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The GNU-Darwin World
proclus writes "The GNU-Darwin Distribution was founded
to leverage the open source development dynamic and build the infrastructure for
scientific computing on a new platform. Now GNU-Darwin is a major free software
project, and the infrastructure, such as parallel computing and molecular
graphics software is available to everyone via the web and on digital media
discs. Check it out. Also, Apple
has written up a story
about it."
So this makes me wonder what the point is of using Darwin. With OS X as a whole, there are some specific benefits that exist. Apple has UI standards in place, provides some services, like iTunes, that you may want. They've done a lot of eye candy. But is there any real point in using Darwin alone versus, say, Linux? Or, if you specifically want BSD, then compare it to plain ol' FreeBSD. I mean, what's the point?
True, I wouldnt use Darwin either.
Linux and FreeBSD are my opensource distros of choice. But for Daily work, OSX gives me the power of *nix OS with all the same software. Throw in iTunes, and the nice collection of applications for OSX, its a hard OS to ignore if your a unix junkie.
And dont understimate eye-candy, KDE and Gnome look great, OSX looks perfect. Great time for opensource, pick your candy.
Actually, the GPL imposes restrictions on further distribution. Therefore, it can't possibly be considered free compared to a license like BSD.
...digital media discs...
so...like....it's on CDs?
GNU is open source.
Darwin is open source.
So... what exactly are we getting here? LinuxPPC is faster than Darwin, so if you wanted something closer to GNU than Darwin, wouldn't you use that?
What's the user benefit? This is for people who bought a Mac and don't want Apple's GUI work? Or is this all the stuff that Apple would like to put in Darwin, but can't, due to the GPL license?
Speaking of which, there's this:
Please note: GNU Project considers Darwin non-free software and therefore does not recommend the use of this operating system. (see http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/apsl.html)
I mean, let me get this straight: GNU Darwin is the version of Darwin that the GNU project doesn't recommend?
Can someone clear this up in plain English?
(sig) The last bug isn't fixed until the last user is dead. (/sig)
This is the distribution that swore off PPC development because of political reasons, basically saying that Apple is so bad that they can't continue to use any part of the platform they are based on, but yet they are still producing that which they said they wouldn't (new stuff for PPC). They say silly things like "the most free" distribution, as if such a phrase has any meaning. They claim to be the premiere free software distribution for Mac OS X, which is plainly false, unless you are deluded into believing that only copylefted software is free software.
This is a project driven almost solely by politics, not technology, and they can't even be consistent there. Beware.
I used to follow the GNU-Darwin project quite heavily. I had installed it along side OS X and was even on the mailing lists. I must say that they do (or at least did) have extremely talented developers that have done a lot of good work for the project.
However, I found through the mailing list that the project is political to the extreme. Their most extreme bit of politics came when they decided to "discontinue" PPC development (as pudge mentioned) because they had issues with Apple. They were arrogant enough to think that this move would force Apple to backtrack on the things they had issues with.
It was about that time that I decided to drop GNU-Darwin completely. What kind of project drops support for the hardware that > 90% of their user-base is using? Well, from the looks of it they, not Apple, have backtracked and are still supporting PPC.
My advice would be to not take a second look at GNU-Darwin. Use Fink or OpenDarwin instead.
infested with jello like fishes no melotron wishes
I absolutely agree with this and the parent post.
/usr/ instead of /usr/local) is what turned me off GNU-Darwin.
The politics and annoying GNU/GPL preaching on various mailing lists (and in the early days the insistence on installing/stomping onto Apple-supplied system parts in
You seem to drift topics. The APSL has nothing to do with FCP, Safari, or anything else in those lanes.
>FCP
Best of its class, hands down. This is called "making a competing product" and is normal business strategy--not forcing someone out of the market.
>Safari
You really need to stop drinking the Kool Aid.
No one really competes with Safari, not because Safari, but because Safari is *good*. Apple distributed a sucky version of IE as its standard web-browser and that has a *lot* to do with the user experience for a typical user. They needed to replace it, and no other web-browser for the mac quite cut it.
Once again. They produced a better product. Safari is now my primary web browser, not because I haven't used Mozilla or Camino, but because it is the best for what I do on the web (speed counts for a lot).
>Soundtrack
Who did Apple "force out" with this one?
They also needed something so that labels could publish music in m4p format, suitable for the iTMS.
You want an example? Take Watson. But none of your examples quite cut it.
Integrate Keynote and LaTeX
If Apple hadn't stopped their cloning experiments which where at the time killing their own hardware sales then it's questionable whether Apple would still be here.
And we then we wouldn't have had Mac OS X. No Mac OS X, no darwin.
You have a valid point for most geeks, what's the point of using it over Linux or BSD.
One thing I will point out though is that it is a real boon having that entire layer of the OS open if your job is writing things like kext's and device drivers.
Don't blame me - this
Take a look at their quickstart script, which they suggest that you use by piping it to csh as root.
The first few steps:
They never check to see if the download was corrupted, or if someone had replaced it with something else.
Is it so hard to do something like:
For each of the few programs and libraries that they need to download to get the package manager up and running?
I've complained about this before, and I'm sorry to have to do so again, but running an unverified binary as root right after you download it is one of the STUPIDEST ideas I have seen.
We never said that we would produce no more new stuff for PPC, but rather that we would not link to proprietary libraries.
You yourself wrote: Second, we will be moving our operations to x86, and we are putting the ppc collection into maintenance mode. Read it yourself if you forget.
Guess that makes them eligible for the Darwin awards.
"First you gotta do the truffle shuffle."
Macs have been a better deal pricewise than PCs since 1995.
Its time to stop modding up "insightful" every troll who comes along and whines about Macs being "expensive". IT just isn't true, and its a sure sign the person has never used a Mac.
And the point to Darwin, since you're ignorant of what it is, is that it has Apples new IO system, IOKit, and quite a variety of other stuff that is Apple written, and does not exist in BSD or Linux OSes (unless its migrated there.)
There's more to OSX than "eye candy".... if you were a Mac developer as you claim, you'd know that.
Yeah, and you guys panned the ipod too: http://apple.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=01/10/23