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Torvalds Switches to a Mac
renai42 writes "Linux creator Linus Torvalds said this afternoon that he's now running an Apple Macintosh as his main desktop, mainly for work reasons, although partly simply because he's a self-described "technology whore" and got the machine for free." And yes, he is running Linux on it ;)
My carpenter switched from a 15" hammer to a 16" hammer. It's just a tool fer Chrissakes....
that's great... why do I care? Seriously, I sometimes write code for windows apps, while running FreeBSD... who cares... sometimes you just happen to be in a different environment... it doesn't mean you've abandoned the other one.
---
Programming is like sex... Make one mistake and support it the rest of your life.
Always good to see another boost to the PPC64 platform though...
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I got a mac too. So what? It runs Linux just as fine as on any other mashine.
This has been known for a while. Read it and he discusses why he runs PPC instead of x86, just to have a different view on kernel development. Plus it's not like he runs OS X or something.
It should be pointed out that he is certainly not using Mac OSX - but Linux's PPC port (of course). Don't worry - *BSD is still dying. ;-)
He is using linux on mac hardware that was given to him. Wouldn't you?
Get a free ipod.
Cost of hardware (he got it for free) and cost o software (he writes his own).
Hey, I'd take it too, given that kind of deal!
Is it just my observation, or are there way too many stupid people in the world?
While I think this has no real significance in terms of kernel development, I think it may go a long way in promoting the cross-platform, fashionable traits of Linux.
Some of my previous employers think of Linux (unfairly) as nothing more than a DOS knock-off. I'd love to see their jaws drop when they read about this. (Perhaps Vogue might do a fashion shoot with Linux on a Mac Mini?)
Torvalds is showing 2 things :
a) Linux on PPC is at least as good as on any x86 CPU.
b) Apple hardware is desired over your Average Joe's box from Dell or HP.
Well at least Linus Torvalds has understood that computers are just tools which should do what they are expected to do: Help us get our work done.
I find all those OS and Hardware flamewars silly. Not that I expect them to stop now but that man sure gained some respect in my book.
Indeed he does. "My main machine these days is a dual 2GHz G5 (aka PowerPC 970) - it's physically a regular Apple Mac, although it obviously only runs Linux, so I don't think you can call it a Mac any more ;)", he said.
Guy asked me for a quarter for a cup of coffee. So I bit him.
But seriously, let's not turn this into the E! network for geeks. I really personally don't care what hardware platform Linus uses or whether he buys his underwear from thinkgeek.com just so long as he continues doing a smashing job maintaining kernel development.
Rats who jump from sinking ships, because somehow, they just instinctively KNOW that it's sinking?
Just kidding. For GODS SAKE I was just kidding. I swear.
Specialization is for insects. -Heinlein
First Bitkeeper and now this.....
That's it...I'm switching to HURD!
Keep the faith, share the code
"[...] the man who has single-handedly revolutionised the use of Unix on the x86 platform"
Oh, I thought there were several people involved in Linux? Didn't know Linus created it "single-handedly".
Thanks for pointing that out to me, ZDNet!
The dual G5 is a neat box, and having gotten it for free, it's hard to argue with his choice.
Personally, though, I don't see a lot of point in running Mac hardware and not running Mac OS X. The OS is what makes the system so insanely great.
Disinfect the GNU General Public Virus!
To all of you repeatedly asking the question:
"WHY WOULD ANYONE RUN LINUX ON A MAC?"
There's your answer. Some of the people who do so write operating systems for PPC.
Yes, this might reduce the G5 costs :)
Trolling using another account since 2005.
If you submit it again, we will ;)
Guy asked me for a quarter for a cup of coffee. So I bit him.
rename the article as "Torvalds Switches to G5 hardware" instead of trying to create ripples in the industry.
Why should it really matter what platform he's using? Is everyone worried that there is going to be an end to the x86 version or something?
Linux is portable. It shouldn't matter if the main man behind it is running it on a PC, a Mac, an Amiga, a PS2, or a toaster. This should be seen as a good thing.
You aren't LINUX TORVALDS!!!!! So it doesn't matter :)
Your ignorance is infinitely greater than you realize.
Since Microsoft does not produce PCs (unless you count the XBox as one), the point is moot. There was never going to be a choice between Mac hardware and PC hardware.
Wrong
Apple includes full Developer's TOols with every version of OS X, including a customised version of GCC. So there is a compiler, and much more with OS X.
Actually I find OS X runs surprisingly well on old Macs (perfectly working on my 350MHz G3 iMac) but if you want to use Linux, that's cool too. Just don't make inaccurate statements about OS X.
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... also wants linux to be run on a wider spectrum of computers (ie PPC) used by the managing kernel developers.
He stated this in a article or comment which was submitted to slashdot about a week ago (don't have the time to look that up) so this is fairly news...
Also, this is perhaps not the only reason he's switching but it seems valid.
Albert
Granted, he isn't the philospher RMS is, granted he's free to choose his own platform, but I'm not thrilled.
One of the great things about linux which came about organically and entirely incidentally was the fact that it works on commodity hardware. I live in and work as an open source consultant in a developing country; this stuff is not important, it is critical. Precious few people here can afford non-commodity computing assets (software or hardware).
Torvalds is the figurehead for the movement though, whether he likes it or not. I'd venture a guess that over 90% of linux users use x86 platforms; it feels a bit like the BMW CEO driving a Mercedes. Both good cars, but there's more to the decision of what to drive than that.
I am reminded of a story of the early days in the Chrysler-Benz merger; the Chrysler top execs would drive to meetings in a Chrysler van (they called it "the clown car"), whereas the Benz execs would show up in all sorts of fancy vehicles.
It's a matter of understanding your base better by using what they use.
Erh, sorry, ranting. I'm still infinitely grateful to Linus, and I'm not as upset about this as the post may suggest, but I still feel it isn't a good idea.
Blearf. Blearf, I say.
Concerned geeks need to know.
