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Windows on Intel Macs - Yes or No?
With the announcement of the Intel chip based MacBook, the door is now open for running the Windows OS on Macintosh hardware, right? jaypatrick writes "BetaNews reports that along with the announcement of the first Intel based Macs yesterday, many users have rejoiced in being able to dual-boot both Mac OS X and Windows. Unfortunately, this is not the case; due to Apple's use of the extensible firmware interface (EFI) rather than BIOS, current Windows releases will not run on the systems." I guess not. But, wait... Big Z writes "Phil Schiller, Apple's senior vice-president of worldwide product marketing, said in an interview Tuesday that the company won't sell or support Windows itself, but also hasn't done anything to preclude people from loading Windows onto the machines themselves." I think someone actually trying it out is the only way this is going to get straightened out.
When something like Linux is ported to anything, it's because there is a cult following in the community and this is what they specialize in. Window's has a cult following, it's just not specialized in this sort of development.
The benefits of a port might be because of cheaper or easier to find hardware capable of running something that it wasn't meant to but is very useful to users. I don't think this is the case in putting Windows on an Intel Mac because Intel Macs are cheaper than what I can piece together in PC x86 form. Don't get me wrong, Macs are nice machines but they're not exactly easy to upgrade or fix on your own.
I'm sure someone will port the extended firmware interface to run Windows through a virtual layer (if it needs it) but this can only introduce Windows running as fast or slower than the speed it could run at without EFI.
For this reason, I doubt people are going to find much use using the port since it's a) cheaper to piece their own machine together and leave the specs up to themselves and b) Windows will probably run slower.
Yeah, there might be someone out there bragging about running Windows on an Intel Mac but he's probably the rare Window's equivalent to the guy with a penguin displayed on his microwave's LCD.
My work here is dung.
Apple hasn't done anything to preclude Windows, or any other OS, from being installed on the Intel-based Macs. That is a perfectly accurate statement. Apple Vice President Phil Schiller's two direct quotes on the subject, the most recent which was made on January 10, 2006, can be seen here. Intel has also specifically said that Apple will not be using proprietary chipsets and/or processors, and they'll just represent standard Intel offerings.
;-)
Windows XP would directly boot and install on the Developer Transition Kit platform because it was just a standard Intel motherboard and processor, and also used a standard Intel BIOS.
However, the shipping Intel-based Macs use EFI (Wikipedia article), Intel's "next generation of BIOS". (more info)
Windows XP 32-bit does not currently support EFI for booting. Windows XP 64-bit does, but Intel Core Duo is not a 64-bit chip. Now, there are a bunch of other variables, such as whether or not Apple's current EFI implementation offers BIOS backward-compatibility, and so on, but it's clear that regardless, EFI is the future, and it's only a matter of time before the PC world at large transitions to EFI. Further, Windows Vista does support EFI. See here for Microsoft's presentations on EFI, particularly the first two links.
That said, dual booting is intensely annoying anyway, and the really interesting thing will be able to just run Windows (or some other x86 OS) and Mac OS X side-by-side.
What we will *definitely* see are "Virtual PC"-like programs that let you run Windows alongside OS X (in a Window, or taking over the screen, etc., with a hotkey to flip back and forth, for example).
It's important to note this will NOT be emulation: Windows (or other x86 OS) will run at essentially the native speed of the underlying hardware (with certain exceptions). There could even be direct access to video, with support for things like DirectX.
vmware already has a version for Mac OS X in development, and Microsoft has already announced they will be developing a version of Virtual PC for Intel-based Macs that one can only presume will be a virtual machine. Then there are things like QEMU, Xen, etc. The Darwin/Mac OS X version of WINE, DarWINE, has even been working under betas of Mac OS X for Intel. Now that Intel Macs are shipping, it will only be a matter of weeks/months before we have several options for running Windows itself, and/or Windows applications at essentially the native speed of the underlying hardware.
And since Intel Core Duo also supports Intel's VT hardware virtualization, the possibilities of future virtual machine technology are even more interesting. But the bottom line is that Apple is again leading the way with the adoption of technologies like EFI and ExpressCard. Naturally, it will take a little while for Windows to catch up.
Great, now I can have an exploitable and virus infected operating system running on my Mac! The only place I want to see Windows running is on someone else's machine.
Q: I am short, useless and provide no value. What am I? A: a sig
Well, the thing I really want to see is someone tri-boot, OSX, linux and WindowsXP. Obligitory: I wonder what a beowulf cluster of these could do.
Mmmh.. I dont think Mac users will migrate. Why would they do that?
One of the anonymous comments from the Original Original Post... claiming to have had access to the developer release said they were dual booting win and osx. I am however too lazy being that its still pre-coffee AM for me...
I ate my sig.
Could grub or lilo be built on the osx side to handle this?
I'm up for it... if someone will give me the £1700 for the mac i want, it really is a good return for you, you'll get to know whether you can effectively downgrade a mac just by instaling software.
*''I can't believe it's not a hyperlink.''
I think it's in Apples best interest to allow Windows on their hardware for two reasons. 1st, people who are apprehensive about switching to Mac could do so slowly with a dual boot setup. 2nd, Apple could sell more hardware this way as it would appeal to Windows users.
http://religiousfreaks.com/Just because Windows XP doesn't have support for EFI doesn't mean that Apple is intentionally trying to prevent a Windows install. The EFI standard isn't that new, but Windows XP is just behind the times as far as hardware support. Vista should run fine.
They might just use a different BIOS and not do anything additional to make windows not work. So no trusted computing type stuff to prevent you from running windows but you might need to hack your bios or trick windows or something.
Just a guess.
If you liked this thought maybe you would find my blog nice too:
Not worried about Linux much, I'm sure that one is already ported.
But unless I can tri-boot the big-3 (or more to the point, VM them), we're all gonna have to keep the Windows XP boxen around for Development (read: games). This is not acceptable, PC's are just too loud and power hungry.
Apple knows this, so does everyone else. By the time they ship, the "problem" will be solved.
- Adam L. Beberg - The Cosm Project - http://www.mithral.com/
They can include support for Legacy BIOS in EFI. If apple includes this option (or if there is a way to flash your bios with legacy bios support) then you WILL be able to boot windows on new mac hardware.
However 64 bit windows and Longhorn both do / will support EFI so that is always a option (although the current intel chips in the macs are 32bit I believe).
You might not be able to boot into WinXp on an intel mac, but I'm pretty sure you will be able to use Virtual PC. Heck, you might even be able to do that now with Virtual PC 7.0 with Rosetta, but it would be kind of inefficient with a x86 emulator to PPC back to x86.
With that said it won't be too hard to get native x86 speeds with a newer version of Virtual PC in the shorterm future. I'd wager before the end of this year it will be out.
"I am the king of the Romans, and am superior to rules of grammar!"
-Sigismund, Holy Roman Emperor (1368-1437)
More interesting: When will Apple have IntelMac's with VT (virtualization) support enabled?
Once that happens, you could run Xen in the Mac to run windows in a VM.
It's unclear whether the first Core Duo parts support VT, and whether the firmware on the MacBooks/IMacs support it as well.
Test your net with Netalyzr
...the posts breathlessly announcing "Hackers manage to make Windows run on Apple", "Hackers manage to make Windows run on off the shelf Dell PC", "Hackers manage to make Windows run on X-Box", "Hackers manage make Windows run", complete with little pictures of the device in question displaying something characteristic of Windows....
The real question is, how well will WINE/Cedega work on the new Macs? I know a lot of Mac people who want to play PC games, and this could well be their chance. Contrawise, I know a lot of people who'd love a Mac, but the games issue is what's stopping them from moving over.
I'd put SUSE on that thing before I got the whole system unpacked.
MadOgre.com
Apple may not have done anything to break windows compatibility, but Windows won't work anyways.
The only version of Windows that can boot from an EFI bios is Windows XP 64-bit Edition, but the Intel Macs have 32-bit CPUs.
Common sense is not so common.
Dual booting is nice for a play thing, and in some very specific instances, but not as a general practice. There's a lot of hardware you could get that's nearly as nice, for cheaper.
Honestly, what's the draw to this? Back in the mid 90's I understood it completely with windows/linux. Linux didn't provide what most people needed to be productive back then, and costs were prohibitive to have dual machines for most of the people that were interested in linux at the time.
Now we have a high end (and high priced) peice of hardware, that runs an operating system that provides everything you need to be productive, and it's polished as heck. So why would you want to dual boot to anything? You can get the performance out of many other peices of hardware for cheaper if you want to run windows.
What is the purpose of dual booting? In my college days, sure I had 5 OSs booting off the same drive, but that had nothing to do with needing to get work done.
OS X is superior for Web surfing, Document creation, Multimedia and personal file and web serving.
Now I know that there are legitimate uses for Windows (CAD, games, etc) but why would you want to dual boot? A cheap windows machine can be made by your local shop for 400 bucks.
Get a KVM switch and you've got two dedicated machines you can use at the same time.
If you don't know what AltaVista is (was), get off my lawn.
For this reason, I doubt people are going to find much use using the port since it's a) cheaper to piece their own machine together and leave the specs up to themselves and b) Windows will probably run slower.
It's not like the BIOS is a processor architecture. I highly doubt that any work required to make Windows XP work with EFI will not drastically, or even noticably affect the speed of the machine.
GRUB already works with EFI, and GRUB can launch Windows... From my experience, WindowsXP has pretty much ignored anything about the hardware that the bios has told it (I've disabled HDs, but windows sees them, etc). Could it be possible that GRUB could be installed on a Mac and used to load Windows?
Otherwise both WinXP 64 and Vista support EFI... one could always wait for Vista or illegally grab a beta...
Even if Apple does prevent Windows from running easily on a Mac, you can bet it won't take long for a reliable emulator to come out that will be able to run Windows at near-full-speed. It'll likely be more costly and is ultimately unnecessary, but it WOULD happen.
Your synopsis is heading the wrong way. The motivation and thrust behind this move is to garnish OS X (and future derivates) more market share on Wintel machines...
I have VirtualPC on my mac here. It SUCKS. Apart from the glacially slow speed (to be expected, although they probably aren't doing a very good job of binary translation), the options and controllability are FAR less than VMWare Workstation. I've also used VMware (both Workstation and ESX server).
Wait for VMWare-MacTel, it will be far better than the Borg's entry: far more controllable and more powerful, with better features.
Test your net with Netalyzr
Isn't there a shell in EFI that will let you emulate BIOS? You should just have to configure EFI to launch the BIOS shell.
You say things that offend me and I can deal with it. Can you?
