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A Linux User At MacWorld
usermilk writes "Linux Journal just posted a pretty cool article, A Penguin Angle on the Ox: Day One at Macworld. It features a Linux user's perspective on MacWorld, OS X, Darwin, and how all these things play together. Most interestingly, he comments on the large number of open-source-Unix bigwigs who are now on Apple's payroll. There's also a pretty concise description of the difference between Apple building off of BSD compared to Microsoft trying to also reap the benefits of open source." Doc Searls' perspective makes a great companion to the report from the floor (and part II) that chrisd posted.
I didn't know about Hexley, the Darwin mascot, but what the Hell is this grey picture in the article?
Trolling using another account since 2005.
The Mac always looked a bit like toys for me, but they are most of the time pretty. (Yes, that is a selling point for me!) They also have a stimga of being computers for people that don't want to know about computers. However, prettyness and curiosity about OSX got me buying one. Now, I am not desoriented at all using OSX. It really rocks! Command line open and it's all there: it's often more useful than wading through config screens which you are unfamiliar with. I know, stating something like that is very un-Mac, but the point is: you come from a Linux world (or *BSD) and your Mac will feel at home. If you come from a Windows background, I'm pretty sure you will feel at home too (and enjoy a prettier desktop *grin*),
One people get a bit more open-minded on computers and operating systems, and are willing to give a Mac a a try....then I'm sure the Mac will have a very bright future.
(A bit offtopic: even from my hardcore PC users co-workers, I only had positive reactions on the design of the new iMac)
Ahhh...the great dumpster continuum. Many a free computer will be found there. -- sowth (748135)
At the end of the day, there are two operating systems in the world. Those that are UNIX(like) and those that are just Windows. To me that speaks of opportunities especially for you Linux guys who have excellent knowledge of your systems. Brush up a bit on Darwin and become a Mac OS (X) systems expert. The end users themselves can do the GUI stuff but they may, at some point, need someone to have a look at the plumbing. Hey, if ya make a quick buck then all the better.
I'd tried to install linux on a new macintosh but because the hardware is closed and each model only comes with one type of graphics card and hard drive (and all except the TiBook have the same motherboard throughout the model line) I had trouble trying to have a hard time finding the right drivers. Could somebody install some weird hardware on my machine so I could futz with it some a lot more before it works right. I miss PCs.
There was also that NFStest stuff that Avi gave to the BSD guys which they are using to "fix" NFS which is pretty borken!
I don't think they care about getting into "good books" any more than providing a machine that works. No-one is saying dump Linux, they are saying that when using screen and mutt, use a Mac OS X Terminal window...
...and contribute something yourself.
Well, we recently had a Mac user in our area have his HD crash and burn. While I was swapping out the HD he was complaining about how often it crashed, etc, etc. So on a whim I installed OS 10.1 for him. All I can say is wow - what an amazing OS. Not from a "look Ma, a bash prompt" and not necessarily for me - I like my Gnome desktop. But from an average user's perspective, OS X is sweet! The interface is very nice - and it is so stable. The user made that very comment "Why hasn't it crashed on me?" He used to have crashes all the time. Now he has the other Mac users asking if they can upgrade anytime soon.
No its not perfect. but Apple really managed to finally create a non-technical user desktop and OS built around a stable fast core. Good for them, I hope it really works out for them. I'll stick with Linux case its fun, but my wife, anotehr Mac user at work complains about usign Windows to do stuff at home - maybe she'll get an iMac for her birthday with OS X - nah - the new ones are too ugly :) Don't want people to think my LCD screen took a dump on my desk :)
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I am all against Apple trying to take on M$ (I'm not saying they could). I think M$ as bigger teeth and claws, and Apple would be shredded in 5 secs. What a Machead like me really wants is Apple going on making it's 5% market share every year and earning enough money to invest enough back in R&D to still make the best hardware/software combination out there in the future. Plus I think the breakthroughs Apple makes would not be possible if they targeted commodity hardware, where you have to support everybody and his cousins graphic card, motherboard,... If Apple is a luxury brand (and it is), I'm fine with it, I'm ready to pay, and that as long as it is still worth it. Apple going for commodity hardware and big market share would have to scale back its innovation factories and would kill itself in the process.
