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No Threat to Linux with Apple and Intel Deal
LnxPhreak writes "Gundeep Hora of CoolTechZone.com has a new editorial up that discusses why Apple and Intel's partnership is not a threat to Linux. The column weighs in on different points equally. From the article: 'However, that doesn't mean it's the end of Linux. In fact, it shouldn't even threaten Linux by any means. Linux has more than a few things that go in its favor, at least for the time being. The idea of open-source software is an amazing one. The fact that Linux isn't much of a commercialized operating system, and you can accomplish day-to-day tasks without too many hassles is an advantage in itself. The idea of running a system that costs absolutely nothing on the software side is a powerful one, and Windows and Mac OS X would have a difficult time competing against that.'"
The only way anything can be a threat to Linux is if it is better.
There can only be fear if one does not think Linux is up to it. In which case, surely the Linux community has strength to solve such problems ?
Or not ?
If there was ever a real threat to Linux, it would be any legal challenges to licenses or intellectual property issues squeezing out such good and useful ideas a breathing oxygen or using a keyboard to type a useful program.
I'm sorry, but there are too many grammatical errors in that article. Maybe he had a point somewhere, but when my head hurts reading I am going to stop reading.
Nobody knows anything. My guess is, in ten years time, there will still be a current version of the Mac OS, a current version of Windows, and a current version of Linux.
The only one there's a real question about is Mac OS.
In 20 years? Who knows. I'd put money on Linux, even if only maintained by a few hobbyists. I'd wager that there *won't* be a version of Windows that has much in common with the current Windows. And if there is a Mac OS it will probably still be running on top of something like Darwin.
I'm not wrong. You haven't thought about it hard enough.
and let's not forget when OS X was announced, since it was 'based' on FreeBSD everyone was saying THAT was the end of Linux on the desktop, and if anything it's gotten stronger. DISCLAIMER: I own two macs; one runs Linux, and 3 linux boxes; one is my main workstation - So in the end, we all win! ;)
bo
bad_outlook
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Is this vague enough for you?
...and welcome to last week.
Must it be commercial to have market share?
With Windows and Mac OS X fighting it out for x86 dominance, this is the perfect time for Linux to slip in unnoticed and take over the desktop market!!!
Apple and Intel are two major corporations producing green-house gases (carbon dioxide, methane, water) than contribute to global warming - this is going to melt the ice caps, destroying penguins' natural habitat - the antartic, and Tux will die...
One word - iLife. OS X can hold it's own. Linux is cool and so is OS X. Free is good, but I'd rather pay up if I get the better experience. Cheaper isn't always better.
...will it run Linux? ^_^
...wait, did the SlashDot editors just use "its" correctly?
;)
Holy shit. First Apple switches to Intel, then Sarge is released, and now this? I think Hell has officially frozen over now.
With spending like this, exactly what are "conservatives" conserving?
Here I thought for a moment that Apple switching to Intel could threaten Linux. Glad to see that the fear was unjustified. Whew.
It must be Windows. It needs half a gig of RAM and a hardware-accelerated graphics card just to run Solitaire.
The idea of running a system that costs absolutely nothing on the software side is a powerful one, and Windows and Mac OS X would have a difficult time competing against that.'" Actually, they don't, because the majority of the computer public truly believe that Microsoft Windows and Office comes free with the PC. Most new Macs come with OS X and iLife free. Despite being true or not true, this is the perception out there.
IT seems to me unless you have hardcore certified geeks in your company, linux will cost you a lot in consultants. A lot of people can easily set up a windows or Mac box, but as for linux, it requires a more savvy end user. a LOT more savy.
Apple abandons Motorola and PPC based platforms, and guess what happens? kajillions of customers will feel shafted, as they've already been each time Apple has made a new MacOS that's incompatible with the previous ones.
Net result: Linux will be installed on those soon-to-be-unsupported machines, and the user base will grow.
So all in all, I think Apple is doing the F/OSS movement a great service by demonstrating exactly why F/OSS is needed.
"A door is what a dog is perpetually on the wrong side of" - Ogden Nash
I doubt Linux will be significantly hurt by Apple's move. But, there is always the potential that OS X adoption could slow Linux adoption in the desktop arena. One the server side I would expect Linux to keep gaining ground. But since OS X is Unix and provides a more unified platform in comparison to Linux as a desktop solution there is always the potential that Linux adoption could slow in specific areas.
But remember, everyone is still specualting and until we have Intel based Macs shipping no one has any clue what is going to happen....
Even if I knew that tomorrow the world would go to pieces, I would still plant my apple tree. -Martin Luther
The real threat to Linux is harware manufactorers purposely making devices that only work on windows and not supporting linux at all.
I would have thought this was pretty obvious by looking at the approaches of the two camps. Linux goes out of its way to support as much hardware as possible, even obscure and lesser-used devices. Apple support their own specifically designed & built platforms. There's a total polarity on the two approaches to the underlying platform, and of course the two can co-exist well, as there are needs/uses for both these approaches in today's computing environment.
Business Voyeur
I know that this isn't the best place for this comment, but I want opinions on this:
With Apple moving to x86, what are the chances of a full-speed emulator for linux, similar to WINE (yeah, WINE is not an emulator, blah blah blah)?
I would think (not being a hardcore programmer, just a web monkey) that it would be easier to implement a translation layer for Carbon/Cocoa (whatever its called now) due to the unix roots of OS X (and that there is probably a fair amount of documentation available for this). A translation for Aqua (to gtk or whatever) may also be necessary, but I don't know much about the whole setup.
After all, X works on OS X.
The reason I ask is this: if a near full speed MINE (MINE is not an emulator....) could be developed, it would open up a lot of applications (photoshop) to the linux user. I could see this scenario being smoother than the WINE situation, and providing a better interface. I could also see it really helping linux.
As for the Apple switch, I am surprised they did it, but if anything this will help linux. I think that those saying it will hurt linux are way off-base on this one.
"We don't know what we are doing, but we are doing it very carefully,..." Wherry, R.J. Personnel Psychology (1995)
I never understood why Apple's decision would affect Linux at all. After all, why do people choose Linux?
Is the price of their hardware going to change?
Is it going to be easier to run Mac OS X on generic hardware?
Has the TCO for Mac vs. Linux in the enterprise changed?
It seems to me with Windows and OS X, you invest in the software/hardware. With Linux, you invest in people.
On a large scale deployment, it seems to me the latter is going to beat the former. Compare Google using authentic
Windows/Mac versus Linux.
At home, why do geeks run Linux? Is it because it's cheaper? Is it because it's what they use at work?
If for any other reason, it seems to be they probably would have considered Mac already anyway. I suppose the only argument would be that it would be easier to dual-boot Windows+OS X. Is that true? Do most Mac users want to dual boot, or run Windows in some sort of VM?
is that it actually runs on PCs.
Apple is NOT going to run on standard off-the-shelf
computers and this means it's still a proprietary hardware platform, Intel-based or not.
"The second point of interest is the driver support that currently favors Linux." ...because some companies are starting to think about fooling around with Linux support? That's supposed to be better than the current support for Windows or Mac?
From TFA: ...and you can accomplish day-to-day tasks without too many hassles is an advantage in itself...
Sorry, but comparing Linux and Apple ease of use and coming to this conclusion is pure pollyannish optimism.
If you want to get work done, rather than work on the tools that will allow you to get work done, Apple is very attractive. Linux less so.
A bigger threat would be an open source version of solaris that runs on x86.
Badass Resumes
Glad to see that the fear was unjustified.
You already know that. I already know that.
Go try to explain it to Capt. Oblivious.
KFG
It may not be a direct threat to the OSS paradigm, but it certainly is a threat to companies that commercialize and fund many projects.
But this all depends on how strict Apple will be wrt OS X running on commodity hardware.
If OS X is allowed to run on commodity, or even just non Apple hardware (such as Dell's "Lexus" line of PCs), you can bet that companies like Mandriva, SuSE, and Linspire would be hurt. Corporate adoption would be even that more difficult, as companies would probably prefer to dual-boot Leopard and Longhorn than touch Linux on the desktop.
Maybe if the community weren't so focused on practical/relative benefits of OSS (such as "speed" and "slickness"), and instead focused on the real and absolute benefits ( "open source"/"free", non-reliance on a single vendor), it would be much easier to weather these storms.
Oh well. In any case, the next two years are going to be damn interesting. Hell, the next two months are probably going to be damn interesting, as we slowly find out more details as to how Apple plans to attack the x86 platform.
Has anyone seen a quote from any Apple execs saying how much an Apple/Intel Mac might cost? I ask because if the Intel Mac still costs roughly 2500$, I don't see it being much of a threat to any other arch/OS any more than PPC/OSX is now.
.. I probably missed the price revelation)
(yeah
No I do think there is a threat.
I couldn't imagine using Apple OSx for my web servers. However, I could imagine myself sitting at a shiny macintosh..
However, I develop a M$ application in *horror* Access */horror* so I'm kinda sorta stuck on M$ winders...
I do believe that with OSx making inroads as it is, it should kick the KDE/Gnome/whatever developers to copy^H^H^H^H modify their code and make the environment similar or equal to the usability of the Macintosh.
Until your average Joe can use Linux, it won't be "The Killer" way to compute. Only the unwashed masses will use it on their desktop.
In the server room? Heck yeah Linux me up..
= Grow a brain...
The threat is that people will dual-boot Windows and OS X? Yeah, who needs Linux when you can instead run 2 expensive, closed-source Operating Systems? (Well, ok, OS X is more open than Windows)
I really think that Apple's move to x86 is such a bold move that it really is hard to tell what exactly is going to happen on the market. I think I've heard "experts" cover every possible scenario, and one of them has to be right, I guess! But really, we just have to lean back and watch Jobs' handywork as it unfolds.
First Dvorak jumps in with his usual troll, and now we get J. Random Reporter from some cool tech site telling us why he's wrong?
;-)
I'll make my own prediction: I think Apple's move to Intel spells a short-term rise and long-term fall of Linux for PowerPC
Seriously, it's just not THAT sweeping a move. Let Apple have its fun, and more power to them taking over the desktop market from Microsoft. I'd certainly rather have to occasionally use a Mac at work than Windows.
Disclaimer - I didn't RTFA. But why would it be considered a threat to Linux? And if it were a threat - who cares? I don't get the premise of the thread.
Linux runs fine on PPC and didn't seem to threaten OS X - I don't see why the reverse would be any different. And anyway, people are going to run that which best suits their needs and tastes, and I would guess that there are more Linux desktop users now than Apple users. Maybe this is a bad analogy, but it's like saying that Apples may threaten Oranges now that states other than Washington produce them. We can eat one, the other, or both depending on our tastes.
They call me the working man. I guess that's what I am.
The idea of running a system that costs absolutely nothing on the software side is a powerful one, and Windows and Mac OS X would have a difficult time competing against that.
I have to completely disagree with that statement. Mac has 3% of the OS market share compared to Linux at 1%.
OSS has been in the mainstream going on about 5 years now and both Windows and Apple have competed great including the fact the OSS is "free".
"It's not rocket science, Smithers! It's only brain surgery!" --Mr. Burns
The idea of running a system that costs absolutely nothing on the software side is a powerful one, and Windows and Mac OS X would have a difficult time competing against that.'
Yeah I mean, who uses Windows?! Their market share is only like 95%, they totally can't compete with Linux!
I don't know why everyone sees this as a threat to Linux. It's a real threat to Windows. If Apple sticks to only allowing OsX to run on Apple hardware, and is successful in marketing the advantages of a *nix system, then people are going to want something similar. Microsoft can't provide that (the *nix advantages). However, Linux can.
Apple's premium priced OsX on premium priced Intel systems positions Linux as the poor man's version of OsX on regular Intel systems. Apple, doesn't loose anything (they only allow OsX on their own equipment), however Microsoft easily could.
We've beat this subject to death. Linux will die on it's own accord. Stop wasting post space with this Apple/Intel deal. Really. Do we care that much? This must have been the sixth post.
Flash breaking news. Michael Jordan says Linux will be affected. And in other news, Barbara Streisand says Intel is making a mistake. And in other news, Joe useless says Apple is making the deal of a life time.
Come on, this is enough.
ogg
Black cat, searing pain, flames...? I must be in Heaven! - Homer Simpson
In an entirely unrelated story Titanic says that the iceberg is no threat.
Don't blame Durga. I voted for Centauri.
When it comes down to it I'll admit that mac os x has many areas where it has superiorities over linux, but as a linux user I just can't see anywhere that linux isn't better in the end.
So no I don't think there's a threat at all, but a complement.
The idea of running a system that costs absolutely nothing on the software side is a powerful one
Everytime some Linux zealot repeats the myth that Linux is without cost, it's another blow to the collective credibilty of the Open Source Software movement.