This is good for people who run big-endian architectures like PPC. That way, endianness bugs get caught sooner rather than later. It also means PPC support in general will benefit, because if something breaks for Linus, you can expect it will get fixed (or dropped) pretty quickly.
#naabhaprzrag, #sverubfr-000, #agi-fcbafberq, negvpyr[pynff*=' negvpyr-ary-'] { qvfcynl: abar !vzcbegnag; }
Gates switches to a Gilette Razor... Why do we care what type of computer the leaders of the tech sector are using? This is no better than preteen girls wanting the same kind of Jeans that one of the Olsen twins wear.
In fact, 2.6 kernels are fully useable on PPC & PPC64 machines without any patches - so PPC kernels are 'keeping up' fine already.
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Wrongo. It says he's running Linux (of course) on a Mac. He jokingly says it's not a Mac anymore, but that's just a joke. What model is it? An Apple PowerMac G5 Dual - I imagine the 2.5 GHz model. I just hope this means we see better support for Macs - I've had a hell of a time getting any Linux distribution on my iBook.
Which is a shame. Booting into OSX once in a while might give him an additional perspective.
he wants to test linux on PPC.
But I have it on good authority that he was convinced by this.
I just hope he doesn't move to Iceland.
Rob Enderle's excellent new book: Everything I needed to know about Computer Science I learned in Marketing School
He always used to run suse at home and redhat at work. However, I don't think it's wise for him to say what distribution he's currently using. Imagine the response when he told he runs gentoo :-)
This is your sig. There are thousands more, but this one is yours.
The thing about Apple is that they put just as much effort into their hardware as their software. If you buy a Mac and ditch OSX in favor of Linux, they have still made a sale of exactly the same value. If a bunch of Linux users started buying Macs to run Linux because Linus does (even though he got his for free!) I'm pretty sure they'd be happy with that.
"The memory management on the PowerPC can be used to frighten small children."
"Hence, Torvalds said, a patch specific to the x86 platform that he was submitting to the list for consideration was totally untested."
Linux development process in a nut-shell. This is why *BSD/OSX will be alive and kicking for as long as people need a stable operating system.
(Flamebait me all you want, my karma is through the floor anyway.)
Which is a shame. Booting into OSX once in a while might give him an additional perspective.
He has repeatedly said that he doesn't care about userspace.
He has also said that Mach, which is the microkernel OSX is based on, is a "piece of shit". Read "Just for Fun", his autobiography, for full details.
Save your wrists today - switch to Dvorak
Sheesh, he's been using the G5 for over a year now.
Bill Gates just bought a PS2. MSFT shares have plummetted!
Bill Clinton: Pimp we can believe in. - The Shirt!!!
I would help you but I am in line for a MiniMac...
-if at first you don't succeed, stay the heck away from paragliding.
Anyone who worrries that x86 support is going to end anytime soon is just silly. Thankfully, I don't see anyone claiming that anywhere. The sky is hardly falling.
But that doesn't mean it doesn't matter somewhere. Personally, I'm hoping that by having the "father of Linux" running Macintosh hardware that more attention will be made to PPC ports, incorporating more capabilities of the hardware, and bringing some of the distros more on par with their x86 cousins.
Are you aware that it's only been within the past few months that there have been some fixes for sleep support on Apple laptops? I'm running a PowerBook here myself, but until more recently couldn't even consider running Linux on it, as if I did I couldn't put the system to sleep (and expect it to wake back up, at least). The built-in AirPort Extreme wireless adapter is likewise unsupported.
Having Mr. Torvalds running on Macintosh hardware may help illuminate these issues, and get a push going to get Apple to open up their specs a bit more, or at the very least attract more Open Source developers to the cause. Personally, while I run OS X as my main desktop environment on my PowerBook, I wouldn't mind seeing PPC Linux on-par with x86 Linux when it comes to hardware compatibility. It's close, but there is room for improvement.
(And for the record, while OS X is my day-to-day OS for getting work done, I do keeep an Ubuntu PPC live CD in my laptop bag for those times when I want/need to run Linux, and have several Intel-based Linux boxes which I routinely access through the PowerBook).
Yaz.
Which is a shame. Booting into OSX once in a while might give him an additional perspective.
Perspective on what? He works on the kernel, not the desktop. If he cared about the desktop, we wouldn't be in this mess.
Linux on the desktop is getting real long in the tooth for me. I'm trying real hard not to boot Windows but I keep doing it day after day even though I'm wasting all of my free time trying to assemble some usable "free desktop".
More
It also shows you're completely incapable of doing it all yourself, and you need someone else to put it together for you.
Even chefs eat out at restaurants.
Not being able to do something and not wanting to do something are two completely different concepts...
-30-
I don't know for sure, but I strongly suspect Linus isn't running a "distro". I suspect he has a smattering of this and that, and he probably DOESN'T keep upgrading all his software (other than the kernel, obviously) every time a new release comes out. Changing software all the time just makes the system unpredictable and you can't tell if if it's the kernel you just changed, or some other piece of software...
Your Servant, B. Baggins
I'm writing to share a tragic little story.
I have a PC that my sister and I used to use for our operating system development. One night, I was writing a new memory manager on it, when all of a sudden it went berserk, the screen started flashing, and the whole VI session just disappeared. All of it. And it was a good memory manager! I had to cram and rewrite it really quickly. Needless to say, my rushed memory manager wasn't nearly as good, and I blame that PC for the crap I got.
I'm happy to report that my sister and I now share an Apple Dual G5 that we got for free! It's a lot nicer to work on than my old PC was, it hasn't let me down once, and my memory managers have all been really good.
Thanks, Apple.
Linux Thorvalds
I said no... but I missed and it came out yes.
a lousy meal.
I'd prefer that Linus use OS X occasionally so he could see what's going on in the OS X world and decide if it might be a good to incorp/cooperate into/with Linux.
I'd love to see a RendezVous like technology of auto configuring hot pluggable devices that can be discovered on a LAN.
It makes printing and sharing hardware and software a whole lot easier on the Mac side of the wall.