May I ask what on earth for?
When the posters fear their moderators, there is tyranny; when the moderators fears the posters, there is liberty.
Intel Macs will boot Windows Vista when it comes out. Windows Vista is the first version of 32 bit Windows that will support Intel's replacement for the old creaky BIOS that Apple uses in it's new machines. Why bother to support the old on-it's -way-out-the-door tech in your new hardware?
Acording to this article it seems Windows XP does indeed install on the Intel-based Macs. Apple has indicated they did not cripple the possibility. Why the discussion? I think this has more to do with people who dislike Apple than with actual facts.
I'm pretty sure this hasn't been tested yet, but could one use elilo to boot Windows on a MacIntel machine?
http://sourceforge.net/projects/elilo
- Necron69
I'm also upset that my nintendo DS won't run the PSP operating system, I mean come on, they're both hand held gaming consoles, I should be able to dual boot, right?! /snark.
EFI has BIOS emulation, so Windows XP should be able to run on a Mac. We'll see what steps are needed to get it installed. You don't even need a bootloader, since EFI replaces bootloaders.
It's gonna happen. But I'm not interested in that--I'm interested in someone taking advantage of the hardware virtualization in the Core Duos and letting me run Windows in a window on an OS X desktop with no performance hit. Screw dual-booting.
"Sufferin' succotash."
According to the Xen mailing list, the first Core Duos have VT disabled:
s /2006-01/msg00448.html.
http://lists.xensource.com/archives/html/xen-user
So no Xen on the first MacTels (probably).
Test your net with Netalyzr
So what if I buy an Apple machine but use Windows exclusively on it? Do I have to pay for the OSX license?
There is no longer anything that can be done with computers that is nontrivial and clearly legal. -- Paul Phillips
I mean, you'd be paying a premium for the OS + hardware then downgrading the OS from Munix (?) to WinOS. That would seem like a complete waste of money. If you want Wintendo, then go buy a cheap $500 PC and load it up. I could see people possibly running other *nix OS's and even possibly running VMWare to get at some Windows features (even I run CX Office on my Dell laptop) that aren't available - yet.
The Kai's Semi-Updated Website Thingy
The quickest solution to getting Windows apps running will be Wine, I'm sure. But it doesn't seem like it would be hard to create a fake BIOS for Windows to talk to.
There are obviously plenty of people who want it done. I give it about 2 months from the release date. Maybe less?
Please stop stalking me, bro.
Why oh why use EFI instead of OpenFirmware?
Leandro Guimarães Faria Corcete DUTRA
DA, DBA, SysAdmin, Data Modeller
GNU Project, Debian GNU/Lin
Surely you jest. Apple wouldn't be putting out 32-bit systems still, nor would Intel be building them. Just because they don't mention it doesn't mean it isn't there, along with Execute Disable, which is mentioned and is part of the 64-bit specification.
"It's the height of ridiculousness to say for those 9 lines you get hundreds of millions."
I'm about to drive from Illinois to California. I've got a nice new Powerbook G4 I'd love to bring. But I probably won't bring it because the GPS options for Mac are HORRIBLE. If only I could run Windows for that one reason. Now I have to bring my stupid old Dell laptop instead.
Vote Libertarian
Actually I'm still waiting for OS-X that I can install on my Pentium 4 machine. +1 for the comment about the KVM switch. I run two machines at home. One for work... Linux. And the other is for games... XP. The two keyboards and mice is getting annoying. I need to order myself a switch.
MadOgre.com
Ironically, on the 'Microsoft, Apple sign five-year pact story,' there is a flash ad at the top that reads:
"Microsoft Office has evolved.
Have you?"
He who knows best knows how little he knows. - Thomas Jefferson
Let's face it, one reason people "buy" Windows is that the cost is hidden in the cost of the machine. This is also generally true of OS X (the cost is hidden) but the hardware is "cooler." Your average consumer who buys an Apple does so because of design or ease of use.
In order to run Windows on Mac hardware, it would first be necessary to buy Mac hardware, which isn't cheap. (The value proposition of Macs is a separate issue). Then, you have to look at the OSX interface goodness and decide that you want Windows instead. After that, you have to do whatever porting is necessary and install Windows. All this to get cool hardware running a not-so-cool OS. I mean, Apple is the BMW of computers and Wintel is the Ford. Are you really going to buy a 3 series and stick an Escort engine in it?
If and when Windows supports booting without a BIOS, I can see some folks having dual-boot Apple hardware. Especially folks who want Apple's nicely designed hardware but still want to run Windows games.
But an out-and-out port seems unlikely.
Interested in a Flash-based MAME front end? Visit mame.danzbb.com
You can do it now, all you gotta do is get the PPC version of virtual PC. I mean sure you are emulating PPC hardware on x86 hardware which is in turn emulating x86 hardware, but come on, how bad could it be :P
Monstar L
OS X: Quit crowding XP!
XP: But I need room for my Recycle Bin!
Linux (shaking head): Amateurs...
GetOuttaMySpace - The Anti-Social Network
If you recall back when Apple announced the Intel move that they were saying that OS X would not be able to run on any old Intel PC. Rumors flew and many people thought that it would require a certain chip on the motherboard to load. The asusmption I had was that it would have to be somewhat crucial to the opertaion of the computer so that people wouldn't just find ways of bypassing or faking it, I may have been wrong though.
Here's the question: if the Intel Mac Machines do not in any way shape or form prevent Windows from being loaded, what became of this chip? Will Vista have special patches to deal with it, will it just appear in Device Manager as an unkown system resource or is not there in the first place?
If it's not there then I don't see what stops me from installing OS X on any computer. The only problem might be drivers but then again there is always OpenDarwin.
People complain that Apple's hardware is expensive NOW and you want to add $300-$400 to the price tag for a target market of a couple hundred people?
As for he use of EFI, have you ever used some of the "BIOS" features of a Mac? Firewire Target Mode is pretty damned neat. Look it up. Now do that in a PC BIOS. Sometimes people have to be dragged kicking and screaming into the future...
I don't jest.
Intel Core Duo is not a 64-bit processor, and does not not support EM64T (x86-64).
The next generation of all of Intel's processors will indeed be 64-bit.
Windows on Intel Macs - Yes or No?
Not only no, but hell no. What on God's green earth for?
Microsoft is to software what Budweiser is to beer.
Probably to late for you right now, though.
Clear, Dark Skies
I am sure that eventually we will be able to multi-boot the intel Macs. Hell, I tri-boot my Dell notebook with WinXP, OS X x86 10.4.1, and Fedora Core 4 (you just chainload GRUB into Darwin's bootloader). The problem I have is with the file systems seeing one another. HFS+ can see NTFS, but not EXT3. NTFS can't see HFS+, and so on. Maybe I am just lazy, but it can be annoying with the different file systems not seeing eachother, especially with NTFS's mutant (read:non-*nix) file permissions.
"Alot of people don't know what they are doing...and most are pretty good at it." -George Carlin
Finally I dont have to wait for them to port DOS wolf3d to MAC!
I don't think it'll be that hard. All we have to do is get GRUB working on the thing and I bet Windows running the ACPI Uniprocessor HAL will pick up the devices. GRUB has an EFI port, IIRC.
"Sometimes, I think Trent just needs a cup of hot chocolate and a blankie." -Tori Amos on Nine Inch Nails
I have used VMWare on my PC laptops for a couple of years and it is great. I have an old powerbook as well, but virtual PC is just horrible, and have been holding off buying a mac until the intel ones came out so that VMWare would run on it.
I think they will shift a lot of VMware workstation software when they do this, as a lot of developers I know love the mac concept and stability, but have to run Windows stuff as well.
Humorous signatures are over-rated.
So these new Macs have Intel processors. But do the have all of the other motherboard resources that Windows expects to see when booting up, and are these devices exactly the same as on a PC? In other words, can the timer interrupt, real-time clock and various other doo-dahs be accessed in the same way. I presume that there are some non-trivial differences between the two, and that some PC legacy hardware is missing altogether as it's simply not needed.
Apple must offer dual boot or Windows-only machines, or resellers will eat their lunch from a margin perspective. Say I'm a reseller of Apple computers and I'm looking for a way to differentiate myself, so sell I dual boot Macs. I get OEM pricing on Windows, as I'm selling new machines. The very limited number of Mac models allows for better testing of drivers for the various configurations than a Dell or HP can deliver, so potentially I can offer the most stable Windows machines on the market. I think advertising to the masses a machine that can boot as either a PC or a Mac would strike a chord. If Apple offered this themselves, they would cut out the middle man and take the marging increase themselves. Dell would have some real competition.
The only thing I would use a Windows machine (at home) for is to play games...oh, wait, I don't even use one to do that! Maybe that's because I can buy an XBOX or PS and hook it up to a giant HDTV, play hundreds of games, and not have to worry about whether it will work or not (just like the apps I use on my Mac). Tinker all you guys want, I'm happy running OS X and playing games on a console.
I mean it's, what, been with us for 25 or 30 years. Obviously it's tried and true, tested and ready.
We wouldn't want to use some other firmware that's only ever been used in machines that don't have emulate a CPM box.
Clear, Dark Skies
It's a god damned PC. Call it what it is :)
Honestly why would you want to run windows on a mac in the first place....who really cares to run that crap. If buy a mac you want to work on a mac isn't that why you pay the premium? Mac just works better in the first place. If you say you want to be able to run windows just for the option to who cares about the option when you can do anything you want is OSX.
Not really all that foolish. I bet it also lacks ISA slots and centronics port. This is a new computer that is supposed to run a new OS. Why burden it with an old BIOS? Vista will boot and I am pretty sure XP can.
See my blog http://ilovecookes.blogspot.com/ for light hearted technical information.
For Windows IT managers out there that are sick and tired of being sick and tired, running Windows on a Mac may help in the transition from an all Windows based office to all Mac. Granted... it is not ideal (nor do I think an 'ideal' exists). However, it will go a long way towards justification of a switch if there is no downside such as needing to retain some Windows boxes for legacy application after the switch.
I predict, though, that the Dell drones (and the like) will not find this anything more than a curiosity, and will not be able to take seriously the idea of switching platforms no matter how bad Windows has botched a situation. They are so ingrained in their problems they don't know it just doesn't have to be that way. Poor Bastards.
The Admin and the Engineer
Read this discussion and you'll see that it MIGHT be possible. That is, EFI has the ability to support a backward compatibility mode with BIOS dependent operating systems. So the answer to the question is that if Apple chose to enable this option, dual booting will be feasible. If they chose not to, then who knows.
