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A Quick Look At Mac-On-Linux
Travis Emslander writes: "They have an article about Mac on Linux over at MaximumLinux.org. I didn't even know this project existed but it looks like you can run any MacOS app (not including MacOS X apps of course) on a PPC machine with it. I'm starting to wish I had a mac to try this stuff." Here are some more screenshots. I saw MoL demonstrated over a year ago (when OS X wasn't really an issue) and was amazed at how quickly it ran. Anyone out there using it on a day-to-day basis?
Great, now I can run Linux, MacOS and Linux all at the same time. Is there anything greater?
... is what niche this fills with OS X around. A year ago, there was simply no way to get MacOS functionality on a Unix (/Linux, etc.) system except with either MOL or that horribly expensive proprietary Unix for Macs (sorry, can't remember the name.) These days, OTOH, a powerful and MacOS-compatible Unix is, in fact, well, what you get when you buy a Mac.
To be fair, there are a lot of older Macs out there that don't have the horsepower for OS X but would do just fine as Linux boxes, and I can see MOL being useful for them. With new iMacs so cheap, though, how long will that be true?
The correlation between ignorance of statistics and using "correlation is not causation" as an argument is close to 1.
Actually, there allready is a project called MACE.
/Svenne
The name "Mace" is an acronym for Macintosh Application Compatibility Environment. Thanks to Simon Biber for coming up with that acronym. The name "Mace" originally came from MACintosh Emulator, which wasn't entirely accurate, as Mace does not emulate a Macintosh, instead it emulates the Macintosh Operating System and Toolbox (the ROM) resulting in the ability to run Macintosh software.
MACE homepage
Slagborr
I think the idea is that you can have both OSes running at the same time without rebooting. The other idea (and why it's so fast) is that it's not emulation of hardware. That will always be slower than if it was on PPC.
F-bacher
James Tiberius Kirk: "Spock, the women on your planet are logical. No other planet in the galaxy can make that claim."
I am a Mac user, but this is how I see this might be important: one of the great things about Linux is the approach and attitude of the developers - the community, the very nature of open source, the difference from the 'closed' operating systems (including my beloved OS X). If you run Linux as your primary OS because using anything else seems like an intolerable sell-out, having the ability to emulate another OS that provides otherwise unavailable functionality is a way more viable solution that giving up your freedom just to be able to see Quicktime movies and run Photoshop. I don't feel like I have stated this very well - can someone that uses Linux add to this?
I use MOL on my Lombard Powerbook at work. It has to be one of the most clever and most useful PPC linux apps that was ever written. It is _extremely_ fast with respect to emulation because it isn't really emulation at all; the PPC calls are all native. No need to translate PPC calls to x86 like you would when running VirtualPC on a Mac.
:)
The only problem I've had of late is that the network device stops working after about three hours but I just kill MOL and restart it. From past experience with MacOS, rebooting every three hours is often necessary anyway
All in all, an excellent program. And its not so much that it allows you to run MacOS programs under Linux, ala MacOS emulators for Windoze - it is a complete virtual PPC machine within a PPC machine.
My laptop has YellowDog Linux 2.0 on it but I also ran MOL on Debian unstable for awhile with good success. I also run it at home on my Apple Network Server - I was able to install MacOS from scratch using MOL by setting the boot device to the CD.
Mac-on-Linux is akin to VMware - it runs Mac code natively on PPC processors by virtualizing the underlying hardware. It is amazingly powerful and the last I was hearing on the MOL lists is that OS X support will be back soon (yes, it was there when OS X was in its infancy, since then, a few changes in OS X have broken things in MOL). With Mac OS 9.x (and earlier), however, MOL is solid as a rock. I can run days, even weeks without any instability - eventually, though, Photoshop or something else will cause me to reboot MacOS.
If anyone's been scared to try out Linux on a PPC machine, for fear of losing MacOS, check out Mac-on-Linux ... you'll have it to fall back on in case you get stuck in Linux. Most PPC Linux distros that I know of ship with Mac-on-Linux, so getting it running should be a snap. If you have any problems, the MOL mailing lists are amazingly helpful, often times Sam Rydh, the creator/maintainer of MOL will post responses himself.
FYI - sound works great, but video acceleration is lacking (much like VMware). USB support is also not there (yet) - but, if your device is seen in Linux, you can use it in MOL.
I run YellowDog Linux on my Titanium G4 notebook. Why? Performance is *excellent*, plus the notebook ain't to shabby to look at. Extra wide screen, good hardware integration. Works for me. In fact, every year I've attended the Ottawa Linux Symposium, I've seen more and more people lugging Apple hardware around, running Linux. We're not talking your average joe users either, but serious developer types. I seem to recall a few of the Samba fellows typing away on Powerbooks during the keynote...
