua is the closest equivalency to X-windows. If not I am looking for said closest equivalent.
Aqua is really just a theme, for the most part. It's the appearance. I suppose the special effects are technically part of Aqua as well. The closet thing to X-Windows would be the window server. I don't think it has any special name.
Anyway, in terms of remote control, the other poster covered many facets of this nicely. However, in terms of out-of-the-box, native remote GUI control, I'm pretty sure OpenStep had this, but I think I heard it was not part of Mac OS X -- yet. Of course, I could be wrong in both cases, but this is the knowledge I've been working with.
- Scott
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Scott Stevenson
Scott Stevenson
Tree House Ideas
Yes, it means that Apple chages for OS X so that Aqua doesn't look like a variation of KDE.
#! /bin/sh
:
:)
# Important Note:
#
# Well, you guys are cool, it's fun to see how many people found out about
# this DeCSS-in-DNS stuff. However, the problem with AXFR queries is that
# they require an authoritative server to connect to, so people behind
# masquerading proxies won't be able to get DeCSS. This new version does
# not use AXFRs, and, as a consequence, results are really cached in every
# nameserver on the planet, which wasn't the case with the previous one
for living in an MPAA free world ; do dig $living.x.zoy.org ; done | \
perl -e 'while(){s/\.//g; print pack("H224",$1) if(/^x([^x]*)/)}' | gunzip
# Have a nice day, and don't forget to visit http://decss.zoy.org/
gzip: stdin: decompression OK, trailing garbage ignored
Mac OS X is a full-blown BSD 4.4, and it's also the best Mac there's ever been. GUI's on UNIX don't have to be the kind of crap everyone is used to from OpenLook to CDE to KDE. -jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
Office will only run in the Classic environment (RAM-hungry emulator running Mac OS 9) for about another year before Microsoft updates Office 2001 to be Carbon-compliant.
--
$x='S24;r)>63/* h@<5+oZ)32"5cz';$me='phroggy'x$];
$x=~y+ -xz+\0-Tx+;print$_^chop$me for split'',$x;
A machine the whole family can enjoy, concurrently.
I recommending checking out the recently updated Darwin FAQ. There's actually quite a bit of insight here, including strategic direction, syncing of the Mac OS X and Darwin trees, etc. It's not just PR fluff. Many of the questions were submitted by Dirk Myers of DaemonNews.
Thanks to darwininfo.org for the link!
- Scott
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Scott Stevenson
Scott Stevenson
Tree House Ideas
I think it was fairly stupid of apple to not ship at least cc and make with the beta, this prevents non-apple paying developers to actually port anything. -fintler
Of course, if you had taken the time to do a little research, you'd know that Apple has the tools publicly available through Darwin as well as their ADC program (online-only reg is free...). And there have been lots of non-apple non-paying developers porting things to Darwin. But you're just talking out of ignorance, weren't you?
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The Future: Some assembly required; batteries not included.
... can we expect a port to Intel-based systems?
As much as I love the box designs from Apple, I am not too crazy of paying that price for one. Maybe not now but MacOSX is making think otherwise.
I have never paid for a complete system and I am not about to start now. It is so much easier for me to build the computer I want then to sacrifice parts here and there in order to purchase it from a Dell/Micron/Gateway/etc. .
ChozSun [e-mail]
ChozSun
ChozSun.com
I may get flamed for this.... but:
I use something like this every day - it's called IRIX. It's very easy to use (GUI config utilities etc) and in my opinion has a better interface than OS X (Apple should've just used the standard mac interface or even the Next interface.)
Ignoring of course the high price of entry.... $600 last time I checked for a copy of IRIX 6.5 (and the cost of hardware.)
Disclaimer: I also use Mac OS 8.6 (retro) every day and have played with DP3 & 4.
On Topic: Unix a lumbering dump truck.... wouldn't that be a better description of VMS!
This space intentionally left blank.
Most PC users are looking to upgrade after six months to a year while Mac users use their machines for a few years as is and then buy a new one. I bought my first Mac three years ago for desktop publishing three years ago, [...] and I just bought a 500mhz powerbook a few month's ago that will last me another 3-4 years.
Another interesting point to make here --
While Apple's marketshare generally hovers around 5%, the installed base is much larger than the marketshare would suggest. Case in point -- Microsoft makes quite a bit of money off Mac Office, even in comparison to the rest of the company's applications income. The reason? Installed base.
Now the flipside of this is that wall street would rather see Apple making more money off their customers. So Apple has sort of split the difference -- giving more compelling reasons to upgrade. Dual G4s, FireWire, AirPort, new case designs, Mac OS 9-specific features (like iTools).
This is all a very watered-down version of this situation, but it is something to keep in mind.
- Scott
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Scott Stevenson
Scott Stevenson
Tree House Ideas
Apple will release all the GNU tools plus their own spiffy IDE (called Project Builder) in mid-October!
The following comes from MacAddict's Article about getting GNU tools:
***********************************************
Apple has announced that development tools for the public beta will be made available to ADC Online members starting in mid-October. If you can bear to wait the month, it'll be worth it.