It is absolutely in Apple's interest to allow this capability though. If the new Apple laptops support dual booting Windows then I will absolutely buy one. I've wanted to run OSX but there are something I need to run in Windows for. If I can't run in Windows at least part of the time, then I cannot justify buying one of their computers.
This sig has been temporarily disconnected or is no longer in service
Trying to run MacOS on a windows machine seems much more interesting, since you can put in whatever hardware you want. Currently this is pretty diffucult, and near impossible for the average windows user, and requires the use of emulators (pearPC or what have you) which means it's really slow. But If Intel Mac uses no proprietary hardware, doesn't that mean theres nothing to differentiate an apple hardware build from my own? So theoretically I could install MacOS on my computer right now! Well, after they finally release it at least...
Comment removed based on user account deletion
I disagree... the quickest solution to getting Windows apps running will be the next version of Virtual PC.
Microsoft should make a version for Mac hardware just to sell more copies of Windows. Is there going to be enough Mac hardware out there to make it worth it?
So many people are looking at this as "Why would a Mac user want to run Windows?" Try looking at it the other way. There are a lot of Windows users who drool over the design of Mac hardware. Now they can buy the slick-looking hardware without having to change their OS and replace their software.
Remember, Apple is a hardware company. The more boxes they sell, the more profitable they'll be. They don't really care which OS the user is on. Hopefully this move will allow them to have iPod-like success with the desktop systems.
The mere existance of a device like a KVM just indicates the degree to which the wIntel guys just don't get it.
the preceding comment is my own and in no way reflects the opinion of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
I am a potential switcher(from windows). I have used windows for almost 10 years now. Do you just expect me to ditch all the programs/games etc from that period of time. It will take me years to replace all my utils/apps, I will never replace old classic games, I may still like to play, like Baldurs Gate 2, or Total Annihilation...
That is not too hard to grasp is it?
Now if you already use a Mac, of course you don't care, but as a potential Windows switcher, I care enough that I won't buy unless I can take my old software with me.
I'd much rather have a laptop running OSX than running Windows and I can only run OSX on Apple hardware. Besides, Apple does make some very nice hardware.
The issue with dual booting is that I have some software that simply does not exist for OSX and likely never will. The software is rather performance intensive and so virtualization is not a viable solution. Thus the need to dual boot. Eventually I hope to move completely away from using Windows at all, but for now, sometimes I have to use it.
This sig has been temporarily disconnected or is no longer in service
... would be like drinking bear-piss from a champagne glass. Oh sure, you could do it, if you really wanted to...
sig has been sent away for a few small repairs...
Doesn't EFI introduce a dependency on FAT? AFAIK EFI mandates a FAT boot partition, not sure about FAT-with-long-filenames, but I expect it might...
While I think allowing Microsoft's US patents on FAT was quite insane of the USA (and I note, despite the hysteria, the patents are not really valid outside the USA - i.e. most of the world), does this mean that Microsoft can sue people (in the USA) who boot linux on these machines (necessarily making use of their oh-so-valuable innellecuaaal prooobeeeerdeeee)?
EFI is already a support boot method for IA64 linux, it's only a matter of minor work before linux is _technically_ capable of booting on these boxes, whatever about being _legally_ allowed to do so.
And also, if they were going to pick a non-BIOS firmware, why not use x86 OpenFirmware, given existing Macs use OpenFirmware _anyway_? Does EFI have some sort of explicit support for Digitial Restrictions Management Evil or something?
Even if you could install Windows XP on your new ICBM (Intel chip Based Mac), you're paying a huge premium to do so. You'd have to be either a hobbyist or an arithmetically challenged idiot. And Microsoft certainly doesn't cater to the former. People buy Macs for the ability to run OS X and other Apple-specific software.
Well, I suppose the other reason to buy a Mac is that it's about as close to sexy as a computer can get.
...Dev Studio and its tangents. My day job is developing windows software, and if I can run Dev Studio at full speed on the machine, I'll do it, cause that program is slow enough on my P4, and almost unusable on VirtualPC for my current Mac. Of course, as soon as I could, I'd switch back to OSX.
Apple is still a hardware company, and if I can use the MacBook all the time instead of this POS Dell I've got, then I'm still happy regardless of what OS is on the screen.
MacOS on PC's - that is going to be a tectonic event. Apple may, enthusiastically or reluctantly - go in that direction as the hardware difference between the two platforms starts to narrow. Imagine Apple salivating at even 10% of Microsoft's revenues vs. 4% of personal computer market. Expect before 2010. Once the gush of profits from iPod starts waning as it gets commoditized, Apple will be compelled to reinvent itself as a software company.
Dualbooting is a hassle and I don't want to have to deal with driver hell. I'd rather just run VMWare. Might that be possible soon?
I also emailed Transgaming about Cedega, but so far they still have nothing useful to say.
So, I buy a MacBook Pro because I like the hardware, but I don't want to run OSX, I want to run x86 Linux only. Can I return OSX for the retail price? Or can I buy one without an OS?
Just becuase they are Apple doesn't mean they get a free pass. No matter if it is Apple Tax or Microsoft Tax, why should I pay for something I will not use?
-Matt
Apple enjoys more than 10% of Microsoft's revenues today. They gross 12 billion a year.
You can tell the character of a man by observing those who hate him.
Will OS X for Intel Mac's run on a generic PC well enough that it's accessible to a fair number of people. That will cause developers to target OS X more, and make it viable. Otherwise people are going to have some pretty overpriced Windows Mac's.
One word: "Yonah". Wave of the future, baby.
Maybe Mac could port a version of OS X to the PC platform?
... It's maybe a tiny little bit too risky, something like taking the nice big bone out a pigbulls mouth,
Since they anyway have to port OS X for the intel chipset, It shouldn't be too complicated to release a version of Mac OS X for the pc platform? no?
Ok,
I love deadlines. I like the whooshing sound they make as they fly by.
So which way to the first full dual booting machine? Some hacking to get around Windows EFI issues to get a dual booting mac going, or full shipping OSX hacked to real functionality on Generic PC's?
Yeah I know OSX on generics has been done, but to keep the race fair lets make it official shipping OSX which is suppossed to be harder to hack.
Personally I am interested in a new dual booting machine and would prefer the windows on Mac option as that probably needs less hacking to get it to work and will likely be more stable.
The issue is dumbasses writing games in direct3d instead of opengl. You don't have to rewrite your game to take advantage of PPC, that's why we have compilers. Its already easy to make your game run on windows, mac and linux, you just have to choose to do it. Most companies don't because the extra support costs. None of this changes just because macs have different CPUs.
What we will *definitely* see are "Virtual PC"-like programs that let you run Windows alongside OS X (in a Window, or taking over the screen, etc., with a hotkey to flip back and forth, for example).
Right, this is what is really interesting from my point of view. The only reason I would want to dual boot is to be able to get maximum performance with Games. Other than that dual booting is inferior to running Windows or Linux on top of OS.X via some Virtual PC type solution since I want to be able to switch between OS'es with a single keyboard shortcut.
There are already some alternatives for running Windows on a VPC on top of OS.X:
Microsoft Virtual PC
GuestPC
iEmulator
According to macwindows.com Microsoft has been unwilling to name a timeframe for when Virtual PC will be working on the MacIntel boxes. In other words no Microsot Virtual PC on MacIntel until this spring or even the summer. Of the other two vendors I only go a reply from iEmulator who plans to be releasing a MacIntel compatable version around the time the MacIntlel machines hit the market in February which means they look set to be the first to market. In all cases there should be a significant performance boost for these products hopefull to the pont that we get half way decen performance for Windows XP and hopefully Windows 2003 Server as well.
Has anybody heard any talk of an OS.X port from VMware?
Only to idiots, are orders laws.
-- Henning von Tresckow
I don't comfortably have the room for two computers, and wouldn't enjoy the noise or power bills of two of them running at the same time. Nor would I enjoy having to maintain a network to access my files from both machines.
And I'm not even in the majority of computer users who use portables.
It is clearly not in Microsoft's interests to port XP to run on these laptops.
This is a CLEAR reason to get people to start using VISTA. That's enough to make MS not port, and I think it makes great business sense.
--Michael
Want to see every step I took to start my company? http://www.rowdylabs.com/blogs/pitchtothegods
to games on Linux Cedega. In my experience, that's a rather poor showing. There are tons of games which have niggling, but showstopper problems on Wine/Cedega. Most new games, that push the limits of modern hardware, are typically unplayable under Cedega, at anything but the lowest resolutions (even if you're sporting the high-end nvidia card du jour). I've supported transgaming's efforts for years, but the game I want to play most at any given time, always has a fatal flaw. If it weren't for id/epic et all offering native linux binaries, the platform would be an absolute wasteland.
Well, nothing but all the dev machines they shipped so people could port their apps to X86.
Here's my answer:
Apple doesn't want you to dual boot Windows.
Apple isn't giving any special consideration to make Windows install disks recognize thier laptops as PCs, in fact they've chosen to make it not so.
Apple cannot modify Windows to recognize it's hardware for install/boot/HAL purposes.
Microsoft MAY want you to dual boot Windows.
Microsoft isn't giving any special consideration to make Windows install disks recognize this niche hardware.
Microsoft is busy on a new OS named Vista, which might work on a platform that encompasses the MacBook's EFI, Core Duo and sub-systems.
Users who want to dual book their MacBook either A) Don't want Mac OS X at all, in which case they should not buy a MacBook; or B) Haven't ever tried a concurrent system like Xen, VMware, or (shudder) Virtual PC.
Users who say Windows will never run on the MacBook have never heard of VMware or Virtual PC
There will never be a need to dual boot if you've got both running at the same time. That is what you want, and that is what you shall get. In time... well after the MacBook has been updated. These are not the DualBoots you are looking for [waves hand].
-Daniel
The real question here is that assuming the Mac laptop costs $2000 and a comparable PC laptop can be had for [significantly less than that], and now that both "evil" OS's (MS and OSx86 hacked) and Linux can be run on either piece of hardware,,,, why are you paying so much more for the Apple hardware?..... Yea I know it looks so bitchen but is "the look" worth an extra $1000 in Job's pocket?
~
I, too, hope that some way to run windows apps on the MacBook becomes a reality, either by dual booting or vmware or something. I really would like to try OSX, but refuse to pay the premium when I use windows for .NET development and some light gaming. I could easily justify getting a mac laptop if I could do 99% of my internet browsing, email, office work, etc., plus also be able to load up Visual Studio and play a few games if I wanted/needed to. Will a VS.NET 2005 come out for OSX?
There ARE legitmate reasons why one might want to run some method of WinXP on a Mac.