MOL (Mac On Linux) is a nice tool for those that do run Linux on their Mac, yet occasionally need to boot into MacOS. It saves a reboot, and can be quite handy when you need to playback a Quicktime file, or something along those lines. I'd rather have a native Linux player of course, but since Sorenson won't disclose the codec, MOL allows me to run Linux yet still access one or two of those quirky Mac apps. ;)
As another poster mentioned, it's like VMWare for the Mac. If you can postulate a use for VMWare, then it shouldn't be too difficult to figure out why some people like MOL.
I'm more comfortable in my Linux distribution of choice than I am in OS X. I know where everything is, I have absurd amounts of software already installed (including a toolchain I didn't have to register online to obtain), and I have little need for MacOS apps. I also prefer KDE over Aqua; Though I recognize Aqua has some bells and whistles that KDE and XFree86 lack, KDE and XFree86 have far more of the bells and whistles that I use and appreciate. I'm pretty much just happier with the software on the Linux side.
As for Mac-On-Linux, I could see using it for the occasional MacOS app... sometimes such functionality is handy. And really, if it works, why not have it around?
I've seen a lot of posts on this thread asking what "the niche" is for MOL, questioning whether Linux has any value in the Mac "market" because OS X is available, etc. My only reply, really, is that maybe those posters should stop thinking like Official Linux Salesmen and Market Strategists... if it's not your thing, fine, but trying to determine the "market" for everything (especially something that's so obviously built and supported by its "market"), as if you own a piece, is silly.
Well, many ms-supporters love to critize Linux for not running Microsoft Office. Infact the only reason why some bussinesses even use windows is because of MS Office, and fear of the unknown.
Well, finally this is a reality with MOL. The mac version of Office is very good and some would say that perhaps its even better then the Windows version. With MOl you can run linux, MS office, IE, java( not supported under linux on the mac),and even games like quake and UT, as well as photoshop. You literally have everythign you need with the satisfaction of knowning that you are not tied with Windows or paying Microsoft( unless you use Office).
Way to go hackers. I have seen MOL and I was very inpressed at its speed. Makes VMWARE look ancient and extrenely slugish. Believe me, when I say its not emulated but native. I wonder how they did it. My guess is they programmed MOL to reserve some memory addresses some and put in a layer to fool MacOS that another app is using the memory. This is to avoid conflicts. I also assume a layer is used on MOL as a data traffic controller but its not fully emulated. Probably only a layer to pass data through. Windows on the other hand likes to constantly monitor and send signals and data to hardware. Even if the computer is idle. NT does this. If you tried to trick windows on x86 linux this same MOL way, the windows kernel would panic when it couldn't send data on every cycle. I believe MacOSX uses something simular by constantly sending signals to the cpu and memory so it will probably never run natively without some emulation. Anyway keep up the good work and I will buy a G4 as my next linux box. Mol makes all the difference.
http://saveie6.com/
There it is! You now have MSIE 5 under linux. The mysterious hidden MS internet experience we all hear of (but no one can quite point to) can now be had under Linux. If it's like that dog for unix, it loads most of DOS with it. Linux to run Mac to run DOS, ahhhh! infinite regresion!
MSIE for Mac really has nothing to do with MSIE for Windows. MSIE for Mac is a decent, well-behaved Mac app, following basic Mac rules. Parts of the rendering engine may be derived from MSIE/Win source code, but most of the app was rewritten from scratch by Microsoft's Macintosh Business Unit in California. It's one of the most standards-compliant browsers available (much moreso than MSIE/Win).
A few differences:
Preferences at the bottom of the Edit menu, nice and organized, not hiding under Tools with convoluted tabs and buttons
MSIE/Mac lets you manage cookies; you can see all stored cookies in a list, show their values, delete them, etc. You can also choose which domains to accept and deny cookies from.
MSIE/Mac has its own Download Manager. All downloads are listed in one window, and they remain listed there (as a history) after downloading.
MSIE/Mac is MUCH prettier than MSIE/Win. It also includes multiple color schemes for the buttons and stuff.
Of course, it supports Internet Config, ColorSync, Location Manager and other Mac OS goodies.
It's easy to install (download and mount a disk image, drag the folder to your hard drive, launch the app) and easy to uninstall (drag the folder to the trash). To be thorough, trash some libraries in the Extensions folder, and the cache and other stuff in Preferences. MSIE/Win thinks it's part of the OS and can't be installed.
Basic features like right-clicking a graphic and selecting "Open Image In New Window" are missing from MSIE/Win. If you do open a graphic, MSIE/Mac shows you the dimensions in the title bar, like Netscape does; MSIE/Win does not. These two features come in very handy when doing Web design.
View Source shows a decent source window, in the same app (instead of launching Notepad), and it marks HTML tags in blue and comments in red. Much more readable.
Oh yeah, and it still works with Netscape plug-ins.
</RANT>
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$x=~y+ -xz+\0-Tx+;print$_^chop$me for split'',$x;
If you look at the MOL site, the front page says it doesn't need a Mac ROM. And the User Guide says "MOL can run on non-Apple hardware."
