Could Apple's Intel Desktop Threaten Linux?

esavard writes " If Linux enthusiasts don't want Mac OSX on Intel to become a threat for the future of Linux Desktop, they must rethink the concept of Desktop as we know it today. Symphony OS did exactly that and propose some fresh concepts about how a desktop should and should not be. If you want to know more about Symphony OS, a good starting point is a Wikipedia article describing the innovations proposed by this new desktop OS. The Linux Desktop Community must encourage such initatives massively to compete against Mac OSX and Windows."

Comments

Beautiful

[AKAImBatman]

After looking at the screenshots, allow me to be the first to say: Wow. That's so beautiful, it brought a tear to my eye.

The one thing that stands out at me is that Symphony uses Yet Another(TM) packaging system that is supposed to fix all the woes of the previous packaging system. Haven't we learned yet? In a complex system, packages are just as bad (actually worse) for users than DLL Hell. And they certainly don't solve the issue of maintaining the sanctity of applications, and maintaining file associations across deletes/manual installs/program moves. These are some of the greatest break points in the Windows OS. Yet Mac OS X has none of these problems thanks to its amazing .APP application scheme, and IOKit interface which tracks files by INode instead of path.

Under OS X, installation consists of downloading the application, and optionally extracting it from an archive. That's it, nothing more. You can run the app from any location (although the "standard" is the Applications folder), including right out of the DMG archive! File associations are easy: Just have the program on your hard drive. That's it! The OS takes care of querying the program for its associations. If you move the program, the OS knows. And if you delete the program, the OS removes the association. No mucking around with manual configuration. The *only* thing you can change is the default program!

Given that OS X has shown us the power of this method, why haven't any distros latched onto it? Yes, it means that the OS must promise a base set of shared libraries, but the user experience is so much better!

Re:Beautiful

[AKAImBatman]

Your complaint that you can't install an application as a regular user makes me wonder if you're trolling. I think everyone here knows why it's a bad idea to let anyone install anything.

Ok, why? Why should the user be prevented from having personal programs? There's certainly no restriction against fat binaries, so why not a lightweight binary?

If the concern is system security, than the installtion level is not the place to worry about it. The place to worry about it is at the runtime level. Because a determined cracker will find a way to get a user to execute his program. And once its executed, it is the responsibilty of the runtime system to protect against anything malignant.

Re:Beautiful

[Bruce Perens]

Thanks for going into depth.

This seems to boil down to an argument that cathedral-style management of all APIs relevant to third-party applications is necessary if they are to work. Certainly they will be made to work more easily that way.

But from a standpoint of supporting a diverse ecology of software producers and lots of competition, the cathedral isn't the most desirable structure. It seems that when one pays a draconian cost (central control) to solve smaller problems (package dependencies, file locations), it might not be the best deal in the end. I'm still endeavoring to provide a better solution to this problem.

Bruce

Re:Beautiful

[AKAImBatman]

If I may be so bold, none of the "issues" leveled against the OS X APP system are inherent deficiencies in the design. For example, there is nothing that prevents a Linux APP design from adding installer/uninstaller hooks. And most installers on OS X are used for either upgrading system components (via auto-update), installing Unix components (which can't be APPed), or to manually build an APP from a highly compressed archive or tailored to the system. Nothing actually prevents such installers from being APPs themselves.

I honestly have never understood this hostility toward the APP scheme. It's a good scheme, that actually *works*, as opposed to packages that constantly *don't*. Yet OSS developers just keep sticking their fingers in their ears and screaming "I can't hear you! La la la! I *like* having a completely unremovable mess of files across the entire system! La la la! I *like* the fact that I'm screwed if my package database should every get lost or corrupted! La la la!"

It's just a... weird... reaction.

Re:Beautiful

[Dcnjoe60]

You are mixing apples and oranges. You are comparing packaging systems using the command line in Linux but using the gui interfaces of Apple or Windows. Shouldn't you be using Synaptic for a fair comparison? At least that way, you don't have the problem of not finding the package, because it's in the list you are picking from.

Next, you complain that the debian packages are very often out of date, which is true, however, you confuse the issue of debian as distribution versus the way debian packages work. In otherwords, you are confusing one organizations implimentation instead of the actual methodology.

Along those same lines, when you complain about packages being out of date, again, they are, in the Apple or Windows world, with commercial software, how often do new updates come out? I'm not aware of anyone running Office 2005, so you could say that Office is also out of date.

Most of your complaints seem aimed specifically at debian itself. There are other debian based distros that have solved many of these.

One final comment, I am assuming that you are the sole user of your computer and it is at home or a small business, because you complain about having to become an admin to install software. Well, in most businesses, that would be a plus, because you don't want joe-worker to be installing whatever he pleases. At home, too, it is a plus, I don't know how often the kids have downloaded and installed something that broke Windows. However whether OS X, BSD or Linux, you could always enable sudo for the users you trust not to screw up the system and thus mitigate the problem. I believe that is the approach that OS X took, along with several of the debian based distros.