MSBPodcast.com The opinions expressed here are my own. If you don't like 'em... Think up your own stuff.
What's the point of running Linux on a Mac? Good quality commodity hardware can make a Linux box at least as good and more cost-effective; and on Mac hardware, MacOS X has advantages over Linux (it's more stable for one, and will run MacOS software). Buying a Mac and getting rid of the OS seems like buying an expensive sports car and replacing the engine with one from a family sedan.
This is coming from someone who owns and uses a Mac laptop (running OSX) and a Linux-based desktop PC.
If he cares at all, he probably is worried about responsiveness more than eye candy, and OSX can't help you there anyway. The hardware can, however...
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
I'm trying real hard not to boot Windows but I keep doing it day after day even though I'm wasting all of my free time trying to assemble some usable "free desktop".
Now, now, while Linux is definitly not "ready for the desktop" no matter how many of the zealots tell you it is, I really can't say that it "takes all available free time to assemble some usable 'free desktop'".
Gnome and KDE handle this rather well in recent years and they come pretty standard with most distributions and even bootable CDs... Perhaps your requirements are different than others?
Yeah, it's easier to use all that crap in Windows because you're comfortable with it and it happens to work better in most ways but it's certainly not as difficult as you make it out to be to do it in Linux.
Somebody ship this man a free Windows PocketPC phone and see whether he's a high-class technology escort, or a low-down crack technology whore.
What's your damage, Heather?
I don't use Terminal any more. I use GLTerm. It does the color stuff out of the box. bash is included with OS X these days (has been since 10.2). I don't have color ls on my system, but then I've been running Unix for long enough that I got used to it without that.
OS X is a true Unix. It's not Linux, and doesn't have all of the feeping creatures that Linux has had added to it - and my fingers still type "ps -ef" - but it's a real Unix, by anyone's definition.
I also appreciate having a GUI that's not bloated in the extreme and doesn't have the gross inefficiencies of X. I can even run X programs should the need arise.
Disinfect the GNU General Public Virus!
Which is a shame. Booting into OSX once in a while might give him an additional perspective.
True... it'd give him some excellent perspective on just how much Linux rocks. OSX has a great GUI, but the underlying OS has a fairly poor scheduler, disk accesses seem terribly slow and the VM systems tends to thrash really hard when you push it.
With regard to what Linus cares about, Linux isn't just a decent OS, it's a superior OS, better than Darwin, better than Windows NT and better in some ways even than "serious" Unixes, like Solaris and AIX (and not as good in other ways, but it's definitely in the same league).
Note to ACs: I usually delete AC replies without reading them. If you want to talk to me, log in.
He could have just started using CherryOS for his testing! I hear it's really great - and the main developer is brilliant, he churned it all out himself in just four months!
cyn, free software and *nix operating systems enthusiast.
Yeah, because doing that wouldn't be pretentious at all...
"Nobody owns the fucking words man." - James Dean
FYI:
...DESCRIPTION
$ man locate
Secure Locate provides a secure way to index and quickly search for files on your system. It uses
incremental encoding just like GNU locate to compress its database to make searching faster, but it will
also store file permissions and ownership so that users will not see files they do not have access to.
This manual page documents the GNU version of slocate. slocate Enables system users to search entire
filesystems without displaying unauthorized files.
Apples do not come with a C compiler. Here at work, I have an iBook I bought in October
Funny, my wife's iBook, purchased in December, came with a compiler. It wasn't installed by default; I had to install it from one of the CDs that came in the box, but that only took a few minutes.
Note to ACs: I usually delete AC replies without reading them. If you want to talk to me, log in.
he's using a 36 button, 12 sided mouse for all those extra necessary functions like cd, rm, ls, etc... on the command line.
[insert lame joke here]
There's one HUGE important point to all this, and it has nothing to do with fashion, nothing to do with conspiracy, nothing to do with elitism.
It completely prevents the merging of kernel patches that malfunction on non-x86 platforms.
Sure, these would get ironed out eventually, but if someone were to inadvertently do something x86-specific, it would immediately break on Linus's computer. That's a pretty darn good guarantee that the kernel is going to remain architecture-independent all the time, rather than only after cross-platform QA has been recently performed.
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See, this is bullcrap. It's always been bullcrap. What people mean is that it's not ready for *them*, which isn't nearly the same thing. The desktop experience on linux is far better than Windows 3.1, for example. It's better than Win95. It's better, for certain values of better, than OS 9. In fact, the Linux desktop has a lot of advantages over WinXP and OS X, although they do have a polish advantage. The Linux desktop is perfectly usable, no matter your level of technical sophistication. People get upset because they're skilled with Windows and can correct problems there, but don't want to learn the same skills under Linux.
Not only that, there is a choice of desktops. The two main ones are GNOME and KDE. Then you have things like XFce and GNUstep.
What's more, these desktops are not merely Linux desktops. They're portable desktops for unix-like operating systems. So, you have a choice of desktop, a choice of kernel, a choice of distribution, a choice of hardware architecture and a choice of vendor. Not only that, you can choose to have it at zero cost or pay for support.
Stick Men
Stop talking crap. Linux *is* ready for desktop. It was ready A LONG time ago.
It is only up to users if they will use it. But there is no correlation between Linux ready for desktop and number of users running it as a desktop.
I mean, is Windows 2.0 ready for desktop? Is Windows 3.1 ready for desktop? Is Windows 95 (98, Me?) ready? Compare all of that with what Linux delivers today. Now compare the number of users still using Windows 95 to number of users of Linux (for desktop!).
In fact, the Linux desktop has a lot of advantages over WinXP and OS X, although they do have a polish advantage.
Ah yes, the Polish Advantage. Developed in Warsaw I guess...
Man Needs God Like Birds Need Helicopters
It's been ready for mine for some time. Anything I might "need" Windows for (with the sole exception of certain games) runs fine through Wine and/or VMWare.