***********************************************
It is free to become an ADC Online member. I should know, I've done it. I look forward to being able to use all the GNU tools with the MacOS X beta as well.
For those of you who can't wait till mid-October, sign up as a Darwin developer and you'll be able to get all the latest code from the CVS server and you can compile your own GNU tools and new kernels and all that great stuff!
-Tom Hackett
of www.Darwinfo.org
Neither do I (did I say anything like that?). But the comparison by the author was not between Linux and MacOS X, the comparison was between UNIX and MacOS X. UNIX (meaning, what the systems research lab at Bell Labs developed) was consistent, well designed, and clean.
Point taken. My mistake.
UNIX started from scratch and developed a few novel paradigms that worked well for its user base at the time. If only Apple had done the same with their next generation OS.
They tried that with Copland (and Pink, with IBM), but that didn't really end up working.
Instead, Apple did what they have always done: get a bunch of technology from other companies and market the hell out of it.
Have you ever heard of "not invented here?" For a long time, Apple only shipped technology developed internally. Only recently has it started this practice of incorporating industry standards and external technology like USB, AGP, the new codec in QuickTime 3/4, and tons of other stuff that I'm forgetting.
Yes, it is still better than Windows NT, but that doesn't make it much less disappointing. For true innovation, we'll apparently have to look elsewhere.
I think you may be judging too swiftly, prematurely and harshly.
- Scott
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Scott Stevenson
Scott Stevenson
Tree House Ideas
I think the author was referring more to the end-user experience than the kernel
Even just by face value I hands down prefer WindowMaker and a few xterms to MacOS in any day.
My experience with my wifes mac: click...click... click... the finder did what? Son of a $#@!!
Maybe I'm missing something, but I don't see any free registration.
There are several levels of ADC member. "ADC Online" membership is free, and will get you access to the tools in question. Or, get the compilers from Darwin right now.
I'm considering developing on OSX, but not if it costs $400 for some GNU based tools. That's almost as expensive as Visual Studio...
Not only gcc, etc free, but it looks like Project Builder and company will be available for free as well.
- Scott
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Scott Stevenson
Scott Stevenson
Tree House Ideas
Why would these be missing? I don't recall which FTP server it comes with - wuftpd I think - but definitely comes with Apache. I installed ProFTPd on Mac OS X Server once; aside from a bug in ProFTPd (it wasn't very happy about 32-bit UIDs) it worked fine.
nothing for media playback except for the proprietary QT4 player (hopefully optimized for OSX)
Nothing? What rock have you been hiding under? Yes, it's optimized (in fact, it's a new player that's been completely rewritten, for Cocoa I believe).
and a TCP-IP stack that's about as stable as a tall stack of dimes.
Isn't it the same TCP/IP stack that FreeBSD uses? Correct me if I'm wrong here....
All of this adds up to an unpleasant unix experience.
You don't sound like you've used it; perhaps you should, before you pass judgement?
Probably the best bet for now is to stick with LinuxPPC, something not blocked by Steve Jobs' arrogance
Unless you run it on an RS-6000....
--
$x='S24;r)>63/* h@<5+oZ)32"5cz';$me='phroggy'x$];
$x=~y+ -xz+\0-Tx+;print$_^chop$me for split'',$x;
Sure it might be. Since it's a messaging architecture, it doesn't matter what program handles the messages. However, splitting up BSD was probably too much work for the first release, and UNIX isn't exactly designed to be split up that way (tons of calls inbetween the different layres, which must be replaced by messaging.)
A deep unwavering belief is a sure sign you're missing something...
I'll be tempted to buy a mac now. I've always avoided them like the plague, but now... Oh baby! C'mon, this is pretty cool, and I think I'd enjoy playing around with it.
I'm on a chair.
I just ordered my OS X beta, I'm really anxious to do some hardcore geek stuff with it. I've been a huge supporter of OS X since it was Rhapsody (which was quite a while ago). I've become pensive as late though, is Apple going to start repeating its past mistakes? I've started shakinmg my head at them for all the product lines and variations of said product lines. Its cheap and easy to produce two different versions of a machine built on the same chassis but it becomes increasingly difficult to built 4, 5 or 6 versions of a machine built on the same chassis (and have it be profitable). Harken back to the days of the obfuscated number days when a 7200 may or may not have been newer than a 6900 and you got really confused when you found out the Powerbook 5400 was only a year different from the 3400. Are they letting their success get to their collective heads? I hope not. This not only goes for strange naming schemes but what about market targets. Apple now has a Unix based OS that can handle some of the more demanding environments thats only a couple years ago Sun, IBM, and SGI dominated in. Are we going to see the iMac become the only box we can afford because the normal G4 line is an exclusive club only for corporations with large budgets (some might argue thats already the case)? It makes me wonder.
I'm a loner Dottie, a Rebel.
A real package system would also make it so convenient to upgrade the system, especially during the beta cycle. Right now, there is apparently significant missing functionality in the beta (no airport, no USB printing) that could presumably be "dropped in" as it arrives.
Babar