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Free Software on a Cheap Computer
Shell writes "Is this the solution to free software on a cheap computer? NetBSD and Yellow Dog Linux have both begun to support the Mac Mini. This article from IBM looks at open source operating system options on this new contender in the embedded PowerPC platform space." From the article: "This article looks at the current state of Linux and NetBSD support on the Mini. If you need all the hardware and options fully supported, these open source options won't do it for you ... yet. But, if all you need is a stable kernel, a C compiler, and network support, the code is high-quality and the price is unbeatable." This is part two in the series. Part One was covered a while back.
Bullshit. Apple is a hardware company that happens to need to make software in order to move their pretty plastic boxes (and I am typing this on my iBook G4, FWIW).
No, but I used to work for Microsoft.
Actually, the ordinary (802.11b) airport cards are supported quite well as they use the popular orinoco chipset. Monitor mode is even supported for all your sniffing needs.
Airport Extreme (802.11g) cards remain unsupported for the same reason other broadcom chipset based cards are - no information was released on how to actually use these chips.
You fail to mention that this system is listed at nearly double that price, and the link shows you how to go through rebate hell to get a deal. And the deal expires tonight.
No DVD player in the Dell, nor FireWire, nor a modem, nor a stack of bundled software, nor 90 days of free telephone support. Nor is it small, or silent. Laptop technology, which is what the Mini uses, is more expensive.
Just because the Dell costs less doesn't mean the Mac Mini isn't cheap, especially since the box contains more in less space.
Except that the Mac mini isn't a 64-bit G5.
how about the fact that 300 dollar computers do not come with firewire, dvd drives, cd writers, modems, and all the good software that comes with OS X,
I am the Alpha and the Omega-3
if you are reffering to quicktime, yes, they charge for fullscreen
They just charge for the menu item:
tell application "QuickTime Player"
enter full screen display 1
set the scale of movie 1 to screen
play movie 1
end tell
The grandparent's point is perfectly valid. Fry's sells Great Quality brand generic PCs for $180-250. I've bought several of them to run Linux on, and they've worked just fine. The price doesn't include a monitor, but that's not an issue if you already have one.
It boggles my mind that people are still referring to a $500 computer as cheap. That hasn't been a good price since at least five years ago.
Find free books.
Search for broadcom on sourceforge, and you will find a project for reverse engineering the driver.
Dvorak on Doomtech
The whole premise of the article is: An embedded view of the Mac Mini
So for $499 you get an entire solution as an embedded computer; developer tools, OS, and hardware.
For your $98+$40+$40 (case, mb, hard drive, video card, and CPU), where are your developer tools, OS, ram, and SIZE?
Can you place your $178 (+ram, OS, development tools), inside a car? A backpack? A handheld?
The point of the embedded development system is that you can use your tools and hardware from your development environment and transfer it into production. IE, an embedded PowerPC.
Where is the LOW POWER embedded Pentium 4 or embedded Athlon? Your proposed solution would be to develop on a $200 Intel PC for a $80 PowerPC solution.
The Mac mini proposed solution would be to develop on a $499 PowerPC for the same $80 PowerPC solution.
Your idea works great... if you're developing for the XBox. For all the other PowerPC devices (like say the TiVo, or maybe the GameCube, or the future PS3, Revolution, or XBox2), it seems kind of backward.
GPL Deconstructed
"...it was a HELL of a lot cheaper than the Wintel laptop I considered (1300 w/ educational deal, plus 69 for another iPod, vs 2100 for the Dell I would have otherwise got [centrino])."
That's like saying that a Honda Civic is better than a Bentley because the Civic costs $13k and the Bentley $130k.
A $1300 iBook is a much lower end machine in comparison to a $2100 centrino machine. The Dell you compared had a bigger, higher resolution screen, faster CPU, more memory and hard disk.
Mac hardware is excellent, but more expensive -- you could get a laptop similar to your iBook for about $300 less.
I'm buying a Powerbook when Tiger is released, understanding that I'm paying a premium over what I would pay for another functionally similar Thinkpad T42 or T43.
Conformity is the jailer of freedom and enemy of growth. -JFK
I'm currently agonizing over the decision to build a Mini-ITX or buy a ready made MiniMac. I'm probably going to do the Mini-ITX. However,...
Unfortunately Mini-ITX is not cost effective. One has to specifically want either an extremely small, or extremely quiet computer and be willing to pay the admission price. The MiniMac offers both at a very good price (comparitively).
In order to compete with MiniMac, a Mini-ITX box would have an MII-12000 MoBo ($200+ US) plus a small box like one of the Casetronic Travla's (~$150), low profile memory (~$80), a slim optical drive (~$80+), and a notebook hard drive (the only cost effective peripheral ~$70). Total cost, ~%570. The Mini-ITX would have user service-ability, Compact Flash + PC-Card, and better connectivity. But the G4-based MiniMac would blow the doors off the C3 Nehemiah-based Mini-ITX box.
Until Mini-ITX components come down in price, the MiniMac might be the more cost effective solution.
But only in the very small, very quiet computer market. As others in this forum have already pointed out, one can build a faster X86 box for less money. If one doesn't care about small and quiet, that's the way to go.
At the time, the machine I compared it against had a smaller HD (40gb vs the 60 in my iBook), a faster processor (1.8 centrino), the same amount of memory, and a bit better screen resolution (15" display, 1280x760 or something really weird like that), and a bit of a better warrantee (3 years, which I guess I have the option of getting with Apple; Dell wanted to force it down my throat. Also, take in account this was before Dell was giving away the world with their machines..). The thing is, I wouldn't need that much power if the damned operating system that came with it (Windows XP Pro, another few bucks on the price, regardless) would simply do its job and not require as fancy hardware. Yes, I evaluated Linux as a possibility; I run Linux on my desktop machine at home, simply because it's a bit older, and all of the stuff that came with it (by the graces of a few donating coders in the world) was supported. I knew if I got a laptop, I wouldn't be so lucky. Also keep in mind I only evaluated Dell; by the time I saw Panther, I was sold.
"Victory means exit strategy, and it's important for the President to explain to us what the exit strategy is." G.W.Bush
You may not need crossover -- straight ethernet will do, as the Mac's NIC will "cross" the connection if it senses it needs to.
I disagree. I think Apple hardware is getting much more affordable. I feel pretty strongly that a G4 iBook at $999 (add $25 for an extra 256 MB RAM aftermarket) is one of the best deals out there.
That may be because I just bought one, but I did my research first, including having a couple of other laptops at home to play around with. A laptop "similar" to the iBook for $300 less would simply be a cheap laptop, and that's *not* a good deal.
seriouslyexcited.net
Wrong. That's the second time I've seen this on Slashdot. OS X includes a full implementation of the POSIX aio specification. Take a look in /usr/include/sys/aio.h. I have spent the last month developing software on OS X that makes extensive use of this facility. What OS X does lack, is the man pages to go along with these system calls (although the documentation in the header file is not bad).
I am TheRaven on Soylent News
The real question here is: Why would I give a crap about a free OS for a computer which already comes with a better one as a standard feature?
No, the real question is, "did you read the opening post?"
Not the linked article - the opening post. It clearly says, "This article from IBM looks at open source operating system options on this new contender in the embedded PowerPC platform space"
Key word here is "embedded", which implies a whole different ballgame compared to desktop or server computers. Google if you're unfamiliar with the term. A feature-rich GUI desktop OS is not ideal for the embedded market.
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