While Linux may have a zero or near-zero cost of admission, the continued ownership is not without cost. Either a company is going to pay maintenance fees to someone like RedHat to be able to keep their systems patched, or they are going to be paying for talent in-house or renting talent via consultants to keep their systems patched. Or they are going to run unpatched and venture the risks (knowningly, or not) present in the forms of the bugs and security exploits and eventual incompatibilities that present themselves down the line and have to deal with those costs.
We run not quite a dozen boxes with Linux on them at my employer, and we are paying for maintenance for all but 2 of them. And those two are test/development platforms that management would chose to live without if it came to that. Not because the OS weren't on maintenance, but because they were free and running on semi-obsolete hardware.
I can no longer hear all that stupid talk about linux dying because of this or that.
...). As long as _I_ am allowed to use it, I don't give a damn.
Get it: linux has not died 14 years ago, when exactly one person used it. And it will surely not die today, with millions of people using/developing it. Regardless of what apple, intel, microsoft or the maintainer of xscreensaver are doing (well maybe the uspto or epo matter, but
I'm not gonna switch my linux box to OS X, but I am going to recommend it to my Windows using friends and especially my mom. And I think Im not alone here. People who are not clueles can still run Linux and the people who need easy but secure solution instead of Windows are first to switch to Macs.
That phrase was cut and pasted verbatim from the linked article.
My other first post is car post.
Ya of corse i said the same thing a couple days ago and got reamed by the moderators. go figure
The fact that ... you can accomplish day-to-day tasks without too many hassles is an advantage
That does not sound like much of an advantage.
If you want to say that the new x86 Macs running OSX will hurt the Linux Desktop "Market Share" then you might be right. For every hard-core linux fanatic there are probably about 10 casual linux desktop users that might switch to OS X.
Development wise I think that it will be a different story. Kernel hackers are going to keep hacking the linux kernel because, as far as open kernels go, it's got the best game in town.
Application developers will probably pay a bit closer attention to cross-platform compatibility which will *grow* the Apple/Linux desktop app space.
I don't own a Mac and I haven't actually had the chance to poke around inside of one but isn't there a lot of overlap in OSS application software?
The idea of running a system that costs absolutely nothing on the software side is a powerful one, and Windows and Mac OS X would have a difficult time competing against that.
Absolutely true -- an under-emphasized observation that explains why Apple and Microsoft make up such a small percentage of installed systems.
"...and you can accomplish day-to-day tasks without too many hassles is an advantage in itself."
I suppose that depends on your definition of 'too many', I guess.
I'm not posting this as flamebait -- I just avoid Linux like the plague because it's a major pain in the ass to get set up and running.
Mac OS X, on the other hand, works out-of-the-box, and hasn't been the headache that Linux was. (And with Apache, PHP, Ruby, and Perl all preinstalled, why do I need Linux?)
blog |
If what you say is true, the comment should have said "It's hard for something with no market share to threaten anything", since the original article is about Apple's move to Intel hardware threatening Linux.
A collective sigh of relief sweeps across the land, as all is well again in Linuxville...
Hey I am a huge linux user but hey work had a obsolete mac they gave me so I loaded osx on it and test drove it. Well I quickly realized it is pretty much like loading up windows. You load it up and log in and you are greeted with a brain dead box with no software on it. Well unless you really enjoy using safari or the wonderful version of IE that it ships with. I have come very accustomed to loading a machine, logging in and being instantly productive with all the software I possibly need.... no thanks I prefer to own my software.
Got Code?
The Linux community gauges everything in terms of fear and threat. "Microsoft is a threat." "Mac OS is not a threat." "Don't fear the Penguins."
/.
This fixation on fear could be explained though. Do you really think Linux Zealots were jocks in high school? It's more likely they were geeky moma's boys for whom interaction with the outside world was all about fear. Fear of getting physicallly beaten. Fear of having their lunch money stolen. Fear of still being a virgin when they turn 30. Fear of someone undermining what they thought was a brilliant post on
Some have come to grips with this fear but other have not. Instead, these latter types act out against their fear through aggression in the form of first-person-shooter video games and flame wars. They engage in anti-social activites like reading books about fantasy and magic, dreaming of worlds and cosmologies where they can be wizards, powerful warriors, magicians, and other important people. Occassionally they commune with other Linux zealots for a game of D&D but this form of real human interaction is rare.
Linux zealots need to realize that there is no reason for their fragile psyche. They are people with many wonderful qualities. They are good enough, smart enough, and darnit, (some) people like them. Why can't we all just get along without worrying about what threatens us? Hmmm?
Jobs already said that MacOS X will NOT run on ordinary PCs, so why it should hurt linux if instead of having PPCs Macintosh computers will have Intels.
Too many people are thinking like Mac OS X has been ported to PCs, this is wrong, the Mac platform isn't dead, and it didn't change at all for the user perspective, it just uses other technologies under the hood, nothing more.
The idea of open-source software is an amazing one.
It's the execution that often leaves a bit to be desired.
And yet, it is easy enough for them to aquire shares. Part of that is by buying programs out there (think of where many of the top graphics programs have gone lately). Likewise, by making it possibly to easily move about, they may aquire more.
Of course, I wonder if Jobs has not simply decided to sell to Intel. It makes a lot of sense.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
The article seems rather pointless and smacks of journalistic hackery, one could of easily written an article saying "Monkeys no threat to Elephants!", that is to say while they are both OS's that may share some marketspace, they really don't interact much and aren't a threat to each other whatsoever.
Whether something is a theat to Linux or not will only matter to those whose preference for it is based upon something other than the objective merits of the system.
If something better than Linux comes along and Linux takes the back seat, how is that a bad thing?
Now I'm not saying that OS-X is better, or that it is worse. I'm just saying that it doesn't matter.
I think that a lot of people are afraid that something will happen to Linux akin to the things that have happened to superior products in the past that were defeated by inferior alternatives.
Luckily the market segment in which Linux dominates is one where technical merit really does matter most. The only way that something can displace Linux is if it is truly better, and if that happens, how is it a bad thing?
Lee
Muslim community leaders warn of backlash from tomorrow morning's terrorist attack.
I just checked the weather channel, and although Hell is in the midst of a cold snap it hasn't quite frozen over just yet.
It must be Windows. It needs half a gig of RAM and a hardware-accelerated graphics card just to run Solitaire.
Uh, it's called non-price competition (marketing, brand recognition, ...quality?) and it's often more powerful than price competition, especially when price is negligible in the long-term within a certain range (if you spend $3000 on a workstation, does it matter all that much whether you spend $200 on an OS or nothing?). Clearly Windows hasn't had all that difficult of a time competing with Linux, considering it's pre-installed on approximately 100.0000% of consumer x86 PCs.
What? its harder than it's made out to be.
Paying taxes to buy civilization is like paying a hooker to buy love.
The thing that im more worried about is waning support for linux ppc. When I got my ibook, I assumed that the increasing population of ppc machines would mean that over time, support for linux on ppc would increase. It seems to me that if all of apples new machines are going to be built on x86, then linux ppc will once again become more of a niche hobbyist thing, as opposed to a serious architecture.
Cringley must be going through bricks of crack given his recent output.
The worse thing is that there's no end in sight. A good writer, or Cringely, can feed the flames until MacIntels actually come out and then keep it going to for a long long time.
Everyone I know who uses a Mac still uses Linux on their servers. The reasons should be obvious, Apple offers a better user experience while the history and economics (and probably performance) of Linux on the server are better. Unless Apple starts focusing on server performance and cost effectiveness, I don't see this changing, and there'll continue to be an exchange of workstation and server software between the two, which will be free and open source. :)
It just hasn't realized it yet. LONG LIVE OS X!!
It seems that Linux can do no wrong
What if this really is the magic bullet guys? I love OSX, I love modding my machine.
I love OSS, but come on this idea is beyond amazing.
RTFA again for the best results.
If manufacturer Z makes drivers for product y for OSX on Intel (which is of course based on Darwin), does that have any impact on Intel drivers for Linux for y?
If a driver is available for Darwin, even if it is a closed binary, could a layer be built to make it work on Linux, since Darwin is open source?
~~~~~ BigLig2? You mean there's another one of me?
People don't use Mac OS because they happen to have a Mac Computer sitting around. They use it because they choose to. Someone has to specifically go out and buy a Mac. Even if that Mac ends up having an intel processor, it's not going to be just any old PC that can run Mac OS.
Different operating systems serve the needs and preferences of different people. What hardware it runs on is really secondary. Certainly one of the appeals of Linux is that if that toaster has a processor in it, someone will port linux to it. Just because they can. Mac or Windows are never going to be that kind of OS.
I like what they've done with OS X. It's a nice tool. I like using debian for certain types of servers. I like mandrake for certain kinds of workstations. I still use windows for other types of workstations. They all serve different functions. But when I build a machine, I hardly worry about the specific hardware involved unless that is a requirement for the machine (like needing that hot nvidia graphics card for... um, computational fluid dynamics.. yeah.)
Life goes on, let's go live it.
Got Apathy?
yeah right.
any environment that requires users to dick around with multiple different config files, all with their own syntax, just to do something as commonplace as connect a computer to a Windows network for sharing files is not ready for Day To Day tasks.
wake us up when setting up and maintaining a Linux system doesn't take more time than you spend actually doing what you need it to do.
I'm burning the original linux kernel source-code, plus Sarge on CDs right now, and I'm sticking them inside a time capsule (old cardboard box), together with a couple of metal bars and burying it on my backyard.
The good news here is that Microsoft has alot more competition these days between Linux and Apple. Choice is a good thing.
honestly folks, the days of nerds ruling the computer market are coming to an end... back when it was only nerds who had a computer, it was only our nerd issues that drove the sales of comptuers and software. Classic mac os was too closed off for the early computer user/geeks. So DOS/Windows won the race... Now, things have changed. EVERYONE needs a computer. From the mailboy to the CEO, computers are part of almost every job. So... what's happened? People want to buy something that works better.... (OS X). Nerds... will always use what they like and that's linux, for now. Apple's about to pull and end run around M$ and OSX's unix roots are good news for linux... Until someone fixes an interface to run as smooth as OSX for linux, it won't be popular with anyone but nerds. I mean, I have to enter all my own MIME settings in Gnome... how the hell am I going to tell my mom how to do that? But really, OSX is already there and nerds are happy enough with linux as-is, so I doubt the gui will ever catch up. Not to mention that Apple is able to make such a smooth experience because it has unusual control over the hardware. Just my $0.02.
Why the hell would it be modded troll??
Did it miss something? Not to troll, but I can only think of a few hardware companies that even try to support linux.
Yes, for more advanced functionality you might need to edit a config file here or there, but I see this as being no different to Windows, where you'd usually have to modify the registry.
You may want to checkout distributions such as Fedora Core or Ubantu; or even try out a commercial version such as Linspire or Xandros.
Anyone else notice that (currently) the above post is at +4 Troll?
News for Trolls, Stuff from under Bridges...
Track your TV Shows with your iPhone - FREE
Since the new macs will be intel based, I expect people to be running dual boot OS X/Linux systems just because. I know I was pondering what to get next, a new PC so I could run linux or a mac to run OS X. Each have their advantages and disadvantages so apple's news kindof just solved my problem. Now I just have to wait for a bit.
...because Linux and OS X serves two completely different markets. Linux is a hacker's (in the ESR definition) operating system. The source for everything is readily available, and all of the changes you want to make is just a compile away. You can learn just about everything about how the operating system, the utilities, the compiler, the graphical environment, and the applications work. Want to learn the architecture of the Linux kernel? It's all in your source directory. Developer tools are also freely available (thanks to the GNU toolchain), and anyone with programming knowledge can make their own programs as well. Linux is great for developers and hackers, but Linux's usability still needs some work. Some distributions are better than others, but sometimes setting up exotic hardware or laptops can be a PITA.
Mac OS X is the type of operating system that you use when you finished a long day, and you don't feel like struggling to get your printer or sound to work. Mac OS X is very easy to use and has a wide selection of very great applications (MS Office, Photoshop) that aren't available for Linux. Mac OS X inherited all of that NeXT goodness (which I still lust after), and made it even better. Mac OS X isn't as "hackable" as Linux/BSD is, but it is very easy to use and very pretty, and is very stable and is Unix-compatible whenever needed.
I don't think that Apple's switch to x86 is going to hurt Linux at all. Remember, just because Apple is using x86 computers with the same architecture as a PC (cough x86 cough BIOS cough) doesn't mean that you'll be able to run to the Apple store, buy the latest Mac OS X, and run it on your newest Dell or your beefed up Opteron. Mac OS X isn't an option for these people; the closest they'll ever get to Mac OS X for a "white box" is NeXTSTEP/OPENSTEP/Rhapsody (which are still capable operating systems; I look forward to buying a copy for my old laptop), or OS X under PearPC. And even if there is a way to "crack" Mac OS X in order to get it to run on a regular x86, it would probably be very difficult.
