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Darwin 6.0.2 for x86 Released
Jos Louis writes "Apple has released the x86 version 6.0.2 of Darwin, the FreeBSD-based core of Mac OS X. You can download the bootable ISO on Apple's site."
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It been rumored that Apple would bring OS X to the x86 and has a working version in secrecy under penalty of death to whomsoever relveals it. Apple knows that they have something that the Linux/Windows geeks really want, just like we want the iPod to work under Windows.
Steve Jobs is not smoking crack, just weed.
Does anyone actually use Darwin on x86? I know it's good that Apple have kept open the core of their OS (although it'd be a good step to see more Aqua code), but surely if you want a PC-based UNIX you'd go for some BSD flavour or Linux in the first place.
Only reason I can see for running Darwin is for Mac hackers who want to enhance the OS -- but that poses another question: does Apple accept patches?
This is a serious question -- what are the benefits of Darwin being open?
I assume Apple don't build their production software with GCC, or do they?
Anybody care to comment - as best they can - on the difference between the GCC compiled code and code compiled with whatever tools Apple use?
Okay, every time there's an OS X story on Slashdot, someone asks when they'll be able to use it on x86 hardware, and someone else responds and says, "Never!"
So here we have "the x86 version 6.0.2 of Darwin, the FreeBSD-based core of Mac OS X". Huh? Is it just the user interface part of OS X that there's no x86 version of? And exactly how much stuff does this "FreeBSD-based core" contain? Is it just a kernel, filesystem, and some basic utilities, or what?
"Destroy science and religion. Science would re-emerge exactly the same; but not religion." - Penn Jillette, paraphrased
Just out of curiosity, is anyone actually using Darwin? If you do use Darwin, why do you use it?
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Open Source Shirts
Basically this just means that developers who write console applications, servers, etc can now port and test with ease.
This is good for Apple because they get more for free.
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If I were to install this on my machine, what exactly would I get?
Would it be just a basic BSD-like OS? Would any OS X features be there?
In short, how much of a running Mac OS X install is OS X and how much is Darwin?
-Miles
Fuzzy
Having Darwin to play with is cute and all. But it would be really nice if **Carbon** was a platform independant library. Apple keeps complaining when OSS programmers emulate the look and feel of a Carbon application instead of calling the real thing. But if you want your application to not be tied specifically to MacOS X then your better off using winelib or wx for your widget set. If Apple wants OSS programmers to use the real thing then they should provide the real thing to OSS programmers.
Must be an older version than the binary
that ships w/ 10.2.
% uname -a
Darwin *.*.*.* 6.1 Darwin Kernel Version 6.1: Fri Sep 6 23:24:34 PDT 2002; root:xnu/xnu-344.2.obj~2/RELEASE_PPC Power Macintosh powerpc
Ergonomica Auctorita Illico!
Darwin Streaming Server can stream MPEG-1, MPEG-2, and MPEG-4. It can also stream with codecs like H.263 that are compatible with open source solutions. And QuickTime streaming itself is based on RTP/RTSP/SDP, etcetera. The only thing propritary is QuickTime specific codecs, and DSS doesn't know from codecs and clients.
As Charles Wiltgen says, "Darwin Streaming Server is the Apache of Streaming."
My video compression blog
Apple started doing this in 1999 at great expense and effort. In this time, has it paid off? I really don't know, so please enlighten me if it has or hasn't.
Okay...maybe this has already been posted and I missed it, or maybe I'm way off...but here's my take on the situation.
The reason Apple is releasing Darwin for x86 is because Motorola has very little incentive to keep up in the processor wars. Granted, the PowerPC chipset is fantastic, it's just not a big player anymore as Motorola has better things to do than to cater to Apple's whims.
Just as they released an infantile Darwin for PowerPC, they are releasing it now for x86 so that people can port their drivers to Darwin. Once Apple has enough hardware support, they are one step closer to porting Aqua and all the higher layers of MacOS X towards the x86 architechture and having a way of escaping the sluggish Motorola chips.