Can Macs do dual screens?
That's the question for me. I'd be much more interested in having a laptop which could run Linux and OSX. I know I can use Fink and the OSX X11 server, but I just haven't managed to get that to be as comfortable to me as an Ubuntu install. Both in terms of package management (fink vs. apt) nor in terms of managing screen real estate (OSX looks pretty, but sometimes I just want a bunch of terminal windows and not a bunch of eye candy).
why would a windoze clown spend 2-3x for the same intel box? just to get a mac logo?
and if your gonna spend the money, why CRIPPLE the box?
this is too stupid for words
it's not April 1 today is it?
I was initially really excited to see an iMac on Intel released. The fact that Apple is using Core Duo is even more enticing. I could see myself buying one of these instead of building an Athlon 64 X2 (or FX 60) system in the near future. The idea of dual booting WinXP almost had me losing control of certain reproductive organs.
The only thing holding me back from ordering one on Tuesday was that I wanted a review to confirm that the new iMac is fast and responsive (& I'm still waiting; there are like 8K Pc hardware sites and maybe 8 Apple hardware sites). Now comes EFI.
EFI, as I understand it, is an industry standard (led by Intel) to replace BIOS. No problems there - good riddance BIOS. The problem comes from EFI being part of the [un]trusted computing alliance. Where the various industries have decided that you can't be trusted to with your end of licenses and thus they force it upon you by making sure your computer cannot do things that violate licenses. Smells like Jobs/Apple are in competition with MS to see who can be more evil. Fortunately MS has a large lead (especially with the FAT patent being upheld). Still, I don't like it one bit.
I have to wonder how Jobs/Apple are going to apply the EFI with respects to DRM & license enforcement. I guess I have a bit longer before I buy myself a shiny white iMac...
Apple didn't use EFI for their new Intel-based systems to keep users from running Windows, as this article mildly suggests.
EFI is just a more recent, and importantly, extensible booting technology which will obviously offer Apple more advanced and useful capabilities for the way their systems boot and run.
The fact is, Apple has indeed done essentially nothing to prevent users from running Windows on their machines. Considering the genuine x86 architecture, someone will probably come up with some software to allow Windows to run in a virtual space, natively (very much like Classic), although that's another topic entirely.
Windows won't run simply because of technological advancements. Windows was created far before EFI's inception/implementation and thus is completely incompatible. Saying that Apple is preventing Windows installation on their x86 Macs is just as dubious as saying Microsoft is preventing Windows from being installed on the x86 Macs by not being able to boot on EFI-based systems (as in, neither fact had the intention of preventing Windows installation on x86 Macs, regardless of the convenience to Apple)...
Once again, Windows is lagging behind because XP does not use EFI. We'll have to wait for Vista in 2010 or whenever it's supposed to ship.
Goes to show you that microsoft is following (copying) Apple again!
They didn't do anything to preclude users from installing windows on powerPc either.
... but just becuase Schiller said he's not going to stop users doesn't mean he's helping.
Just because they're not going to *stop* people from installing doesn't mean they're going to help either. I think eventually there will be some sort of hack to install XP and Vista on the new macs
*** For a better tommorow, change your life today ***
Slightly off-topic, but does the new firmware support target disk mode?
The only reason for double booting on a PC is so we can use unsupported devices like scanners.
The only reason for double booting on a MAC is so we can use unsupported devices like scanners.
In the first case it is dual boot between windows and Linux.
and in the second case it dual boot between mac and linux.
I don't see the need of a triple boot on a MAC unless it is a boot with MAC and 2 different
linux distributions.
Of course you've misunderstood me in the very moment you attacked me.
Proposed Apple prices are already ~$300-$400 over Windows equivalent systems. I argued that since the hardware is already mostly identical, that you can justify that price premium to some buyers by allowing them to run OSX/Windows/Linux all on the same platform, which will not be possible -- initally at least -- with cheaper non-Apple notebooks.
Given that such an ability should exist unless you work expressly to prohibit it, it would be foolish since it would remove such a valuable feature from an already more expensive laptop or desktop computer unless you intended to lock the user into your operating system upgrade system only.
Nowhere at all did I speak of adding additional costs to an already expensive system. You simply misunderstood, and then posted.
"It's the height of ridiculousness to say for those 9 lines you get hundreds of millions."
Heh.
But really, once Windows XP and Linux are booting on a Mac, I doubt many developers in the world will ever buy anything else. This might be the unseen shift everyone has been waiting for - now you can get a decently performing dual processor machine that runs nearly every OS for less than $1300. With a 500GB internal drive on an iMac, Linux/Windows/Tiger can live comfortably.
Remember, once Mac applications are running natively on Intel, it won't be too hard to port them to windows, and vice versa. If Apple ever releases an XCode that will wrap Windows widgets around Objective-C... kinda close to game over.
I lug around two laptops right now -- a dual-boot Intel laptop for Quickbooks and Linux development, and an iBook for everything else. I would LOVE to combine those into one machine. FWIW, QuickBooks Mac 2006 STILL does not offer electronic banking (check-writing, that is). So I'm not going to switch from QBW to the Mac version just so I can lose features. But that is literally the only program I ever use under Windows, and it's really really important, so I lug it around. I have to do Linux development, most of which can be done on the Mac but it has to be finished under Linux. Bottom line: A dual-boot (triple-boot!) Mac would be something I'll jump on. If the MacBook will only run MacOS I have no urgent need to upgrade, and will probably wait until my iBook is so slow I can't stand it any more.
So now every desktop and server OS of any significance will run on Intel chips. This does not bode well for encouraging innovation in new/alternative instruction sets. It's good that AMD is there, and it remains to be seen how the Cell will be used, but times are not the same as when the Intel, MIPS, Sparc, Alpha, 68K, PowerPC, etc. architectures were all competing at once.
But maybe GPUs and DSPs and gate arrays will be used in more general-purpose ways in future PC's.
I placed a Windows 95 CD in viewing distance of my linux machines and they never gave me troubles since. MS, ensuring your hardware behaves for two decades and counting.
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
This whole debate is pointless until some of these new machines get in the hands of hackers. But despite that, I'll add some points anyway:
- Dell (Inspiron 9400) and Samsung are also shipping Core Duo machines which assumingly are EFI-based as well. What are they doing? They come with a normal Windows XP install.
- EFI reportedly has a "BIOS emulation" mechanism. This could mean that EFI machines will run vanilla Windows XP, but may not dual-boot (as this BIOS emulation mode is probably incompatible with what OS X needs).
- Standard partitioning on an EFI machine is completely new, it's neither legacy-x86 (MBR) nor Apple's (APM or w/e they call it) way, it's "GPT". This may mean some custom bootloader must be written for the bootloader environment, it may not.
PS: Feel free to correct anything, I'm still new to EFI
The real key issue that we are aware of is that Windows can't boot using EFI.
... ?
However, Mac OS X can.
I'm sure there is very high potential for someone to create a simple bootloader using, for example, a modified copy of Darwin, that would allow you to then bootstrap Windows using either some kind of BIOS emulation, or
I imagine the system would otherwise run problem-free once it has booted. Although, the OS would probably try to communicate with a regular PC BIOS, which isn't there. It really depends on how EFI communicates with the OS. Considering Mac OS X ran on Intel machines with a typical BIOS for the past what, ~5 years, I figure EFI must be highly compatible in terms of how it communicates device information etc. to the OS, considering only the last one or two (if that) developer releases of x86 OS X booted from the new EFI.
What a great idea! I'll take off that Macintosh OS X stuff and put on Microsoft Windows XP. While I'm at it, I think I'll take the engine out of the Yugo and put it in the Porche: That way I can have the best of both worlds!
What will they think of next? Gotta love the march of progress.
Oy.
Everything in the Universe sucks: It's the law!
XP cannot unless it has the BIOS emulation layer in place. XP x64 Edition can, but the Core Duo processor doesn't do the 64 bit thing yet. I'm waiting for the EM64T version before I get one (well, that and I have a fairly new PowerBook G4 which is still useful)
God save our Queen, and Heaven bless The Maple Leaf Forever!
I've had one of the Macintosh / Intel prototype machines for the past couple of months. Runs Windows and Linux just fine (Haven't been able to get my vintage copy of NeXTStep 3.3 Beige running on it tho).
Dual booting is for suckers. Get your heads out of the windows world you are used to. You'll be able run your windoze apps natively right from OS X or some virtualization layer. Some software vendor will probably do it first (ie Virtual PC, vmware, etc), but it will eventually be native to the OS. With in a year I bet. Might have to wait for 10.5
When they do this and if the ever let OS X run on commodity hardware. Man, why would you by any other OS?
Who's leg do I have to hump to get a dry martini around here?
To reply to myself. Since I wrote this piece I did some research and found this VERY interesting article and basically sum up everything I had in mind:
I will just post the beginning of the article. A MUST READ:
http://www.advogato.org/article/860.html
So, a while back (August 2003), I wrote in my diary about a paradigm for system innovation that I wanted here. Then in October 2003, Intel announced its codename vanderpool project which got me excited to see it going in at the hardware level, which is where it should be IMNSHO, here.
Well, it's two years later, and Intel (and AMD's) "VT" virtualization technologies will be upon us in Q1/Q2 of 2006. I am so stoked, but it's the Apple + Intel pairing that gets me really excited, here's why:
First off I guess I should rewind for those who didn't read my old articles... and explain what "VT" is. VT is basically the current public name for Intel's Vanderpool and AMD's Pacifica technologies. It's a hardware level virtualization layer for x86/AMD64/emt64 processors. In essence this is like VMWare or VPC at the hardware level. Used in conjunction with Xen or VMware as a hypervisor most likely, you will be able to run several OS's straight from hardware simultaneously.
Now, to be fair, Xen & VMWare ESX server have offered this level of functionality for a while. But not without problems, Xen requires that you port your OS to Xen basically. Fine for Linux, but what about Windows? Forget it. What's worse is that Xen has been evolving essentially requiring reports, so even smaller projects (e.g. OpenBSD) with limited developers have been avoiding the porting effort because it has been a moving target. Meanwhile VMware seems to work well, but it costs a LOT (well VMWare is getting aggressive on developer pricing with a $300/year cart blanche license for all their products per developer but for non-production use), and moreover has strict hardware requirements so you can't just run it on any old PC, but have to make sure that it's something they support.
-----------------------
For the full article: http://www.advogato.org/article/860.html
You, sir, have a rapist wit.
There is no VT in current steppings.