If you're interested in computers and want to find out how an operating system work and do your computer science homework, then you'd use Linux, BSD, Plan 9, or GNU Hurd. If you want to sit down, type some essays, surf the Internet, listen to your latest music, and edit your photos hassle free, your best bet is Mac OS X. I have a FreeBSD machine for the former purpose and plan on getting NEXTSTEP/OPENSTEP/Rhapsody (yes, I still lust after these OSes) or a brand new shiny Mac for the latter purpose.
Apple changing its hardware has no direct impact on Linux, and it most certainly isn't a threat to Linux. I don't see why anyone is worried about this, much less refuting those worries.
If anything, Apple's switch to Intel means that along with the ability to run Windows easily alongside Mac, now you'll be able to run Linux distros easily alongside Mac too. Gee, that sounds like a kickass machine for cross-platform developers, doesn't it? One box that runs Win, Linux distros, and Mac. I'm also fairly certain someone (if not VMWare themselves) will devise software along the lines of VMWare for OS X which will make this virtualization pretty fast and seamless. (Yes, there's Virtual PC, but that didn't work well with Linux distros last I checked.)
In fact, one thing I realized about this transition is that it's companies like Dell that have to be worried. Once you can install Mac, Win, and Linux in one box - and they'll probably have hardware that is competitive with other PC boxes - the only reason to buy one of those other PC boxes is the cost advantage. And if you're a pro software developer, or a home user or small business sick of viruses and spyware, that cost advantage doesn't look too appealing when weighed against your additional time and effort messing with the machine(s). People can now say "well, I'll try Mac - if I don't like it, I can always throw Linux or Win on this thing..."
I myself have been thinking about getting a faster PC box, but after the Intel news I thought - why not wait a year? VMWare is alreaday pretty responsive on my existing PC, and if it runs on my Mac box (which I use for my day-to-day work), I can have the best of all worlds and a significant speed-up at the same time.
Lastly, because of the above issues, I think Mac on Intel is only going to cause pressure on PC vendors to look at Linux more seriously, if only to squeeze another $50 off their PC prices.
Anyways, personally, I'm tired of all the off-the-wall and sometimes bizarre speculation and rumor-mongering going on. (piracy as Apple's strategy???) Since when is everyone and their cousin weighing in on the 'switch' actually news?
since they will need a new logo: http://www.tinyimage.de/image.php?img_id=7133
Try SimplyMEPIS, then. I installed it on my Dell Inspiron 600m notebook and not only was it a completely effortless install and completely effortless to use, but I didn't have to touch a CLI or text file at all. Not even to run updates, install new packages, and uninstall packages no longer wanted. Linux is free of hassles already; just choose the right distro for the right job.
It must be Windows. It needs half a gig of RAM and a hardware-accelerated graphics card just to run Solitaire.
Does linux have such a huge self esteem issue that it needs this much press?
"You're not fat, Cartman. You're just big-boned."
-Randy
The area where OS X really excels is the GUI. Apple/NeXT's operating systems and the programs that run on them tend to have more consistent, simpler graphical interfaces.
Albuquerque PC
Exactly, but do you expect trolls to use proper grammar?
"he fact that Linux isn't much of a commercialized operating system, and you can accomplish day-to-day tasks without too many hassles is an advantage in itself"
Who the f*** are you trying to kid, I mean come on, you just had yet another developer leave because of the stupid sound issues that should have been fixed years ago. Without too many hassles? You can barely install it as a non geek end user unless you happen to pick the right distro....ya nothing to fear my ass.
"The idea of running a system that costs absolutely nothing on the software side is a powerful one"
e in.pdf), the "Linux everywhere", though quite unavoidable, is a bit worrying. I guess competing against Windows does that to you (hint: humor).
Indeed, and the risk is the nature of the people promoting Linux: the community [Note: I hate that word, it makes it sound like Linux was planned all along rather than just being the collective efforts of many individuals who had very specific needs of their own] aims not to coexist with other technologies, but for total replacement of every other OS out there. Whether it's the range of platform (read: any) that Linux runs on, the range of applications that Linux is envisioned to run (even those clearly counter indicated for such an OS, like avionics or weaponry -- see the talk by Dan Klein on this: http://www.usenix.org/events/lisa04/tech/talks/kl
Especially if the emulator had the same style apple windows. They've sued or threatened to sue everyone else that has made Apple style themes.
This is something I don't really see happening as it steals the thunder from the mobo and chipset manufacturers. Intel, AMD, nVidia, Tyan, etc. do not want to see their boards' creative direction completely usurped by Microsoft, but at the same time are under the gun to support DRM by Microsoft which they for whatever delusional reasons they have believe might somehow screw them in spite if they don't.
What is MS going to do? Buy a processor maker, motherboard company, and so on and be like Apple? Microsoft is a software company, not hardware. The TCP/A Palladium crap should be dumped and the manufacturers should tell Microsoft to kiss their arses.
If the boards are restricted to Windows only, they shut out any future port of OSX should Jobs ever suffer a brain injury that miraculously cures him of his megalomaniacal idiocy, yes. And they kill Linux on all new hardware. But they also kill BSD which is used in sizeable amounts in corporate America in the server farm, they kill x86 Solaris, they kill a lot more than just Linux.
We don't need a PC tech forking to end all forkings. We don't need Microsoft gone over all Apple. We don't need the PC hardware being dictated from Redmond. We don't need to stifle the creativity in hardware we've had for these many years.
Of course there will be PC hardware and Windows-specific PC hardware. So the real threat to Linux is still the people who promote and move it and their lack of understanding as to why people choose Windows over Linux so overwhelmingly. Hints: EASE OF USE, EASE OF INSTALLATION, EASE OF CONFIGURATION, EASE OF ADAPTATION. Did I say that too loud?
If my grammar and spelling are off, I am [distracted/tired/careless] (take your pick)
I've been saying that this move will only help Linux. Over and over...
But once again, let me point out why: Because Apple wants to sell pretty, uncrackable, all-in-one, gold standard computers. They've been doing that since the 1970's and they will continue to do so. As we see with OSX and the ability to easily install Linux on a "Macintosh" that the software is just another layer.
Apple isn't concerned with those who want to run Linux, or even Windows on their computers. Doesn't matter because you bought their high priced, well worth it, hardware and likely paid for OSX twice in the process. And think about how open source friendly Apple has become over the past few years. Really, the only reason they went with BSD is because they can keep their version closed (right?). Apple knows that there is competition out there, they don't ignore it like other companies (guess which one I mean for extra points). Apple realizes that there are other options out there and looking at OSX you can see that they have made their product better to compete with those options. For once proprietary software is looking more and more like open source hardware (look at their widget campaigns).
Apple wants you to run whatever software you want, on their PC's.
Don't you think linux development and customer support is going to skyrocket when there is just a few configurations to develop for? Maybe Apple will be the first large computer manufacturer to offer a choice of Fedora, Mandrake, Suse, FreeBSD, OSX, Zeta, Windows, whatever. Maybe you buy Linux from Apple because that price includes Apple's own Linux support. Maybe that isn't feasible, but the point still remains: Apple can grab a giant amount of marketshare by telling buyers that they have a choice. Wouldn't you rush out to buy an Apple knowing there is no politics in what software you use.
So Jobs: Lock OSX to your machines, but leave your machines open to other operating systems. The world will thank you.
Get your Unix fortune now!
I have no clue what you're talking about when it comes to free software. I'm running Windows XP, Office XP, and a host of games and other applications and I didn't pay a cent! Hmm, what is that guy in blue with the taser doing at my door?
The one thing that the PPC->x86 move shows is that Apple Is Not Serious About The Server Market.
For servers, anyone could just as easily run Darwin, or Linux, or BSD, on their favorite x86 server platform. The xServe was pretty cool, but there's really nothing compelling there from an OS X standpoint.
The x86 move was aimed at portables, and low end desktop machines. Bringing (or continuing to bring) the OS X user-experience to that market. A market where Linux has traditionally not made even a minor ding.
The only folks who will suffer are the Mac OS X users on high-end desktops. And it's the ISV's who will determine what happens with that market. I have no clue where that's going to go, but without hardware as a big differentiator there, it really depends on whether ISV's abandon the Mac platform, or how well they transition Alitvec code to SSE3, and how well they handle the transition by supporting legacy hardware, and at the same time also support new hardware without cutting either segment of the market out. It's going to be a tough, tricky game for the Adobe's of the world.
For Microsoft though - my guess is that if Office OS X is too hard for them, they'll just bundle VPC with Windows office and be done with it.
These are my friends, See how they glisten. See this one shine, how he smiles in the light.
Do you prefer a hooker to your wife?
Do you breathe bottled air?
Do you drink only bottled water from the store?
Do you get your tans from sunbeds?
Do you keep your "friends" with expensive gifts?
Do you have all your meals made for you?
Do you have all your cleaning done by maids?
Do you have someone raise your children and pat your pets?
If you run out of money, do you run out of life?
For once proprietary software is looking more and more like open source hardware
Yeah, that should read software twice...
And Dvorak: Kiss my ass. You are an idiot.
Get your Unix fortune now!
It's too bad you didn't manage to use it properly though. As a possessive "It's tail is long." or as a conjunction "It's possible to have two of them.", both require that an apostrophe seperate the it from the s. "Its" is not proper.
:)
Good try though. Would've been better had you used proper punctuation.
"The idea of running a system that costs absolutely nothing on the software side is a powerful one, and Windows and Mac OS X would have a difficult time competing against that."
Linux is free only if you value your time at zero. Of the three OS's I think it safe to say that most spend more time configuring Linux than the others. If you are technically proficient you may not notice this cost but if you had to pay somebody else to do it you definitely would.
The price advantage of Linux can evaporate in a hurry when you have to pay $40 dollars an hour for a tech to set the system up. Such a cost is trivial when configuring a server but for a personal machine it could easily reach the cost of a copy of OS X or Windows. Time lost to unexpected problems when installing Linux on diverse hardware or when installing new software also translates into cost for many people.
I have been very impressed by the gains made by many Linux distros in ease of installs but there is no way that in the desktop and laptop areas that Linux compares to the other two OSs when it comes to time spent configuring the systems. Basic installs work well but wander away from the pre-installed software and nightmare tangles often ensue.
I think that the Linux community to often holds the time of the end user to be a worthless. Until that attitude changes the spread of Linux to the general population will continue to be slow.
The only threat Apple poses is to itself.
This move is likely to cost them a lot of followers, because they are switching platforms yet again. It's not going to get windows users to come over, because those users are unlikely to buy all new computers and software just for OS X. And linux users? I think they'll just laugh at Apple's folley and continue to enjoy the best of FOSS.
The only way Apple could be a threat to anyone is if they allowed OS X to run on any x86 PC. Which, of course, they won't do.
So, choose your fate: Microsoft software lock-in, Apple hardware lock-in, or Linux freedom. I know Jobs isn't getting any of *my* hard earned money.
BeauHD. Worst editor since kdawson.
I agree that Apple's embrace of Intel poses no threat to Linux, but not for the reasons outlined in the article.
Linux is increasingly driven by ideology and the fact that it can be obtained at no cost. It's merits as a desktop system have improved, but, by and large, it isn't good enough to attract large numbers of people already using Windows or a Mac. It is good enough to not be a dealbreaker for people who are atracted to Linux because they support its underlying ideology or simply don't want to pay for their software.
Could the Linux desktop become to good that it, alone, attracts users? Sure, but it isn't there yet.
-- Slashdot: When Public Access TV Says "No"
Why on Earth has the parent poster been modded down to -1??
There's one think that people haven't figured out. For the average family PC, Linux probably costs more than Windows. This is due to the owner (lets call him dad) feeling the buy things.
1. First, dad will go out and buy a redhat cd, in a box in the hope that he might get a manual. This will probably cost him £40
2. On finding that he's just spent £40 on a box with a cd and a quickstart guid if he's lucky, dad will hit amazon. He will buy at least two linux box, probably 'Complete idiots guide to Linux' and something link 'Linux unleashed'. We'll call those two £45. Dad will not read these books, but they reassure him that he'll be able to stay one step ahead of the kids.
So, that £85 down already, on an operating system he doesn't know how to use, and doesn't have time to learn. Most dads would stick with the Windows that came with their PC. Besides, the kids can play games on that and it seems to keep them quiet.
"XML is like violence. If it doesn't solve your problem, use more." - Anonymous Coward
Mac OS X, imho, is the best UNIX desktop out there. Linux still isn't there, especially with regards to laptops. I've been using it since I first got Slack 3.x and remember running a 1.2.13 kernel. Currently, that I know of, not one distro ships that will put all ACPI notebooks into hibernation(or even one for that matter). I purchased a Cardbus 802.11g card and the kernel didn't have support for it, I had to grab the MADWIFI drivers. There is no 3D accelleration for ATI IGP 320M yet. The driver for the sound card apparently doesn't support mixing as when one process is generating sounds, all others get a device busy message.