I realize your comment was an overall defense of Linux usability...but I get just as tired of hearing "Linux isn't ready for the desktop" as I assume you do of "Linux is teh r0x0r!"
For most basic day to day use (e-mail, web browsing, typing up a letter and printing it) Linux is a fine desktop environment needing little tweaking (or at least no more than XP) and has next to zero learning curve as many environments are specifically designed to mimic Windows as faithfully as possible (unfortunately, as some would argue). For many desktop environments (mine in particular) it's superior. For others, it's sub-optimal to be kind.
The simple fact is, "ready for the desktop" is a misnomer and is no more meaningful than any other ridiculous invented memes foisted onto our consciousness by people (usually pundits, analysts, and journalists) who have little, if any, idea what they're talking about.
There are enough "OMFG! Linus is using a PPC!" posts but isn't Linux, FOSS, etc all about choice? Choice of hardware, choice of operating system, choice of apps? Mix and match?
:)
In this instance, it doesn't seem like much more than using the fastest, free system he was given. But isn't that whats cool about Linux and FOSS in general? The fact your ABLE to run a functional system using the OS of your choice on pretty much any hardware available is very cool.
Just curious, are there non-FOSS operating systems that offer this level of choice? I know Microsoft tried on a few platforms with NT but dropped that relatively quickly. MacOS has always been tied to 68k/PPC, Sun offers what most consider a castrated x86 version of Solaris (with hopes of it turning into a sparc system purchase).
Its great being able to get the best hardware for the job and know that your OS and apps will run on it. Its a beautiful thing. *sniff*
It's not a mac? Oh.. okay its a "computer formerly known as a mac".. anyone got one of those Prince -like logos for the casing sticker?
-if at first you don't succeed, stay the heck away from paragliding.
A Beowulf cluster of four Logitech MX900 Bluetooth mice, one for each limb.
Sorry, I have a far more time invested in Linux than I do Windows or OS X. I'd been using Linux "on the desktop" during the Win9x years and only switched during the 2000/XP timeframe. I recently switched to a Mac as well.
With all that time invested and the several years more experience I have had with it over Windows and OS X I am going to say again that you are wrong and Linux is NOT ready for the desktop no matter how many times people like you claim it is.
Let me add to this:
4: Martians really do exist
5: I like fruit
Point two is somewhat of a stretch when you think the inventor of linux would test linux kernels on PPC running OS X. You could hardly draw any conclusions on mac software from that, what?
Point three is over the top since every day hundreds, nay thousands of people give each-other mac hardware (not always G5's) and Apple won't toast anyone for that, on the contrary.
Just my opinion, nothing earth shattering...
Cheers!
I think, therefore I am...I think.
How many times have people been chided for saying "Linux" when referring to a Linux Operating system? They get lectured "linux is only the kernel" blah blah blah
;)" he said."
Well, here ya go, time to STFU about that
"Torvald's response came quickly and succinctly. "My main machine these days is a dual 2GHz G5 (aka PowerPC 970) - it's physically a regular Apple Mac, although it obviously only runs Linux, so I don't think you can call it a Mac any more
If the inventor of it can call the operating system "Linux", then I say that means it's officially "cool" to use the term "Linux" to in fact refer to Joe Blow's "LinuxOS". We;ve more or less dropped saying GNU in front of it, so let's just drop the pedantic grammar fascist lecturing about the difference between a Kernel and the OS.
Now the other issue. He doesn't care about userland space. You know, I think this is a serious problem. Think about this long and hard for awhile. Then rethink about it.
Maybe it's time someone with ultimate say so DID care? Just maybe that might be a good idea seeing as how it's 2005 and not 1995? Look on the shelf at the retail level, how much "Linux" do you see? Perhaps time for some groups to think about forking the kernel and having the forked maintainer dictators actually *care* about userland? Get some much needed standards going? Evolution is not static.
And this was modded insightful?
I myself run both Linux and Windows on different desktops here. I am beginning to find very little difference between the two anymore.
On both machines I use:
1. Mozilla for web browsing and e-mail
2. OO for all them Office things
3. Eagle schematic capture and board layout
Files move between the two machines so seemlessly that I have started keeping all of them on a cetral server so I can more easily use them from either environment.
The biggest reasons I still keep Windows around are:
1. Pagemaker for manual creation. Scribus is an up and comer, but is still not completely there. Last time I tried PM under Wine it had problems.
2. PIC development tools - most notably the MPLAB stuff from Microchip. Last time I tried it under Wine it had problems.
I have to support Windows machines for my clients so I have to have at least one around anyway. I certainly don't "waste all my free time trying to assemble some usable free desktop", but I am moving towards a suite of apps that I CAN use across platforms without relearning all the time.
At the same time (and I think this is the important central fact in the submitted article), I am moving more towards Linux because it is beginning to offer the same independence of the hardware that I am running on, too. The fact that Linus can move from x86 hardware to Mac hardware and still continue to develop in exactly the same way, with the same tools, is real important here.
I would disagree with that. I think there are so many levels of computer users that there is no statement that covers them all. There is no "average user". I have known many very smart people who don't really get computers. I have known some not so smart people who had no problem with them. Everyone talks about "so easy your mother could use it" - but they have never met my mother. She has now had a computer for 5 years, and still doesn't get some of the basic concepts. My 10 year old niece picks it up really quickly.
Think about 50 years into the future - nearly everyone will not remember when there weren't computers and the internet. Just like my generation, where I don't know what it was like without TV or telephones. Hopefully, the "average user" will move up the curve a bit. But until then, the computer (and thus, the desktop) is a learning ground.
To your point about OS X, when it first came out I went into a Mac store to check it out. I hadn't used a Mac for years, and never really liked them all that much. But I was looking forward to seeing OS X because I heard so many good things about it. I didn't get it. I thought it was too simple, and not in a functional way. The simplicity confused me, I couldn't figure out how to do anything. Maybe I am a bit too technical or something, or have been around computers too long. I just didn't care for it. I use WinXP at work, and it is OK (once I have customized the heck out of it) and I mainly run Linux at home. I only boot the Windows box when I need to burn a DVD or play a game.
