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Interview with Jordan Hubbard About DarwinPorts
Gentu writes "OSNews hosts an interview with Jordan Hubbard (of Apple, OpenDarwin, and FreeBSD fame) where they discuss DarwinPorts and how they compare to Fink. There is also a hint from Jordan that there might be some of the FreeBSD 5.x advancements to be found in Mac OS X 10.3 (Panther) that is coming out, reportedly, this autumn."
The interviewer didn't ask for Hubbard's reasoning for leaving a dying free OS to join a dying company.
yes I'm joking
Trolling is a art,
Dying+dying = Living!! =)
Ñ'
Let us just hope that the Darwin ports don't fall prey to natural selection
...that's why they BSD-licensed the shit. But good troll!
-Looking for a job as a materials chemist or multivariat
Why so bitter?
First of all, it may very well be a free upgrade.
Second, if you don't think it's worth it, nobody is going to force you to get the newer version.
I for one am glad that Apple is heavily updating the operating system. It's a new OS and it's by far my favorite, but it still needs a lot of work to be perfect.
Why yes, it probably will cost $130 for the upgrade to 10.3 (Panther). Of course, there is no requirement to upgrade. If the new features are worth the price, then do it. I know that I will be upgrading.
I agree, that is a bit steep for a 1-year upgrade, but let's give them the benefit of the doubt on pricing before we start vilifying them. As for cost, I thought Mac-heads were supposed to be used to paying 2-3 times typical cost for stuff. (NO, that's NOT flamebait!)
The question is also, can you keep using 10.2 when 10.3 comes out? I suspect so. In fact, I kind of like the way this works - they release a new upgrade every year, but probably the last 3-4 years of upgrades work perfectly. This way, though, there is a *new* version of Mac OS out whenever you upgrade. That's pretty cool. So the only people who really get gouged are people who feel like they have to have an updated OS every year, which you couldn't even get from M$ if you wanted it. (Yeah, service packs don't count ;))
I've been using Macs since 1984, but I've given up now. The only reason I'm keeping my Mac is to run legacy apps.
Interesting, I wouldn't even touch the damned things until 10.2 came out...
-Looking for a job as a materials chemist or multivariat
I don't agree, hp and compaq tried that one and end up with, big company with problems + big company with problems = very big company with lots of problems.
James
Bleh.. $130? I think not.. =)
If you're a student, you can usually go to your campus computer store and pick up a copy for $20..
Just when you make it idiotproof, some idiot builds a better idiot.
Telling Apple to start selling software for the Intel platform is just like suggesting that Coca Cola "expand" into apparel manufacture. It may very well prove lucrative, but it's totally not what the company is all about.
Ñ'
What I suspect you are really saying is that you would like to run OS X but don't want to to shell out the cash to buy the required hardware. What you fail to realise is that a soon as you take OS X and make it available on the huge variety of Intel-based platforms, it does not "Just Work!" anymore. Any amount of time spent trying to find the right drivers for Linux or Windows will tell you that. There is a lot to be said for having control of the OS and the hardware on which it runs.
If you want OS X, get a job and get a Mac like the rest of us had to.
Modest doubt is called the beacon of the wise. - William Shakespeare
Because I doubt apple would do any better than Microsoft of keeping up with all the various hardware you can get for i386 compared to the rather sparse selection that is available for PPC... especially HW that is "apple-approved".
They do have Darwin ported.. (it's not really useful as it only supports very limited hardware..)
You also have to keep in mind.. if they're building an OS for their hardware, it's much easier to keep wraps on bug issues, etc.. If they were to move to intel, they'd have SOOO many device drivers to write, etc..
Just when you make it idiotproof, some idiot builds a better idiot.
OSX on an eMachine, disgusting. Apple has made its way by being different. Going to the Intel world would make it just another box.
photosMy Photostream
I think it is important to point out that the 2-3 times the *typical* cost will also yield you 2-3 times the *typical* stability and usability of comparable machines. Maybe there is an Apple luxury tax, but Apple users are more likely to be satisified.
Heute die Welt, morgen das Sonnensystem!
as someone who uses computers for both research and creative purposes and at the same time need compatability with the masses (i.e. M$office compatability) I have finally made the decision to switch from my current dual boot windoze/linux config to mac. I can now run all the professional level music production software I need for work, my free linux apps, research group unix software and M$office on one system without the need for reboots / emulators etc...