MacOS X is a fantastic operating system and unfortunately it is far from living to its potential due to inferior and expensive chips from one provider. This is one step in the direction that people have been encouraging apple to make for the past 15 years. We all know that Apple is slow to respond, they like to take their time and make sure it is the right decision before they do anything drastic.
Imagine how much cheaper an x86 Mac would be and how much of a heavyweight they would finally be if MacOS X became an option to the other 95% of the computing population. I believe that this is just Apple keeping all their options open with a miniscule investment on their part.
I'd still like to see two buttons on the iBook, or heaven for bid they put a wheel on their stupid buttonless mouse. I love Apple, but sometimes they just have their thumbs up their asses. Hopefully this is a move in the right direction.
Which of the standard C or C++ libraries are those?
And your original statement "Due to the viral nature of the GPL, any software compiled using GCC could be considered a "derivative work" of the GCC, thus forcing that software to be open- source under the terms of the GPL"
Is still totally wrong. Any software including GPL libraries that come with GCC, yes, they would be restricted by the GPL... but you quite clearly stated that all software built with gcc is automatically GPL, which is BS.
That's exactly right. People under 18 (in the US; varies in other jurisdictions) can't legally waive their copyright-derived rights over their works. In order to release software under a license like the APSL or the GPL requires that the licensor waive certain rights that would ordinarily be protected by copyright. (I'm not sure if this is true of the BSD license, but I don't believe it is. The BSD license doesn't require the licensor to give up any rights, as far as I know.)
The important side-note to this is that any GPL'd software that includes contributions by persons who are or were under 18 at the time is being distributed illegally. By the letter of the law, anyway.
I write in my journal
Second, the Cocoa API is more or less source-code compatable with GNUStep. What is GNUStep? It's an open-source implementation of the Objective-C OpenStep APIs on top of X11. What's OpenStep? It's the open standard that NeXT released and implemented and eventually became Cocoa. You can write full-fledged OSX applications that cross-compile for GNUStep on Linux TODAY.
I've been researching GNUSteplately and wondering why it doesn't get more high profile attention. The GNUStep framework seems to solve many of the same problems that GNOME and KDE are trying to solve. However, instead of reinventing the wheel, GNUStep uses a time-tested API design that is source compatible with Mac OS X (a platform many people consider the pinnacle of user-centric Unix). What can GNOME and KDE do that GNUStep/OpenStep cannot?
I believe the biggest problem for GNUStep is that few people use Objective C. That is a big speedbump to people adapting their legacy code.
cpeterso
This is actually a myth. Yes, the FSF believes it. No, no one is willing to challenge them in court. But dependency does not define derivation.
A Government Is a Body of People, Usually Notably Ungoverned
Time to go back a little in the Wayback machine. I have a set of Rhapsody CDs, which (as I understand it) was Darwin + Mac_goodness, basically NeXTStep + Mac stuff. Now, I don't have the floppies for it, so I've never been able to test it. But, would anyone like to comment on how well it works, the state of Pre-Aqua on X86, etc, etc?
"Sometimes a woman is a kind of religion, she can save your soul & set you free from all your sins" - Bad Examples
"Yes Apple licensed a codec, you want access to it find someone willing to pony up the cash like Apple did."
/legally/ give everyone the run around like this, but I don't think it's /ethical/ for them to do so. It may even be bad business.
/is/ rocket science and if Apple were serious about delivering for media people they'd put their codec money together with other people's and have the technology developed in the open. They can differentiate elsewhere without wasting all these resources on duplicated effort.
My understanding (and so this is 2nd hand, but I don't see you doing any better) is that when you call Apple they say "Ask Sorenson" and when you call Sorenson they say "Ask Apple".
Yes, they can
Worse, experience suggests that if a better alternative is developed and made free Apple AND Sorenson will do everything in their power to discourage their users from accessing this improved technology.