Re:Beautiful

[MostlyHarmless]

What do you do with something like OpenOffice.Org, then, which requires about 10,000 dependencies? Should each GTK+ application come with its own statically linked copy of GTK to be carried in memory separately for each app?

The natural response, of course, is to say: "no, that's an unnecessary reduction ad absurdum. We can just declare (by some means similar to the LSB) that all applications must use GTK+ 2.4."

But then what do you do six months down the road when you start to see applications written for GTK+ 2.6? Now, either you have to convince every application developer to stick with 2.4 (unlikely); distribute those applications statically linked (ugly, see above); or explain to your users why they have to upgrade to the next version of your distribution to run what they want to run.

Given that sort of choice, I'd think most users and developers would rather work on making packaging systems more friendly instead of abandoning them altogether.

A Mystery Wrapped in an Enigma...

[Adrilla]

Interesting. An advertisment, disguised as an Apple article, disguised as a Linux topic. Interesting.

Only if

[Kilz]

Apple wants to commit suicide and alow the Mac os to be run on generic pc's. So far what Iv read says that the Mac os will still only run on Mac's. Apple has no plans on releasing the os as software to run on any pc.

x86 != PC

[FidelCatsro]

Apple are moving to X86 yes , but it wont be standard PC equipment .
This is no threat to linux , Apple are going to keep with their custom hardware and linux for A-x86 will spring up and take over in a few years from linux for PPC (well not totally )

Threat to which desktop...

[Kjella]

...the corporate desktop? I doubt it. The primary advantage of Linux here is to set up simple, free desktops for users which are not locked in to Windows.

...the tinkerer's desktop? Nope. They'll keep going with Linux just as they did before Linux could compare to either Windows or Mac (at least on the desktop side).

...the mass market desktop? Maybe. Except Linux never really had it to begin with. As for OS X being so much better - well, I must say that I could build a much better Windows experience with Win+commercial apps than I could with Linux, if I had endless cash or no ethical problem with copyright infringement. Still, Linux and the free legal desktop interests me. I don't think it will be significantly different with Linux vs OS X.

Kjella

Threaten how?

[solios]

Everybody I know who's a linux user but wants a useable desktop they don't have to mess with has already bought a Mac and "switched" to OS X. They still use linux, but the machines are either console-only or headless.

Of the dozen or so people I know who've "switched", they've all been linux or *bsd users, and they switched because Apple provides a useable desktop experience that Just Works Out Of The Box.

Of course, these are people with lives who don't like plinking around with their computers just for the hell of it - they use the things to Do Work.

How OSX on x86 and Linux could help each other:

[daemonc]

First of all, I doubt that OSX, evens if it runs on commodity x86 hardware, will seriously decrease Linux's marketshare. Linux enthusiasts and Free Software advocates are not suddenly going to switch over to a new proprietary OS just because it's available. (Raging anti-Microsoft zealots might though, but that's a segment of the population I think we can do without.)

However, this is a unquie opportunity for the Linux community and Apple to help one another and both gain a big chunk of Microsoft's userbase.

Imagine if Apple started contributing funds and/or developers to the Wine project, basically doing for Wine what they did for Khtml.

Imagine being able to tell someone that, yes, they can switch to Linux/OSX and still run all their Windows programs/games.

Imagine what that would do for the marketshare of both operating systems.

How can ANYTHING "threaten" Linux?

[The Dodger]

Q: "Could Apple's Intel Desktop Threaten Linux?"
A: No.

The concept of Apple-on-Intel threatening Linux might be valid if Linux was a commercial operating system, sold by a company whose market share and profits might suffer if Apple were to compete successfully against them.

But it isn't.

You can't threaten Linux. If Red Hat and all the other Linux companies were to drop Linux and switch to something else, if Dell, IBM and all the other box suppliers stopped supporting Linux, if all the hardware manufacturers who currently provide Linux drivers for their products all stopped supporting Linux, it still wouldn't be dead. You'd still have people like Torvalds and Cox writing code in their spare time and there'd still be geeks downloading Linux and installing it on old PCs.

Giving people an alternative to Linux isn't a threat - it's a choice. It's freedom of choice and freedom is what Linux is all about.

More and more, we see articles and talk about Linux's market share, whether it's going to be successful on the desktop, whether it's going to be able to compete against Windows, against Solaris, et cetera, et cetera, et ad infinitum cetera.