I had been trying linux/openoffice/wine for some time, but to me mac osx is the ideal solution (despite the cost)
If I want a Unix with spotty peripheral support and availability of applications, my choices are Linux and MacOS.
Spotty peripheral support? The only reason Windows has better peripheral support than either of those two is that hardware vendors supply drivers, and they supply drivers for the OS with a 90% installed base -- Windows.
But more and more peripherals are being supported under Linux and MacOS X. Some by reverse-engineering, but many hardware vendors are now stepping up to the plate and providing Linux and MacOS X drivers.
If you want to support Linux or MacOS X, then only buy hardware from those manufacturers that provide drivers. For instance, HP has open source (BSD license) drivers available for CUPS, LinkSys provides drivers for Linux (at least) for some of its products, etc.
If you don't like that OSes other than Windows have inadequate or missing driver support -- use your OS of choice and VOTE WITH YOUR WALLET and buy peripherals from vendors that provide Linux or MacOS X drivers, rather than whine and complain that Linux and MacOS X have spotty peripheral support. Or, better yet, get down and dirty and start reverse engineering products and coding your own open source drivers.
My journal has hot
Unfortunately. since OS X is still a growing system, I have found that the OS updates become required very very quickly. Many applications updates thereafter will make use of the improvements and break backwards compatability. This is even true with small updates. I would love this update if it were free, but I don't like being forced to cough up cash to keep getting bug fixes to my favorite applications.
What siskbc said.
Mac OS upgrades are typically more interesting than Linux or even Windows upgrades as Apple tends to make it a point to add a significant change in performance and luxury to the operating system. Since Mac OS X is still relatively young, the changes you may see in 10.3 will be striking--or, to some people, a "Duh!" move.
For one, the Finder is the butt of jokes, and needs multithreading and greater power.
Second, I think Samba needs more work.
This summer, Apple fans should expect to see some serious shit. Strong rumors of the PowerPC 970 chip will probably come true (amidst NDAs) from WWDC as super-Mac hardware may finally arrive with all the system bus, cache, and 64-bit power that's needed to return Macs to compare reasonably to Pentium systems. Next, Mac OS X matures, and goes 64-bit compatible (if it's not already there).
Vos teneo officium eram periculosus ut vos recipero is.
You guys obviously didn't hear about the seeded developer testing of a "White box" from Apple. The case was welded shut to avoid intrusion, and reportedly contained an Athalon chipset. OS X IS ported to i386 and IS working. I don't see why Apple holds back, but it sure is cool to know that they have an ace up their sleeve...
"...these observers report that Apple has been serious enough about its ace in the hole to seed a few lucky civilians with prototype boxes - delivered heavily swaddled in layers of cloak-and-dagger security, natch. Specifically, recent testers report taking delivery of Athlon-powered boxes that Apple had assiduously welded shut to prevent prying eyes from ogling whatever other gremlins might be lurking inside these nondescript beige chassis." -MacEdition
I got nothin'.
Or, better yet, get down and dirty and start reverse engineering products and coding your own open source drivers.
Unless you live in the USA in which case reverse engineering could get you thrown in jail -- because congress is sure that by reverse engineering you must either be a terrorist or a thief.
Whew! I feel better.
--
Slashdot: Group session for Nerds.
There is a lot to be said for having control of the OS and the hardware on which it runs.
Yeah. If Apple were even remotely succesful people might actually say that their control over their hardware is monopolistic. People get pissed when their 6 year old printer doesn't work in Windows XP and yet Apple seems to be fine completely restricting their hardware.
Next time I go to a birthday party I'm gonna tell the person I give a present to that it's GPL-licensed. That way, if they actually use the present, they have to go give it away.
-Looking for a job as a materials chemist or multivariat
I got pissed when I found that my extensive VHS collection would not work in my DVD player. WTF? DVD is supposed to be better, right? Those bastards at Samsung are screwing me!
Modest doubt is called the beacon of the wise. - William Shakespeare
Cola Cola already has jackets and shirts and even cocaclock radios! I'm sure they're makin a pretty penny off it.
Can I get an eye poke?