I don't have much to add.
Well, no. Far back in the mists of time (err..1992/1995), I earned my living writing code on the Mac. One of the things we regularly used was MPW - the Macintosh Programmer's Workshop.
Now, this wasn't necessarily the most elegant thing in the world. However, it was a fairly good approximation of a Unix development environment on a Macintosh. You know - command-line make, STDIO-driven command line tools with (emulated) pipes...much porting of utils from Sun-derived sources went on too.
Point is that Apple has never, to my knowledge, been anti-Unix. It's just that until recently, Unix simply wasn't what it did.
Cheers,
Ian
>I also don't think OSX, while being UNIX-compatible, should be called a version of UNIX
Well, if I remember, OS X has been recognized POSIX-compliant, and as such, is probably as close to the Unix throne as Linux is. It is amusing that talking about computer we should hear such arguments as "original source code" and "traditional architecture". If being Unix is running on 30 years old computers, I guess Mac OS X is far from it. But as far as I'm concerned, Mas OS X is as Unix as it gets, if only because any developer used to any Unix variant out there will master Mac OS X internals in 5 minutes time.
But I think you're right about Apple PR having completely changed its stance on Unix, and most of this change was brought by Copland's complete failure, prompting Apple to buy NeXT to get a memory-protected operating system.
I don't have much to add.
Not neccesarily so, most 'ordinary' users simply want something to do their documents on, connect to the internet and play a few games on. Added to this, companies tend to buy in bulk very generic PCs so that their support staff have an easier time- again all joe staffer needs is a word proccesor, a spreadsheet and connectivity to the company's net apps.
Apple probably could compete at this end of the market by keeping the original iMac alive and selling it cheap (I'm thinking no more than £500, which is about $750 I believe)
I think that if they can secure the low-end of the market as well as keeping their foot in at the top end that the middle ground of the market shall come to them naturally
J-aims
--
Yo, whatever happened to peas? Join T( H)GS
Maybe Apple doesn't *want* to compete on the commodity desktop. I think with all the flashy gadgets they've been releasing, focussing on looks as well as content, it's obvious they're interested in a different market entirely: luxury items. Most of their customers don't care about the technical side of things, nor do they need to because Apple takes care of that quite nicely, they just want something that works and looks good.
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I've sold my rev A imac, ordered the new one, and will continue to run my previous Linux box as an fileserver, mp3 server and first level firewall.
Now to spend less time with hardware configurations and kernel rebuilds everytime I plug something in, and work on a standard hardware platform that lots of other developers have. More time to code, less time doing the dishes.
Change is good. Embrace it.
Apple's been bragging for some months now about their being the first company to put "the power and stability" of Unix in the hands of the average user and it seems that's what they did. What I'm wondering now is if this kind of stability put in the homes of millions of people will not change everybody's standard of stability. Five years ago, the standards of stability were Win95 and Mac OS 8 (I'm trying to speak for the general public there,OK? No flame, please). Neither was very stable (although I still remember 95 as being a true nightmare, whereas OS 8 was acceptable, as long as you didn't try anything fancy, such as developing on it), but since nobody had a better example, people were happy with it. Now we've got millions of mac users let loose among their friends and saying their computer (almost) never has to reboot! This could change the acceptable standards of stability, not only for Operating Systems, but also for the whole software industry.
Most people thought computers had to crash, because that's what they always did. If some start to be STABLE, where is the world going?
I don't have much to add.
I also don't think OSX, while being UNIX-compatible, should be called a version of UNIX
I also don't think Linux, while being UNIX-compatible, should be called a version of UNIX. After all, once you start up KDE/GNOME and start working with apps written specifically for KDE/GNOME, you, as an ordinary user, will hardly ever come across evidence of there being a traditional UNIX architecture running your system.
Darwin is UNIX, period. It's just that Apple were smart enough to ditch X and come up with a better graphical system. I wish someone would do the same for other UNIces.
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I dunno, Macintosh always seemed UNIX friendly to me. My first experiences with the Internet were on a Mac (1993), and at that time there were'nt any WinXX Server boxes on the 'net. Mac seemed to interact with UNIX boxes a lot easier than Windows 3.1 machines did.
Not to mention all that freeware that did what UNIX tools did on Mac.