The duplicability versus scale problem hits big for this kind of stuff. Everyone hiring one or two academics, making them sign NDAs and keeping them apart is not the most effective way of delivering improved compression to real users. That's why we have a dozen competing "next generation" streaming audio codecs, none of which are universally available. [It would be nice to think that MS & Apple will see sense and ship Vorbis but don't count on it]
This
If I were a guru I bet I could make it work, but alas, woe is me...
You are mostly correct except for this:
Umm, why not use Java 1.4 and Swing? That's about as crossplatform as it gets. Wx would be ok too
It does not matter how well those work, for any real application development "native widgets" does not work, no matter how much you wish it did. The differences are just too great. Simple things like order (system a needs A before you can send it B, while system b needs B before A) can make it impossible to port your code without the differences percolating directly to the highest level. How else do you explain that virtually all Open Source development uses toolkits (Qt, GTK, FLTK, Mozilla, Fox, Tk, ...) that draw things at a low level and bypass any native widgets.
In any case, GNUStep, if it works, would be a very good idea. I don't have a good explanation as to why it does not seem to be succeeding, I know Gnome was looking for a toolkit at one time and they don't seem to have considerd using it. It may also be that it was too hard to make Windows-like programs using GNUStep.
Possibly the popularity of OS/X will help. GNUStep should make their #1 priority to clone Cocoa as closely as possible in such areas as widget sizes and shapes so that portable programs will work. If they do not do this then it will be just like wx where it is not much use for portable programs except for small demos.
actually that is not correct. You are probably still thinking of the days when the OS required Apple ROMS on the logic board. This has not been the case for 4 years now.
The main issue is one of "endian-ness". PCs are little-endian and Macs (and many other non-PC platforms) are big-endian. This byte-switch either has to happen in software or hardware. In the case of graphics cards its better to have it happen in hardware for performance reasons. If a manufacturer does not include the appropriate code for the byte-switching then you can't use a PC card on a Mac (and vice-versa). Some however have been able to "flash" the ROMs on certain cards (ATI mostly) since they actually manufacture and write the drivers for their cards. Unlike NVIDIA which only make the chip set, other manufacturers make the cards. Apple is either making the cards for their Macs or contracting someone else to make them.
Make sense now?
great article. I was surprised that osx even approached the performance of linux, and it seemed to be consistently about 75-90% as fast. Now of course, that comparison only tested osx 10.1.5, and there has been significant work on darwin since - I'd love to see an updated shootout.
I'll be honest. Prior to actually using a Mac, I was a basher (the people who scoff at anything that doesn't say Linux on it). I would probably still be a basher today if my C++ teacher hadn't dared me to deviate from my GNU/GPL world. The first time I used Mac OS X, I wished I had never spoke a single word against Apple. Apple enlightened me beyond Linux and refined my thinking. Java and UNIX *really* are great things. Who knew?! In July 2001, I moved to a Power Mac G4. Now, I'm developing with Mac OS X Server and it is the most phat system in the world.
It doesn't freeze. It doesn't crash. It doesn't require me to reboot when I change network settings. It boots fast. Its sleep function actually works. I don't need virus software. There is no system tray. It lets me run a gazillion media and programming applications without taking a performance hit. And (even though my fellow programmers won't admit it) it is beautiful.
My Mac never requires technical support. It is fast, efficient, and compatible with the rest of the world. Everything is better on the Mac overall.
Warm regards, Jeremiah Cohick
'A lie if repeated often enough, becomes the truth.' - Goebbels
Simple. Free testing of their ix86 based code. Rumor has it that they are keeping that option open should PPC architecture fall far behind that of ix86. Making this release just allows them to have it publicly tested and improved.
It's a back burner project anyway, but having to make these releases makes it a bit more formal and forces them to achive certain usability goals. Plus, it helps ix86 development keep up with their main Darwin core.