I don't think that Linux is ready for "the desktop" - nor do I necessarily want it to be! Why is "the desktop" such a holy grail anyway? I would rather that the learning curve with computers goes up instead of the intelligence of the OS goes down.
My beliefs do not require that you agree with them.
You must be new here.
sig
Can you even get a dual-processor Athlon64 motherboard with SATA and PCI-X slots?
Yes. They call them "Opterons" though. Please do your research before accusing others of not doing theirs.
Well, Tannenbaum isn't that impressed with the Linux kernel, for that matter.
I personally don't know jack-diddly about kernel design - but I suspect, given what I've seen during years of working with various software companies, and software in general, is that every microkernel, kernel, etc. is a piece of shit.
"Ninety percent of everything is crap." Fred Sturgeon
i think the biggest thing about this is that it legitimizes
the mac hardware for linux advocates - which have been
traditionally x86 biased. it legitimizes linux as
multi-platform more than anything else could have done.
j.
See? You forgot Poland.
-30-
Long ago, long before most folks were using Linux, Linus got into a fight with Andrew Tanenbaum about Linux and its design as a monolithic kernel. This is one of the more famous debates of linux lore, so it doesn't hurt read it and its annotations.
The quick summary is that Andy Tanenbaum proclaimed Linux dead way back in '92, saying, "While I could go into a long story here about the relative merits of the two designs, suffice it to say that among the people who actually design operating systems, the debate is essentially over. Microkernels have won."
Linus on the other hand much preferred the monolithic design of linux, for a variety of reasons. Mr. Tanenbaum even went so far as to imply that Linux wouldn't be a passing project for his class. Ironic, no?
Even so, Tanenbaum did and still does have some good points about the Mach microkernel. I can't exactly imagine Torvalds is the most impartial judge of the mach microkernel.
Slashdot. It's Not For Common Sense
"...I am going to say again that you are wrong and Linux is NOT ready for the desktop no matter how many times people like you claim it is."
Proof by analogy is fraud, ok with that said:
Are stick shift cars not ready for the road since a number of people can only drive automatics?
Not that I am missing your perspective nor disagree on its merit. Perhaps I should have used motorcycles instead of stick shifts?
BSD is designed. Linux is grown. C++ libs
If you trust the book "Just For Fun" he actually says nasty things about PowerPC architecture as well. He must have gone through a big conversion on PPC.
Knowledge is power. Knowledge shared is power multiplied.
I wonder if he's running a premade distro like Yellow Dog? Or (possibly more likely) did he compile his own PPC kernal from source?
OS X and X both rely upon IPC message passing for the basis of their windowing system. The biggest difference is that X servers generally come with transport mechanisms other than shared memory that offers network-transparent usage.
Over local connections, images are stored in shared memory segments, messages are sent via shared memory over unix domain sockets, and hardware accelerated 3D is performed optimally.
Loss of performance? None. It is not uncommon for an X server to have considerably superior performance to that of GDI or Quart2D. It's also not uncommon for an X server to perform badly, because its drivers are poor.
It's even more common for toolkit authors to create radically suboptimal decisions, such as with Gtk+ and Qt.
In short, you have no idea what you're talking about. Presumably you've never written a display server, and thus don't really understand how they work.
I wanted to say the exact same thing. I'm not a Mac user, nor am I a Mac Linux user, but speaking as one who roomed with someone who was for a while, parent post is dead on. My friend managed to find endianness bugs in both GAIM and GCC (I think). Now this was a while back, and things have likely improved, but the fact that these two (or one, if I'm remembering GCC wrong) major projects had compatibility issues with PPC, implies that maybe having someone high up using this relatively obscure architecture isn't such a bad idea. With luck, this might knock some of the less caring projects into gear. I mean, if you're running a random open-source project, whose bug report are you going to address, if forced to choose? MacFree4Life25, or frickin' Linus Torvalds?
There are countless x86 Linux users, with varying degrees of clout, to test drivers and submit bug reports. But Mac Linux users are kind of rare, and as such, their complaints tend to fall by the wayside. And to people complaining that his use of non-commodity hardware will cause it to not work as well on x86 platforms, please understand that a) he is about as likely to switch hardware configurations on his x86 box for testing purposes as he is to switch between x86 and PPC, and b) compared with most x86 hardware peripherals, PPC is about as nonstandard as you can get without going embedded. You have nothing to worry about -- the only conceivable result is a more robust Linux.
Linus does hate the hashed page tables of PowerPC.
They are not cache-friendly, and they are complex.
The hardware does have redeeming features. It runs
cool, allowing for less fan noise. It has AltiVec,
giving it wonderful performance on software RAID,
crypto, and image processing. The FPU is very fast.
Plus, Linus got it for free.
no-ones asked the obvious yet... Gnome or KDE...
runs for cover...
Donald 'Duck' Dunn: We had a band powerful enough to turn goat piss into gasoline.
Apple would sure miss the $100+ you pay every year and a half to upgrade OS X.
It is precisely because of people like you that have no fucking clue what 99% of the world (some of us geeks included) wants in a desktop that Linux zealots have been fending off this argument for upwards of five years now.
Linux is absolutely not ready for the desktop. Until the community settles on a consistent interface and set of UI standards, it will never be ready for the desktop. For all the talk about how Microsoft is more committed to shiny new features than stability and consistency, they do a much, much better job than the OSS community in terms of UI. The controls in every window manager I've ever used have felt clunky and awkward. Shortcut keys are different in every application. And you've got 600,000 people each more interested in making their own window managers than in helping to develop a unified standard.
Which is fine. They're hobbyists, after all. But with that kind of attitude, Linux will always remain a hobbyist OS, and will never make it onto the desktop en masse.