Apple moving to x86 isn't a threat to Linux servers, and I don't see it as a threat to Linux on the desktop/laptop either. Mac OS X is already better and in more widespread use than Linux on the laptop/desktop. I do see iBooks and PowerBooks in use at libraries and coffeeshops but inevitably when I see an x86 laptop, it's running a variant of Windows. Just once I wish I'd see somebody else running Linux on their laptop like me but it has yet to happen. For those about to pounce with the "I see it all the time", what is the context? A Computer Science Lab/University library? At your place of work that deals with Linux? I'm talking about laptops I see owned by the unwashed and filthy masses, not in selective environments.
Why would it be a threat? IMHO when linux will run on anything from a $20.00 machine, to a high end server, using any of the large list of supported hardware, why would apple be a threat?
I don't see apple getting too much into the embedded market any time soon, this is a nitch that linux (free) all ready has a good foothold in that mac (cost) would have a difficult time getting into, if they even attempted to.
Linux is everywhere, it will be for a long time.
TruePunk | Games
Look at the numbers. Share has been falling for 10 or more years. Actual numbers shipped are way below what they were even five years ago. This is not working. Why will switching to Intel, if that is all you do, change anything? It won't, it will leave you as the Amiga of the first decade of the century. And if you are Jobs, it will leave you with the reputation of being the one who choked.
I certainly hope there nothing we recognize as Windows in 20 years. Or OS X or Linux. Advances in technology and hardware better render today's toys obsolete. or else the IT business is going bust.
-- Slashdot: When Public Access TV Says "No"
Why would anyone think an intel/apple would be a threat to Linux ???? comparing apples to oranges , this is a direct challenge to AMD and to none other
So you're really smart, h'uh.
There's tons of software available for Linux, but only a little specifically for MacOS X. The software for Linux spans all needs, and all quality levels; Most of the software for Mac is very good, but only for limited needs. Linux tends to emphasize flexibility at the expense of difficult (or at least diverse) installation, whereas Mac emphasizes usability at the expense of flexibility.
Apple could immediately improve flexibility for power users by allowing the user to select the option of starting the X server on login. Then many of the desktop apps for the Linux/BSD world would just work too.
And while I'm wishing, if the MacOS X UI is vector based, why can't the secondary display of my iBook run a higher resolution than the builtin LCD supports? It should be able to just make everything smoother when plugged into a monitor that supports 1600x1200 (not that x.org does this either, but X11 is a raster based protocol).
MacTel means almost nothing to Linux unless Apple eventually releases OS X to beige boxes. Cupertino so far shows no concrete signs of doing so. Even if it happens, OS X for PC wouldn't be taps for the Penguin.
Linux and Mac are approaching the market from different directions. Linux' greatest growth potential is in governmental and corporate workplaces, and in the developing world where its cost makes it attractive.
Apple has a small portion of the installed desktop market -- nobody agreees how much -- and very little penetration in Linux' core market. While Apple's switch to Intel makes them somewhat more competitive in the short-term battle for desktop share, they have a LONG way to go back in the server room, in government offices, and anywhere plopping $140 down for an OS that may only run on premium-priced hardware is a financial burden.
I'm a huge Apple fan, but MacTel's supposed killer feature, dual-booting Windows, isn't even likely to be supported by Apple. That'll be a tough sell in the boardroom.
Meanwhile, the so-called developing world is starting to make the US and Europe look like Slow Company. This is likely where Linux will flourish in coming years.
Who will buy MacTel? Fairly well-heeled Westerners. Everyone else will use Linux and unlicensed copies of Windows.
Something else: there will be Mac hardcore abandoning the platform. They feel as if they're sleeping with the enemy when it comes to Intel. Many of them are furious that their rather substantial investment in PPC hardware won't run cutting-edge Mac software much longer, Universal Binaries be damned. Mac software developers won't optimize for Power very long. It's over.
I'll stay with Mac. I really enjoy OS X, and I need several commercial applications not likely to run on Linux anytime soon. I don't wish to own a Windows box or even dual-boot.
But I know that means I'll be buying new hardware in the near future -- an Intel-based Mac laptop first, and then a replacement for my PowerMac.
In the meantime, I'm uninstalling OS X on my older Mac gear. Tiger left two of my machines behind. They'll be converted to PPC Linux. There's already an Ubuntu Live CD in my Bluberry iBook.
The moment Steve Jobs showed the Intel logo, I knew that my dual G5 would one day be running Linux. In three years, I'll have more Linux machines than boxes running OS X.
MacTel's impact on Linux is a lot more complex than most pundits are giving credit. And far less drastic.
This is my post. There are many others like it. If you don't like what you read here, go try one of the others.
How hard is it to click on icons on a Fedora desktop or use Open Office?
I think Hell has officially frozen over now. ;)
That's not scheduled to happen until Duke Nukem Forever comes out.
Cheers,
BL Zebub
That is, unless Apple fixes this little issue outlined in this article:
p =7
http://www.anandtech.com/mac/showdoc.aspx?i=2436&
(disclaimer: i'm an apple fan and was disappointed to see this)
Ummm, there aren't "kajillions" of customers running PPC chips. There's essentially only the tiny sliver of the market running Macs.
And Mac users, at least the one's with incomes, won't run Linux on their PPC Macs. They'll run OS X and Mac software until that dries up, and then they will go out and buy new Macs.
People who are so emotionally attached to their hardware that they feel abandoned and betrayed when the vendor changes chips need to seek therapy.
-- Slashdot: When Public Access TV Says "No"
First nitpick correction.
OS X and Linux aren't a Unix. They look act and play like unix but were banned membership due to long hair and tatoo's.:-)
Second OS X is proven to be a terrible Server. Sure it can handle small tasks effectively. and It's priced right, but handling for high loads Windows does a better, more reliable job. The guy who reviewed the G5 over at anadtech recently was comparing linux and OS X with Linux always coming out ahead.
It's that hybrid kernel slowing down thread creation. So if you keep a database and a webserver on the same machine(normal for Linux, BSD's, heck even OS X) you take a performance hit after so many connections at once. (ie minor slashdotting)
i thought once I was found, but it was only a dream.
What about *BSD?
Just kidding, but what about Apple and Solaris on the same basic hardware? This is very interesting. I'm going to try Solaris ASAP.
Hell will have frozen over when /. manages to go for a week without a dupe.
Fat chance, you say?? With all of the other odd shit going on, I wouldn't be so surprised if that happened. ;)
Why doesn't Microsoft tighten something so that they're not so loose? I mean, when your pants are too loose, they're likely to fall down, and that's a win/lose scenario -- win for those who like loose pants, lose for those who like tight pants.
I'm really not trying to be a troll, but how many front page articles are there going to be about this in a week? I understand it's big news, but is it really this big? Half the articles are opinions or speculation. Think of all the flames about Googledot...
> I'm sure I'll get modded down for this.
Unfortunately, there is no way to mod you with the appropriate "Insightful -1"....
The same reason that certain majoritarian religious groups think of themselves as under siege and about to be exterminated. There is a feeling of community formed by shared threat, that you just can't get any other way. In the beginning, it might even have been correct, but there comes a point where it's simply a stimulus response (look: an advance in computing. AAAAAgh! It's going to wipe out Linux)
Tomorrrow morning an asteroid could hit Redmond, Steve Jobs abmit that he really wants to make movies and sell music, and major computer vendors admit that Stallman was right all along, leaving nothing but Linux on the computing landscape, and these people respond one of two ways. They would either wander off and lose interest, because it's now mainstream and not cool any more, or they'd still claim that at any moment their movement is going to be snuffed out by rapacious commercial interests and indifferent, bovine, consumers, and reman the barricades.
Of course, some times you should be worried. x86 pricepoints for Desktop/Notebook MacOS-X and Cheap, Stable, Scalable, Solaris-boxen in the backroom sounds like the closest to IT heaven that I can imagine. (this is from the standpoint of someone who's administered enough medium-big iron for about 20 years now)
the more accurate the calculations became, the more the concepts tended to vanish into thin air. R. S. Mulliken
One word: duh. Is an editorial really necessary to state the obvious?
So many articles about OSX for Intel being a possible threat to Linux, but what's interesting is that this speculation implies that Linux is inferior to OS X. Seems that Linux has an image problem.
We apologize for the inconvenience.
Wow. That's actually totally unconvincing. Actually, this article convinces me that Linux WILL be in trouble.
And with that ONE nice GUI, comes one API for the developer to target. One of the reasons that a lot of commercial Linux apps target certain releases of certain distributions is because supporting multiple targets can be costly. Linux is lagging in the RAD area. Linux needs to unify under one desktop and development environment for mass acceptance.
Apparently you, sir, have not heard of Microsoft.
Has no one considered that if Apple wants to stay in the hardware business, it might make sense for them to make dedicated hardware for Linux? That would make a lot more sense than waving the "We're number three!" banner at the annual OS track meet. . .
"If it's used as possessive, it's just eye tee ess. But if its use is a contraction, it's eye tee apostrophe ess.
"Skallywag".
Thus sayeth Strongbad. And he wouldn't lie about something like that.
OK, I should've said UNIX-like ;-)
I read the review too and how the thread creation slowed OS X down. That isn't going to matter to the average user and certainly my wife doesn't complain about her iBook at all. The configuration issues that I spoke of are all still there, no matter how bad Mac OS X falls down under a heavy load serving up web pages.
"With Apple moving to x86"
::drum roll:: x86!
Who ever said Apple is moving to x86?!
Actually, most of the speculation is that Apple will adopt the itanium chip. No company with any bussiness sense would move to x86 right now.
Sorry folk's, but x86 is old and dying.
Lets recap:
Apple's current high-end chip: PowerPC, RISC-type instruction set
Intel's current high-end chip: Itanuim, IA-64 Instruction set
AMD's current high-end chip: Athlon FX, x86-64 instruction set Intel & AMD's current product line, offering inferior preformance:
There are 10 types of people in the world. Those who understand binary and those who do not.
And for those of you that might argue the difficulty factor of Linux for novice users (which accounts for nearly 90 percent of the computing population), let's not forget that such users might not even be comfortable in using advanced settings in Windows.
This just kills me. I have installed the different versions of Windows over the years dozens of times, and various distributions of Linux also dozens of times. Maybe years ago Linux was difficult but today there are many distributions that are pretty much braindead easy to install (certainly no more difficult than Windows) and have desktop environments that make it equally easy to use. As far as little things (or big) not working "out of the box" such as sound or whatever... I have consistantly had far more trouble getting things to work in a new Windows system than in Linux! Windows certainly isn't easies (I'd argue that its much harder)...its just what most people know. But most people wouldn't be able to install Windows and get it working if their life depended on it...they BOUGHT the computer that way. If computers all came with Linux installed... I seriously doubt we would be hearing this tired arguement all the time. Linux has been more ready for the desktop than Windows for quite a while now. The PC retailers just haven't figured that out yet.
RTM, but.
4 2212&tid=93&tid=3
Apple won't hurt Linux because of the reason so many people switch to Linux. They hate vendor lock in. Point in case. http://it.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=05/06/14/14
OS X is not designed as a server OS. It's better at it than OS 9 because it's based on a timesharing OS rather than a gaggle of accidental hacks as classic Mac OS was, but that's not what the majority of the past 15 years of development at NeXT and Apple have been dedicated to.
But since it *is* based on the same timesharing OS as Linux is (don't give me a hard time about Linux not being real UNIX, or what GNU stands for, or source-code-Unix versus Trademark-Unix, Linux is a perfectly good implementation of UNIX and it does a reasonable job at it) it doesn't really matter whether you use Linux or FreeBSD or Solaris or Darwin or Mac OS X on your servers, a Mac OS desktop is a great accompaniment to them.
ahh should have been:
its harder than it's rule reads when its' not typed very often.
Paying taxes to buy civilization is like paying a hooker to buy love.
I thought we already picked KDE and were just waiting on a QT port of GIMP and a few other applications...
The Farewell Tour II
You don't make any sense. The main point is: given the choice of Linux or OSX, nobody in their right mind would subject themselves to and flavor of Linux on a desktop PC. If I had a little bit of extra time and/or money, I'd buy a Mac. If I had a *lot* of extra time and money, I'd *think* about using Linux on a daily basis.
I, and many others, would prefer not to have my bonnet welded shut when I break down out of town!
Sent from my ASR33 using ASCII
That isn't what Novell and Redhat seem to think with their desktop offerings. I have to admit, it seems that KDE use is more widespread but GNOME has more money behind it.
5 developers from gcc, 4 from the kernel, 4 from KDE, etc and plonk! no open source.