And what about that apple UNIX like server OS, what was it, A/UX?
Apple's been flirting with UNIX for years, it's just now that they're finally getting it on.
But if you stick an athlon in your purty iMac, the case would melt.
News and bla for computer musicians: http://lomechanik.net/
Actually, Apple has been selling unix based servers for years, well before OS X Server.
They used to sell some Apple-badged AIX boxes, which admittedly weren't really macs, but prior to that (back in the early nineties) they actually had their own version of unix, A/UX. It was truly bizarre, an Apple desktop (circa system 6 or so) with a terminal window in it to actually get at the system.
I used to admin a couple of these things, they were unusual, but they worked. The weirdest things were the manuals - all standard Apple typesetting, but detailing how to use "ls" and "cd"...
My problem with OS X (Or is it 10.1, or X.1) is... (Drum roll please)
It's too slow! Okay, so that's just an immediate problem and will be fixed with beefier hardware. If OS X ran on X86 hardware, it would be great since fast processors are plentiful and cheap. (Enough with the "Is there an echo in here?" jokes! I know the OS X on X86 comment is more overplayed than the latest Brittany Spears song!) Before you go off and comment that I've probably only used a Mac at the local CompUSA for 5 minutes while my friend is on a quest for the super-secret hidden location of the public restrooms, well, you'd be right. However, I also own a Mac too.
Granted, it is an iMac 500MHz G3 with 256MB of RAM, which would be considered "entry level" in the Mac world. Would a top-of-the-line G4 have more snap when running OS X? You bet - I tried one of those out too at CompUSA (the bathrooms must be REALLY hard to find, cause my friend was gone FOREVER). The G4s run OS X great, and for a brief moment in time, I felt like this OS had a real chance - until I returned to reality and realized how it runs on the system I was able to afford.
My only hope is that the Apple fairy comes in the night and sprinkles some speedup dust on my iMac - otherwise getting $800 for it on eBay is starting to look really good. That money could get me a REALLY nice Athlon XP barebones system.
---
Siggy, siggy, siggy, can't you see? Sometimes your puns just irritate me.
Apple were smart enough to ditch X and come up with a better graphical system. I wish someone would do the same for other UNIces.
The DirectFB project looks promising, and is almost finished (most recent release is 0.9.8). Of course, what really is there to such a graphics layer? Considering it piggiebacks on the Linux framebuffer console anyway, probably not much.
They have an X compatibility layer for running X apps. I see there is a patched gtk available as well, but is that enough to do anything? Now if someone could port a WM and a DE...
IMO, there's actually nothing wrong with X11, but rather XFree86. I understand that XFree86 needs to work on more platforms than Linux, but still. As a Linux user, having a completely separate driver system just for XFree86 is both redundant and annoying. Configuration is also a disaster (fonts anyone?).
DirectFB with an optional X layer sounds like the future for desktop Linux.
Better is a matter of opinion, and people who claim that usually do so out of ignornance of X. You're unlikely to find a better windowing system than X any time soon. Sure, it has some problems in current implementations, but those are being fixed with time (alpha blending, antialiased fonts, etc.). X is so much more than people think, and still has a long way to go. If people put in the effort to get it to where it was always intended to be, it'll be untouchable. The ability for an application to specify an editor widget, for example, but leave the implementation as user-configurable. Sure, most people will just stick with the standard text box, but others can replace it with a vi or a jed or even emacs-alike widget. For *all* applications, not needing to be configured on a per-app basis. Those interested may find Alan Cox's comments from his April 7th diary entry enlightening.
"The invisible and the non-existent look very much alike." -- Delos B. McKown
so this is different from using putty on win95 in which way?
update comments set karma=-1, reason='offtopic' where sid=26315
Oh man...I could totally make a bong out of those new iMacs...hey! Where did you leave the chips?
(-1, Raw and Uncut is the only way to read)
All three markets can coexist, and should coexist. It's perfectly normal for the computer world to divide into different virtual geographies with different personalities, just like the real world. Apple's new vision is to build a line of products that appeal to people that hang out in places like South Beach or Greenwich Village. Linux appeals to people attracted to places like San Jose or Austin. Windows appeals to people that for some unknown reason spend their time in Detroit.
