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Dvorak Says Apple Move to Intel Will Harm Linux
Deep Fried Geekboy writes "John C. Dvorak is pretty quick off the blocks with a response to the news that Apple intend to switch to Intel processors. Thankfully, he doesn't gloat about having called this one correctly, but says that the move is likely to hurt Linux, as OSS developers increasingly target the Mac. Since it now turns out that Dvorak was apparently not smoking crack when he predicted the Apple move, could he be right on this one too?"
Wow, your behind. Yes, its x86. The developer system is running a 3.6Ghz P4.
He said in 12-18 months and that was almost 27 months ago. This is something of a nit, but you can't say "Windows will be less than %50 of market share in the next 5 years" then 20 years later say "I told you so" when it actually happens.
-- I am not a fanatic, I am a true believer.
Yes, in this case Intel == x86 (the machines they are giving out as dev boxes are Pentium 4's).
There is plenty of anecdotal evidence about Linux/Unix users switching to Macs in droves. If that's true, I don't see how Apple switching to Intel based system will stop that switch. It will almost certainly make the switch even easier to make. Let's face it, with a Mac you get Unix AND a great GUI.
If someone says he and his monkey have nothing to hide, they almost certainly do.
http://www.osnews.com/
Except that Yellow Dog has already said that they aren't going to transition to x86, they're sticking to PPC. Yes, it's possible that this divergence will decrease sales to the point that they go out of business, but they seem to think it will increase their presence in the xserve market.
Liberal (adj.): Free from bigotry; open to progress; tolerant of others.
You're half-right...
-- MacWorld
Elsewhere they have said, of course, they're not going to allow Mac OS X to run on non-Apple hardware. So it seems that if you want to dual-boot Mac OS X and Windows, you'll have to buy a Mac. (Or wait for the inevitible hack.)
Don't become a regular here -- you will become retarded.
OS X is Mach with a BSD single-server. Exposing a BSD API apparently makes it BSD to you. That's pretty funny. Not that being derived from BSD is something to brag about since the 4.4BSD Lite2 code isn't reentrant, its network stack isn't scalable, it doesn't support modern platforms, it doesn't use ELF, its scheduler is useless for desktop programs, its filesystem is unreliable, its libc is ludicrously behind the times and has nothing resembling internationalization.
Oh, but then the most common fiction is that it's based from FreeBSD, rather than BSD. It uses a FreeBSD userland, and even made use of parts of NetBSD and FreeBSD's kernel for drivers, but it's otherwise just a BSD server for Mach. Go look at Darwin sometime, and see just how not BSD 4.4 OS X is.
Also, part of the whole point of 4.4BSD Lite2 is that it removed the AT&T code from BSD.
According to pg 47 of this document Apple will be abondoning the Open Firmware.
Truth arises more readily from error than from confusion. -Francis Bacon
the developer doc ("universal binary guidlines") talks up and down about IA-32 and not a stitch about EM64T/x86-64/amd64. In fact, the ABI section explicitly mentions 32-bit details only (registers, limits on returning values in registers).
... it's going to be 64bit too" - but they could be doing that on the scenario that migration starts with notebook-class CPUs (P-M is 32bit only) and towards the end PowerMacs get the 64bit dual-cores or something along these lines.
Makes one wonder, what kind of game is Apple playing? It does not make much sense to withhold information from developers and say later "actually
Goes without saying that a 32bit-only x86 PowerMac would flop when you can buy a 64bit machine from any other vendor and have the Windows version of your image/video processing toolchain run faster/better.
Either way, it will suck for the short term and remains to be seen what the long term will bring.
Good point.
Keep in mind, just because the CPU happens to be Intel/x86, doesn't necessarily mean the rest of the architecture has to be compatible with current PC's.
Although it would be nice for MS to have some more real competition.
Since Apple will release the core OS (Darwin) Open Source, it is trivial to get the core OS to run o
No, they don't. The "core OS" is much more than just Darwin. Quartz and Aqua are so important to the execution of any major "Mac application" that they too must be considered as part of the core. And obviously, they are not nearly Open Source.
If you didn't need the Graphics and UI stuff, you'd probably be better off running your applications on BSD or Linux, forgetting OS X.
Where the hell did you guys get that info?
I was talking about that last night on IRC, and afaik x86 is limited to 32 bit architecture!
Why the heck would Apple, who's G5 is 64 bits switch to a 32 bit architecture?
Most likely they're going to use another Intel chip, like Itanium2 or something to come that runs 64 bits, not 32!
It doesn't make sense for them to DOWNGRADE their hardware. They'd be signing their death as a competitor for high end applications, which is what they are for most professional graphics and video applications.
Seriously people, think about it! Amd is 64 bits now, apart from the sempron line, and that's destined to disappear sometime in the future.
So yes, in my opinion Dvorak is smoking crack, because it's not OSX for x86! It's OSX for a non-x86, 64 bit Intel chip! Itanium2 might be it, or it might be something else, I haven't kept up with Intel's 64 bit attempts.
Also switching from the 64 bit PowerPC to a 64 bit Intel chip would seem more coding than switching to 32 bit, as they have OSX running on their older G4s and even G3s.
Remember that end of article about migrating to Intel? "It's going to be a lot of hard work"? It wouldn't be if they were switching to x86, Darwin runs fine on x86...
Doesn't someone else see the flaw here?
---- I am certain of only one thing : I know nothing else.
Eh???? From the forementioned weblink:
Pre-installed implies that it is installed on hardware. Furthermore, you do not get to keep this hardware (not sure why that isn't better documented there). You have to send it back in before Leopard ships. This is purely a developers tool until Apple starts shipping the real systems. [ Similar to Microsoft shipping Apple G5 systems to folks doing Xbox360 development. That will change once Xbox360 hardware gets closer to shipping.]While this interium system may be generic whiteboxes, it seems likely that this analyst is on track with Apple's true path for boxes that ship.
http://www.eweek.com/article2/0,1759,1824781,00.as p
http://www.intel.com/technology/security/
LaGrande is backward compatible (i.e., windows will boot) but there are hooks for Apple to stop MacOS X (not Darwin... the full proprietary stack) from booting up. Meshes very well with what the Apple VP is quoted as saying about not precluding Windows (or Linux) from booting.
You are ignoring the thing that makes it impossible. Supporting the x86 world is nearly impossible- just ask any Linux distro. Despite years of work on drivers there are still cheap webcams, wireless cards, dvd drives, sound cards, and other peripherals that won't work with Linux because there is no driver. Are you saying that every creator of all the x86 shit (including those that are out of business like Aureal) is going to create new drivers JUST for a new OS that will have a smaller percentage of the market than Linux has today? No. OSX on Dells are a fantasy. The magic of OSX works because the OS knows every piece of hardware it touches . There are only a few thousand MAC possiblities. The arrangement of parts in other x86 boxes can easily reach over a billion combinations. Apple isn't going to mess with that. People won't accept "buy OSX, and there is a small chance it will work!"
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