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MacOSX and XFree86 run side by side
proclus writes "XonX has announced interoperability between Xfree86 and MacOSX. Relatedly, Xfree86 now supports the Darwin platform and XFree86 binaries are available. Many thanks to Torrey Lyons, Gregory Robert Parker, and everyone else involved! Will this Aqua support be rolled into the next Xfree86 release? I think I'll have a look at some of those new fast Macs!"
As some others have pointed out, this announcement doesn't bring Aqua and X together, but Tenon has a neat product called Xtools which basically lets you run X programs seamlessly under Aqua. I'm using it now and it is pretty impressive.
-- Solaris Central - http://w
"Darwin" is the catch-all open-source name at Apple. There's the Darwin OS (which we all know as Darwin) and the Darwin Streaming Server (which is the QT server, and what you're thinking of).
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While you're right about the "whole widget" thing, I wouldn't count Mac OS X on Intel hardware out.
... and it's certainly hurting Apple in the short term. Unless the AIM alliance actually does something, Apple could very well be justified in switching to an X86 architecture.
It's quite possible Apple could develop an X86-based machine for OSX to run on. It simply wouldn't work on non-Apple X86 machines.
The PowerPC is a superior architecture, but lack of interest from IBM and (especially) Motorola make it a shakey proposition in the long-term
How Apple will manage the PR backlash is hard to say - this is the company that strapped a Pentium onto the back of a snail after all. But at least they could get chips in quantity and probably save a few bucks in the process.
But you're right on one thing: Don't expect OSX to be running on clones any time soon, at least until Microsoft blows up or something. They can't afford that kind of competition.
- Jeff A. Campbell
- Jeff
Yes, there have been rumors of a port already existing - don't hold your breath for this to ever see the light of day. No one wants to have to deal with the umpteen combinations of hardware in the X86 world - even if Apple wanted to release the code, it could never adequately support it.
RISC is inherantly better than CISC, but that doesn't mean that it's forever going to be faster. Motorola in particular has been quite slow in developing the PowerPC.
Apple is dealing with it by using dual processors, but that will only help for so long. The megahertz gap is widening, and while it doesn't mean everything, it certainly doesn't help any. The PowerPC may per-Mhz be faster than X86, but it's certainly not twice as fast as Apple would like you to believe.
Let me disclaim myself before you flame me: I'm typing this on a PowerBook G3, have been a Mac user since '84, and intend to remain one for the forseeable future. And no, raw speed is not everything (a good user interface is worth more than a fast chip IMHO), but let's face facts: Motorola and IBM just aren't pushing the PowerPC architecture fast enough...
- Jeff A. Campbell
- Jeff
is it fun to work with?
I do everything I can on Linux because Unix is fun. I'm not asking for perfection, only a tool that is a pleasure to use.
I work with Windows day in and day out, and I detest it because while I may be having lots of fun, you can bet none of it is related to working with Windows. Windows is alternately boring and balky.
OS X looks like it is going to be a lot of fun to use, so I'm prepared to like it.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
OSX takes a modern Mac UI, and the ability to run Mac apps, and puts it on top of a modern kernel with preemptive multitasking and all that other BSD type goodness.
It's apparently also a good development environment, though I am a crummy programmer and can't address that.
OSX is basically a Mac OS that has Unix guts. That is the added value. If you don't care about Mac apps, by all means stick to Linux and the Gimp.
Would I buy a Mac to run Apache? No, that isn't the best value. FreeBSD on Intel hardware is a high-value solution for that kind of thing. But if I wanted a "real" desktop type OS that had a strong Unix foundation, I would use MacOS X. (And yes, I have used today's free GUIs... Debian, for example, has a long way to go before it is as easy to install and use as MacOS X. OK, go ahead, mod me down... but you know it's true.)
mac os x will only come of age when micro$oft creates a mac os x myths page for it :-)
the animal doesnt even have opposable thumbs, focker!