Linux doesn't compete against Windows, MacOS X or Solaris. Linux vendors, like Red Hat, compete against Microsoft, Apple and Sun. Linux just is. The fact that it's supported by various companies is great but it's not essential for Linux survival. The fact that the amount of people and companies using Linux is huge and growing is terrific, but it's not essential. If everyone, right up to and including Linus abandoned Linux, I'd still be able to dig out my Red Hat CDs and install it on an old PC.

This article is just typical of /. these days - it's a stupid, hype-ridden question, which hundreds of clueless fuckwits will comment inanely on, wasting bandwidth and electrons.

Wake up and take your heads out of your asses.

D.
..is for Don't. Be so. Fucking. Stupid.

Until Apple announces OSX for non-Apple machines..

[Andy_R]

The only Linux this is a threat to is Yellow Dog.

Apple are staking their entire company on OSX not being pirated to other x86 platforms. OSX will not support any non-Apple hardware, so it's not a threat, unless you count possible increased Apple market share due to lower prices.

Re:More like, Linux is a threat to Apple

[American AC in Paris]

The fact is that the Linux GUI is constatnly approaching "Apple Quality" and it will only be a metter of a few years before it gets there.

Linux will continue to improve, but so will Apple; the question we need to ask is which one will improve faster in the GUI department. In this regard, my money is on Apple, simply because they have near total control over the user interface. They can stand up and say, "the behavior for X will by Y," and that's how it will work. Linux simply does not have this luxury. With Linux, you still have situations where applications work wonderfully with GUI A but have "quirks" if you try using certain features in GUI B, C, or D. Until there's a standard that desktop environment developers agree on and adhere to, you're going to have a fracured desktop experience.

Yes, in another few years, the Linux GUI will quite possibly be as "good" as the Apple GUI is today. You're fooling yourself, though, if you think Steve is gonna sit back and say, "well, that's good enough." The real challenge for Linux GUIs will be to get better faster than Apple can--and I'm not sure they can, for the reasons stated above.

Simple, dumb, and easy :-)

[kollivier]

Now, take Debian's package system: it handles dependencies, version conflicts, alternative packages that serve the same purpose, etc, etc, ec. And it is absolutely easy: an apt-get install xyz installs/updates package xyz and all the necessary shared libs, updates file associations, whatever (and it does not takes exactly rocket science to create some GUI for that single command line).

I realize this could start a 'flame war', but it surprises me how many Linux users just don't see why package managers are not the greatest thing since sliced bread for average users.

While you and others may go "wow!" at all the magical stuff apt-get does, the average user doesn't even know what dependecies are, nor do they care. And they don't want to care. On Mac, as "simple and dumb" as the OS X system is, it *just works* for everyone from grandma to geeks. A simple and dumb system is also, well, very easy to understand! Drag and drop your app into the folder. Easy. Nice. As for package managers, I've had to deal with scenarios where I had to muck with the package manager configuration to get it to install packages for me, and I've had to "add URLs" to the database at which time I was warned about "untrusted sources" (the average user is NOT going to grok all that). In fact, when the average user sees "no results" from the database, they'll simply conclude the package isn't available and stop. I'm not sure how anyone thinks this is easier than going to versiontracker.com/apple.com/etc. and just downloading a file (or popping in a CD), then dragging the app into the applications folder.

If you doubt me, have someone do usability research on package managers and drag and drop installs, and see which is, on average, easier for users to understand and get working with. If you really think package managers like apt-get will come out ahead, then you must spend a lot of your time on the computer and deal regularly with others like yourself.

If you really want the Linux desktop to succeed, you have to question why lots of people are switching to Mac instead of just 'bashing' anything that is not as complex and elegant as apt-get. Call it dumb, call it simple. I call it a solution that works, and considering Macs are seeing a 40% growth this year, so do a couple other people as well.

As someone whose tried every Windows from 3.1 to XP, close to a dozen Linux distributions (including Debian and Ubuntu), and OS 9 and OS X, I have to say application installation and removal on Mac blows the others away. It works and it's brain-dead simple, which means I spend more time doing real work than fooling around with installers and packaging programs. Good luck on converting the world to apt-get, though.

Not root? Sudo?

[poptones]

If they should not have to be root and not even have to type in some form of confirmation that yes, I want to add this PROGRAM to my computer, what?

This is how windows has worked for ages and it's the most common way to own a system - it's so incredibly easy to install something, just click and bang and we own u.

It's not hard to type a password when installing an app. It tells the user they are doing something to alter the fucntionality of their machine and it tells the machine this is what the user wants to do.

Specification Based Development (tangent)

[LionKimbro]

What interested me most about Symphony OS is that he put togther a bunch of mock-ops and explanations about how things worked, before coding.

It seems to me that we're moving towards a specification-based development model. Even some of the GNOME guys are talking about making GNOME a ''specification,'' rather than a particular ''implementation.''

