Desktop Linux on x86 - Adapt or Die

An anonymous reader writes "The recent announcement of Apple's upcoming x86 systems has gotten a lot of people thinking. Among the conjecture, there has been much thought given to how Linux will be affected by this move. The author of this article does not believe that Linux as a whole is threatened harmed by the 'Mactel' alliance, but does point out that his could mean major trouble for distros like Xandros and Linspire which are reliant on the desktop audience. These distros are clearly not ready to take on OS X, which will soon be the primary x86 alternative to Windows XP not only because of OS X's dedicated and outspoken user base but because of its slick looks and ease of use."

Comments

Re:I still don't get it..

[Squareball]

Ahmen brother! People are acting like OS X has been announced for generic X86 boxes and it hasn't. In the end you'll still have to buy a mac to use OS X so I don't see how this changes anything. The only difference is that it'll have Intel x86 inside instead of PPC. Other than that it will be the same damn thing.

You still won't be able to run OS X

[Colin Smith]

On your desktop PC.

It is still not a PC operating system. Absolutely nothing has changed.

This is a non issue.

Re:But OTOH

[nathanh]

OSX was build from almost scrath in less than half the time Linux has been in existence.

Woah there nelly. You haven't got that one quite right. The origins of OS X began in 1985 with the first public release in 1988. It's older than Linux by a few years. It evolved a bit between 1988 and 1997 before Apple bought it, and Apple did some fairly major reworking, but OS X has a 20 year history and has spent 8 years with Apple. Linux is only 14 years old and KDE/GNOME are only 8 years old. So to be completely honest, the KDE/GNOME guys have managed to build *two* desktops from scratch in less than half the time OS X has been in existence! You got it exactly backwards.