Dog House Forum
While your case is good for Linux you are way off for OS X. This is especially true with your example of HP printers. HP provides Mac (OS 8,9 and X) drivers for all of their USB printers. When it comes to mice and keyboards both Logitech and Microsoft support Mac. Actually, almost anything that is USB has Mac drivers. The only time you are limited is when you have something with Parallel or Serial interface since those aren't typically available with a Mac.
I think perhaps you cut and paste your post from somewhere else and just added an "and/or Mac OS X" throughout.
If you think I'm kidding, you can rest assured that your Linux distro includes something, somewhere, that came into existance as a result of Apple's work, whether directly or indirectly. Yeah... you know fully well that things get ported from one free software project to another. That's the whole point. (Ever seen the BSD license on something in your Linux distro? Yeah. That's right!) And if it wasn't "copied" as code, it was "copied" in theory.)
I was an advocate of various Linux distros for a long time, until I finally tried FreeBSD. This was relatively recent: 3.3-RELEASE had just shown up in stores and I bought a boxed set that included the FreeBSD handbook. Not ten minutes passed after installation completed on one of my machines and I was hooked. Since that moment, I can't stand the SysV style that most Linux distros have adopted. SysV is just too complicated... all kinds of directory structures stretching on for infinity, and WHY?! FreeBSD puts everything at your fingertips. (No offense to Linux advocates and developers, as I continue to use Linux on many machines at home and at work. But I really do wish that BSD-style admin stuff would show up in more Linux distros... If I had the time to do it myself, I would have done it a long time ago. But as you know: 1, setting up a truly intuitive environment is difficult; and 2, I'm wasting all my time posting junk all over /. and don't have any time left to do useful stuff.)
Back to OSX... No, I have not switched to "the dark side" yet. I am waiting for Apple to natively support x86, which shouldn't be too complicated considering that the software they used to build the operating system is relatively portable. I would be all over an x86 Apple iBook. It is the hardware that currently prevents me from switching.
Oh yeah... and keep up the good work, Jordan.
How is that applicable to the discussion at hand? You are talking about totally different formats not backward compatibility for the same format. A better example would be my old VHS tape not working in a new SVHS player. I would bet a lot of people would be pissed if that was the case.
Modest doubt is called the beacon of the wise. - William Shakespeare
I think you could have abbreviated that to "The finder is BUTT" without losing any accuracy. Seriously, I think Windows Explorer is better, and that must have been difficult for Apple to accomplish.
Second, I think Samba needs more work.
Well YOU just won the understatement of the year award! Samba implementation on the mac has been pretty spotty. I've had some issues with disconnects between the "apple" username and the "BSD" username, with the result that I simply couldn't use samba for certain user accounts. That has to change. Also, I can't mount stuff by hand really well from command line with mount -t smbfs. If I do, it will recognize it and give me a mounted volume icon. But then, if I go to eject it, it hangs with the SBOD (spinning beachball of death), and I have to force quit finder. Not cool.
Also, if they would change the way they do aliases/links, that would be good. It should be integrable with unix, and now it's not. I want to be able to create an alias under Mac OSX, and then, when I mount that volume under samba from a linux/windows machine, I want it to be navigable (if the alias is a directory). Right now, apple aliases don't work like that, and just show up as a file in samba. Not so good. I want aliases, in the future, to be implemented pretty much as symlinks.
So when you get down to it, FIX SAMBA!!! ;)
-Looking for a job as a materials chemist or multivariat
academic pricing rocks. I got my first chem set there for science. blew my eyebrows off and I haven;t looked back since.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
People, please, it's been answered already a thousand times. Stop asking!@@$#$%@
Here, for your reading enjoyment, is the text of the last time I responded to this question. (And here is the link.) Please distribute this text/link to every nerd on earth so that we can dispense with this question once and for all.
The lack of clones is the major problem with Apple? Sure, it keeps prices high and marketshare low. It's true. It is the worst thing about the platform.
And yet, it is also the one single thing that makes them unique in the market and gives them value. The vertical integration they have (hardware/os/iapps) allows them to a) innovate their product line faster and more radically than some other hardware/software makers and b) allows them to sell an entire end-to-end solution (like firewire-imovie-idvd-superdrive) with a user experience better than anyone elses. These things are at the core of what makes Apple Apple. Take them away - take away the vertical integration by doing clones - and what you get is cheaper boxes and much rejoicing...and a dead/dying platform within 2 years because it has lost that which made it valuable to begin with.
