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Multi-booting Mac Intel Developer Machines
ytsejam-ppc writes "Ross Carlson over at Jasbone.com has a great article up on how to install multiple operating systems on the new Intel based developer edition Macs. His particular setup triple-booted Mac OS X 10.4.1 (Intel), CentOS 4 and Windows XP. Just makes me drool."
And how many of us have these developer machines?
What that? Zero . . ah ok . . .
Your hair look like poop, Bob! - Wanker.
...they likely won't be using BIOS.
But if they're using EFI (a distinct possibility), it's still likely that Windows will be able to be directly installed.
And even if they make the unlikely choice of Open Firmware, that doesn't stop Windows (and any other x86 OS) from running at essentially the full speed of the native underlying hardware in a virtual machine environment that someone is bound to produce. In fact, that's likely even *more* desirable to a larger number of people than the hassle of dual booting. And a VM is possible regardless of what the boot mechanism will be.
You're not thinking big enough.
;)) The actual Intel Apple machines you'll start to see won't even be Pentium M - they'll be the next gen chips that aren't on the market yet: Yonah, Sossaman, Merom, and Conroe :)
r s
The dev boxes are for making sure your software runs on intel. There's a lot of work for some of the developers out there, and they need machines now. P4s are cheap and powerful enough to do the job (without giving away all the fun secrets that Steve will undoubtedly use to fuel his RDF
http://arstechnica.com/columns/mac/mac-20050608.a
Games and any proprietary software that is Windows-only.
Bill Clinton: Pimp we can believe in. - The Shirt!!!
The GIMP sucks. If you're a true graphic designer, you'll soon realize things you NEED that are only available in Photoshop.
Just because it's open source doesn't make it better. I found Photoshop easy to use and powerful from the first version I worked on, 2.5 I believe. I've tinkering with Gimp and it's interesting but I'd hate to have to depend on it. My productivity would drop like a rock and most of what I depend on in Photoshop just isn't there. There's nothing wrong with Gimp if you're just tinkering for fun but it's not a serious threat for Photoshop in the pro world.
Question is, why are they having to do this?
Likely to ensure that any developers living under a rock do find out about it, and get their hands on the technology they need to fully ensure that their Mac application runs on new machines day 1. Apple is very concerned with third party application compatibility on the new platform, as they know many of the Mac users depend on not only Apple solutions, but those also from Microsoft (Office), Adobe (Photoshop) and many others.
No, wait, you're not even close to being right.
First of all, Microsoft gets no revenue from every Mac sold. Because exactly zero Macs come with Office. They come with a *trial* of Office. Customers must still purchase it separately.
Second, a comparatively small number of people (mostly concentrated in business and institutional settings) will be the only people running Windows under virtualization. Some new customers will be added because of the speed, and perhaps some new-to-Mac customers because they can run Windows in addition to Mac OS X.
Third, people buy Macs because they want the Mac OS. Not because they secretly want to run Windows on Apple hardware. They're using or switching to Mac OS X because Windows is the steaming pile of dogshit that it is. Running Windows is only a necessity to run Windows software (and having access to the wide variety of commodity PC hardware). I'm not sure many people run Windows because it's the most stable, secure OS available. Not to mention that people who run Windows on an Intel-based Mac will likely be NOT dual-booting, but rather running it in virtualization, side by side with Mac OS X, and only doing it when they need to run Windows-specific software.
Lastly, your assertion that Apple would stop supporting Mac OS X is nothing short of hilarious. I don't even know how to respond to it. Apple might not be a "software company", but Mac OS X is entirely what draws people to the Mac platform. The fact that the hardware is excellently engineered is incidental. Further, if ANYTHING will transform Apple into a "software company", propelling Mac OS X into the larger world beyond Apple hardware when appropriate, it's this transition. In other words, the exact opposite of what you said.
In fact, the actual scenario is more or less the opposite of your entire post. But it was good entertainment!
It is really odd that Apple is now in a position to leverage.... Windows XP to break into a larger market. Think about that for a second.
Believe it or not, there are tons of people out there with more than enough money to buy just about any kind of computer they want. Paying 2%0 more or even 80% more than the cheapest available comparable system is no biggie for these people.
What they do want tho is a system that they know will work for them. Many, many people are afraid of the big switch to PPC Mac OSX because they don't know if OS X will work for them, and if it doesn't, the hardware is basically useless for them (i.e. they aren't going to install Linux and be happy with it).
With the new Intel machines, these people can now buy apple gear knowing that they can go back to XP if need be. I'd bet that a big majority of these people never get around to even installing XP.
Note please: Market Share != Customer Base.
As you imply in your post.
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