It's really pathetic when some pinhead has to ask someone else to explain every noun in a posting to him - I mean, this IS "News for Nerds". Go show some damn inititive.
Hint: at the lower left of the window is a box with a search button next to it...
I don't read ACs: If a post isn't worth so much as a nom de plume to its author then I wont bother either.
No, I think you are trying to make a point where there isn't one. Name 3 truly useful apps that require X and don't have equally useful alternatives that don't.
Got 'em? Took you awhile, didn't it? OK, now describe what sort of person will be wanting those applications and will also want a Mac in place of a more powerful and much cheaper PC.
I'll bet that was even harder, but you still came up with something, right? Well then, now the hardest part: Tell me, with a straight face, that there are more than a handful of these people in the world.
Yeah, I didn't think so.
Nice try, but MS has locked up corporate desktops probably for good. Apple has a horrible track record in the enterprise (anyone remember their brief foray into enterpriuse servers??), and no one is going to put their ass on the line rewiring the office for a platform that still has crappy software support from most ISVs.
Your experience is quite different from mine. When switching from 3.3.6 to 4.0 - I experienced a large speedup, and everything felt snappier. It might be that the driver for your card didnt' take advantage of teh XAA. (I use a voodoo banshee)
[Science] is one of the very few things that raises human life a little above farce and gives it the grace of tragedy.
I'm using a mac (imac, os8.1) right now, and while I think teh gui is quite nice, what really impresses me (as compared with my linux box at home, p200 usually running windowmaker or kde2) is how well the filemanager is integrated into the desktop, and how _fast_ it is. None of the filemanagers I've used under linux (and I've been using it for4 years as my only OS... I'm visiting my parents now, hence the mac) even come close to how responsive it feels.
GMC is very slow, nautilus even slower. Konqueror can be decent once it's started and image previews and everything else is off, but it's still far, far slower than the mac filemanager.
[Science] is one of the very few things that raises human life a little above farce and gives it the grace of tragedy.
Don't throw the baby out with the bathwater; the protocol has its flaws but it also has its strengths (networking support)
-bugg
I am exactly one of these people. I develop software that runs on Solaris and I use the Macintosh to run office productivity tools.
Here are 3 applications that require an X Window Server to use, and for which there are no useful alternatives:
1. XEmacs
No, I don't want XEmacs running on my Macintosh
and displaying there too. I want the copy of
XEmacs that runs on my team's shared Solaris
development host to display on my Macintosh.
And no, I don't consider running 'emacs' in a
telnet window to be a useful alternative.
2. Admintool
Yes, I want to administer that Solaris host in
the telco closet from the comfort and relative
safety of my Macintosh. No, I don't
consider telnet to be a useful alternative
here either.
3. Perfmeter
Nothing like having a nice little running
graph of the resource load on your favorite
headless server horses. This is a cheap and
dirty tool and there is no substitute. Gotta
have an X Window server for it to display.
Oh wait, you probably think I'm crazy because I want to use a Macintosh for writing documents and I don't want a whole other stupid computer on my desk just so I can run an X Window server on it.
Surely there's only a handful of people like me. Guess what? The reason not so many people are running X Window servers on their Mac OS 9 boxes and using them to operate software on Unix servers is that you have to get purchase order signed to buy the Tenon X Window server.
Sure, I guess I could toss out the Macintosh and switch entirely over to Windows NT or Windows 2000 where I can easily get an X Window server to run, but then I'd have to give up my Macintosh.
Fortunately, with this XFree86 news I have TWO OPTIONS for getting X Window clients to display on my Macintosh. And that allows me to continue using all the really good Macintosh software without having to buy a whole other computer to run an X Window server.
Why is this such a bad idea?
jhw
Heck, my 25Mghz 040 black NeXT Cube works like a charm.
Karma karma karma karma karmeleon: it comes and goes, it comes and goes.