Bonus point: Why should anyone care? Certainly Mac users should care, but others should, too. Apple has an influence on the personal computer industry that is vastly disproportionate to its marketshare. They innovate. Others follow. Therefore, a healthy Apple is good for the industry. Mac clones = bad for Apple = bad for the pc industry.
You like your Macintosh better than me, don't you Dave? Dave? Can you hear me Dave?
I hear this a lot, but to be honest I don't see it as a showstopper. There may be a billion and one hardware devices available for the PC, but that doesn't mean Apple has to write drivers for them all.
I really can't imagine it's beyond Apple to ship a version of OS X for i386 that supports maybe ten different motherboards, five graphics cards, five sound cards, ten printers and maybe a few things like scanners and firewire cards. If they were to do this, retailers could immediately start building systems for (say) £600 that screamed past G4 systems twice the price. I suspect this market would take off extremely quickly; and of course, as it did, OEMs with any sense would start writing drivers to ship with their devices.
I know as geeks what we all really want is to take OS X home and install it on our existing computers; but I don't think it's too unreasonable that we should have to upgrade some of our hardware at the same time - or of course write drivers for the hardware we already have!
When MacOS X for Intel/AMD architectures?
Next Tuesday.
It sounds like you're using OS 9..
the 8600 is less than 100mhz, so that may have something to do with it, i have a powermac 9100 that has 12 dimm slots and takes up to 1.5gb memory. it smokes on os9.2.2 :) seriously though, the 8600 is a dinosaur and 64 megs of ram is inadequate for anything above os 8.6, unless you are a wizard with extension, and that is probably not the case.
that 8600 can be ugraded to a viable machine. my 9100 can get a processor upgrade into g4 territory for a couple hundred (a bit expensive for my wallet), take 1.5gb ram, has 6 pci slots and plenty of room for 5.25 and 3.5 drives. the 8600 on the other hand takes Apple SIMMs and is not something worth salvaging as a mac machine. put linux on it and have some fun. the 8500 i play with with debian runs way better than my old ibm, which stacks up even in megahertz, disk space (ide on x86, scsi on ppc) and ram (32mb). they are identical for all intents and purposes, but powerpc architechture will always do better.
that is not a 300mhz machine, either. maybe 300watts, but that is upgradable to 400
10.1 was free for owners of 10.0.
10.2 was 80$ with student discount 10.0-10.1 upgrade 20$, 10.3 will be 80$ to students...or anyone who says they are a student and knows the name of a university.
Apple has shown a history of giving out every other upgrade for free. 10.1 was free, 10.2 wasn't, 10.3 prly will be. IMEO, anyway.
The roots of education are bitter, but the fruit is sweet.
--Aristotle
I'm equally sure they do not produce this in-house but linsence their brand out to some clothes manufacturer.
Ñ'
Sounds like you're describing BeOS which didn't do very well only supporting 5 different graphics cards, sounds cards etc.
Just a couple points to ponder.
There's more to a computer than just the CPU so there's a lot more that's different between a Mac and a PC from a hardware standpoint.
Having said that, Apple could still "replace" the PPC with a 386 variant, keeping the rest of the system the same (or as close to the same as they can). They've invested a lot in the "supporting" hardware.
IOW, OS X could be made to run on a 386 variant, but that doesn't mean it will run on any "generic" PC.
1. MS would take it as a threat and possibly stop developing Office for Mac (bad thing for the platform even if you don't like Office)
2. It would take Apple years and years to write hardware drivers for all the PC hardware out there, and if they left it up to the manufacturers of the devices, it would take even longer and those drivers probably would bring down the stability of Mac OS.
3. Yes they make that much money from their hardware business.
Well, personally, I could see how Apple would port OS X to Intel architecture mainly to use it as leverage.
They may build and sell a lot of systems, but it's a mere drop in the bucket compared to the number of people using Intel or AMD processor in their machines.
Apple might have felt threatened that they couldn't push a chip-maker (like IBM) to give them a sucessor to the G4 quickly enough to prevent Apple computers from lagging too far behind PCs in the performance curve.
Therefore, they needed to make it clear that they weren't going to simply sit around and wait for someone to build them the next CPU. What better a way to send that message than to say "Hey, we have our OS running on existing AMD (or Intel) CPUs. If we're pushed up against a wall, we can go that route - and then we won't be buying *any* of the new CPUs you guys develop. So how about stepping up that timetable on production?"