... at least Windows 2003 does on HPs: http://docs.hp.com/en/A5201-96043-en/apcs03.html I don't know about Windows XP 32-bit, but since I already have a licensed, legal copy of Windows 2003 Enterprise, I'm good to go!
We apologize for the inconvenience.
I would be very interested if laptops came with 2 trackpad like things. One where rthe trackpad goes, and the other where that big old 1 mouse button goes. You could then split uop the "mouse button" into any number of virtual buttons with software. Only want one button? Fine, only have one, make it default for all I care, but how's about giving me the ability to choose how many mouse buttons I have without restorting to an external mouse on my laptop. What if I'm not at a flat surface? Mouse is no good then.
If something I said can be interpreted two ways, and one of the ways makes you sad or angry, I meant the other one.
If i recall correctly the itanium also uses EFI for its boot process and runs windows XP. It seem it would be a simple patch to get macbooks EFI working as well
Yeah, and once someone gets Mac Os to lift off on a plain-as-dirt PC so that it won't require the overpriced-but-oh-so-stylish Apple branded hardware, it's pretty much game over the other way round.
If Apple hasn't done anything to prevent Windows from running on Mactel's, then this is the biggest mistake Apple will ever make.
It will turn Apple into an OEM Wintel PC maker, like Dell, HP, Gateway, and the rest.
Turn Apple into a Wintel machine, and charge 15% to 30% more for it, why buy Apple, period? Apple will have to compete head to head against Dell, HP, and the rest. Dell and HP combined sell over 30 million PC's a quarter, Apple sells under 2 million. Why buy an Apple computer, which has the same OEM Asian components that Dell and HP have just because Apple puts it in a fancier box and charges you more money for it. Dell and HP will just as quickly put it in a fancier box, and charge less because they have the marketshare to drive prices down without hurting the bottom line.
Many may say, yes, but Mactel will run OSX. So what? OSX hasn't caused hordes of PC users to switch to Mac's. In fact, OSX hasn't caused any noticible increase in Apple's computer marketshare in the last 5 years. iPod has probably been responsible for more Mac sales then OSX, and that was before iPod supported Windows. What attraction do PC users have to running a computer that runs both OSX and Windows? It all comes down to price, and PC users have firmly supported the notion that they want computers to be cheap, along with flexibility and choice, all concepts Apple doesn't offer.
In the end, the first person to get Windows running on a MacBook or iMac, and Apple does nothing to stop it, this will mark a countdown that will lead to the end of Apple as a computer hardware company. People will lose interest in OSX and once people realize they are paying more for the same thing they can get cheaper from Dell and HP, Apple will not inspire much support in the market.
Lastely, the one reason why Apple exists to day is that they have always had a loyal and dedicated fanbase that has supported them through-out the years. What do these customers think of Apple becoming a PC Clone? Will the die-hard Mac using photoshop graphics guru continue to use Mac's, or will they find they can get the power and performance they need in a much cheaper PC that has the same features a Mac has? Are loyal Apple users happy about becoming PC users? If this fan base, that has created Apple's only niche market, loses interest, who will buy Apple computers?
I haven't thought of anything clever to put here, but then again most of you haven't either.
Windows will run EFI machines with a tiny bios/efi bridge running some kind of linux kernel.
:p
Or maybe the HURD
Does the MacBook still have only one mouse button? Because if it does, running Windows will be a serious PITA. Oh well, I suppose a nice Bluetooth mouse would fix that...
Whip out that Windows Install CD and tell it in a nasty voice that you could easily slide the CD in its virginal slot and have its hardware rooted by every little hacker
Would you please keep your fantasies to yourself?
-Adam
Informative??? Whoever moderated that needs to be slapped. Hard.
Feel free to mod me "-1 - Angry Jerk".
He's right. The new Intel-based Macs are indeed 32-bit only.
I don't get your reasoning re windows running at "native speeds" in a "Virtual PC" like product. What evidence do you have to support this conclusion? The programs you mention, VMWare, Virtual PC, and qemu, do not run at anywhere near native speeds on current intel architectures under windows and/or linux. Wine has been in development for years and only recently became beta. Xen is promising but in the early stages of development. Your optimism for early release of quality products for the macintel capable of running windows at any acceptable speed seem unfounded to me.
Maybe.
or maybe some modders don't know how to tell a joke when they see one.
Currently, the room I share with my girlfriend has my old Dell (big, ugly black box), which said girlfriend now uses, the stereo speaker system that came with said dell (less big but still quite big, ugly black box), and a giganimous HP printer/scanner/fax/toaster oven that she got as a job perq because her boss was moving to the East Coast.
My office has two 19" monitors and two desktops. The faster one is a big ugly black Dell, and the slower one is an even bigger, uglier, somehow BLACKER Gateway. I actually wouldn't have the monitors there, except if the left one isn't there, I'm constantly one of my coworkers directly in the face. Regardless of the fact that he's a nice chap, I don't want to look at his mug all day, it's unnerving.
Each of these settings has, at one time or another, my Powerbook in them.
Now, I bought a new 20" Intel iMac (yeah I know the MacBooks are Jenna Jameson-sexy, but this is cheaper, slightly faster, and has a large screen, and I'm an artist sometimes), but let's pretend I bought one of those PowerMacs and a 23" Cinema Display. Not only would I have an AWESOMELY HUGE, ugly aluminum box, I would have a gigantic monitor, a DVI KVM switch, yet another ugly black Dell (or, if I built it myself, a big ugly box with no branding), and enough cords to hide more than a few corpses in.
So, yeah, having a little white thing with two cords coming out the back is kind of a boon to me.
The Xbox is an x86 PC with an NVidia graphics processor running a variant of Windows 2000. The Xbox 360, the PS2 and PS3 aren't even vaguely PC-like. Interesting trend.
Sure, you could put a Trabant engine into a Ferrari, but why would you?... ;-)
"'I pass the test,' she said. 'I will diminish, and go into the West, and remain Galadriel.'"
- JRR Tolkien.
And? When the power macs get moved over to Intel, they will probably be using EM64T chips.
For mac users, we can do almost everything that windows can in Mac os x. except play good games. Now, they can by booting windows (if they feel like paying out the yin yang for a windows license). dual boot = no more mac games development but it's not like that's a huge loss right now anyways.
The Mac II was released in 87 - the first expandable mac, with 6 nubus slots. Throw six NuBus video cards in and you've got a 16mhz machine with six monitors.
:68k nubus) it was a simple matter of shutting down, plugging in another video card and monitor, and starting back up again. You don't have to have a dual-head card (or didn't, before Quartz Extreme arrived), and you can mix and match brands and architectures - NVidia and ATI and TwinTurbo and anything else that supports MacOS will Just Work. Open the 'monitors' control panel or preference-pane and position/set resolution to taste.
I'm writing this on a Mac running three displays- two on a Radeon 9600 AGP card and one on a Radeon 7000 PCI card.
It's a damned sight easier to do multihead on a mac than it is on a PC - ever since Days Of Yore (read
OS X and Systems 7-9 are easier to configure for multihead than Windows, which in turn is a hell of a lot less painful to configure than linux.
For its part, Microsoft encouraged Apple to build hardware compatible with Windows.
That's really really funny. Ever heard someone say "you only get what you deserve"? Boys and girls of M$, pack your stuff...Steve Jobs got a brand new bag.
-99999999999999999 not funny!
No doubt a work around will be found to run XP or Vista. But Linux will certainly run sooner on the new MacBooks (ugly name! They choose the name and didn't change the looks so that people wouldn't think these were not Macs!), and then... You should be able to use Wine or vmware to run windows! Of course, we won't know until I have a machine in my hands... ;-)
nope
The next generation of all of Intel's processors will indeed be 64-bit.
. htm.
Although the linked article does say what you claim, Intel has made 64bit processors for over 15 years (well, at least the FPU in the i860), and still makes embedded processors at 16bit. http://www.intel.com/products/embedded/processors
Why does the CPU roadmap linked only discuss the x86 chips? Although, it is their bread and butter, they do make a number of other chips that do have their own roadmaps as well.
Kinda strange I think.
There's a lot more to DirectX than Direct3D. Even companies who use OpenGL for their GFX engine use directX for interface (directInput) and sound (directSound). Additionally, threading libraries can be different and incompatible. For a real world example, Civilization 3 complete was released last week for Mac. Civ 4 was released a couple months ago for PC. Civ 3 uses OpenGL for graphics. So please, enlighten me as to why the port took so long if it's just a simple recompilation.
-- Political fascism requires a Fuhrer.
They would do much better to have separate copies of Windows optimized for each type of CPU sold today than to have a separate Mac version. There are a lot more Pentium Ms and Athlon 64s out there than there will be Macs...and if the OS was optimized for each architecture, it would run faster. Since we can't compile Windows ourselves, MS must do it for us. Just ask a Gentoo guy if his Linux runs faster than a default i586 version.
Just "gittin-r-done," day after day.
It doens't have to be VMWare, but even if it was, a VMWare VM that provided a proper MacOnIntel VM.
This way people with a significant PC investment or some other obstacle (work, etc) to running Windows on Apple's new Intel-based hardware could still get most of the benefit out of OS X.
Given that you typically pay a 10-20% penalty in a VM anyway, this shouldn't hurt Apple a whole lot since (A) you would have to buy the OS X license anyway, (B) you don't get native speeds and (C) the VM-vendor would be paying some kind of licensing to Apple anyway in order to properly enable the VM for supporting it.
I also think the better way to support Windows on the new Apple hardware is through VM-type emulation as well, since I would prefer to be able to access them simultaneously and dual booting has historically been a nuisance.
Finally a cool looking, slick and fancy box that runs a Linux version that is compatible with my lesse brethen (the ones that have less money to burn, or god forbid better things to do with their money ;-).
After all if you are happy with a fixed computer you can buy all kind of funky gear to make your shuttle look like something out of the future as it was in the 50s, but there is not so much mods you can do on a laptop.
So Apple is certainly addressing a burning need. "cool computers", and if anybody would really care for the price N* shooes would cost 15.
Actually, businesses might find other needs; you need to run that in-house contractor-written software that some jerk decided to write in VB; you need to run that oddball Windows-only third-party app that the developers for whatever reason are just to cheap to port.
Preferably, of course, Mac users won't be booting into Windows so much as they'll be running Windows inside of OS X somehow.
I doubt Microsoft is going to continue to support Virtual PC on Intel based Mac's. With the native underpinning the new machines allow, it would be equivalent to Microsoft delivering an actual satisfying Windows experience on Apple hardware and Mac OS X. I am sure MS would rather force those of us who need both platforms to continue to invest in a PC (as well as a Mac). But I suspect that QEMU will deliver an adequate solution to meet this shortcoming.