But that's fair. If the corporations that make billions from OSS (directly by selling services or indirectly by using it) don't give money back to the developers, that's what will happen.
The other day novell took $500M for a silly name.
Couldn't they give $5M back to various projects ($1000 to 5000 projects)?
OSS friendly my ass...
The idea of running a system that costs absolutely nothing on the software side is a powerful one, and Windows and Mac OS X would have a difficult time competing against that.'"
Yeah, both Windows and Mac OS X seem to be having such a difficult time competing against that right now.
Are you stupid? Why would apple ship out development boxes with intel p4s on them? They could easily put itaniums in them. Lets make the developers code on a x86, but the jokes on them when we switch to IA-64 a year down the road. Yeah that will win lots of support.
Have you ever been to a turkish prison?
And even so, this is no threat whatsoever - mereley an incentive to get better. Isn't it time we stopped seeing "better than me" things as a threat, and started seeing those as an opportunity to improve?
And the reason is Knoppix.
Knoppix is the biggest threat to all other OSes in existence and its affect has hardly begun to be felt for simple reasons.
As always, you've got to look at the hardware to see where the software is going. In this case, we're at a point where the future is easy to see.
Look no further than the RAM market. Go ahead and take a look at PriceWatch or TigerDirect or NewEgg of whatever hardware price guide you like. You'll notice that 1Gig RAM modules are becoming entry level commodity items.
CPU tech has hit the wall and both Mac and Microsoft are CPU junkies. RAM, on the other hand, is right on course for several more generations of lithography because it doesn't need to be faster which is now synonymous with hotter and more power hungry. With RAM, bigger is just as good as faster. And there is no doubt it's still getting bigger in both the NAND and NOR varieties.
Two Gigs of RAM will soon be common on even low-end budget machines. We might not see a CPU that can do what Longhorn was originally proposed to do in terms of speech recognition and all this for a long time but we'll certainly see machines with plenty of RAM in the very near future. The near future is the only one that counts in the corporate world.
And the one platform that benefits the most from all this RAM is Knoppix because it's already convenient to load the whole distro into RAM. One Gig is really a starting point. Once two Gigs gets common it will start to catch on big time.
While it may be possible to run OSX and XP in Ramdisk, they're just not built for it the way Knoppix is.
The threat is REAL:
Linux as a mainstream OS banks on business and government adoption. Companies like Xandros have been been working tirelessly to make Linux user friendly enough for mainstream businesses to make the switch. There have been a number of small successes in this space, installation is easy, hardware support has improved, and the perception towards Linux and OpenSource is generally favourable. In terms of Xandros they have a product that could very well put Linux into the business mainstream.
Now along comes Apple with an OS that runs on Intel architecture (any Intel box with the current OSXi developers release making the rounds) at the same pricepoint as Xandros ($129).
OSX has excellent hardware AND software support (native with Microsoft even), runs Opensource applications and already has some legs in the business community. Apple puts their marketing machine behind it taking advantage of *nix's positioning and market perception (secure, affordable) that companies like Xandros have been building with the business community and all of a sudden Linux has some competition.
Um, excuse me, but Jedi mind tricks won't keep Darth Gates away ...
Apple and Intel co-existence is as friendly as an "alliance" between the Cloud City and the Empire. Either way, you end up carbon frozen.
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
OK, I've been reading a lot of comments about this subject and it's time to add my own speculation from a layman's point of view (just couldn't wait, could ya :). The only way Apple can supplant Linux simply because they run on the same Intel chips is if Apple can convince PC users to buy new hardware from Apple instead of a new Windows machine or instead of converting from Windows to Linux on the old Intel hardware.
This means that:
1) Apple cannot compete on any of the existing Intel hardware (and that means there are a LOT of machines Apple cannot compete on).
2) All of the existing Apple hardware is destined for Linux or some other system, once Apple stops supporting them (granted, a few years out).
Therefore, this change means the new Mac OS Xi (lol love that new moniker) is only competing with Linux on new machines bought from Apple, assuming Linux will run on the new machines (probably will). This really means that Apple still has a large row to hoe, as they will still be competing with all of the same players but with less of a distinction.
IMHO, the REAL difference depends on the ease of developing applications that run under Windows, Linux and Mac OS X all at the same time. If it becomes absolutely trivial (to the point where it's no more effort so why not) to write once and compile for all systems simply because all systems now use very similar chip designs then we can have real competition. If not, then we end up with the same old thing, except we lose one hardware platform. Since there have been various BSD systems already running on Intel hardware, I suspect that it is not trivial and therefore nothing has really changed. Here's hoping I am wrong about that.
The NSA: The only part of the US government that actually listens.
The developer machine is x86. The Itanium is an entirely different architecture. Why brag about how OS X has been leading a double life on x86, and then use something totally different in the shipped product
Linux has more than a few things that go in its favor, at least for the time being. The idea of open-source software is an amazing one. The fact that Linux isn't much of a commercialized operating system, and you can accomplish day-to-day tasks without too many hassles is an advantage in itself.
Um, dude, Mac OS X has a proprietary GUI... but it's ALSO running on an open source operating system. It runs the same amazing open source software as Linux, including the compiler and your X11 and Gnome and KDE desktop apps (if you want tham). It's got some shortcomings on the server, because of the overhead of Mach messages and threads, but that's not its focus. On the desktop it's got every advantage that Linux has, as well as having all the proprietary and commercial software that came along from the classic Mac OS.
And no matter what Linux does between now and 2007, no matter what new cool things are created for it, those things will also be options for Mac OS X.
And Mac OS X is well past questions like "can it replace Windows": the real debate now is "can Windows catch up".
- Too many distros
- Lack of support from important vendors
- Upgrading to new versions is a pain
- No set standards
And don't give me that it isn't done yet bullshit. How long has it been in development with how many developers? Right...a lot longer than OS X. I don't think linux will ever be in the desktop in mass quantaties because it's just to schizophrenic. I bet this will effect the linux server market someday as well.OS X is what every desktop linux distro wants to be. I'd rather pay 129 bucks for something complete, that has support, and that I know will be there tomorrow.
I wish desktop linux was never envisioned...it's a complete mess today.
"The idea of running a system that costs absolutely nothing on the software side is a powerful one, and Windows and Mac OS X would have a difficult time competing against that."
There's something to be said for support other than "RTFM!" from arrogant propeller heads.
The apple and intel merger has been CONFIRMED that is poses no threat to the immediate orbits of the solar bodies.
/. thread, has been dying for years anyway.
Upon confirmation millions who sold their homes and donated the money to the 'Now Apple Choose Intel the Solar System will Implode' church, which is a wing of scient-fallacy, had this to say:
'pwned'.
However, this does threaten *BSD, which as you will find on any
Also, in France, a man has claimed that the frogs are out for revenge, and the intel/apple alliance is part of their evil plan.
Also - JUST IN - it is confirmed that rumours that the Apple / Intel deal will/will not harm/scare/threaten distribution of firefox/parmesan cheese/oranges and adult daipers.
STOP PRESS!!
It has been confirmed that Apple and Intel Merger *IS NOT* I repeat *IS NOT* a link to the holy grail / concer cure / aids vaccine / fission / the idiot who is writing the 'To confirm you're not a script' fudge.
Thankfully, if any more websites hop onto the 'lets say something is not something after something happens' band waggon, they cannot use the above stories, because the editors will know its a dupe!
Hang on, they seem to be spending all their time writing this 'To confirm you're not a script' thing... to whoever is writing this: TELL US WHY FFS! You damn heathen.
Thats all. -1 Troll. Yep.
#hostfile 0.0.0.0 primidi.com 0.0.0.0 www.primidi.com 0.0.0.0 radio.weblogs.com
Mac-on-Linux already lets you run OS X at full speed within Linux.
You can't judge a book by the way it wears its hair.
That's a load off!
I was worried.
If Gundeep Hora of CoolTechZone says so then it MUST be true!
It's a threat to Linux because quite a few Linux users have switched to Macs, and those are people who won't be contributing to Linux anymore. Case in point, Slashdot ran a story a few days ago about jwz's defection - he had written a mp3 jukebox, and more importantly, xscreensaver, which I've been using myself for 3 years or so. So those are now probably orphaned projects, because he will probably just use the software that comes with his Mac. Jwz's defection, by itself, is not that big of a deal, but if a lot of people switch, it could add up to a big deal.
Don't drop the soap, Tommy!
I haven't seen "most of the speculation" then, because what I see is "x86" and that Apple has been compiling for x86 for 5 years. Did you miss that part of the keynote?
Folks have been saying x86 was limited lifespan almost as long as they've been saying BSD is dead. Remember, the VAST majority of commodity computers are x86, with a transition to x86-64 in the works (or EMT64). The "high-end" market isn't exactly what you claim. Yes the Itanium is available, but it is clearly not throwing down x86.
I have more trouble with your claims as you put Itanium in the same batch as the Athlon FX, which it is not. The Itanium competes with the Opteron, which is a different beast (different socket, different market). The FX is marketed for gamers, not servers. Go look at what Iwill offers, and then at Tyan's offerings--Opteron, not FX.
More realistically, the Xeon is the direct competitor to the Opteron.
Is there a possibility that OS X will be on Itanium? Certainly, but I don't think that it is a likely scenario because of cost. The Itanium would likely INCREASE the cost of buying a Mac, which isn't a very bright move on Apple's part if that's what they do, since there is already a high cost associated with purchasing a Mac.
You say, "No company with any business sense would move to x86 right now," but that is exactly what Sun has done with their Opteron server offerings. I'm not making any comments on whether or not they have business sense, but it's obvious that that statement is hardly a universal sentiment. It might be correct, but I have a hunch that x86 is not only going to be around for a while, but that it will end up evolving considerably before all is said and done.
The real leap will not be when we move to quantum computing, but when we finally abandon binary for a more powerful number system, and go to optics and massively parrallel systems. That's when x86 will truly die. But that revolution is a long ways off, and the nueral nets that come because of it will be impressive. I don't think many of us will see that time.
"We don't know what we are doing, but we are doing it very carefully,..." Wherry, R.J. Personnel Psychology (1995)
Your second point is very important. I'm not exactly sure why, but there exists an idea that the Mac OS X kernel is the best there is. Perhaps it's because OS X costs more or maybe it's just Apple marketing. Let me just say that I use Mac OS X a lot and I use Linux a little, but every technical review of the Darwin kernel I've seen has shown significant problems, especially with memory and process management.
Sorry, I'm not one to save links and stuff so I can't back this up with a link, but I'm sure Google can help you out if you really want to know.
Moof.
Apple wants you to run whatever software you want, on their PC's.
Because we could be seeing the next big blow to Microsoft. Apple is already Unix-ish. Now it'll be x86-ish...
...and suddenly without too much fanfare, Wine becomes a do-able port. Look out Bill! Imagine being able to buy an OSX box and run Windows apps on it.
Drop that in the next Mac Mini and it'll seriously change things. Unix stability with Windows compatibility. Coupled with Mac reliability. I'd buy one in a heartbeat.
Weaselmancer
rediculous.
Um, no but something quite like it.
Not since Marie-Antoinette played milkmaid has looking simple and honest been so fake and complicated.
Just between you and I, your making far too big a deal about thier grammar mistakes.
In the meantime, I'm uninstalling OS X on my older Mac gear. Tiger left two of my machines behind.
What, without even waiting for XPostFacto 4 to get out of beta?
Tiger's so far shown itself faster on unsupported Macs than Panther, just as Panther was faster than Jaguar. Or, you can just keep using Panther... I've still got Jaguar on one of my boxes because it does everything I need there. It's not going to be any harder to install Linux on your iBook in 2012 or so when Apple finally drops support for PPC, or in 2009 when Whatevercorp drops YourCriticalApp for PPC, so why jump the gun? Pique?
The rumor mill says this is just manuevaring by Apple to get better treatment by IBM
I just put Debian Sarge on my notebook, and when I close the lid, it hibernates just fine. All you need is a recent 2.6 kernel, and stick
resume=/dev/yourswappartition
on you kernel command line.
I know of no way to put OSX on my laptop, so I suppose that means that OSX is not ready for the desktop.
My iBook falls down under a heavy load copying files . I know this sounds like the well-worn anti-linux troll, but I frequently copy a DVD worth of small files to&from a USB drive, and the system becomes unresponsive during this (and I have 768MB RAM).
My RH 9 workstation does too, though. My Gentoo box has no problem with this whatsoever (mostly due to the 2.6 kernel, not anything gentoo specific).
Yeh, I was completely wrong on this one, so I am publically admitting it here. No more flames please, I was wrong, it happens.
/. article (go figure!). Somehow the post - and attached article - slipped past my bullshit meter. (The needle must have broken off from reading slashdot)
Its not so crazy to think that Apple would adopt an overpriced chip in their overpriced machines.... as I type this on my PowerBook G4 Al.