Yeah, IIRC, Linus switched to a PPC64 box not long after his move to OSDL, and it's definitely had a positive affect on PPC Linux. In 2.4 days, anyone who wanted to build a kernel for their PPC Linux box learned quickly to avoid the mainline kernel -- mainline was the "official" ppc Linux tree, but quite often the releases wouldn't even build on ppc. Everyone (including most of the PPC-specific distributions) worked from the -BENH tree, where ppc-specific problems were quickly fixed, and ppc-specific releases were made. Those patches made it to mainline eventually, but like many of the other ports, PPC was it's own little fiefdom in kernel-land.
Today, you can't even find the -BENH tree. Every mainline release builds on ppc64, and ppc32 tends to need only tiny patches, if any; when PPC breaks, Linus notices, and cares. PPC is a "tier 1" platform.
Some of this is probably due to bitkeeper -- the ppc development tree was kept in bk before even Linus adopted it, so the common infrastructure probably smooths the path of PPC-specific patches into mainline. But the fact is, when ppc64 is broken in mainline, Linus can't work on any other part of the kernel until it's fixed, and every kernel gets built and booted on such a machine before it can become a release. It makes a big difference in the quality of PPC support in Linux.
"That's all I have to say about that" --Forrest Gump
I don't know, I'm just saying that the talk about an OS tax, as usually applied to deals Microsoft has with OEMs, seems to not-quite apply here any more (or less) than it would apply to talking about the OS tax on a Palm device.
Find is hella slow. Slocate depends on a database which is updated via a nightly cron job, and database lookups are magnitudes faster than crawling all mounts in your filesystem. Slocate is also more secure, showing you only those files which you as a user have access to (read access). This behavior can be modified to your liking but that may defeat it's original purpose.
Even if you somehow manage to obtain OS X without the dev tools, you can download them for free from Apple's site (after signing up for a free online ADC account).
No, because Microsoft didn't build it. Apple builds the box and calls it a Macintosh.
It's a Mac running anything, because APPLE built it and APPLE calls it a MACINTOSH.
Think things through, people....
It's the Stay-Puft Marshmallow Man.
So if a buy a new PowerPC, format the hard drive and wipe out OSX, install NT4, I'm still a Mac user?!
And what if I take all the guts out of the case and replace it with and intel motherboard, CPU, etc. Does that still make me a Mac user?
I'm just curious how you can NOT use the Mac OS and still use a Mac.
Maybe this will clear it up, if I buy an Intel based machine, wipe Windows off of it, and install Linux. Am I still using Windows?!
If someone says he and his monkey have nothing to hide, they almost certainly do.
So you point to some general benchmarks showing the G5 not performing better than everything else at any speed and claim it's an architectural problem? Do you even realize that architecture has very little to do with actual chip implementation?
Both x86-64 and PowerPC have pros and cons. Until someone decides to prove conclusively that it's not the OS, or anything else in the system, but only the processor that is the problem, this is mere speculation on the part of fanboys.
You are a troll and nothing more.
kc8apf
If you buy a Mac and ditch OSX in favor of Linux, they have still made a sale of exactly the same value.
That's not right.
If you buy a Mac, Apple has made a hardware sale, yes, but that's not all. They've also created a customer for other Apple and third-party products. If you buy a Mac, you're instantly in the market for Final Cut Express, for instance. You may or may not buy it, but you're in the market. Same with all other Mac applications.
Not to mention the fact that you also become a customer for future releases of Mac OS X. The vast majority of Mac users choose to upgrade their computers every year or two with a new release of Mac OS X. (The reason, of course, is because every release of Mac OS X to date, up to and including Tiger, has been light-years ahead of the previous release.)
But if you buy a Mac and then strip off the operating system, leaving the computer as just a bare piece of metal on which you can run home-brewed hobby kernels or whatever, then you're not an Apple customer any more. You're just another PC user who happens to have written Apple a check for $X,000.
If a bunch of Mac buyers started running Linux on their computers, Apple would be apoplectic, and would respond by kicking their software group into gear and releasing an operating system that puts Linux to shame in every respect.
Come to think of it, this seems already to have happened.
"is that every microkernel, kernel, etc. is a piece of shit."
What a truly ignorant statement. Microkernels are more stable than macro's (theoretically) but come at the cost of speed.
Its a tradeoff.
I know shit about kernel design as well but the arguments I see are as follows....
With kernels getting huge, microkernels could be easier to write and maintain since they have to be bugfree and stable. Macrokernels are easier to write generally but when huge can lead to problems. A kernel that has a bug brings down a machine unlike a userspace app. What is Linux? 70 million lines??
In this day and age of fast hardware and very bloated software and kernels, the argument to use a microkernel is quite strong. More userspace and less code touching the hardware can make sense. Also the speed difference is less and less of an issue today.
Qnx is a microkernel and so is AIX. Both are the most stable operating systems out there besides OS/390.
http://saveie6.com/
How does Linus using Apple hardware create publicity for MAC addresses? Even PC users with Ethernet use them.
Don't blame me; I'm never given mod points.
The real problem is that the desktop is a broken paradigm that everybody keeps trying to "fix". Nobody with half or more of a brain could possibly argue that windows has the best possible desktop out there, but people keep using it because it's what they're used to. The KDE and Gnome projects keep adding enhancements, bells, and whistles to make their desktop "better" than windows and then wonder why people still use wondows desktops.
If you're going to use something as broken as a "desktop", why should you bother switching away from the one you already know.
Speaking of having no fucking clue, you should look in the mirror.
Until the community settles on a consistent interface and set of UI standards, it will never be ready for the desktop.
Have you ever used windows in a business environment? What kind of crack do you have to smoke to see windows applications, hell, even windows components as having a consistent interface.
And you've got 600,000 people each more interested in making their own window managers...
Apparently you've dug up a rotting argument from the mid '90s. Try visiting the present. Find me a desktop environment that supports multiple window managers. Good luck.