This part is easy. With X, you can run apps remotely and display them where you are. So, for me, anything I want to run on a Linux box at work but view at home is such an app. Now, I expect that's not the answer you were expecting, but if X doesn't immediately suggest to you the possibility of remote apps, you're missing the point.
Nope; that part was easy.
Well, I'm married with two kids. My wife vastly prefers the Mac interface, and an iMac was decent enough looking and quiet enough to put out in a public place, saving additional bucks for one of those "hide the ugly PC" computer thingies. Now, I do kick myself for not waiting another 6 months and getting the iMac I got for $500 less, but that's the PC life...
No, that was still pretty easy.
Now the funny part of this is that even though I live in Columbia, Missouri, a metro area with a population of 130,000 or so, I already know a handful of people like this. But so what? Why should I care how many other people use computers like I do? In the bad old days, that might matter because software was expensive and and closed source; not these days. I can have a Mac, a BSD box, a wireless network set-up, a DVD player, and all the comforts of a quiet-to-silent PC for a price I was more than willing to pay.
Nobody can tell me I'm not happy.
Babar
I think MACOS X is going to save MAC's ass. I have seen it is action and I have never been so giddy about a GUI since....well I guess I have never been giddy about a gui. Anyway, I wouldn't count MAC out yet. Much like the L-community they sit outside of the BOX and are try to change the way we do thing rather than just improve on it.
To manny companies (MS comes to mind) stick on a linear path, never stepping outside of their legacy. With Aqua Apple has made their first big step since the introduction of their MAC line of computers.
-Angreal
P.S. RC5 on those fast MAC's is going to rock.
Will this Aqua support be rolled into the next Xfree86 release? I think I'll have a look at some of those new fast Macs!
This is NOT Aqua support! This is XFree86 running on Darwin! So, you can have X on your screen, or you can have Aqua on your screen. Either way, you're limited to programs compiled for what's on the screen.
"Will this Aqua support be rolled into the next Xfree86 release?"
:)
No. At least, I'd put a large amount of money on it being a *long* time before X is extended to cover Aqua. Look how long it's taken for display ghostscript to catch on (hint: it hasn't)
Maybe when X can do translucancy[1] properly.
[1] Trans-lunacy?
-Yarn - Rio Karma: Excellent
Darwin is an OS that's open source that's supported by Apple. It also happens to be the underpinnings to Mac OS X. Hence, Darwin support == Mac OS X support.
This is the exact opposite of what most of us really want!
Let's take slow, over-priced hardware and replace the great GUI it has with a crufty hack that's older than jesus. Yeah, great idea.
News flash: Most of us are hoping for OSX, including Aqua, on Intel-based architecture, not the other way around.
--
$x='S24;r)>63/* h@<5+oZ)32"5cz';$me='phroggy'x$];
$x=~y+ -xz+\0-Tx+;print$_^chop$me for split'',$x;
Apple is a hardware company. OSX helps them sell boxes. Apple is not interested in helping to sell other people's boxes, because other people's boxes are icky looking and have floppy drives.
Apple is already on shaky ground with ISVs - moving to a new architecture would be suicide.
Apple can't afford to revisit the pain of the 680x0 -> PPC migration.
Added to which, the main point is that Steve Jobs abhors the PC platform, and thats why Apple will never move to PCs.
I was about to go download X for my shiny new PowerBook (with MacOS X) when I asked myself: "what X apps do I use?" I thought for a while, and only two came to mind: the GIMP and AbiWord. I only use AbiWord for its Microsoft Word importing, and I only used the GIMP because there was no Photoshop.
That's the really cool thing about MacOS X: It has all of the UNIX-y goodness with all of the sexy OpenStep apps and all of the trusty MacOS apps.
I don't need to download X!
--
Max V.
There should be a moratorium on the use of the apostrophe.
Max V.
NeXTMail/MIME Mail welcome
Hmm. You know, it would be nice if somebody were working on a free clone of the NeXT/MacOS X graphics system.
