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OpenOSX Provides Virtual PC Alternative
lucas.clemente writes "OpenOSX has just announced a cheap alternative to Microsoft's Virtual PC for Mac OS X, OpenOSX WinTel. What's more, the OpenOSX version will be compatible with Apple's new G5 architecture, whereas Virtual PC users will have to wait until the next major upgrade for G5 compatibility." It's a frontend to bochs, which we've discussed before as a possible Virtual PC replacement, and the biggest obstacle seemed to be getting it up and running. Perhaps this product will fill that hole. Prices start at $25 for download, but it is covered under the GPL.
Cool. BTW before anyone asks. Yes you can charge for GPL software.
See my blog http://ilovecookes.blogspot.com/ for light hearted technical information.
"The software on this CD is distributed under the GNU General Public License and the OpenOSX WinTel License."
The only link on the page I can see to anything about a license is a link to the GPL
I have no idea what the actual software is released under. They currently do not seem to have the OpenOSX WinTel license available yet to look at.
This looks interesting, though. Almost enough for me to install it.
- (c) 2018 Hank Zimmerman
Before you post something about them not abiding by the GPL by charging for their software, I suggest you read the GPL FAQ.
> BTW... Is anyone out there using Bochs?
Yes, but not for running applications. Bochs is very useful as a development tool to test operating systems or in general self-booting code that would otherwise have you rebooting your computer every five minutes.
Just wait for a VPC update. I'm sure you won't have to wait for 7.0.
I suggest that you not hold your breath on that: Microsoft Knowledge Base Article - 827904
excerpt:
Virtual PC for Mac Version 6.1 and earlier use a feature that is present in the PowerPC G3 and the PowerPC G4 named "pseudo little-endian mode". Virtual PC for Mac uses pseudo little-endian mode for increased performance when it emulates a Pentium processor. Virtual PC for Mac 6.1 must use pseudo little-endian mode to function.
The new Power Mac G5 processor does not support pseudo little-endian mode. Therefore, the current versions of the Virtual PC for Mac program do not run on the Power Mac G5.
This is a non-trivial problem.
cat
It is cowardly, and a betrayal of whatever it means to be a Jew, to act as a white man
-James Baldwin
I've been using Windows emulators on Macs since the "beginning" and have 4 licenses for VPC currently, but we use them on laptops, where it would be inconvenient to bring along a PC laptop AND a Mac laptop just to have access to more than one platform. For desktop use, one can add a PC for not much more than the price of VPC + OS and, if space is a problem, as it is for me, build an inexpensive Athlon PC with a Shuttle case and put in a KVM switch to keep to a single keyboard and monitor.
We have 3 shuttles with 2400+ processors, 256MB ram, 80GB drives, running Windows 2000 Pro. We already had flat panel monitors which the iBook users mirror when sitting at a desk, so it was simple to place a KVM between their external keyboard/mouse and monitor. The cost of the box was less than $400 each and that included an OEM Radeon 9000 Pro in each of them, which is not really necessary for standard 2D work as they come with decent graphics built in for modest 2D work.
I just don't see the gains for running VPC on a desktop Mac considering the low price of PC hardware; but for a laptop, it's really handy and since there's not much chance of a G5 laptop anytime soon, we can hope there will be a workable solution when and if the G5 architecture comes to Powerbooks.
You'll have to scroll down a lot to get to the actual interview.
Fink Relations with OpenOSX
Note: This page represents the view of Fink project leader Christoph Pfisterer. Other people, including other Fink project members, may have different views.
Here's the story of the relations between the Fink project and OpenOSX. It is unpleasant, but I feel that is has to be made public.
OpenOSX is a business that sells a range of CDs of Open Source applications. The GIMP CD they sell is based to a large part of Fink 0.2.1. Until very recently, the OpenOSX web site made no mention at all of Fink, and as far as I can tell, the CDs themselves still contain no hints. My impression (and that of many others) was that OpenOSX did all the porting - which has now turned out to be wrong.
I was never contacted by OpenOSX about their usage of Fink. Instead, I was notified of the situation by a third party. What followed was a rather unpleasant e-mail conversation with OpenOSX owner Jeshua Lacock. The net result? We almost broke into a flame war and OpenOSX has slightly modified their web site to cover their tracks. They still don't have the courage to openly say which parts are their work and which parts aren't. It also appears they don't want to cooperate with the rest of the Mac OS X Open Source community, and Jeshua doesn't feel like responding to my mails as promised.
I encourage everyone to read the e-mail exchange that led to this and judge for themselves. (Be warned that it's quite lengthy, though.)