If you want people to switch from something they already know, the change will have to be fairly revolutionary. Why don't people come up with a system that overcomes the inherent flaws is the "desktop" model. Things like the difficulty, nay, impossiblity of performing many to many file operations... Hell just come up with an interface that allows you to do all the things you can do in the command line... As it is now you can't even do a fraction of those things. Do that, and you'll have something that is truly better; something that it would be worth considering a switch to. Until you've done something like that, people will stay with windows.
Tell us your story
"Well, I found the need for a dual CPU big-endian computer with 64 bit addressing on which to test patches for the Linux kernel, so I got this Power Mac G5, wiped OS-X..."
January Called, it wants its news back. This was covered in an Interview by Linux Magazine back in January. The article is available on the web here.
Tovalds: I personally also feel that ppc64 is interesting, and that's actually what I run on my personal desktop( it's a dual G5 Apple box, although it obviously runs Linux, not OS X).
I bet he signed up to those "Get your free Mac Mini" and "Get your free ipod" campaign. I always thought that this was a scam, but now...
After someone tells you a punchline, do you usually ask, "And then what happened?"
Microkernels are more stable than macro's (theoretically) but come at the cost of speed.
Yeah, yeah - micro, macro, CISC, RISC, this here achitecture is the best evar for everything.
Also the speed difference is less and less of an issue today.
Mmmm. You like bloatware, too, don't you?
I think it has been admitted that though technically it would be a good idea, the encouragement it would be to hardware makers to produce binary modules would damage the linux kernel more in the long term, since it would lead to something comparable to the windows world, where there are no open source drivers.
Currently the cost of maintaining a closed-source driver for linux is prohibitive, so any hardware maker that wants their hardware to work on linux is strongly encouraged to release their hardware specs, and plenty of them do. With a solid binary-only framework in place, there would be little to no encouragement to release specs, and so most drivers would end up being closed source.
To sum up: technically good, politically bad, so no go.
It is funny but disheartening to see how even Slashdot editors can't remember yesterday... before Intel (or HP or Compaq, you name 'em) killed the Alpha, Linus was given a four-way Alpha workstation he used for quite some time, I think it was two or three years until x86 hardware took over in performance (over his three-years old system!) or Alpha was seen as a dead end or whatever.
So he's just doing the same, this time with a platform not so fancy but with a safer future.
It means an easier life for us Linuxers on PPC, but we were already blessed with great hackers both on the kernel and in other parts; for example the leader(s?) of the Debian X Strike Force are Linux on PPC users.
Now what would be great is if proprietary vendors start porting their stuff... every day I miss things like j2re plugin for Mozilla, a Flash player, Adobe Acrobat and NX. Granted there are alternatives and clones, but gcjwebplugin still crashes Epiphany and ain't Java 2 level yet, swf_player is only playback, no interaction and takes way too much CPU, Evince doesn't do PDF forms and X.Fast (LBX) simply can't work in POTS dial-up situations where NX shines.
Leandro Guimarães Faria Corcete DUTRA
DA, DBA, SysAdmin, Data Modeller
GNU Project, Debian GNU/Lin
Having a dual-proc PowerPC with G5 (PPC 970) processors will increase the chances that Linus will think about performance issues for such hardware. The 970 has a longer pipeline than the G4, for example, so it's possible to leave quite a bit of performance on the table with code that stalls the pipeline a lot.
If Linus' insights on this for Linux can help the OS X people even find 1% better performance for any publically quoted benchmark, it will have paid for itself many times over.
This is just a SWAG (simple wild-assed guess).
The Apple Powermac Dual G5: worth running Linux on if the hardware is free.
Q:Why do smart people buy powermacs?
A:To install Linux on.
Q:What version of OS X are you running?
A: 2.6.11.
First it was MOL, now its LOA.
GNU/Linux systems have progressed to the point where the usability issue is arguable. I use Xandros 3 and Mac OS X at home. My Linux use goes back to 1999 whereas I haven't been using OS X for more than 2 months...
To enable firewire networking with my friends' WinXP systems, I clicked on a few checkboxes in OS X. In Linux, I have to recompile the kernel.
GNU/Linux is a networking powerhouse: So WHY did it take until Dec 2004 for someone (Xandros) to come up with a VPN client?
Oh, and if Linus or the FSF would allow themselves to see just how wonderful application installs/moves/removals are under OS X then perhaps we would see support for aliases in Linux. Dear LORD the problems that would solve!
Why, for the love of all that's holy, should anyone care what computer Linus uses to do his work? If he uses a Sun, Mac, PC or even a PDA, does it matter as long as what he produces works?
I think the simple matter is that Macs are generally appealing, and that those who like them tend to evangelise a lot and those who don't have some fear that x86 is not good enough, or somethiing to that extent.
Unfortunately the "them" you are referring to is 90% or more of the computer using public. I have spent years working around people with bachelor's and master's degrees. These people refer to Word as "Microsoft". As in: I wrote the file in "Microsoft". They refer to MSIE as "The internet", as in: "Does this machine have the internet?" If these people mastered life as well as they master computers, they wouldn't be able to tie their shoes.
Linux will be ready as a desktop for the masses in my opinion when the average (L)user can install and remove applications more easily, when it has a ID10T ready help system that doesn't scare the hell out of them (no big words, no jargon), when it has a desktop that offers a fairly complete and polished control panel system like Windows 95/XP/OS9/OSX, when the average A+ moron can install and configure a piece of hardware graphically with drivers and all without a recompile (for when the (L)user takes it to CompUSA) when the user interface has better continuity (I still have problems occasionally with cutting and pasting between apps), etc.
I really dig Linux, especially Slackware, but I'm not putting my mom on it because she lives too far away for me to support it (2300 miles). And even though she is a SASI administrator (annoying database app created for educational use), I'm pretty sure that it'd be a rough haul for her without direct help/me administering the machine. My father, who is mostly a non-user (if you move the icons around, he gets confused) would be completely lost.