The biggest reason why Apple is so cool is because they know their niche and they cater to it. Opening the flood gates and bringing the bazillion Windows users and developers into the Apple world is the worst thing that could happen to Apple, because without the exclusivity that they have right now, they would be just another OS. The last thing that I want to see on my beautiful OSX system is a bunch of crappy shareware built by 14-year-old teenagers in Hungary with no design sense whatsoever. I don't want the bouncers letting people in jeans and sneakers into the nightclubs that I visit, and I don't want ports of a bunch of ugly Windows applications running on my Aqua system. If Apple's market share rises too high, then the whole mystique will be broken when the exclusive feel of the OS is lost.
The applications available for OSX are mostly designed and built by people that are very into the Apple mystique, and a lot of people like it that way. Applications for other OS's are generally not designed at all, they are just built. I keep an ugly Gateway PC in a side room for running junk like that when I need to, but it's an iMac running OSX that gets to sit in my living room. If I need real power, then I can pop up an X window on my iMac from the Linux server that lives in a closet where nobody sees it.
-Keslin, the naked nerd girl
Time and time again, /.ers complain that Apple takes but does not give back to Open source. If you believe that the only way to contribute to the Open Source Movement is by releasing all your intellectual property under the GPL license then by your estimations then it has taken and not given back. However, you are then being just as blindly bigotted and dogmatic as those who would only want software released under strict licenses at considerable expense and lack of freedom to the enduser (i.e. MS).
Apple has contribute to Open Source in several small, but significant ways. For a start, there are currently six open source projects at Apple that it is providing funding for under the APSL:
1) Darwin (the foundation of Mac OS X)
2) Quicktime streaming server.
3) Common Data Security Architecture (CDSA).
4) Open play - a cross platform network abstraction layer.
5) Headerdoc.
6) Documentation.
Apple gave back all this stuff away despite the fact that the BSD license doesn't force them too (in the case of Darwin).
Furthemore, Apple provides employment for Open Source programers, such as Jordan Hubbard (FreeBSD) and Guy 'Bud' Tribble (ex-Eazel) - although admittedly since Eazel went tits up because it couldn't make a profit from a GPL product, I don't think Dr. Tribble will be doing as much work on GPL software for a while.
Apple is really only going to expand if it can start making software for PCs...
This is the constant advice Apple gets and fortunately Apple wisely disregards it. Apple is very successful when considered as a hardware company. It's marketshare is comperable to it's hardware competitors. It has better gross profit margins, and far better customer loyalty. It has been expanding while it's hardware competitors are laying people off. And considering it's share of the overall market if they can convince just 5 more consumers out of 100 to buy macs they will double in size. Apple is a large, profitable hardware company with a lot of room to grow.
When considered purely as an OS vendor they do horrible with only 3% worldwide marketshare and pitifully small percent of their revenue coming from OS licenses.
When considered more broadly as a software company Apple does OK with several successful software titles in a wide variety of markets - A multimedia file standard and authoring software (Quicktime), Office productivity (Appleworks), Video editting (Final Cut Pro), DVD Authoring (DVD Studio Pro), Web Application Server (Web Objects) and database software (FileMaker) as well as a bunch of applications they give away for free to spur hardware sales. Still with all of their success in software it accounts for less than 1/6th of their revenue. The Year 2000 number I found had software revenue of $966 million out of total revenues of $6.135 billion.
Why would a company severely undermine a hardware business that brings in $5.168 billion dollars ion revenue to pursue a software business that only brings in $966 million? Yes they could start selling the software they currently give away for free and maybe expand MacOS marketshare - lets be generous and say that despite the enormous risks and costs they TRIPLE their software revenues by the time the completely transition from a hardware company to a software company - they would still by only HALF the size they currently are. It just doesn't seem worth the risk especially when the current business plan of using the software business to enhance the hardware business has proven to be quite profitable even in a recession.
and it has little of the traditional UNIX architecture
..
.DS_Store
.vol
/mach.sym
Not a Unix? Excuse me, but what part of...