... says the anthropomorphized Mac.
I do want to run XP but I'd rather have something like Qemu that is fast enough to run big apps like ArcGIS. I need Windows applications but I don't need Windows. My dream is to be able to switch between ArcGIS and Safari. I don't want to reboot depending on what application I want to use.
Will the dual processor nature of these Intels make emulators like Qemu faster? XP in Virtual PC on a G4 is barely useable for Internet Explorer. I'm hoping Mactel means faster emulation and XP in Qemu on OS X with good performance.
why would you want to pay mass ammounts of money for apple hardware to run windows, when you could build 2 pc's for the same price, one for windows and one for mac os, and i know it's possible because i have ran the x86 version of mac os on a pc.
Ok, yes there's more than just direct3d. But its the biggest pain. And you are just reinforcing exactly what I said, it has nothing to do with "taking advantage of PPC". Taking a couple more libs onto the list doesn't make me "flat out wrong".
Seriously, these are not laptops! For anyone who does work on the train, plane or whatever, these machines are a fucking joke. Please people stop buying this crap. I miss reasonably priced 14" laptops!
for all of the obvious reasons. I recommend a mix of insightful, funny, and underrated.
You said what I said:
"Its already easy to make your game run on windows, mac and linux, you just have to choose to do it. Most companies don't because the extra support costs. None of this changes just because macs have different CPUs."
Yeah, Windows on a Mac would be cool, but what about running MacOSX on a home built PC? How long will it be before someone figures out a PC configuration that will run OSX?
No!
If Apple hasn't done anything to prevent Windows from running on Mactel's, then this is the biggest mistake Apple will ever make. It will turn Apple into an OEM Wintel PC maker, like Dell, HP, Gateway, and the rest.
No, the biggest mistake that Apple could possibly make would be to allow Mac OS X to run on Wintel PCs. That would kill their hardware sales. Allowing Windows on Mac hardware does not hurt them, it increases their hardware sales. The current Mac audience chooses Apple hardware largely because of Mac OS X, the potenital to dual boot does not alter this. Some potential customers that are currently lost to Apple would like a Mac but have to run some Windows specific software, and for some (games being the best example) emulation is not viable. Windows on Mac hardware allows these people to get the Mac they really want, add the dual boot Windows option, and be able to run the Windows specific software they need to occasionally run.
Yes, I do expect you to ditch all of your old stuff.
Point being, if you don't want to ditch windows, then why do you want to switch in the first place? You don't. That's the bottom line. Just like you say, many of your old games will never be ported or emulated correctly on a mac--I have games you can't even run on a modern windows pc anymore. I ended up throwing them out instead of keeping a 486 running dos sitting around.
Microsoft's biggest asset, and Apple's biggest hurdle, is Windows lock-in.
There are some things you just can't do/use unless you run Windows. Certain web sites. The hot new games. Vertical market apps that have no Mac counterpart.
There are plenty of people in the world who would LOVE to own a Macintosh, except there's that one thing holding them to Windows. Microsoft works very hard to ensure there's a "one thing" for as many people as possible.
But if you can run Windows and/or Windows applications on a Mac, especially if you can do it at or very near the Mac hardware's native speed and while booted into OS X, that "one thing" keeping you on Windows becomes a moot point.
And let me clue you in, slick: That "flexibility and choice" stuff you love to bray about is BS for about 85% of the computer users on the planet-- the people who will just buy whatever Dell, HP/Compaq or Gateway recommends on their online store and never open the case on it for as long as they own it. They're the people who just want to use their computer, not maintain their computer. That's who Apple wants as customers, because that's the kind of computers Apple sells. If you want to cobble together your own PC and be ass-deep in hardware drivers trying to get everything to work together, more power to you. There are plenty of people with better things to do.
Oh, and before you go dismissing me as some Apple fanboy, note this: I have built several PCs for myself and friends, and make a good deal of my living fixing and supporting Windows. Having used both for years, I will always choose a Mac as my primary computer because when I get home I don't want to have to fix my own machine, I just want to enjoy using it.
~Philly
In general, people know that the Apple machines are good computers, but they don't run Windows and they are more expensive. Apple makes their money selling hardware with good software.
Mark my words! Very soon, Apple will have a machine that will run the MAC OS-X and will also run Windows-XP, so people now will be able to buy a machine that runs a good OS (opinion)and also runs the most popular OS (fact). Apple's market share will go up-up-up. The normal MAC purchaser will still be there but will now be able to use those "Windows only" programs like autocad, etc. The "Windows" purchaser will now be able to consider a MAC with the better (perceived?) hardware and software. Present MAC users will not be converted to Windows, but Windows users may be converted to the MAC OS.
Now for the other part. If Windows can be made to run on a MAC using the X86 architecture, then the MAC OS-X can be made to run on PC hardware using the X86 architecture. Now, Apple starts selling software to the rest of the PC industry, and again their market share goes-up-up-up.
If you had a choice of purchasing a PC from HP with both the MAC OS-X and Windows XP, would you consider doing so?
So here it is:
1. MAC will be running OS-X and Windows within two years.
2. MAC will be selling OS-X to manufacturers of PC's within three years, and some machines will have both OS's.
3. We will have a choice of desktops from MAC and/or Windows, and one OS will open from a window of the other.
4. OS-X will be running on AMD's faster architecture within three years.
Sadly, I don't see any benefit to Linux here, because the Linux community, like the Unix community of 20 years ago, is still fragmented into a half dozen main players. If Linux is to be a major player any time soon, it will have to get in there with the other two main OS's and be content to either triple boot, or be part of a "run it in a window" system.
Where will MS be while all this is going on? They will be trying to push a new OS that is not compatible with the present OS and will be stopping support for everything that is on a MAC system or that has a MAC OS. There will be lawsuits that will tie things up for years, and they are in a much better position to do so than SCO vs Linux.
No
I would contend that by allowing users the option of *both* upgrading to a Mac, and also retaining their investment in *legacy* PC software, MicroSoft would be aiding the switch of their users from their platform to a competitor's. They simply would not want to do that because they would lose market share over time. That one license for Windows that they would sell would not make up for the fact that the user would now be on an Apple platform, and much less likely to make future investments in Windows.
I'm glad somebody else thought of this.
I think the Wine on OS X86 has huge potential; the whole dual-boot thing, while interesting, is a kludge. If you want to run Windows applications -- which is assumedly the only reason anyone would want to run Windows on a Mac anyway (you're not doing it for the OS, or you wouldn't have gotten the Mac in the first place, right?) -- let's just work on a way to run Windows applications from within Mac OS X. We're already partway there with Wine/Cedega. Granted it's buggy and doesn't always work, but you have to give them credit for being pretty slick. Depending on which application is being used, sometimes people claim performance that's better than Windows.
I have no idea of how the actual underpinnings of Wine works, other than it does some very high-level emulation and virtualization (much higher than, say, VPC), but the WineHQ is open source, and in theory it should be able to be ported to OS X86 now. Can anyone familiar with WineHQ comment on what would need to be done, or how big an effort would be required?
To me, that would be pretty close to the perfect solution. A compatibility environment for running Windows applications without rebooting into (or even buying) Windows, and without the performance overhead of emulation or translation (however it is how you define Virtual PC).
TransGaming doesn't seem as though they have the resources or interest to do it, which I think is a mistake because there could be a big market for a Windows gaming emulator on Macintosh, but they seem to be totally occupied with maintainance and improvement on the Linux-x86 side. So it seems as though the WineHQ project would be the logical port choice.
Thoughts?
"Ladies and gentlemen, my killbot features Lotus Notes and a machine gun. It is the finest available."
Buggy software running on expensive hardware? I can't wait!!
-- dR.fuZZo
Damn, I have waking nightmares just thinking of a dual booting windows/osx box, somewhere there has to be a law against this. I dont get the allure of dual booting. That has to be one of the most anti-productive concepts ever thought up. Hell, you end up spending 60% of your time booting into the other OS because the file/program you really need is on the other OS. I suppose if someone gets off on watching boot messages scroll by then this would be fun.
because the prices are simply to damn high. Lets face it, most consumers don't know the difference between a Mac and PC but they do know the difference between a $500 DELL and a $1400 Mac! It's not rocket science. If Apple's ulterior motive for moving to Intel's architecture is to eventually compete with Wintel systems, they are gonna have to do something about there pricing. As far as I see it, the main difference between the two systems will eventually come down to the operating system and charging someone a rediculas premium for "everyday hardware" so they can run your OS is pretty ballsy. Especially when Apple has no way of hiding the prices (like they used to) behind fancy and unneccessary hardware like SCSI.
You need to read between the lines in that article, and recognize that the statement came from a low-level product manager. She said: "Users still need to switch between both environments to make the experience less intrusive." Which experience is that? The experience of taking a Windows user and converting them into an Apple user? The Microsoft execs are shaking in their boots over what Apple has released on the marketplace. They will not allow a Virtual PC for Intel Mac until AT LEAST months after Vista is shipping. At that point, they will have worked hard to duplicate much of the functionality already in OS X and will feel much safer that their users will not make the switch at all.
If you really want side-by-side Windows + Mac OS X, QEMU or VMware is going to be the way.
Well, sure you could do that, but you should also carry around a rhinoceros because they have the keen sense to detect fire and the ability to stomp out the fires caused by inadvertently placing your AMD laptop on anything flammable (such as one's lap) and since you're carrying a laptop with all of that around, a rhinoceros shouldn't be much more of a burden... And rhinoceroses are less toxic than asbestos, after all.
Constitutional rights may be respected, repealed, or modified; but they must never be ignored.
Pay high prices for Apple hardware to run Windows, when it'll run perfectly fine on cheaper hardware?
;)
Yeah, I'll get right on that...
"..., but it's clear that regardless, EFI is the future,..."
In IT the futures is never clear. EFI would be the first really cool idea to fall by the wayside.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
A friend of mine inside Fruitco says that if you hold down "option" during boot, you'll be able to select among the available bootable partitions, so it does look like booting EFI compatible OSes should be easy.
It's clear that Linux or one of the BSDs or some other *nix will be first to boot on one of these machines before Windows. Of course, my question at that point would be, what's the point?
Honestly I don't really see the point in wanting to run windows on a Mac but I'm sure that's because 99% of what I want to use runs on a Mac to begin with.
I'd like to see Linux run on it, if only to give me hope that Linux can be made to run on future "Trusted Computing" laden devices featuring EFI.
What I'm really surprised not to see is interest in getting OS X running on the Xbox360.
