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Benjamin Herrenschmidt On PPC/Linux, Apple and OSS
MacBoy writes "The folks over at ResExcellence have a great interview with Benjamin Herrenschmidt, kernel guru for the PPC/Linux camp. He offers up some history of Linux on Apple and PPC hardware, and some discussion on Apple's current and past contributions to the open-source and Linux communities. He makes some interesting comparisons of Linux on PPC vs. Intel hardware, such as the ease of getting important patches into the kernel on PPC compared to Intel. It's an interesting read, especially if you are amoung the many who covet the new Dual-CPU GHz G4 Macs and want to know a little more about the PPC/Linux community."
Umm, have you ever used it?
/Applications. The admin tools are in /Applications/Utilities. If that's deep, you need to stick to MS Bob.
> I don't have to mention the GUI do I. Apple's is
> terribly slow and most of it is in fact useless.
That's just from outer space. It can get bogged down, sometimes, but it remains extremely peppy and always responsive on my G4 400.
> OS X costs $129.00
And it's a bargain for that.
> OS X hides many admin tools deep in the GUI
Care to name one? The applications are in
> Apple should have built OS X off of Linux if they were smart
Or, they could have stuck with the system that the OS was developed on, the development environment that everything is targeted for, and the environment that they retain complete control of (and doesn't come with thousands of screaming teenagers.)
There should be a moratorium on the use of the apostrophe.
Max V.
NeXTMail/MIME Mail welcome
I'm no Apple user, but I had the chance to play a bit with Macs for some weeks and I'm afraid you're dead wrong.
I'm sure Linux is faster than OS-X for some tasks. Probably a lot of them, actually. But are those the tasks OS-X is geared to?
A web-server? What do you need a GUI and Aqua for in a pure web-server? You don't put KDE and GLTron on your Linux webserver, do you? OSX without Aqua is not OSX, it's Darwin.
OS-X is a desktop-geared operating system. It's made for interactive use, to play with Photoshop, 3D animation, movie editing, software development and whatever the user happens to require. It contains a web-server (and all the other servers) because it's useful for the user/developer. The user wants to see his personal webpage at once. The developer wants to code and deploy.
System requirements? Can I run KDE/GNOME on "very little memory" anymore than I can run Aqua? I don't think so. I tried a couple of times, and I feel stupid for trying. Linux can survive in very little memory just like Darwin can, but Linux-OSX is no valid comparison.
I don't understand either what you're saying about admin tools deep in the GUI. The shell is right there, waiting to be used as always and with all the tools one needs. So are their GUI front-ends, which I never had problems to find as a non-Mac user, and which are much simpler and convenient (the whole point of the GUI front-end) than any I have seen in Linux.
What does Linux offer in advantage to the GUI's organization in OSX? Are you talking about KDE, or GNOME, or something else, any of which you could install over Darwin (if they can be installed in LinuxPPC)?
Apple's GUI is not so slow these days (maybe it was in 10.0). At least it didn't seem to me when I used it, and it's not like I had the time to "get used to it". Not as responsive as my Win box, but much more responsive than my Linux with XFree. Useless? If you mean the pretty effects, transparency, etc... sure, but it's part of the Mac style. Aesthetics matter. If they didn't, you probably wouldn't be buying a Mac.
Price? For a competent, fully-functional, user-friendly desktop system based on Unix? I would prefer free, of course, but if I were willing to pay for the Mac I'd pretty much buy the OS-X no questions asked. But of course, that's included in the price of the Mac.
Apple did the smart thing using BSD/NextStep. Even if they didn't consider it a superior, more robust Unix as they said, it lets them avoid the politics that surround Linux. Just not having to deal with all the license zealotry and "Linux is always better" chanting is worth the price.
Freedom is the freedom to say 2+2=4, everything else follows...
How much would you pay to get ProjectBuilder and InterfaceBuilder for Linux?
We get 'em for free with Mac OS X, and also get a copy of Mac OS 9.2 for free.
Oh sure, rant as much about OS 9. How often do you have to boot in Windows to do something (your favorite game, or perhaps Word).
So, see it this way: for 130$, you get 4 distros:
Mac OS X (Quarts etc)
Incredible dev tools
Mac OS 9
I say that's pretty good value for the buck. (Besides, if you buy a new machine, you get all that anyhow).