If we can do this, then it's a great thing, because it means we'll have the basis of a not-just-coders development model. We'll have something where the body of developers are separate from the body of designers. This leads the way for even more decentralization, which is exactly what we need: Right now, the developers are the bottleneck in pretty much all operation. There is very little separation of work, except for website maintenance.

The more we can make clusters of people working on specific tasks, with well defined roles, the greater we can scale this Free Software thing.

Re:Mac 924 Vs Microsoft Gremlin & Linux Miniva

[Spencerian]

An advantage is no advantage if you are losing power to make a computer efficient in computing.

True, PowerPC chips were competitive against a similar x86 processor--oh, about 3 years ago.

Now, because IBM can't or won't improve the specs, PowerPC chips are outstripped. And Jobs saw that happening--FIVE YEARS AGO. That's foresight. He wants to keep a Mac at a comparable speed and performance to that of his competitors.

PowerPC chips WOULD still advantagous IF IBM would have a 3.2GHz chip for Apple's desktop ONE YEAR AGO and IF IBM had a 2.5GHz mobile G5 ONE YEAR AGO. Apple had a choice of being left behind or shopping around. Intel, for all its faults, is a strong chip maker that doesn't have their hand in many other projects to distract them. They power some of the faster computers in the world, and are happy to work with Apple for two reasons.

One, AMD is a serious competitor. And two, they hate the rep they have that all of their chips are piss poor, when the blame needs to go to the Windows operating systems that drive the majority of them AND the old IBM clone architecture still used on PCs today that limits their chips. We know that Linux works fine on x86, so we can expect that standard at the least with an Mactel system. But I expect more because that is Apple's wont.

Imagine a PC mobo without the BIOS and legacy limits, high bus speed, and running an OS that doesn't inhibit the processor's performance or require ancient hacks to work with new hardware. That very computer might be a Mac in two years. We'll see.

Time and again it has been said: putting an x86 chip doesn't mean a Mac's architecture will change dramatically. It might change for the better since Intel will aid Apple in making a mobo spec that really, really uses the processor to its fullest. It's what we expect from Apple, but we'll have to wait for the goods to be sure. In the meanwhile, my PowerBook is fine, my G4 is fine, and I look forward to a future that looks a hell of a lot brighter than it did when a 3.4GHz Mac of any kind did not exist.

Re:ARRRGH!

[vertinox]

Installing a program involves installing system files

NO! NO! NO! NO! NO! NO! NO!

This is why you have to reboot after you install many Windows applications. Why in gods name do many developers think they must put their glorified DLLS in my C:\winnt\system32 directory and modify the Registry into the high heavens (or pits of hell depending).

If you need to use parts of windows use the ones that come with windows library or ask the user to install it (like Direct X 9) and not overwrite it for them.

For gods sake man! You don't know what other program is using that DLL if you overwrite it. This is why one must format their hard drive after installing and uninstalling programs after a given amount of time in windows.

Programs should remain independant of the OS and make calls to it when it needs to. Programs should not modify the OS!

BTW this is not a common pratice on Mac OS X.

Re:Windows XP installer sucks less than Macintosh

[thatguywhoiam]

The thing that you can find in Control Panel > Software. It's far from perfect, but at least it lets me see all the installed software on a system and remove it with a single mouse click. It's not as nice as Linux package managers, but it's a whole lot nicer than Macintosh, where I have to go hunting around the file system and can never be sure whether dragging the application into the trash will actually remove all traces of it (in fact, it won't).

Now that is truly a heroic reach.

You mean to tell me, that dragging the application's icon to the trash is somehow less logical to you than locating a Control Panel that will 'teleport' it off your system?

'Single-click' = click icon, drag to trash.
'many-click' = click Start, click Control Panels, click Add/Remove Applications, click down scroll arrow to desired app, click app, click Remove.

Look, the Add/Remove thing is stupid. There is no good reason in this day and age that the OS cannot figure out what I want to do when I drag an app to the trash/bin.

And you are wrong about 'traces' of an app - the only thing left behind is the .plist file, which is all of 4k.

There are good things to pick on in OS X, but application installing/de-installing is not one of them.

Re:Windows XP installer sucks less than Macintosh

[ColMustard]

A user should never want their preferences deleted. Even an application with thousands of savable options will use so little disk space that it doesn't even matter, and of course if the user ever did want the application back (perhaps he was merely upgrading manually), his preferences always Just Work.

You think users should have the option to delete them, and they do have that option. Preference files are always stored in the same place. If you really did want them deleted, you would know where to find the file. My grandma, on the other hand, has no idea what a preference file is, doesn't care whether it's deleted, and certainly doesn't care where it's stored.

Main point here: deleting preference files certainly isn't the drama you would like others to believe. I believe that's called FUD, or perhaps you just have never had any real experience using app bundles.