Now that could be fairly interesting...
Given a decent set of open libraries for the groovy bits.
Nothing in the world is more dangerous than sincere ignorance and conscientious stupidity.
While it may be possible to get a MacBook to boot Windows (whether it be Vista, etc.), it's unclear that you could install both OS X and Windows on the same HD. OS X will require a very different partitioning scheme from the standard one used by PCs. Is it actually possible to get Windows to work under the OS X style partitioning?
Just white sprayed my old toshiba, cut a gay day rainbow sticker in the shape of an apple and went to Starbucks to pay $0.20 the minute of internet to visit www.apple.com. Try it yourself.. it works!
Who cares about the OS, I just want to use the apps I've already paid for...
"Yes, I do expect you to ditch all of your old stuff."
Those are simply the words of a an absolutist zealot (or Troll). It is perfectly rational to make a transition in stages rather than throw out years of accumulated software. Some of it like my Garmin GPS software just doesn't run on Macs. I only use this software about 1/month on average, so it is hardly arduous to reboot for that. At some future date when I buy a new GPS, mac software will be a requirement. I could list others but I think it would make no difference to a trolling zealot.
Eventually when I no longer need dual booting then I can do without it, but it is not practical to simply "ditch all your old stuff". When in the interim I can get the best of both worlds.
I have specific required bits of windows software, that I only use something like once/month, such as Garmin GPS software, that doesn't have a Mac equivalent. I require this software and there is no Mac equivalents. My choices are don't get a Mac or replace everything when I do which would more than double the cost of entry.
Booting into windows a couple of times/month until the day I replace all my legacy apps seems quite reasonable to me.
XP has to have the runtime services provided by the BIOS to boot (INT 19h, INT 13h, data tables, etc.). The XP bootloader also starts in "real mode" (think 8086, 1MB memory limit, 16-bit instructions, etc.).
... no Windows XP.
... but Vista EFI might only come in the 64-bit flavor. Apple's current platform is 32-bit only. The current EFI standard (EFI 1.10) doesn't support x64. The upcoming standard (UEFI 2.0) does support x64, but won't boot an x64 OS unless the firmware is 64-bit (runtime calls to the firmware have to match the native platform firmware, and x64 can't make callbacks in 32-bit protected mode ... so 32-bit firmware only boots a 32-bit OS, and 64-bit firmware only boots a 64-bit OS)
EFI doesn't provide any of the BIOS interfaces natively. It also boots up in 32-bit protected mode, which the XP loader can't use.
Any EFI system that can also boot OS from current PCs (XP/DOS/Linux) carries an extra component called the "compatability support module" (CSM). This overlays the BIOS interface onto some EFI implementations, but this is only licensed from a few BIOS vendors.
Apple doesn't need the CSM code to boot OSX, so it's not on their platforms.
No CSM
Vista might work, because it has a native EFI install mode
So Vista would only be viable if (a) Apple makes a 64-bit MacIntelTosh, or (b) Microsoft makes a 32-bit EFI/UEFI version of Vista.
Why would you _want_ to put Windows on a Mac? Isn't the purpose of using Apple products to get away from Windows? I mean, if you want to dual boot, atleast use Linux. OSX and Linux can both do anything that Windows does (unless you are a preteen that feels that a computer is for nothing but gaming).
We have XPostFacto for installing OS X on older unsupported Macs.
:)
It's time for WinPostFacto for installing Windows on newer unsupported Macs.
That's pretty funny...
I used to do a similar thing with bad 3.5" floppy disks (Amiga era). When a disk would go bad, I would core that little bastard on the spot, ripping the metal disc out of the centre and trashing the rest. I would then hang these trophy disk-bits on a small metal tree made out of paperclips stuck into an eraser, next to the floppy drive, as an example to other wayward floppies who thought about misbehaving.
At least thats what I told myself.
If Jesus wants me it knows where to find me.
I only expect you to ditch it if you value the Mac/OSX platform enough to want to switch.
Obviously you don't. I'm not sure why that's over zealous. If you were into modifying cars for a hobby would you expect to take all your old tweaks from a ford to a toyota? If you play video game consoles do you expect to take all your old games from sony to microsoft's platform?
Why is what I'm saying so hard for people to accept? It's a different platform, it's not built to enable you use things built for a competing platform.
I just saw this video...rumor has it that the Emperor represents Bill Gates! http://www.youtube.com/?v=Y3xKhLlhzfM
Just write a macosx install program to copy the essential files off the windows cd and then write a bootloader to run the rest of the installation program. Windows wont even know the difference and after the first reboot the rest of the windows setup program will continue. Its just the DOS based loader that wont run.
Then use something like grub or the alternative bootloader to load the MBR image and your set.
http://saveie6.com/
Or you could use WINE and just run the Windows software you need right in OS X... That, and it looks like Garmin has announced Mac support...
"I like systems, their application excepted", George Sand (French)
Because you are not making any sense. You seem to speak with some puritanical zeal, that if I want to switch I must suffer for it.
These are not cars, or different incompatible gaming systems. These are computers and dual booting is a relatively trivial matter and I have set up dual boots a number of times. Win98/Win2k initially when there were certain games that only worked on Win98. Win2k/Linux when I wanted to try out linux.
This is a perfectly logical way to make transitions easier. To somehow suggest you make the transition as painfull as possible is either zealotry or lunancy.
now we could take a Mac with a specific Intel chip, and a windows machine with the same specific windows chip (though remember this chip JUST came out officially so it's barely been announced in any products yet).
then compare to the same size, dimensions (wide vs square), and quality of LCD. for example the iMac LCD is not as nice as the cinema displays. Apple cinema display LCDs are generally VERY high quality and when fairly compared are actually good values, it's just that most people do not need absolute high end LCDs to use AOL so they seem expensive compared to whatever is on sale at best buy. i don't know how the iMac screen stacks up offhand.
then compare the same hard drive, included airport, bluetooth, ethernet and other bits. all those things add up. there, obviously, are not a ton of all-in-one windows things to compare it to, and i doubt any with the exact same specs. i am guessing the true side by side will have to wait till the towers or maybe the mini comes out?
beyond comparing the pure hardware, you can argue for years about the included software. Apple still has the angle that they can make free software available on Macs because it only works on Macs. even if somebody copies iLife or something off a new Mac to another Mac, it will only work on a machine that was made by Apple. that being said it is hard to not include the bundled software in a side by side shootout if the windows user would have to go buy something equivalent.
in short, even with intel processors i am sure this battle will not end anytime soon. computer journalists everywhere can easily get a few more years out of this one.
You can pick up a sub 1GHz PC for under $100 or a low GHz processor for a little more. If you can afford a Garmin GPS you surely can afford a low end PC to run your required windows needs. Then when Garmin decides they want to support Mac you can install linux on it and have a nice server. Heck I would assume if you bought a GPS that requires windows you probably already have a windows box laying around somewhere, otherwise your an idiot for buying a piece of hardware whos software is not supported by your OS of choice. Trust me I know, Im still kicking myself in the ass for buying a linksys router to use with my airport extreme card :)
Why would you want to install an OS on your nice shiney new mac, that more than likely would make OS X unbootable within hours of being connected to the internet? I dual booted for a long time (a cd burner not supported by linux), it was the worst experience of my life. Other than for software testing I still havent ever seen a good reason for running multiple OS's on one machine.
'Funny' doesn't give Karma. 'Informative' does. Besides, he informed us of his method to keep his computers in line....just kidding!
So comparing switching computing platforms to switching mechanical, or gaming platforms is illogical? I don't see it, those are the closest similar situations I could think of, and you plainly agree with me that it's not logical to except something from one system to work on another. Why is this the exception?
It's not a matter of making it hard, it is hard. I'm not arguing that. You have to learn a new system, new software, give up things you're used to, etc. I'm just pointing out that you think you're entitled to something from apple. I'm not saying that you should switch if it's hard for you, I'm simply asking:
If it is difficult for you to switch, why would you want to? Why would you consider it? Apple hardware and OSX is very nice in my opinion, but there's nothing it does that windows or linux can't do, it's just a matter of what best works for you.
"If it is difficult for you to switch, why would you want to? Why would you consider it? Apple hardware and OSX is very nice in my opinion, but there's nothing it does that windows or linux can't do"
I absolutely didn't get what you have againsts making the transition easier. Would you have raised the same complaint when I switched from win98 to Win2k and used dual boot for over a year to make the transition easier.
I think not, it is clear from the above that you have a problem because I wan't to switch to a Mac, so I guess you are just another Anti-Mac zealot. It is not making the transition easier that gets on your nerves it is making the transition at all.
The massive pain in the ass of compiling Gentoo for your architecture far outweighs any performance benefits gained by some compiler optimizations. It's like the ricers who spend $25,000 ricing out their Honda Civics. Sure, they may get an extra 5% power, but they could've just bought a Corvette or Mustang instead.
Yes I currently have a PC. But I also want access to nicely engineered quiet Mac HW in my apartment and ditch the noisy old boxen. It is about making the transition easier that is all. I don't consider dual boot that bad. I dual booted Win98/Win2k for about a year while making that transition.
If I had money, I'd be running new hardware for the power as well as the aesthetics.
:P
As it stands, my rig is a piecemeal G4 Digital Audio with SATA-150 hard drives, a 16x DVD-R, Matias keyboard and Kensington trackball. The monitors are the "best" part - a 15" Sony Trinitron (15-pin on a 15-pin to ADC adapter), a 15" Apple Multiscan (25-pin on a 25-to-15-pin adapter), and a 20" Apple Trinitron (25-pin, on a 25-to-15-pin adapter which is in turn plugged into a 15-pin KVM which mates to a 15-pin-to-DVI adapter).
The only downside is that all three monitors are too old for OS X to identify.
This is exactly what I am looking for to ease my transition to OSX.
Addressing complaints about this strategy I have heard:
Dual boot is a pain: it is not that bad for infequent usage and I already did the same for over a year, back when transitioning from Win98 to Win2k. It is not like you are going to switch back and forth 6 times a day. If you are, then this is not a good idea for you.
Dual boot means the end to Mac Software: Dual boot IS a pain if you are going to do it frequently. So it is not like you buy new software that will make you do it more. It is merely legacy support used less and less and eventually not at all.
Use a separate PC: Why? Part of this is I want a nice high quality, low noise solution in my space challenged apt.
What this does is make it very easy for me to transition to OSX, while still painlessly using my Garmin GPS software (they are planning mac version eventually) and some misc games like Total Annihilation and Baldurs Gate. Eventually I will probably use only the OSX side, but in the interim it provides easy acces to legacy software.