Hell, at one school I worked at for a bit, I did some configuring of an OSX box from the command line and the other Network Techs got all freaked out. They were flabbergasted when I setup automated backups of the grade books to the district office using rsync (if you use THAT, who will support THAT if you are not here). Since the Network Techs at my last job couldn't figure out how to do anything other than launch what was listed in the KDE menu, and re-image the machines using the CDs the outside contractor gave them, I have a rather low opinion of Linux's readiness for the masses
Then ripped out all the leather, wood trimmings, chrome plated parts, etc. and replaced it all with treadplate stainless steel. Seats would be covered with sandpaper, and there would be no steering wheel. Real men don't need steering wheels anyway, they can drive from the console.
The mods who gave the parent 4, Insightful know nothing about the kernel development process.
For one thing, the lack of support for binary-only modules is not an "oversight". It has been done deliberately, for somewhat political reasons, and is a touchy subject with many kernel developers.
Before giving (or modding up) grandiloquent advice on what the kernel and Linus "need", one should have at least some understanding of how the kernel is developed and what is its current state.
I'd bet 90 percent of complaints about linux stem from installation issues. I honestly don't think the issue is the usablility of the desktop- it's compatibility issues that appear during installation. Anyone can get used to the desktop. If Linux isn't preinstalled, though... I had an experience with an older Gateway laptop. I literally tried 6 different distros, trying to find ONE that recognized my display. No luck. I browsed the forums, found some advice that ended up not working, and had to stick with windows on my laptop. I didn't even SEE the GUI on that machine.
My good looks paid for that pool, and my talent filled it with water.
Wow.
Open up a gnome or KDE desktop and do the same thing.
This is just an example but will probably still work unless you choose a program with no file menu on purpose.
Now try your experiment again. Were the menu items in the same order in those programs? How many had sub menus?
Pick five windows programs at random and figure out how to open their options or preferences dialog.
Install a microsoft program like Money or Project. Look for where in the start menu it put it's icon. Now install Office. Look for where that put it's icon (hint, it's not even in programs).
Open up the control panel and look in the Power settings. Now tell me why some of the settings you expect to find in there are actually in the Screensaver tab of the Display properties window... including the amount of time before the hard drive spins down.
Consistent my ass.
Linux isn't for the desktop and never will be until the driver issue is settled. When I bought my digital camera, I had patch the kernel in order for it to be recognized. It was a trivial patch, granted, but still I shouldn't have to do that.
/etc/foo restart init.d. That is bullshit.
As far as learning new skills to correct problems under linux, that's a bit of a canard. Linux problems tend to be a lot more arcane than problems under other oses. Patch the kernel. Edit
I am not a fucking sysadmin. I do not enjoy fucking sysadmining. Trying to find out out why I have to manually load a module to get USB to work is not my idea of fun. I don't get my rocks off by screwing around with XF86Configs for a week only to get an image that almost fills the screen, and is almost straight across, and just has a little bit of white and black vertical lines in along the top and left edges. When I shove in my USB mouse, I want it to not only be recognized and made usable, but I want all 7 buttons to work damn it. For 10 years I've run linux as my primary OS, and not once in those 10 years has all my hardware worked.
Even if the driver issue is resolved. You then have to deal with the "community". Buggy software that if you ever say anything bad about it, you'll be shouted down as a heratic that should learn some respect for getting something for free. Releasing subpar software doesn't mean you're infallible, it just means you have a hobby. Then if the sofware ever gets to a usable state, the software will be rewritten "the right way" and the bug cycle starts all over again.
I like unix. I'm comfortable in unix. Unix let's me do my work, but these claims of linux apologists saying "Just wait! It will get better! Linux on the desktop is just around the corner! Linux is just a easy as windows! Linux is easy to install, it's windows that's difficult!" (That install line, is my all time favorite.) are getting old. I've heard them all before. Hell, I even used to spout that tripe. Then I grew up.
And that should be the main excitement here.
There was a time right before OS X dropped in our laps that I was running Linux PPC or YDL more often than OS 9 on my well-abused Powerbase (long live PCC). Now OS X is leaps an bounds ahead of OS 9 in all the right places, but having an alternate OS that has a growing user base that's able to do some pretty intersting development just might be a great fire under Apple's butt to keep the performance improvements coming.
I mean, imagine in a year if Linus and PPC Linux junkies end up being able to run a (hypothetical) Linux/PPC Doom3 at 50-100% increased fps over OS X. Bring it on. Push these boxes to their limits.
I'm not leaving this hardware platform any time soon. Anything that's going to put competition at the OS level to push the software development on that very platform can only bring good things(TM).
What is Linux? 70 million lines??
/usr/src/linux/ -name "*.c" -or -name "*.h" -exec cat {} \; | wc -l
$ find
1165052
Did I miss something?
I kid you not. The trick is to simply ignore all
the wild and crazy stuff. Linux does this.
With a normal PowerPC chip, there is no way to
avoid using the hashed page tables. You simply
can't ignore it.
I've been using Linux for longer than most, and I still completely agree with you. This is why I now use OS X on my desktop.
/. readers can actually handle the truth, especially when the truth flies in the face of the reality-distortion-field surrounding the "Linux on the Desktop is Finally Ready" movement.
All I have to say is "duck"... few
bash-3.00$ uname -a
SunOS panda 5.10 Generic sun4u sparc SUNW,Ultra-2
Strangely enough most of the OS X converts I know are experienced sysadmins / developers with years of experience on *nix.
Indeed. When I first switched started using a Mac casually, it was still largely "the artists platform". These days, I know more programmers and systems administrators sporting PowerBooks than I do graphic designers.
bash-3.00$ uname -a
SunOS panda 5.10 Generic sun4u sparc SUNW,Ultra-2
Just a side note, but that would execute a lot faster if you just piped the list of names through to xargs and let it run cat, rather than run cat once for each file:
Amen! Desktop Linux is a disasterous mishmash of 4,000 people's different ideas of what makes a good GUI. Its going to get worse. That stuff on 3D windowing systems it just going to slow everything down more with stupid effects like writing snakes and shaking links. Ohh, lets not forget windows that are put on sides of a rotating cube. For some reason, everyone uses that for a demo effect.