For the record, I got the Itanuim information from a previously posted
There are 10 types of people in the world. Those who understand binary and those who do not.
The fact that Linux isn't much of a commercialized operating system, and you can accomplish day-to-day tasks without too many hassles is an advantage in itself
Is this fool smoking crack or what? He IS talking about LINUX here, isn't he?
Moderator hint: a comment is neither "Flamebait" nor "Troll" if it is true.
A successful battle between Apple and Microsoft should drive down the cost of software, which will deflate the "free" allure of Linux.
I'd buy Mac-OS X for $50 before I'd hassle with linux and all of its embattled distributions.
But ah... no worries or frustrations for me. I'm a FreeBSD user...
No sense rushing if I'll have to buy new software anyway.
... and there's an awful lot of recently purchased Powermac G5s that are still going to represent potential customers 5 years from now given the way Moore's Law has hit the wall in the last two years (remember, IBM didn't hit 3 GHz but Intel's speed improvement over the same period was even less).
Let's see...
Apple has typically supported old hardware and operating systems for five years after a transition (68000-68020, 68k-PPC, Nubus-PCI, OS9-OSX, and hardware abandoned by OS X has generally been that far behind the curve). There's really no good reason for them to drop PPC software support this time, because they're using an OS that makes old platform support easy. There's less reason than ever for software vendors to drop the old hardware, with the single exception of game software, because by the time Leopard comes out they'll have had to become portable
And most companies are likely to provide "Intel-compatibility" upgrades fairly cheaply to avoid losing their customer base.
So if you buy a Mac now, it's going to be 7 years before Apple drops PPC, and at least 5 before your apps are unavailable for PPC... so what's the new software you're worried about having to buy?
We'll be too busy recovering from the aftermath of nuclear war to worry at all about operating system wars.
If the manufacturers purposely make devices that only work on Windows we don't have to buy those devices! For every ATI there's an NVidia who is only too happy to be able to sell their products to a wider audience. It's not a problem - it's just what's called market forces.
Something is happening here but you don't know what it is, do you, Mr Jones.
A great combo is Linux on the backend and OSX on the user desktop. Even a combination of Linux and OSX (server) on the back is great. This would be a win - win (but not a windows - windows) since the end user gets a great GUI and the same skill set can be used to administer both the desktop and server.
One ring to bind them - should probably have more fiber and less rings in their diet.
Have you actually tried Solaris on x86? I have, and there's no reason anyone would prefer it over Linux or FreeBSD.
I also tried to evaluate the x86-64 version but it wouldn't install on my Athlon 64 setup.
Something is happening here but you don't know what it is, do you, Mr Jones.
Not trying to be a troll. But why do so many here on slashdot support Apple who uses proprietary hardware, while condenming proprietary software.
Is there a difference?
In 2008:
What exactly is the big change for Linux? Or for Apple or MS, for that matter?! The reasons for running Linux (or for running OSX, or even for running Windows [bleagh!] don't seem affected whatsoever).
I happened to be a bit disappointed by Apple's plans. the PPC architecture is quite elegant and well-planned, while Intel's x86 is hacked together and ad hoc. And Altivec really is a brilliant extension to PPC chips that SSE2 falls far short of. But I also recognize that IBM isn't spending the money to reduce the power usage of G5s, where Intel is for Pentium M's--and you need the low power for laptops. So the switch is a bit disappointing, but not without some good supporting arguments. For the most part, big deal!
Buy Text Processing in Python
Look at the software Apple is using and ask yourself why they have any interest in the slightest in damaging or killing off Linux?
... all sorts of open source projects! They want these to keep being developed, and the best enviroment for that right now is the Linux world.
khtml, Apache, CUPS, Open Directory, openssh
Slashdot Patriotism: We Support our Dupes!
Well, if Gundeep says it's cool, then it's COOL!
"Windows and Mac OS X would have a difficult time competing against that."
Right. Somebody pass me those usage stats. Seems like Windows in particular is doing a really great job of competing against Linux's open-source goodness.
Folks, there's nothing to see here. Use the system that works for you. Robust alternatives abound. Linux is no more of a threat to Apple (and vice versa) than Skippy is a threat to Jif. Pick your brand of peanut butter.
Why yes, I AM a rocket scientist!
Hey I have a Pentium III machine. I bought it for $150 CDN used, a nice IBM machine with a 10GB disk and CDROM.
Hmm. What can I put on it? Add some ram and the decision becomes difficult. I can use:
Windows XP
Windows 2003
DOS
OpenBSD
NetBSD
FreeBSD
Any Linux distro
BeOS (or ZetaOS)
Solaris
See how many other OSes Linux is 'competing' with? Now add OSX to the list. Does it make a difference?
OSX isnt much of a threat to Linux because Linux's market isnt dependant on the i386. The more crowded i386 gets, the tougher life becomes for Microsoft. Theyre about the OS apart from ZetaOS in the list above to be completely dependant on x86.
Linux runs on almost ALL 32-bit and 64-bit CPUs in existance. The same is true for NetBSD. So on exotic chips Linux competes with NetBSD and other stuff like QNX and wxworks. On other massive machines Linux competes with z/OS, AIX and Solaris, and quite easily. OSX has only been released on x86 (or WILL BE released).
Now x86 is a huge market. Lots of people use it. Certain OSes compete in a SEGMENT of this market, like BSD and Linux competing in the free OS market, and Solaris and Linux competing in the server OS market (Solaris also joining the free market now). One SEGMENT of this market is the Commercial Desktop market. Linux is only trying to make inroads here. Microsoft has stranglehold, and noone else has a piece. In all the markets were Linux is strong, OSX will remain weak. The only possible loser will be Microsoft, GIVEN OSX will run on any Intel or AMD machine.
And apparently it wont. So even Microsoft wont be affected for now, and Linux is only standing beyond Microsoft in this submarket. Apparently they'll use something like CPUID to ensure OSX only runs on Apple machines, although I'd be surprised if someone doesnt hack the installer to get it to install on all wintel boxen. Darwin is already available, some might be able to just copy all Cocoa binaries and tweak it to run. Since thats illegal, no legal Linux installations will be affected by the 'warez' availibility of OSX on Intel.
"Give orange me give eat orange me eat orange give me eat orange give me you." -Nim Chimpsky
Gundeep Hora thinks, I wonder what Uriah Heep thinks.
As this article indicates OS X costs money and it will still cost money after the switch. Additionally, these Apple systems will be nicely integrated packages that cost more than the systems used by typical cost conscious Linux users. Additionally, Apple's hardware development team will take a while to integrate each new generation of intel chips into a nice hardware package so that there will be a delay between the emergence of the hottest new chips and the nicely integrated Apple systems that use these chips. This means that at any given time the most desirable systems for performance addicts will still be custom built or specialty PC's. The Mac systems will be for people who don't care about having the last iota of speed right this minute and who want to use, and don't mind paying for, OS X and who want access to commercial apps in that environment and/or who want the benefits of Apple's hardware and software integration. I would say that many or maybe even most Linux users either don't care about these things or they have both Linux and OS X systems already. The people who use both will now have the option for a dual boot Linux/OS X system. They currently have that choice on Apple hardware but their choices of Linux distros and versions is limited. Its hard for me to believe that this switch will affect the current balance against Linux.
There are now more cell phones (small limited proprietary portable computers) sold than PC's and don't forget all of those game consoles that people are snapping up instead of PC's. Intel is in trouble, AMD and falling demand and rock bottom prices for Wintel PCs have hastened Intel's demise and now we see Intel courting (and PAYING) Apple to promote their processors!
As support from Apple slides for my dated (fall 2001) dual USB 500Mhz PowerPC 12" iBook, I have been planning at some point to move to YellowDog (or some other variety of Linux/BSD.) I plan to keep using this old iBook for as long as I can and that probably means running it with a free (and libre) modern operating system such as Linux.
BTW: Our local library switched to Linux for all of their new computers! What a relief from having to use Windoze. The Userland interface is as easy to use as Mac OS (and this comment is coming from a devoted Apple dude.)
well, my point is that an open source solaris is still a bigger threat to linux than a closed source OS X, especially when you consider that apple is crippling their OS to only run on their own hardware.
Badass Resumes
I know this will be lost in the ~300 other posts already made; and I'm sure what I'm about to say was already said by 100 other people, but... I'm a linux user, since kernel .99 on slackware. I just bought my first mac earlier this year. It has the best of both (free and non-) worlds. I can run all the free software I want. I can run all the commercial software I want. Think just work, without having to mess around with config files. That was fun at age 18, but not anymore. I can still tweak if I want to, but I don't HAVE to.
Plus, the GUI is the best windowmanager in the universe, maybe next to SGIs 4DWM.
vive la revolution!
This just in:
Water is wet.
Falling down staircases hurts... Ouch!
Remember, you heard it here first.
Bjarke Roune
I can only quote Master Shake: "It must be Obvious Day at Camp Stupid."
The idea of running a system that costs absolutely nothing on the software side is a powerful one
No shit, huh? Man, you must've wrote awesome bullshit term papers in college because you managed to write three paragraphs on something that was already touched on in your quote! This is a fucking given, Sherlock. The quote said "on the software side" for a fucking reason.
it will probably work for BSD
Please, it takes technology almost 30 years just to catch-on.
How long has it been since spell checkers came into being? And yet, as I'm typing this on Firefox on Windows, there's no spellchecker available to fix any of my typos. Why not? It's the year 2005. Why don't I have spell checking in EVERY place on the computer I could possibly enter text?
(And yeah, I know MacOS X is moving in this direction-- Thank God! But it's still more of a "FINALLY somebody is doing this.")
Comment of the year
... not with your reasons.
Apple wants to sell pretty, uncrackable, all-in-one, gold standard computers. They've been doing that since the 1970's and they will continue to do so.
They haven't been like that since the 70s--from 1977 to 1984 Apple was opposite in most ways: Its computer was prettier than everyone elses but it was NOT all-in-one and it was VERY crackable/hackable: Pre-Mac Apples had a whole bunch of slots (with well-known specs) and the early ones even came with all the schematics!
I'd say Apple wasn't so proprietary until Woz left, and it might not stay that way if someone like Woz were to rise to a position of influence in the future. It'll be snowing in Hell before that happens though.
Apple knows that there is competition out there, they don't ignore it like other companies
Of course Apple is painfully aware of the competition. However, Apple has historically been king of the "not invented here" syndrome. They in fact DO ignore the competition as much as possible. That is why Apple is not the company fighting anti-trust lawsuits today. As you alluded to, Apple is not an idealist champion of Free software--Jobs is just smart enough to recognise that it is the best way to tap into a huge pool of development talent and to be the most responsive to the user community.
Apple wants you to run whatever software you want, on their PC's
Not really...they TOLERATE you running whatever software you want on your Mac. They WANT you to run THEIR OS, THEIR productivity software and THEIR hardware. To achieve Jobs' nirvana experience you need to buy into the whole package. However, being a niche player in the PC industry it HAS to tolerate users who want to tinker with Linux or Windows on their hardware. However, those options "weren't invented here" so expect to be ignored by all official Apple support resources if you inquire about ANY third party hardware or software.
Don't you think linux development and customer support is going to skyrocket when there is just a few configurations to develop for?
No I don't. Apple's strategy is to keep variation of both the hardware AND THE SOFTWARE configurations to a minumum. Supporting Linux would dilute their resources and hinder the success and progress of OSX.
Maybe Apple will be the first large computer manufacturer to offer a choice
It can't be the first because some other hardware vendors already offer a choice between Windows, Linux and no OS installed. Given its history since 1984, Apple is likely to be the LAST to "offer a choice". The original Mac had no slots (despite the engineers having tried to "sneak" one in) and was not expandable and there was not even any developent tools/languages available to the general public when the Mac was first released (BASIC was an extra-cost option released some time after the Mac itself--unheard of in the 80s when BASIC was burned into the ROM of every other PC out there).
From the start, the Mac was NOT about choice--you did what it let you do...no more and no less. The Mac was about usability--about making computers more humane. Think appliance: When you buy a stove you can't get dozens of different types of burners, racks, knobs and lights to customise or upgrade it. You get your Kenmore ZX123 and it cooks your food and just IS the way it is. If it breaks you get replacement parts that are just like the old ones and except for the colour and trim that match your decor it is just like every other Kenmore ZX123. Not only is there NO choice, you don't ever care. It cooks your food and that is it--you don't even remember or care it is a ZX123 model unless you need to fix it.
That is what Jobs' and Raskin's vision was with the Mac--make it pretty, elegant, useful and humane. Expansion slots and OS configuration choices and build-to-order and source code just doesn't fit anywhere in that puzzle. All that stuff is the domain of their developers and engineers. For A
How is OS X running exclusively on Apple hardware with an x86 chip any different than OS X running exclusively on Apple hardware with a PPC chip?