[cty197:~] fuy% cd /
[cty197:/] fuy% ls -al
total 1228649
drwxrwxr-t 35 root admin 1146 Jan 11 08:58 .
drwxrwxr-t 35 root admin 1146 Jan 11 08:58
-rw-rw-rw- 1 fuy admin 8196 Jan 3 17:03
dr--r--r-- 2 root wheel 128 Jan 11 08:58
drwxrwxr-x 28 root admin 908 Jan 7 17:07 Applications
drwxrwxr-x 11 root admin 330 Nov 15 22:59 Developer
drwxrwxr-x 27 root admin 874 Dec 20 19:16 Library
drwxr-xr-x 6 root wheel 264 Nov 9 23:23 Network
drwxr-xr-x 3 root wheel 264 Dec 10 17:45 System
drwxr-xr-x 2 fuy unknown 264 Nov 12 08:54 Trash
drwxr-xr-x 4 root wheel 92 Nov 9 22:29 Users
drwxrwxrwt 3 root wheel 264 Jan 11 08:59 Volumes
dr-xr-xr-x 1 root wheel 512 Jan 11 11:08 automount
drwxr-xr-x 33 root wheel 1078 Dec 21 20:00 bin
lrwxrwxr-t 1 root admin 13 Jan 11 08:58 cores -> private/cores
dr-xr-xr-x 2 root wheel 512 Jan 11 08:58 dev
lrwxrwxr-t 1 root admin 11 Jan 11 08:58 etc -> private/etc
lrwxrwxr-t 1 root admin 9 Jan 11 08:58 mach ->
-r--r--r-- 1 root admin 563484 Jan 11 08:58 mach.sym
-rw-r--r-- 1 root wheel 3152156 Dec 8 00:40 mach_kernel
drwxr-xr-x 7 root wheel 264 Jan 11 08:59 private
drwxr-xr-x 59 root wheel 1962 Dec 21 20:01 sbin
lrwxrwxr-t 1 root admin 11 Jan 11 08:58 tmp -> private/tmp
drwxr-xr-x 10 root wheel 296 Dec 22 20:40 usr
lrwxrwxr-t 1 root admin 11 Jan 11 08:58 var -> private/var
...don't you understand?
>I also don't think OSX, while being UNIX-compatible, should be called a version of UNIX
Check your facts.
Actually it SHOULD be called UNIX:
1.) It's largely based on BSD. Despite what lawsuits say, BSD IS UNIX, and always has been.
2.) Apple's OS X got the UNIX (R) "certification a long time ago [slashdot.org]. So both technically and legally, OS X is UNIX.
Can you live with only one button, sure, but its easier with 3 , I honestly belive most mac users adhere to the use of one button mice for two reasons, Mac users are adverse to change, 2 they feel as most mac people they are unique a one button mouse is a seperation from the norm somehow make them special, individuals rather than part of some drummed up MS conspiracy crap.
My own observations as a fairly biased mac user: It is largely a matter of what you are used to. I find two button mice to be no great advantage when I use them. I suppose for a one handed person (or perhaps someone who's other hand is 'busy') a two-button mouse is a great increase in functionality and ease. But for two handed computing it is a step down in functionality (if not in ease) since now a mouse click is only modified by one other button rather than by the four modifier buttons a mac user is accustomed to (Command, option, control and shift). To gain the equivalent functionality that a mac user is accustomed to having at their left hand while their right hand manages the mouse you would need a 5-button mouse which seems like it would be unweildy and awkward (how would you move the thing with all five fingers up on the surface of it pushing buttons?).
A scroll wheel on the other hand is a huge advantage and something I wish Apple would either adopt or create a reasonable (or better) subsitute for. Of course their is no reason I couldn't get a mouse with more buttons and a scroll wheel.
Currently, under Mac OSX the output is limited to 1024x768 (even though the video card supports much more.) Yuck.
If you can only get 1024x768 under Linux, that would indicate that it's actually a hardware limitation.
If you can get more, however, that might indicate that there is hope for a BSD/Linux driver to be used as the basis for a new OSX driver that would unlock the capability of the hardware that Apple took away.
Apple is a hardware company that also sells software. A PC version of OS X would remove the reason for people to buy Apple hardware ...
Unless, of course, new features always came out a year later on the intel side.
.
I think we've pushed this "anyone can grow up to be president" thing too far.