-Christoph Pfisterer
Copyright(C)2001-03 TheFinkProject
Last changed by chrisp on Thu, Aug 23 2001, 05:44 GMT
How hard can it be to get something to add a link to fink's web-site?
Like pulling teeth when Jeshua Lacock is involved.
PS: Did I miss something about using Links in /.?
WITHOUT CREDITING FINK
I don't think that is fair at all.
It even caused the primary devloper of fink to resign because he was fed up of people stealing his stuff, without credit.
Look here and here to judge for yourself.
It is, because the G5 DOES support pseudo little-endian mode. It must be a stupid fuck-up on MS's side (as if that'd suprise anyone).
VirtualPC does not use the PowerPC's ability to boot in big or little endian - it uses the lwbrx/stwbrx instructions, which will automatically endian-swap during a load or store. This allows them to keep data in memory in little endian form, have it swapped automatically when it's brought into a register for processing, and have it swapped back when it's written out to memory.
This is the feature which isn't present on the G5, and was responsible for the big speedup in the latest rev of VPC - and the reason it now requires a G3 or G4 (since the previous PPC chips didn't support these instructions).
Since the G5 doesn't support this feature either, they'll need to go back and resurrect some of their previous code - they will doubtless take a performance hit for having to do the swapping themselves, but the massive bandwidth in the new systems will probably help cancel some of that out.
Nae bother
"That reasonig may have been behind Bill's "investment" of $150 million about 5 years ago"
Apple had like 4 Billion in liquid assets at the time...not including the intellectual properties easily worth that much.
Apple was never in trouble. This was payback in a face saving move to keep Bill from admitting guilt in a long standard lawsuit against him by Apple. In the end, they STILL made money on this deal even though it wasn't supposed to go down that way. More power to M$ on that deal...
Here's a solution:
Get a beefy Apple machine that meets your needs (new dualie G5?). Get it with more than one hard drive. put LINUX (I prefer Gentoo to get the optimizations I like) on it, install MOL (Mac On Linux) and make up raw disk images for any Mac OS systems you want to try out. MOL works really well, and it can handle multiple concurrent instances, IIRC. And while you won't have graphics _acceleration_ the overall speed is comparable to classic (about 95% of normal speed) because it's NOT an emulator, it's basically VMWare for the PowerPC.
I use MOL to play A-10 Attack on OS9 when I get overbored.
"Sometimes, I think Trent just needs a cup of hot chocolate and a blankie." -Tori Amos on Nine Inch Nails
This is a much better solution than VPC, IMHO, considering that you can buy a really cheap Windows box and every application runs natively this way.
i just read all of the fink vs. openosx debate, and the actual emails sent back and forth, and...i hate to say it, but...i have to agree with openOSX on this issue. please don't mod me down for that, it is my honest opinion. releasing libre software gives others the right to reuse it for their own projects. the fink guy claims they have 'covered their traces' by adding mention of fink...hello? isn't that what he was asking for? i wouldn't call that 'covering,' its more like 'complying.' anyway, it sounds to me like the openosx guy didnt realize that fink had patched the tools he was using--he seemed to have assumed it was just a download application. it seemed to me the fink guy was being kind of petty about the whole thing. anyway, i encourage everyone to go read this and form your own opinions on the issue.
disclaimer: i have never used openosx, i have used fink.
How would you swap DEF04A8B? That could be 4 individual bytes (doesn't need swapping), a pair of 16 bit integers (would be swapped to F0DE8B4A), or a single 32 bit integer (would be swapped to 8B4AF0DE).
Unless you know how the data is structured, you can't just "turn it around" wholesale.
If you have evidence that these instructions are not supported on the PPC970, please post it.
I believe they're supported, so you won't crash, but they invoke an exception handler on the 970 (as per misaligned loads/stores on the 603 or later).
This probably makes them too slow for something like VPC, and if you use them in performance critical code you would probably be better off using a vector permute on larger blocks of data. I can't find any docs at IBM or Apple to back this up unfortunately, this was based on conversations at WWDC (so may be hearsay, but would seem to explain the issue with VPC).
Nae bother
Actually, Christophe left because he was a whiny crybaby. His leaving, in a huff, with no plan or care about how Fink would go forward, may be the best thing that ever HAPPENED to Fink. I'll, probably justifiably, get modded down for this, but I think it's about time someone said it, so I'll take the risk.
That aside, everything said above about OpenOSX's theft is 100% true, and I'll not be supporting them anytime soon, and really, neither should you.
John Kenneth Fisher
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