Here's an idea... there's User Mode Linux, a Linux kernel designed to run within another Linux kernel, rather than directly on the hardware. This permits all sort of debugging, security and other wonderful things.
From the 'uses' page: This is more a potential use, since UML only runs on Linux right now. But once it's ported to another OS, it is a completely authentic Linux environment - it will run any Linux executable. This would be an interesting shortcut for an OS vendor looking for Linux binary compatibility. See the projects page for more information on porting UML to other operating systems.
Following that idea, it would be cool to port UML to MacOS X. (Would that automatically work on FreeBSD?) This way, you can run MacOS X, Linux (UML), MacOS 9.x inside that and DOS inside that. Why anybody would want to do that is beyond me, but it seems like a cool idea. Hey, with UML, it might be possible to have a "native" Linux system running on just about any operating system.
Here's a scary thought: If Linux runs under Windows, what happens when Windows crashes? On second thought, maybe it's better to run Linux as the native OS and emulate or virtualize the junk under that.
Start Linux.
Start Mac on Linux.
Start Windows on Mac on Linux.
Start MAME on Windows on Mac.
Start Linux on Playstation on MAME on Windows on Mac.
Start VMware on Linux on Playstation on MAME on Windows on Mac...
[
Mac MSIE5 does indeed rock, but I have noticed that it chokes, and badly, on big HTML pages. For example, a big
This is on a well-tuned Pismo (400MHz G3, 320MB RAM), and I have done a lot of experimentation with memory settings and other stuff. But it's totally repeatable. Drives me nuts.
> Sorry, but you get paid for the end product, if you
... it would take years of work to make Linux competitive for those users, and why should the people who are making Linux want to do that when Apple is doing a good job of it already? This stuff will appear in Linux one day if the people who use and make Linux want to build it in, but it is not there now.
> do graphic arts, then gimp can do it for you
Why is it that it's never a graphic artist saying this?
> (just take a weekend of your own time and learn
> it, it's so close to photoshop now it aint funny)
It is so close to Photoshop in ways that a hobbyist can appreciate. GIMP is not on the cutting-edge of graphic design and publishing.
> as for webdesign if you dont code your html by
> hand then I am agast
That opinion is about five years out-of-date. These days you mock it up in Dreamweaver and then customize the code as required by hand or with another tool, and Dreamweaver leaves the hand-written code alone. I'd rather write scripts that automate Dreamweaver than write Web pages. The people who make Dreamweaver have researched a lot of common browser bugs and Dreamweaver takes steps to work around them. Why would I want to keep up with the lastest bug in IE just so I can code everything by hand instead of just the important stuff?
The first music sequencers only produced robotic music, and the first design-oriented HTML editors only produced crappy code. Both of these things have long since changed. If you get robotic music out of Cubase 5 and crappy code out of Dreamweaver 4, it is your own fault. The tools are advanced enough now that you have control over things.
> you can do everything (except non linear video
> editing) on linux that you do on your mac... so
> what's your excuse again?
Pro audio, QuickTime authoring, Flash authoring, DVD video authoring, easy drag-and-drop data CD and DVD burning (I make lots of big files, so a $6 4.7GB DVD-R that burns in 20 minutes with no effort to make it is very important), print graphics (no CMYK color in GIMP), and huge, huge, huge workflow advantages that come from common key shortcuts, application conventions, support for all common audio, video, and graphics formats, the best clipboard on a personal computer, scriptable/recordable GUI and high-level interapplication communication, PDF as a common format between all apps, drag-and-drop of one icon to "install" an app, or drag-and-drop to the Trash to "uninstall", amazing hardware support with drivers included in the OS so stuff just hot-plugs and you go (like a graphics tablet, or a precision mouse as a second mouse, or a whole USB/FireWire audio interface, camera/camcorder, or a hard disk).
All of this stuff saves me lots and lots of time and provides very important functionality and capabilities. A Mac is a very important tool in many industries
Coders and geeks can go ahead and make their own operating system that's optimized for coders and geeks. When Apple says that they make systems for "the rest of us", they mean people who aren't coders and geeks and can't make their own operating systems, or don't want to. Apple's customers are more interested in the fact that Mac OS X includes color-matching throughout the OS and hardware, and supports every type of font out of the box (including Windows-formatted TrueType fonts) than whether the compiler is free enough or whatever. That's for coders and geeks to worry about.
Really, Linux and Mac OS X both exist for different reasons, and they're quite complemetary. I use Mac desktops and notebooks, but my Web server is Linux. If you're doing something for which Linux is well-suited, and you have the expertise and time to set it up, it's a no-brainer. Especially when you are in a situation where you set it up once and replicate it on box after box after box with no licensing fees or associated paperwork (that is a huge advantage). It's not going to swap one-for-one with a Mac box for most users anytime soon, though.