The real problem is that Apple is a company with a history of striving for proprietary lock-in. Perhaps they've changed their ways. Perhaps. But I would need more evidence than I've seen so far. I like Apple. This doesn't mean that I trust them.
OTOH, I don't trust IBM unreservedly either. Many of their "friendly activities" seem to me more like strategic moves. So perhaps they are just "game playing" and the Open Source community is currently an ally against a different enemy.
OTOH, IBM does save money by using Linux instead of developing AIX. So they may be "permanent allies". As long as conditions remain the same.
It may be illegal for corporations to have ethics. Perhaps they need to be able to defend any action they take against a stockholders suit. Please keep this in mind when considering a corporation as a friend. They may be counting on banking your friendship. They probably have to be able to defend any action that they may take which could benefit (or harm) you in a court of law. Against their stockholders.
.
I think we've pushed this "anyone can grow up to be president" thing too far.
Here is a quick competitive analysis of Mac versus roughly equivalent Sony VAIO desktops as featured in Fry's. I used Sony because they throw in almost decent video editing software(1) and similar additional goodies to make their products roughly comparable to the iMac in raw feature checklist terms.
:-( ), and want a LCD monitor, the new iMac is comparable in price to an entry level Sony with a Celeron:
If you can take a 1024x768 screen (I can't
Sony: $ 799 + $ 500 Sony brand LCD = $ 1,299(2)
iMac: $ 1,299 with included LCD = $ 1,299
The iMac has the advantage of the super-cool form factor and desk arm to keep your desk clear for all the papers that inevitably collect on it. That's a convincing argument for the iMac right there.
(Of course you could get a cheap off-brand LCD with the Sony, but we're trying to compare (ahem) Apples to Apples, and the Sony monitor is what you need to get the same quality level as the Apple).
I would count the iMac 700mhz as very close in capability to the Pentium 4/1.5ghz, and if we do that comparison, Apple actually winds up looking cheap, even if we substitute the high-end iMac with the SuperDrive
Sony 1.5ghz $1,500 + Sony LCD = $ 2,000(*)
Apple 800mhz $ 1,800 = $ 1,800
and the Apple includes a DVD writer, which Sony users are bound to lust after. Even if you give the Sony an off-brand LCD that just drops them to the same price, and without the SuperDrive.
As you can see, Apple competitiveness is not half bad, if you compare it to a company with similar pretentions. In fact, some might consider it downright aggressive.
You can make similar comparisons with the iBook and Titanium PowerBook G4. I will admit, though, that at the moment the desktop line is long overdue for replacement. http://www.aapltalk.com/ did some very informative comparisons of all the lines.
Hope that was of interest.
D
(1) Microsoft's video editing software as bundled with XP is, well, quite honestly useless and therefore doesn't count as a competitor to iMovie. I know, because I tried it in the store. Horrible.
(2) Minus $ 50 rebate is $ 1,250, but I find myself losing rebate coupons or forgetting to use them at quite a remarkable rate. Which, of course, is what Sony is counting on.
Nah, it's like Tarzan. You know, the ape-man coming to live amongst the gentry.
--
"Outlook not so good." That magic 8-ball knows everything! I'll ask about Exchange Server next.
I fully agree: for better or worse, Linux is not UNIX. (The Linux kernel architecture, however, is more similar to UNIX than OSX's is.)
Darwin is UNIX, period.
Oh, and what is the reason you think that?
The difference between Microsoft making everything including the kitchen sink part of their operating system and Apple's behavior is that Apple is enclosing applications on their machines, not making them part of the system. Microsoft made IE an un-removable part of their OS... Apple lets you throw out iTunes, iMovie, iDVD, and iPhoto, and you can replace them with whatever you like. With my powerbook, iMovie didn't even come on the same CD as the OS any more. I installed it because I thought I might play with it sometime, but I haven't, so I'll probably just delete it.
There actually *are* commercial apps that do the things these apps do, in some cases better, and unlike in cases of Microsoft melding their apps into their system, on the Mac you can throw out the apple software (quickly, easily, and painlessly) and use fully functional alternatives. On Windows, you try making Netscape your browser for everything. IE will still come up regularly like it or not. On the Mac, IE is also the default browser but it took me about a minute to switch completely to Netscape once I'd configured my network. Most of that minute was remembering which control panel to make the change in. I threw IE out.