Unless Apple allows OS X to run on (and more importantly, be sold on and for) non-Apple hardware, they will be no more of a threat to Microsoft than they are now.
I like my women like my coffee... pale and bitter.
Linux isn't going away because there is always going to be kids and misers in the world. But when I got busy with my job and with life, I had to simplify. That extra $100 to remove extra hassle from my life was well worth it.
Recently I went through the process of re-deciding what to buy. Linux is still the same old story. The only company that seems to champion Linux is IBM. That doesn't give me warm fuzzies. I almost bought a think pad until I realized that the T43 is not on the list of laptops that support Linux. The rest of them are only offered with low resolution LCDs. I spent quite a bit of time looking for a laptop that would run Linux flawlessly. But they ALL seem to have one problem or another. This one doesn't hibernate. That one has trouble with the video card. These don't have the right sound drivers. I bought a Dell about 5 years back on the premise that it would run Linux well. Well, somebody made a minor "tweak" between revs that ended my dream.
I got excited for a moment when I read the above article because it mentioned that HP has a new laptop which officially supports Linux. But alas, it was all smoke and mirrors. I looked at all the laptops offered by HP, but none are offered with Linux. So I typed "Ubuntu" in the search window and got no hits. Where is this corporate embrace everybody in the Linux community is always talking about? I don't see it. I see some also-ran's selling Linux on their 7.5lb brick-books, but nothing that tells me corporates are beginning to take Linux serious.
I think most technology companies see Linux as a hassle that they secretly wish would go away. Think I'm off base? Most people are perfectly satisfied with Windows. Companies consist of owners and employee. Since owners and employees are people, it stands to reason that most owners and employees are satisfied with Windows. If they are satisfied with Windows, that means they think Linux is a waste of time. If they think that, then they view anything they have to do to support it as additional work. Nobody likes additional work.
No, most corporations are just playing the game. They say, "Yeah yeah yeah, we like Linux." But when it comes time to put their money where there mouth is, the Linux support never seems to materialize, or its short lived if it does.
Meanwhile, I plunk down an extra few hundred and I get the best customer satisfaction in the industry, noticeably better service (Dell versus Apple), more durrable and reliable hardware (Go to CompUSA and do the flex test on the laptops. The PC laptops feel like they are made out of sponge. The motherboard is mounted to the casing. How durrable can they be? On the Apple side; even the iBooks are rigid as heck. Not only are they made of a thicker plastic, but they are LEXAN; Pretty much indestructable.), and an operating system that just works.
I run my Unix apps. I run my digital multitrack recording apps. I've got XCode and a whole host of other development IDEs to choose from. I've got Microsoft Office, in case I need to read one of the devil's files. In fact I've never found a problem domain in which there wasn't EXCELLENT software available for the Mac. And as a bonus, I don't have to buy the hardware to find out whether or not hibernate will work on it. If I buy a Mac, I know it will.
The real threat to Linux is its instability, extreme unusablity, out of control versions, and its open-source-let-every-junior-programmer-in-the-wor ld contribute to it.
I was actually talking about hardware, but, well, a lot of people, like me, don't want universal spell checking. It's an annoyance. I'd be happy if I could highight any onscreen piece of text, in any program, and submit it to a spellchecker.
For that matter, I'd like to be able to also print that chunk and/or save it or add it to a file. That would be more useful than spellchecking.
It hasn't been technology standing in the way of universal spellchecking. It's been because the industry is competitive and everyone wants to do things their way.
-- Slashdot: When Public Access TV Says "No"
For the record, I'm both an OS X and a Linux user.
I think that OS X on Intel, if it has any effect on Linux at all (and I'm not quite conviced yet that it will), will probably be positive, particularily in smaller networks like my own.
OS X is a fantastic client and development OS. I do all of my development on OS X these days, as well as all of my e-mail, web browsing, Skype usage, iChat/AIM instant messaging, gaming, music (iTunes/iPod), video playback, and device synchronization. From a user perspective, OS X is damn near perfect IMO. From a developer perspective, I like Cocoa and Objective-C these days more than just about any APIs available on Linux (with Linux having the advantage than when things go really bad, at least I have all the sources to try to trace a problem, and not just some of the sources). It has desktop Linux beat 15 ways from Sunday.
However, networks still need servers, and while Apple has done some interesting things with its Xserve line, an inexpensive Intel box running Linux is a vasty better server platform than OS X is. And it's also vastly cheaper.
This contrast could help Linux if Apple's new Intel systems do start winning over Windows users. Linux servers are based on much the same Open Source server technologies that OS X is built upon, so using Linux on your servers for OS X client networks just makes sense. It's more cost effective, and the two have much the same settings between them.
I'm still not convinced that Windows users are going to start switching en-masse to OS X just because it runs on Apple custom Intel machines, but we'll have to wait and see. If they do, I see this as an opportunity for Linux in the server space, and not as a net detriment.
Yaz.
Only the stupid, the lazy, and the gay are jumping ship to Mac.
Take a look at this add for the Mac mini: Introducing Mac mini If you look very, very, closely you'll find a single throwaway line that mentions UNIX. Apple doesn't market *nix, Apple markets Apple.
... about this. Just in case he doesn't know that someone can buy a Mac and, you know, run Windows software on it.
In actuality, it is not any different. But the perception will be. People have a hard time differentiated between Apple and Wintel computers now. Sure, Apple comes out with new features, but they are copied pretty quickly. Once Apple computers start having an Intel Inside sticker on them, the mass market will think of the hardware just as any other computer from Dell, Gateway, etc. However, this computer has neat stuff that their Dell, Gateway, etc. doesn't -- OSX.
If OSX catches the public's eye, because it is now running on what the public believes is just another laptop or desktop (again, the computer will say Intel Inside, just like theirs does at home), they'll want those cool features.
Unfortunately, Windows won't provide them and OSX won't run on their standard Wintel box. But, in steps Linux. While not the same as OSX, it is very similar and can be made to mimic a lot of features, so that the public wanting that "me too" experience will be able to get, say 80% of it.
Those people, wanting the "me too" experience without wanting to purchase a new computer, would be Windows users. If Windows lost even 5% of it's installed base in this manner, while not a big blow to Microsoft, it would be a tremendous surge in Linux.
If Linux had that surge and capitalized on it, then it's quite possible that the momentum would be enough to hurt Microsoft, because the people who could afford it would go with OSX on true Apple equipment, a few geeks going with OSX hacked for other Intel boxes and the rest running a user friendly distro on Intel.
It's all about public perception. Betamax was a better technology than VHS, but the public doesn't care about that and VHS won. Same with every other consumer product. The public isn't going to be persuaded by which one is technically better, only which one is cooler. OSX is definately cooler, but an obstacle has been all the FUD about how it runs on "expensive" hardware (even though it's not significantly more than a comparable PC). With Apple going Intel, that perception will disappear. Oh, yeah, Apple will still cost more, but now, the hardware will be viewed just as an expensive compatable and the software will be the real focus.
Again, if that happens, and OSX takes off, then all the people wanting something like OSX but not able to afford to buy an Apple or wanting to get rid of their computer will go Linux as it's the next closest thing.
I'm typing this on Konqueror on Linux, there IS a spellchecker fixing my typos.
Ok, it's not fixing my typos because the spellchecker is configured to spellcheck on spanish and I'm typing on english, but still..
Erm, sure, if you're looking at a consumer hardware page on apple.com. Look at the operating system section (far right tab on the site nav bar, "Mac OS X").
"UNIX" is mentioned on almost every page: New Features, Overview, etc. Heck, there's an entire Based on UNIX page under Advanced Technology.
I watched C-beams glitter in the dark near the Tannhauser gate.
Of course your assuming that no one will pick up those projects and develop for them. Most likely, if there is demand, somebody will continue to develop them. That's the advantage of open source. It's also quite possible that he will still want to run his creation on OSX and continue to develop them. As such, it should be relatively straight forward to backport any changes since OSX is BSD under the surface.
It's also quite possible that other Linux developers will end up developing for both systems, since they are similar. If so, that can only be a good thing.
Now if they were jumping to Windows, then that would be a problem.
One factor that people seem to be overlooking is the free (beer), open source Darwin x86.
To date, I've tended to run Mac OS X on desktops and laptops, and either Debian or OpenBSD on servers.
With the change to Mac OS X x86, I'm much more likely to run OpenDarwin on my servers: I get some binary compatability and a uniformity of Unix idioms, and still have the Open Source goodness that comes with any of the open source unixes. Beyond thread-switching (I don't run MySQL anyway), the only thing that it lacks is the GPL - correctness. For some people, that will matter - for most, one open source Unix is going to be as good as any other one.
My expectation is that Mac OS X on x86 won't directly compete with Linux, but its existence will make OpenDarwin compete much more strongly with Linux. There's even a commercial opportunity there, to start selling support contracts for OpenDarwin in the same way that one can get Linux support contracts from people like Red Hat.
"It is our blasphemy which has made us great, and will sustain us, and which the gods secretly admire in us." - Zelazny
Take a look at this add for the Mac mini: Introducing Mac mini If you look very, very, closely you'll find a single throwaway line that mentions UNIX. Apple doesn't market *nix, Apple markets Apple.
That's my point, exactly. Apple markets Apple and if the mass market sees that OSX is cool and wants to emulate it on their existing hardware (or new hardware if they can't afford Apple Hardware), Linux is the logical next best choice.
The mass market doesn't care what's under the hood (that's why the PPC to x86 isn't a big thing), only how it looks. A desktop oriented distro that can mimic a lot of the look and feel and coolness of OSX would be a shoe-in. Since most of the OSX appeal with the public is only skin deep (it is after all BSD), those changes to Linux should be fairly superficial to mimic. (For developers, that's a different story, Apple's appeal is about tools and the platform).
Maybe KDE will be the interface for those people wanting emulate Windows and Gnome would be the OSX choice. Who knows? The point is, to see the danger to Windows and the benefit to Linux (or the BSDs) you have to think like a marketer and not a geek.
Count me in as a convert I've worked with Linux for years. As a server it's great. Rock solid and reliable. As a desktop it's nothing but a headache unless you really like spending hours tinkering. Which many do and that's why it's popular. I've gotten tired of tinkering when I get home from work and would prefer that my stuff just work without having to read and research enerything I install. For now I use windows, but having to re-install it every 6-12 months is getting old as well. I for one will be buying an x86 Mac ASAP.
WURD!!
A true Linux, make that GNU/Linux, zealot rarely plays first-person shooters since there are few, if any, good games that are free. Moreover any good FPS are likely to require binary drivers that taint his beloved kernel.
I'm a sci-fi vegan: I don't want the aliens to think we have as much right to live as the fried chickens we eat.
How are we ever going to have a decent looking design without the gays????
Don't drop the soap, Tommy!
Switchers will likely continue to develop at least non-GUI stuff for multiple *nix platforms, but they aren't likely to develop things that'll make Linux into a better Desktop because that stuff comes with their Macs.
Don't drop the soap, Tommy!
simply shortsided
Okay, let's run through this again.
Yes - you pay some vendor or someone within the organziation to pay for installing and maintaining the software. This is the given part, that everyone already knows.
But, do you pay for the software itself? No, you don't. You could argue that the vendor may charge for certain bells and whistles (Like Red Hat's oh-so-pretty installer) but if you had an internal Linux Dude(tm), would you pay for software upgrades and the like? No. There, then, lies my original point.
Isn't it ironic that Captain Obvious is oblivious to it?
Mac OS X already does this. You can turn off "check spelling as you type" but still get a contextual menu from any selected text and bring up a spellcheck (well, user-entered text that is). From the same contextual menu you can Google the text or look it up in the dictionary, or get a text-to-speech of it.
In Repressive Burma, it's not just your connection that dies. slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=314547&cid=20819199
The idea of running a system that costs absolutely nothing on the software side is a powerful one, and Windows and Mac OS X would have a difficult time competing against that. Shame how the libre definition of free has fallen by the wayside.
You people, obviously, have nothing better to do than sit in your cubicles and worry about whether Apple is going to threaten your precious operating system. Has it occurred to any of you that your small, socialist community of retards does nothing but make the rest of the industry look as socially inept as you? Why don't you all try something new? You can start with working and then maybe move to "going outside" where you can see that big, orange/yellow fireball in the sky.
But why does Apple and OSX being x86 change anything? Most of the differences in the programming model would be handled by the compiler and should be independant of the architecture. If these developers are leaving Linux, it's not because Apple went x86. From a programming perspective, unless they are doing kernel or driver work, it shouldn't make a difference.
There is a lot of Linux types who have moved to Apple hardware (Linus included) but they almost all install a Linux system on it - maybe keeping OSX on dual boot as a fun toy to play with. Hell I would love a powermac even an ibook, but I would have Linux running as my primary OS on it.