Good joke, wrong crowd. All Mac freaks know that Apple releases stuff on Tuesdays (typically). For at least 2 months now, and probbably more, both a new 15" Aluminum Powerbook and a new iPod have been coming.
Alas, not this Tuesday. Maybe NEXT Tuesday. Of course, nowadays the popular money is on Apr 28 (a Monday???), but who really knows.
When you said 20 minutes, the first thing that clicked in my mind is this guys having some problem. You definitely have something bad in your system and blaming it on Apple, if its really taken you 20 minutes.
Gather up more diverse experience in different macs and different wintels before making a judgement. Apple is known for its stability and speed over wintel in all quarters, not because a bunch of mac fans tried copying a file on a 486 running windows98 and 8 mb ram, with viruses etc, for 20 minutes, then gave up on it.
"Give orange me give eat orange me eat orange give me eat orange give me you." -Nim Chimpsky
do not feed him, he posts this to every apple story. plus hes wanking it to the fact that you people are responding to him, yes even this post too.
Wow man, you really like to post this, don't you... http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=59343&threshol d=0&commentsort=3&tid=179&mode=thread&cid=5644317. If you have been waiting for that file copy for the weeks since you've last posted, may I suggest killing that process? In the mean time, come up with some new material to add to our discussion, Mr. Troll.
today is spelling optional day.
Jordan Hubbard is very much involved in FreeBSD. He is not the leeader but he is a core developer with CVS write access. His involvement with Mac OS X and FreeBSD helps both in ways that are invisible (most of the time) to the end user.
CDE open sourced! https://sourceforge.net/projects/cdesktopenv/
Funny....I just set up fink on my iBook the other day after setting up XFree86. I plug in at work and can use xdm query to our HP, Solaris and linux database boxes. I use it has a handy extra terminal. I also do recording with my Bluegrass band with my iBook (why I bought it) and OS X has made it so I can use it at work too..(Oracle DBA) now that there is a OCI client, JDBC clients for 10.1 and 9iR2 for 10.2, OpenOffice and Mozilla I don't forsee needing Microsoft products for anything...(goodbye IE in a few days)
I am on 10.1 still but will be popping for 10.2 shortly as drivers and audio apps are now ready for my MOTU 828. (no need for MacOS 9.2 then)
(I don't work for Apple BTW)
Certainly OS X is IMHO the most interesting OS right now.
I say if you are buying a notebook get a Mac...intall fink, Mozilla, OpenOffice and leave MS behind.
Free-for-all is not the only way to go with clones. Apple could specify the standards and license fees to ship a clone and then put checks in MacOSX to only allow it to boot on approved hardware. Yes, someone will hack it, but the result will not be sold in CompUSA. Apple doesn't have much to loose, when they'll still get money from anyone who competes well with their own hardware.
Find out where the DEC guys who wrote FX32 are working. If they are at apple, you have your answer.
FX32, for those that don't know, was an add-on to NT for Alpha, that ran x86 binaries natively. And it was awesome. Although this will be sort of the reverse of that, the mindset is the same.
Anyone here familiar enough with FreeBSD 5.x to know what features Hubbard may have been referring to when he said "we'll have to wait for the 10.3 Panter release"?
Right, because you can of course run OSX binaries compiled for Motorola chips on an x86. Dumbass.
Oh, and be sure to convince Apple that people don't really mind noisy fans to dissipate all the heat (no really, those people complaining about the MDD Macs were just being sarcastic, Apple didn't really need to send out those replacement power supplies to be nice to their customers and give them back their nice QUIET machines!).
God, you know an architecture is dead when the best argument someone can come up with is heat dissipation and the sound of fans. Yeah, Motorola chips dissipate heat well, they don't run fast enough to make much heat! If apple switched to x86, the cost savings at a given processing power would leave you more than enough money to liquid cool the goddamned thing, with no fan, producing 0 dB of noise. If that's your best argument, you lose.
When you get down to it, the Motorola line is dead. Supposedly Apple is going to go with some 64-bit chips from IBM for their next major change. They could have gone with x86, but decided not to. But either way, staying with Motorola would have been suicide.