Apple can be accused of bundling software. (Whether they meet the legal definition of having done so or not, I have no idea, but I think we can agree that they give enough of the appearance of having done so that they could be accused of it.) However, they haven't displayed the heinous behavior of forcing you to *use* it.
It also doesn't hurt that Apple's software is usually easy to use and actually works.
It's too late now, but if they had licensed the original MacOS so that people could build cheap clones of MacIntoshes back in the 80's when the only competition on the desk top would have been MS-DOS 4.xx
True. That was the time when their OS advantage was so great they could have succesfully made the transition. Yet even then Apple was already a very large business, with decent marketshare and 50% gross profit margins on their boxes. It still would have been a very risky plan to go from a large and successful hardware maker to (initially at least) much smaller (if potentially more profitable) software company. At that time licensing an OS was an untried business plan - Microsoft was puny compared to Apple (and remained so for a lot longer than most realize) and was looking get out of the OS business itself - ironically to focus on selling MacOS applications. In hindsight Apple obviously should have licensed it's OS to clone manufacturers or at least cut it's gross margins to compete with cheaper IBM clones and killed the Windows market in it's infancy. But it wasn't obvious at the time and Apple chose to enjoy those huge profit margins rather than to dominate the industry. Oh well.
However, we would all be talking about the evil empire of Steve Jobs
Too true - he likes closed boxes and control over everything which is not necessarily bad (IMO) in a niche product but would be a disaster for the industry as a whole.
Well, perhaps people don't do it because it's not such a good idea after all. Apple's applications look slick and are often easy to use, but that doesn't mean that they made the best choice for the underlying graphics model.
In fact, the open source community does have something like this: Display PostScript (in multiple implementations). And there are good reasons why people don't use it.
Indeed. That's my point. The Darwin kernel is nicer and more modern than the BSD kernel or the old UNIX kernel. Why does Apple keep calling it "UNIX"? It's all marketing, because UNIX has a good reputation. Maybe one shouldn't complain about it, but that doesn't make it correct. And I'm sure the old UNIX hackers at AT&T would give you an earful about all the things that are wrong, according to them, with the Darwin architecture.
Don't forget mkLinux -- a formerly Apple-developed distribution, which they started back in '95-96 (i.e., a few years before the majority of
Your mouth is like Columbus Day.
And apparently the Apple zealots on /. have no sense of humor about it, given their trigger happy moderation. The worst thing about Apple is the smugness of the company and its users: according to them, Apple can never do anything wrong.
I can do the same on Windows or VMS or Linux, and those systems aren't "UNIX" (although they may be "UNIX compatible" or "emulating UNIX"). In fact, I think it's good that Apple has chosen a kernel with a more modern architecture.
Of course, but the term UNIX doesn't stand for it's original Thompson implementation anymore. It has evolved to encompass a whole family of operating systems, and I'm sure you would find some old UNIX hackers to criticize *BSD, Linux, Solaris, or any other UNIX out there......
I don't have much to add.
I've owned my G4 for about 2 years now. By day, I'm a windows programming lacky. But, thanks to OS X, by night I'm turning slowly into a Unix ninja. I love having a shell whenever I need it. I'm learning C on my box. I've used Apple's free project builder for a few chapters of a Java tutorial. I'm running mySQL. I'm running Apache, and serving from my Mac box 24/7. I'm also running PHP for the odd server side script... and I hope this only goes on and on. I love that Apple has really opened up the Unix world to me in a painless way. A few years back, I honestly tried to build a Linux box from some old 486 componentry. No dice. Couldn't get the drivers to work with my hodge-podge of hardware. The beauty of the Apple OS X experience is not having to worry about configuration, etc., and getting a secure, locked-down install of Unix that the newbie need not worry about, but is free to exploit as his knowledge grows. Thanks to Steve, I may just have a C++ job at EA one day...
Actually, Apple has been selling unix based servers for years, well before OS X Server.