Stick a cork up your ass! NOW!
For more serious ideas, check my sig.
Tech Public Policy stuff
So graphics pros could run it without having to switch to Mac or Windows, of course.
You haven't noticed that serious graphics types run screaming when they see GIMP? GIMP2 isn't all that much better... though I have hopes for that "PaintShopPro replacement" project.
As for vector draw apps for Linux... I think that Inkscape is going to be a very good professional-grade program in a couple of years. In the meantime, I'm running Corel Draw in Win4Lin on Linux.
Tech Public Policy stuff
You seem to imply a mutual exclusivity between a good server OS and a good desktop OS. Does such a division actually exist? Can Apple fix the thread problem without impacting the "user experience"? (incidentally, this is my first post ever from my cellphone)
Sorry, but am I the only one here who completely misses the point? Apple a threat to Linux? Are you completely mad?
(And yes, I have read the article and most of the comments.)
Apple pose no more threat to Linux than Prada.
Thank you and good night.
Backward%20compatibility%20is%20over-rated
Why don't I have spell checking in EVERY place on the computer I could possibly enter text?
:) Its umm.. smart.
Because your using an outdated system. Try KDE. You will like it.
Wonderful! So all the proprietary vendors will continue to port to OS X, which will now be on x86. They're *that* much closer to being able to run natively on Linux.
If anything, success OS X has will raise awareness of the possibility of non-Microsoft. And once they start to gain ground in the corporate world, Microsoft might just be forced to interoperate.
Actually, that isn't necessarily true. I'm running Fedora Core 2 and running Windows over Win4Lin to give me access to my Windows graphics apps and Eudora. Even Windows is stable if one only runs one or two major apps at a time, the rest I do in Linux. I'm posting from Opera/Linux right now.
Tech Public Policy stuff
I can't imagine how that managed to get a positive mod rating on Slashdot, but that was hilarious. And I should note that only on Slashdot does 50%+20%+10%=100%
You have tried to support your argument with faulty reasoning! Go directly to jail; do not pass Go, do not collect $200!
Oh, wait, it's pretty tricky to build a car even if you had ALL the parts and instructions in front of you. That's why I bought a Honda - they did all the work, I get to drive.
:)
Totally separate markets segments here... Car nutz like to build cars, super geeks like to build their OS. I'm no dummy, but I've tried about 8 diff. flavors of Linux on my Intel box over the years, and when I was done, I felt like I'd been through the wash. The "freeness" of the OS was overshadowed by the ridiculous amount of work that I, an above average computer user, had to do to even get it running.
Linux will continue to have trouble on the desktop in the consumer market, because consumers consume, not compile. Apple:Honda as Linux:kit car, so yeah, Linux you're safe. Thhpt!
Don't get me wrong you can only get my powerbook why you pry it from my cold dead hands.
But as a server it has problems. as desktop machine you won't notice them, not because you don't load it up, but because the load is different.One app eating a bunch of memory and CPU vs a bunch of different threads each requiring a different CPU
i thought once I was found, but it was only a dream.
....but every technical review.....
It seems that the one thing too many Linux advocates is what the ordinary users could not care less about - technical merit. Users want a machine that does what they want to do and not get in the way by asking for a lot of computer knowledge. Apple has understood this better than anyone else in the industry, proprietary or open. Their OSX is primarily designed for the desktop and networks quite well with Windows and Linux servers. Since servers are generally run by knowledgeble professionals, the ease of use is not as critical as with a desktop general use machine. It is for servers where Linux shines and is where it has made good progress and is not likely to be threatened by Apple's x86 chip change. I have been reading since at least 1999 that Linux will take over the desktop in "the next few years" or so. It NEVER will because there is no unified single version of Linux and ordinary users will NOT EVER compile the source code to run on a particular flavor. If the new Macs will run other OS, and are of the traditional high quality Apple is known for, many of these will have Linux on them and used as servers.
All theory is gray
I agree, I meant that the popularity of OS X with Unix geeks is a threat to Linux. The move to x86 shouldn't make a difference. Actually, for a year or so it may slow the switch rate as the Osborne effect kicks in and people decide to wait for the new chips.
Don't drop the soap, Tommy!
Why is parvenu74 modded up and parent modded down? Ok, the text of parvenu74 is funny, it could be moderated up as funny. But moderating it insightful is ridiculus! It neither contains any information, nor does it show any insight. Is it possible to mod the moderators funny?
Trolling is a art!
Hello. I noticed that you will be undertaking a task I recently went through, putting Linux on an original iBook. That link has most of my experiance, but here is a quick summary:
For a good experiance in Ubuntu, at least 256mb of RAM is needed. You can get by with less if you are willing to hack and try other window managers, but if you want the nice integrated experiance you have to have at least that much ram. I have 300 in my iBook and it runs great. Better than the original OS in my opinion. But that Live CD might not run so well, as the iBook's cd drive is slow.
You will be happy to know that the Airport card works without a hitch. I use WEP and Wireless networking all day long. With this howto you can get the great Kismet to work.
PPC Linux lacks a real flash pluggin. There are free ones but they don't work so good (they require more CPU power than iBook has most of the time). Looking at broken puzzle pieces suck, so I use this extension and never click play.
But sure to check out the Ubuntu Guide, as most of the advice (everything cept windows codecs, those don't work) is the same for PPC. Also check out the PPC wiki.
Good luck and be sure to come to the forums if you need help.
Open Source Sushi
w00t. Thanks... I found it. (btw, don't rotate your display at really high resolution. bad stuff happens).
I believe it when I see it, on Linux I can compile mozilla in the background and pretty much not noticing a slowdown on anything else. Thats a good desktop scheduler. Can the same be said about OS X?
You shouldn't verb nouns, you know.
Warning: Apple/Nintendo fangirl. Likes her electronics cute & cuddly. May be rabid.
*my* iBook (1GHz, 768MB) loads & heats up when I simply browse the web. WTF is wrong with this kernel?
Compiling anything on this lappy is a right pain.
I like the interface but the scheduler is appalling.
First OS/X will only run on approved hardware, this will not interest people who buy Dells.
Second at worst Linux *vendors* have healthy competition. If it turns out that all that prevent people from adopting a new O/S is a bit of marketing, then all is well. It is much easier to move to Linux from OS/X than from Windows.
All the G4 machines above 800Mhz are hot imho. My wifes G3 700 runs nice and cool, even under a load... but then again it is a 700Mhz G3.
Its my opinion that Apple's decision to switch to Intel processors may be good for their business provided they make an important strategic decision. Apple is going to have allowed people to run OS X on any Intel based PC. They can do this one of two ways. They can officially support OS X on any hardware or they can do it unofficially. I think they will take the unofficial route. If Apple makes it simple for the hacker community to circumvent any security measures that force users to run OS X on MAC hardware only then people will run it on other hardware without support from Apple. This will increase the adoption rate of OS X and when users need a high end OS X PC then they will buy the supported MAC hardware. A couple of years down the road when OS X adoption has grown sufficiently then Apple will begin to officially support OS X on other manufactures PCs.
If this happens the UNIX based desktop market will no longer be up for grabs. Apple will have won and there will be three tiers to UNIX desktops. At the top will be OS X running on MAC hardware. Second will be OS X on unsupported hardware. Coming in a distant third will be Linux.
Why will Linux come in third? This is due to the fact that it is still a difficult operating system to administer. Even the most advanced RPM based distributions are difficult to manage once you go beyond what is included with the installation CDs. Device drivers are also an issue. Vendors have not developed drivers on a large scale. It's not likely to happen either because the key people in the Linux community will not embrace closed source drivers and hardware manufactures can not afford to release the intellectual property due to the competitive nature of their businesses. Finally, open source drivers remain too difficult for the average user to configure and install.
I am not the only one with this opinion. OS X is on the minds of other Linux users as well. I was at my local LUG meeting recently only to see several Linux enthusiasts running MACs and OS X instead. I was a little embarrassed by this because I have considered running OS X too.
There is still hope for Linux. It could come out on top but that would take a couple of smart moves by influential Linux companies and some big miracles. The main Linux distribution makers need to partner with some major hardware vendors and come up with Linux certified hardware for the desktop and notebook market and compete head to head with Apple's supported Mac/OS X products. Second, the device driver issues with Linux will need to be resolved. Some how the open source community will have to find a way to accept close source device drivers. Finally, major vendors who currently write software for the Microsoft and Apple platforms will have to be convinced to also publish their software for Linux.
Thanks for taking the time to ready my rant. One more thing......I also forgot to mention that all of this is a battle for second place. None of this will displace Microsoft's dominance in the desktop market. At least in the foreseeable future.
I just said I wasn't going to buy a Mac - which I had planned to do this month - until later maybe in January/Feb when the new stuff should finalize and I might know what to get that would keep working.
The new stuff will be out next June.
This is the first time that Apple has pre-announced a new product line in years, they're normally really tight on details.
1. All current models and all models coming out between now and next June should be supported with OS upgrades for the next 4-5 years. This is based on Apple's history, they haven't actually said this is the case, but if the last PPC macs go out in 4Q07 according to plan, that's only 3 years from then... and they didn't pull the plug within 3 years on the last two transitions. So this is actually a pretty conservative prediction.
2. There won't be any major new models or major upgrades in the next 12 months until the Intel-based models are available. Well, they *might* do an e600-based Powerbook, but I'd be real surprised. They're not likely to have a G5 eMac or anything like that.
3. If you're looking for gaming, you want a model with at least a 64M video card for Quartz Extreme 2d. The low end desktop that has that is the new eMac. The iBook and Mac mini have 32M Radeon 9200, and may or may not have a refresh before next June.
4. The first new models will be the Intel-based Mac mini and at least one Intel-based laptop. The current G5 models will be the last to be refreshed. So that means an Intel mini next June, followed by the laptops and maybe an Intel eMac by the end of the year.
All this is based only on what Apple has already announced and what's on their website.
So...
If you buy an eMac now, you'll get a QE2d-capable Powermac. It's unlikely it will be refreshed between now and 2H06, when they come out with an Intel version. It's unlikely you'll get a better low-end from Apple between now and next June unless they refresh the Mac mini, and holding off on a refresh of the mini actually makes less sense now... it was more likely before 6/6.
If you buy an iMac now, you'll get a G5, and it's unlikely you'll get a better model before 1Q07... and, again, the news on 6/6 makes an upcoming refresh on the iMac less likely.
If you wait for the Intel-based models, you'll be waiting until next June. If you want an Intel-based iMac, you'll likely be waiting until 2007... they've already said they'll update the low-end models and the laptops first.
So I don't see much point in doing more than waiting a few weeks to see if the current shortage of the mini (Estimated Ship just went up to 6-8 business days) indicates a refresh with a Radeon 9600 to support QE2d under Tiger... if you were looking at the mini, OR waiting until 2H06 or 1H07 and getting an IntelliMac.
Steve Jobs could have a hell of a surprising "Just one more thing" at MWSF'06 and release an Intel box before next June, but June's what they've committed to.
but MacTel's supposed killer feature, dual-booting Windows
That's a silly idea for a "killer feature".
There's two potential "killer feature"s for MacIntel over MacPPC:
First, a faster version of SoftWindows.
Second, it's likely to make game ports easier.
Neither of them excite me, but they're more likely to benefit the average user than "dual-booting Windows".
The head CEO of Sony when he was invited by Steve Jobs to speak at his keynote made a joke that Apple makes the best software and he hopes they stay on PPC chips./ 5933/
Since the announcement almost every tech news site has published stories that reveal the fears of what might happen when OS X hits the PC market. The numbers don't lie and the barriers that have been preventing a mass convergence have been somewhat lowered. But it's been the quality of the software that's kept users of the Macintosh committed and others flocking to see for themselves. You better believe there is going to be a new war for the top stop when Apple debuts it OS for x86(?) ?) According to US News and World Report, Macintosh owners buy 30% more software than their Windows counterparts. Further, Macintosh software comprises over 18% of all software sold, according to the Software and Information Industry Association. In addition, the Software Publishers Association (SPA) estimates that 16 percent of computer users are on Macs. http://macdailynews.com/index.php/weblog/comments
Puppy Linux runs in 128 Mb ram as a ramdisk based distro. you can get it as a live 650Mb disk with tons of apps or as the plain 60Mb updatable distro and save files on spare space.
You can even fit it all on a 128 Mb usb drive and have room for files.
http://www.goosee.com/puppy/
- Kaos games and encryption systems developer
Apples move to Intel is a threat to Windows not Linux. How many of us wished that MacOS ran on a generic PC platform and how many of us have said in the past that Apple could kill Microsoft of only they's stop being a hardware manufacturer. Well?
Yeah, it works on X86. In fact, it was working on Darwin/X86 long before Darwin/PPC or OS X because on X86 it doesn't have to do processor emulation.
You can't judge a book by the way it wears its hair.