-Looking for a job as a materials chemist or multivariat
"As for cost, I thought Mac-heads were supposed to be used to paying 2-3 times typical cost for stuff."
You lack historical perspective.
What THIS Mac Head is used to is getting his OS for free. I didn't pay for OS 5, 6, or 7.
What happended to the good old days when you could just wander into the local mom & pop Apple retailer with a couple blank floppies and they would gleefully (and legally) dup it for you?
This Mac Head was quite accustomed to paying $0.00, thank you.
No. Command-Option-Escape is more or less a GUI wrapper for killall (dunno if it's signal 15 or 1 though).
kill -9 is stabbing him in the eye first.
I hereby place the above post in the public domain.
Another good trend for peripheral support for Mac OS and Linux is that USB and FireWire have the "device family" concept, so generic drivers can be written and work with lots of hardware.
There will still be a need for product-specific drivers, and sometimes devices will not properly implement the generic interfaces they say they do, but this situation makes the playing field a lot more level.
... on an eMachine, disgusting.
eMachines are disgusting. Some days I can't get near my workstation without gagging on the smell. I think it's built from the stuff you get from a five dollar whore. I wish I could chuck the thing out the window, or better yet, take a baseball bat to it.
hmm.. maybe that's a little harsh. But then again, maybe not. eMachines are pretty awful.
(Score: -1, Stupid)
I was gonna add that too but I forgot. :)
My journal has hot
http://www.linuxjournal.com/article.php?sid=3559
I know that many people claim they make the majority of their money from their hardware. But i'm not so sure about this anymore. Ever open up a Mac lately? Turn over the main board and you will sure enough find an intel nic. The only thing they make anymore is the nifty case, keyboard, and mouse. They resell the rest and i'm not so sure the profit margin is what everyone thinks it is. Its more plausible to me that when you buy a new mac, you are paying the suggested retail price for all the software included in one plus a small markup on the hardware. Just my 2 cents.
Don't waste time... procrastinate now!
Ah, Mohammad Saeed al-Sahhaf! We were wondering where you had got to...
The 8600 is actually one of the faster pre-G3 machines; see this link. They go up to 300 MHz and take the same RAM DIMMs that your 8500 takes. The 8600's the next generation after the 8500 (they went from 8100 to 8500 to 8600 with the pre-G3 PPC midtowers, you see.) I have an 8100 and an 8500, nice little machines. The 8500's been a great Linux box with the RAM upgraded to 96 MB and a 9 GB Seagate SCSI-2 drive in it, running Debian of course :) And I've got it down to the point where I can pull the motherboard out in 4 minutes.
Actually, the way Apple and MacOS (Classic and X) do aliases is far superior to the way symlinks or shortcuts work. An alias in MacOS still tracks it's target until it's moved to a different filesystem. You won't gate a broken link until you delete the target. With Symlinks/Shortcuts, you move the file once, it's gone. I'll stick with my aliases, thanks. (Oh, yeah, and if you make an alias, the Terminal/shell treats it as a symlink.)
Actually.. I went and bought a PowerBook because I wanted Os X.. A multimedia platform, a development platform, and a portable unix workstation all rolled into one.. I haven't touched my PC, Sparc, or SGI machines since I've picked it up. =)
Just when you make it idiotproof, some idiot builds a better idiot.
Indeed it didn't. But I suspect it might have had a bit more success if it had been launched with native versions of Office, Photoshop, Illustrator, InDesign, Cubase, Logic, Dreamweaver, Final Cut...
...but maybe it doesn't have to. Why not a dual platform solution?
Sun has Solaris for x86 and the last I checked they were still pushing a lot of Solaris on Sparc.
It doesn't sound like it would be all that expensive or complicated for Apple to support x86 hardware in addition to PPC, especially if they take the Sun model and get real selective about what will and won't run. They can use many of the low-level drivers from FreeBSD x86, which will ease most of their hardware burden.
The biggest work IMHO would be making the graphics layer work with PC graphics cards, but then again Apple already has a ton of experience with nVidia and ATI already -- couple that with a "limited menu" for supported hardware and you're off the races.
The purpose of making something like this available? It'd send a signal to CPU vendors that they are ready, willing and able to support other CPUs *now*, not just through in-house portability boxes. It'd also give them an opportunity to improve their portability capabilities.