Oh, they already are. GNUstep.
There's no "we" in team, only "me"
I am overjoyed that this development has come about. Aqua is wonderful, but I really like some of the features of XFree running on Darwin and was frustrated that VNC was the only way to use them simultaneously without spending money.
:) )
If technology like this can be integrated into the next (or even the first? Steve?) release of OSX, the implications for developers and users alike would be incredible.I aggree that this OS is going to do great things for Apple- maybe we Mac users combined with the open source community can finally toss that sledgehammer!
Ok, so maybe that last comment was a bit idealistic, but seriously, I feel like it's 1984 all over again (though, to be fair, I was 3 yrs. old at the time
the chances of apple opening up quartz and aqua to open-source developers are zero to none. they don't give a flying grit's ass if you run anything else, but if they opened those up then you wouldn't have to buy a mac. (i'm sure a port would be started ASAP)
so in other words, yes, we can run xbill, but "HELL NO" to running bubbly UIs on your pimp 2Ghz AMD. (they won't even let us create look-alike skins!)
http://kered.org
tcd004
True Enlightenment
By the way, just a question. Can anybody explain to me what the added value is of OS X?
Running Xfree86 is something other *nices do too.
To what extent does it offer anything better, improved, "more something" than the alternative unix/linux OS brethren?
I've got this vague idea that Apple is trying to sell something that you essentially can find somewhere else for free?
X-Windows running alongside (and inheriting the window widgets of) Aqua in MacOS X is about the only thing keeping me from using MacOS X on a regular basis. i can't wait to compile and install this new patch to see how close i can get to seamlessly using UNIX and Mac applications side by side.
despite how much i hated Aqua and many of the changes of MacOS X at first, it's definitely grown on me as of late, and my "wishlist" is mostly comprised of nit-picky features (but damn how i wish i could put the 'dock' on the right side of the screen like i did in NeXTStep). once i can run X applications in a satisfactory manner, i will have absolutely no need for my Linux box (except, perhaps, as a toy).
i won't be able to install this for at least a week however, as my Mac is too important for "real" work to start installing new patches to a beta OS. but i'm dying to know: does anybody have a screenshot of this particular implementation running on their OSX box? i'd love to see how well it integrates into Aqua.
..and serious "Kudos" to all the people involved in this project. after my current contract is done, perhaps i'll take some time out to help them with the code.
- j
It's time to have a clean break from legacy platforms. When the time comes to vote, say NO to X!
Of course, I've heard this refrain for years now. It's as if there aren't any companies making money selling an operating system for x86 machines.
Didn't Bill something-or-other start a company that does that?
W
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This is my SIG. There are many like it, but this one is mine.
Actually, you can run local X programs. It includes all the standard stuff from X11r6. It is pretty nify.
-- Solaris Central - http://w
Until Linux reaches the ability to be a powerful desktop system that's easy for almost anyone to use efficiently, Macs may come to fill that void in the business sector. Apple has made a series of incredibly smart moves over recent years (the iMac - a computer for the general masses, the G4 - a slower clock speed, but 128 bit channeling making it capable of handling significantly more non-dependant data than say of 32 bit chip of a clock speed twice as fast), and a few other things to boot. They've adopted less expensive RAM, all the systems within a series use identical parts (a wonderful dream for any IT pro), and, well, they're just getting to be a lot better than they were, though I think I've said that.
This interoperability with X makes it a great value for large corporations with *nix (especially Linux) servers. I think that over the years, Apple will make its Macintosh series have a comeback. GO APPLE!
Oh yeah, to make the subject makes sense, what OS is currently most-used as a workplace desktop? M$ Windoze...what would be displaced? Figure it out...
Note: I have NO affiliation with Apple Computing - I don't even use one of their computers regularly. However, I still believe from what I've seen lately that they do have a good shot a taking back market share...
Like Karma doesn't matter...
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SIG: HUP