I heard a story - most likely apocryphal but funny if it was true. Supposedly Apple sold a few UNIX workstations beyond the ones you mentioned. Apparently the internal art department in some company wanted macs but there was a corporate policy mandating Windows with a small loophole for the occasional UNIX workstation. Solution: sell the Macs through a subsidiary with MkLinux preinstalled as a "Unix Workstation" neither MacIntosh nor Apple appear on the invoice and the purchase is approved. Once the box arrives wipe Linux of the machine install MacOS from the CD and presto chango the designers are happily running their preferred OS despite company policy. Suposedly this was not a one time thing but a trick they used on a few occasions when trying to sell to large corporations with "Microsoft only" purchasing polices.
So i could pull a "Unix" application off the web, do a "make" on it and it will run flawlessly on OS X?
Yes.
First let me say good work on sounding like a complete fucking idiot. Your points don't seem to make alot of sense. The guy says people call IBM and Sun when they want a real Unix solution, not someone like...VA Linux. Besides Caldera the only companies you pointed out were...imagine that big time Unix vendors. You should also see Linux compatibility in Solaris and AIX as an insult rather than a compliment to your zealotry. By adding Linux compatibility to big real Unicies both companies are allowing you to run hippie software on real powerful machines and a real powerful OS. Irix is alive and kicking and SGI doesn't look like they're abandoning it. When exactly did the movie effects industry switch to Linux? Seems like all the big computer effect houses like ILM, Pixar, Dreamworks, and Disney all go for big workstations from SGI and Sun to do most of the real work. Ohhh wow you can run Renderman on Linux. Impressive.
Give you whiny Linux kids another ten years and you'll just be whiny Linux using adults. What is funny about Linux users is there are so few developers and so many users. A majority of Linux users will never ever contribute any code to any project ever. They will however complain about something that doesn't have the features they want or not all features work correctly. Yet when this feature lacking program is compared to a fully featured and robust closed source program they will hypocritically acclaim it as the best thing since sliced bread. Despite them never contributing code they think of themselves on par with open source developers who actually DO contribute code. Thus all open source software was produced by "the Linux community" and notby some dudes that are better programmers than all the other dudes. Recompiling your kernel != development.
I'm a loner Dottie, a Rebel.
1.) It's largely based on BSD. Despite what lawsuits say, BSD IS UNIX, and always has been.
The Open Group disagrees, and since they hold the trademark I tend to go with their opinions. For example, in their FAQ is a question regarding BSD/OS:
You can argue that it's "Unix", or "*nix", or whatever, but no BSD is UNIX. They could be, of course, if they were willing to foot the bill for certification, but apparently no one has.
2.) Apple's OS X got the UNIX (R) "certification a long time ago [slashdot.org] [slashdot.org]. So both technically and legally, OS X is UNIX.
I participated in that thread back on OSOpinion, before it was posted on /., and I don't recall anyone actually showing that OS X had been certified (actually, no one did on /. did either, if you read the thread). Apple is listed as a "Platform Vendor[] Supporting the Single UNIX Specification", but there is no mention of what OS that refers to, if in fact it has anything to do with UNIX licensing (I just scanned that section of the linked document, and it appears to be a list of vendors supporting that standard itself, rather than a platform that complies with the standard). There are no Apple OSes listed as certified UNIX systems under UNIX 98, 95, or 93, which seems to exclude both OS X and A/UX (which I had previously thought to be the best explanation for Apple involvement with the Single UNIX Spec).
It's true that Apple clearly implies that OS X is UNIX (I don't know if they say so outright or just stick to "UNIX-based"), but it appears that they're referring only to the kernel (not that they'll make that clear if they can help it). One the OS X pages states
(at the bottom, under "Core OS"). This is, AFAIK, legitimate, since Mach 3.0 was the kernel developer for OSF/1, which was presumably UNIX, but I do think they're pushing the line quite hard in some places.UNIX is still a live trademark of AT&T. I also suspect that the UNIX hackers at AT&T would not call OSX "UNIX" (although some of the more diplomatic ones might call it "UNIX-like" or "mostly UNIX compatible"). So, I'm not sure in what sense "UNIX doesn't stand for it's [sic] original Thompson implementation" (actually, it doesn't; it stands for a whole family of systems derived from Bell Labs source code, but not Linux or OSX).
Oh, is this so? Then why did they sell a Unix when Linus was still playing with Minix?
Lars T.
To the guy who modded me down from perfect to terrible Karma - Apple haters still suck