Would it make a huge dent in Windows? Probably not, but there's always a chance that it grab enough trendsetters and mindshare leaders that it could possibly move into places where it hasn't existed.
And it would die just as quickly, as soon as everyone realized the OS X/Intel has no software outside of what comes with OS X itself.
Do you not think existing OS X applications could be recompiled for Intel? I rather doubt they're written in assembler.
I am so very very bored of reading /. replies to Apple-icon articles. They just go on and on about whether OSX sucks/rules or Apple hardware sucks/rules or Apple the company sucks/rules.
Come on, post something relevant. Tell me why you love fink or darwin ports.
Me: G4 powerbook; OSX 10.2.5; love it. Use both as terminal and for development, before committing over to Linux cluster or webserver. And I do use fink a little bit, but mostly I get stuff from the developers' CVS or websites because it's not _in_ fink. BioPython; ncbi toolbox/blast; assorted other bio-this'n'that.
No matter how cynical you become, it's never enough to keep up.
They just do not see a financial win/win return on investment, business case.
How do I know? I've worked at both shops and I agree the business case is just not there.
If you really want to determine the Annuity on that Initial investment then take into account all the maintenance costs, etc in broadening the driver base that HAS TO BE THERE for x86 MacOS X to be profitable.
Architecturally speaking x86's limited IRQ's etc really is annoying. Ask nVidia and ATI how much better they enjoy developing drivers for OS X versus Windows, and even Linux.
I'm waiting to get my hands on the IBM 970 in the next generation Mac systems so I can get back to using MacOS X.
For now I use Debian/KDE which I also love.
You have obviously never used a digital camera, a DV camera, or audio gear with OS X. I have yet to run into a 'consumer' grade digicam that I can't just plug into my mac, and let iPhoto take care of the rest. Windows requires drivers for most digicams, and even if you get a good driver, the photo management software suxorz for a good many reasons.
I'm sorry, but I just got a Mac a little over a year ago, and I couldn't be happier. I still love FreeBSD and tolerate various flavors of Windows, but my true home is now OS X.
Hardware Company. HARDWARE. The only way Apple could stay afloat, without a major company policy/income shift would be to have all the systems made in such a way that only Apple systems will run macos X. if the emachines for 300 bucks at the computer store down the street runs macos X just like a mac then Apple would lose access to their cashflow(hardware). So you want x86? fine, but you won't be able to use your p3 500 system in the corner with it. Apple couldn't afford it.
You have obviously never used a digital camera, a DV camera, or audio gear with OS X. I have yet to run into a 'consumer' grade digicam that I can't just plug into my mac, and let iPhoto take care of the rest. Windows requires drivers for most digicams, and even if you get a good driver, the photo management software suxorz for a good many reasons.
;) you know where to find it. ;)
Someone pointed this out above, too, with USB and Firewire devices, particularly with the type of gear you just mentioned, and I agree. What the parent poster is talking about with spotty peripheral support probably mostly relates to gaming hardware and stuff like that. And if Mac OS X isn't the ideal platform to play games on -- so what? If you want Windows (about all its good for
My journal has hot
Indeed, it has been said that the fact Apple does not allow clones is the worst possible alternative...
...except for all others.
Obviously. And they make some pretty sexy looking hardware too. Before you start shouting that the looks aren't important, take a look at the cars people drive. Take a look at the money they spend on curtains and carpets and non-essential items for purely aesthetic reasons.
It is the sole reason my girlfriend is getting an iBook.
"First you gotta do the truffle shuffle."
Now realize im kidding with the subject but hear me out. Its not that explaining why OSX on open x86 isnt _ever_ going to happen isnt needed at times; here in response to an otherwise very thought out parent posting qualifies as a good time to do so. But at this point it is hardly "Insightful" anymore. If anything the original parent should be modded down as unintentional trolling for not coming to terms with what any Apple user knows and many others (/. editors with Powerbooks?) are figuring out with a quickness. Apple is a hardware company when it comes to their coffers. Yes to a user it may seem like they sell hardware and software but to their accountants the truth is obvious: sick hardware margins keep Apple in business, period.
So again im not trying to come down on either of the aforementioned posts, please dont get me wrong, im just saying that this is about as tired as explaining why Apple ships a one button mouse.
---- The real Slashdot is still here. You just have to browse at -1 to read the comments.