I look forward to eventually getting instructions on getting this going.
If someone would be kind enough to buy me a Intel iMac (20" with 256 MB VRAM preferably) I'll find a way to get Windows XP running on it.
Any takers can msg me.
Thanks
AFAIK, the Intel Core Duo (Yonah, I believe) has VT support.
WhiteWolf666 an exBush supporter. All you new-school,compassionate,save the children Republicans can rot in hell
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Linux currently has EFI support.
I suspect Linux will boot on these puppies right now. SuSE 10.0 on a MacBook Pro?
Gravey.
Now, the question is will I get Mac-On-Linux support?
Fuck Windows; I want to run OS X inside SuSE 10.0, with native Wine and Cedega (DirectX9 gaming-style Wine) on Linux.
This means I get native adobe apps (inside OS X), all my Linux favorites, and any Windows apps that run in Wine or Cedega.
WhiteWolf666 an exBush supporter. All you new-school,compassionate,save the children Republicans can rot in hell
Why would you EVER want to boot Windows on these things?
Run Windows in a virtual machine. VMware for OS X, anyone?
Keep in mind VMware now has Direct3D support......
There is a very small subset of Windows apps that run poorly in VMware. This is mainly OpenGL windows games, and pro openGL Windows apps, both of which MS is determined to go the way of the dodo.
WhiteWolf666 an exBush supporter. All you new-school,compassionate,save the children Republicans can rot in hell
I built a system for under half that price 2 months ago, and it's more powerful, more upgradable, and my case is even cooler. That widescreen is going to be real useful with half the graphics power of my AMD64 system. :)
"And we have seen and do testify that the Father sent the Son to be the Savior of the World"
1 John 4:14
Yes, you need an EFI-capable operating system.
However, keep in mind that these systems are Vanderpool enabled. The intel core duo processor has VT (vanderpool features).
What does this mean?
Side by side independant OS virtualization utilizing Xen. Including Windows.
http://www.xensource.com/news/pr030105.html
At a minimum, you can have EFI Linux and EFI OS X running side by side.
Then you can run XP or Vista or DOS or Windows for Workgroups 3.11 in Qemu or VMware or whatever on Linux, or on Virtual PC on OS X.
WhiteWolf666 an exBush supporter. All you new-school,compassionate,save the children Republicans can rot in hell
It DOES?!? Maybe in the Jonestown sense...
you had me at #!
I hate the Apple apologists who automatically respond with drivel like this and don't check the facts. It is possible to build two x86 PCs with all the specs you mentioned for less than the cost of one iMac (even with shipping to Ohio).
Since obviously you don't care enough to actually do the research yourself, here is a synopsis of each PC. BTW, if you want the full list of parts, respond and I'll get it to you.
Sceptre 20.1" widescreen LCD
Western Digital 250 GB sata
AMD Sempron 64 3300+ (as you said, we can't compare alike systems until intel imacs come out, but I'd take AMD over IBM generally)
1GB Corsair PC3200 memory (slightly slower memory than the iMac, but more of it)
16x DVD-R
Why would anyone ever need or want to boot Windows apart from gamers, who generally hate Mac hardware in the first place? I can't really think of anything where Windows does it better than Mac OS X or Linux.
you act like VMwre and the like can do everything. Id only want to boot into windows for high end games, which VMware and Virtual PC cannot run... can Xen? never tried... but for games, virtualization isnt working that well yet... as are most things that are graphically intensive
Someone in the LinuxBIOS project wanted to be able to boot other OS's, but needed BIOS emulation.
Bochs already had a BIOS written, but needed a wrapper layer. Such a wrapper now exists and is called ALDO, and is part of the LinuxBIOS V1 source tree. From what is mentioned, it's not in V2 simply because no one wants it currently.
From what I can gather, ALDO is actually just an ELF executable, so it's quite possible that EFI could load it off disk - Viola, you've got a BIOS.
The Security Enhanced Bootloader for Operating Systems - Phase 2 page covers detail on how it all works (not a detailed explanation).
can't wait to see windows powered ICBMs (Intel-Chip-Based-Macs) :)
I'm a mac Advocate. I run a mac at home, I wish I could run one at work.
I have no problem. The only way you've gotten on my nerves it to throw insults at me, and make these assumptions that seem to have no logical basis. All I've done is ask questions. Questions you haven't answered. I have nothing against the transition, I encourage it--however if you have apps you can't leave behind, then I don't think you should try it.
Why? Because you have to leave them behind and you don't want to! More: You don't need to!
Thus my question which I'll ask again. If you have these apps/games you don't want to do away with, why do you want to make the switch in the first place?
Why ruin a perfectly good piece of hardware?
Admit it. You were really just to lazy to put the bits in the bin.
meh
I wonder if the partition tables may be incompatible... from what I understand, Windows uses the old MBR - and OS X with EFI uses the GUID Parition Table system.
....Is there going to be enough Mac hardware out there to make it worth it?.....
Most likely MS will make an updated Intel version of Virtual PC which should run very well on the new Macs since emulation of the processor is no longer a slow-down issue. Any version of Windows can be installed in VPC for the PPC Macs, but unless you have a top of line PPC PPC Mac, there is a significant speed penalty in the processor emulation.
All theory is gray
"If you have these apps/games you don't want to do away with, why do you want to make the switch in the first place?"
Why would anyone want to do away with ALL of their software that just does not make any sense. In 10+ years of Windows use I am bound to have some software I don't want to junk. Does this mean I must use windows forever?
Wasn't there a 68k Mac emulator for new PPC macs. I wonder why. Wasn't there an Apple II emulator card for the Mac? Rosseta for Intel Macs, Dos emulation boxes on WinXp etc...
Most everyone I would think wants to access their old software during the transition time. Myself included.
I don't need a Mac, but I do want one(just time for a change), and making the transition easy will make that want a reality. Like most other computer transitions I have made (in 20 years of ownership) it usually takes a year to completely leave behind old software, and during that interval it is very nice to have easy access to all the previous software.
When he says "performance intensive", does he mean "CPU intensive" or "CPU and graphics intensive"?
Read the Xen mailing lists. It's designed for servers. People apparently HAVE gotten it to run vanilla Windows XP on CPUs that support VT.
There's one big problem - Only the host OS gets accelerated video. From what I've seen, the guest OSes essentially display via VNC. Other graphics options may be available, but it's pretty clear that accelerated graphics (esp. 3D accelerated) aren't in the picture or even close to it.
As much as I like the MacBook hardware, unless it can reliably run 3D accelerated Windows apps (specifically games) with solid drivers (this means an NVidia option instead of ATI), I won't be buying. If I can run Windows apps reliably with 3D acceleration, there's a good chance I'll buy it. If somehow 3D acceleration with virtualized Windows becomes possible, I'd order it immediately.
retrorocket.o not found, launch anyway?
Garmin MapSource won't run under WINE.
Trust me, I've tried. MapSource and Dark Age of Camelot are pretty much the only reasons I keep a Windows partition around these days.
retrorocket.o not found, launch anyway?
I look at all of this a little bit differently.
;)
a) Mac OS X is my primary system.
b) I also use Linux and Windows.
c) Having a Mac would allow me to use Linux, Windows, and Mac OS X without extra hardware cost.
I currently have 3 PCs running in my livingroom. That's an awful lot of power consumption, not to mention the cost of the systems themselves.
Buying a Mac and putting Windows and Linux on it is actually going to save me money.
Why wouldn't I want that?
Maybe you don't want to use Mac OS X... maybe you aren't a power user, or maybe you are just in denial.
The truth of the matter is that this makes a lot of sense to a lot of people, and it *WILL* happen. I'm quite versed with Linux and Windows and magic incantations, and I will happily hack away until I get all 3 operating systems running on my shiney new MacBook Pro (But I have to say I hate the name).
Just food for thought.
Way to make using a Mac sound like joining the SS or something.
I'm really glad to see that there's x86-based consumer hardware on the market that finally ditches the BIOS. Its time has come and gone. You could certainly say the same thing about x86 itself, but the BIOS method of interacting with your hardware has made every attempt to update it buggy and idiosyncratic (ACPI on top of BIOS is the latest in a long line of dissapointing arguable enhancements), while updates to the x86 ISA have been been almost completely transparent.
While I have other reservations about EFI, at least it's carrying less legacy baggage. It seems like a reasonable design decision to me. If Microsoft wants to include EFI support in their consumer x86 version of Windows, I'm sure Apple would be happy to watch Microsoft spend the money on it.
We all know this'll be booting Linux and BSD within the week anyway.
There's no failure quite as dissatisfying as a complete and total solution to the wrong problem.
It means I can have my cake and eat it, too. I trust Apple's OS X: it's got that Unix cachet of security through-and-through. I've lived the Windows world: I was always aware that it was an insecure system. Well, at this point, I think a whole lotta people are beginning to understand that.
So I'm perfectly happy if the Mac box comes with a cheap install of Windows, if only because I expect Windows to continue to reign in the computer games market, especially if their OS is compatible with XBox in some manner. But sure as hell, I'll be doing my business, email, home finances, online shopping, and suchlike on the OS X side of the box.
Apple wins the OS wars. Microsoft continues to dominate the Office and Computer Gaming field. It's a win-win for both companies and the consumers!
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Don't like it? Respond with words, not karma.
But who could stand to be around a $100 PC? What a senseless waste of space and power. It's not like you are just spending $100. You are spending $100 and also have to find somewhere to put the bloody thing.
Then there's the fact that owning a PC is a lot like owning a pet - there's no such thing as a zero-maintenance PC. Why add more headaches, especially when cheap PCs are usually the biggest pains in the ass compared to more capable PCs.
... and then they built the supercollider.
If I was an Apple user I would be more interested in the possibility to develop an high performance emulator. With that I would be able to run concurrently macOs, unix and windows on the same machine
Where were you at the last Steve Jobs dog and pony show? the top of the line is now a PPC PPC PPC PPC Mac. :)
There's no 'on' position on the Slacker switch!
I see lots of people on /. concerned about the 1-button mouse on Apple notebooks. All you need to do is spend a day with an Apple notebook you will actually prefer the 1-button scheme. I am constantly clicking the wrong button on my Windows laptop, but on my iBook, right-clicking can still be done with one hand just by ctrl-clicking. One button under the trackpad is way better, trust me.
With WINE working so well on Linux, why can't we use it on an intel mac?
I recall my fondness for OS/2 and its ability to run Win311 apps in windowed mode. Similar to Codeweaver's Cross over Office.
When will WINE be ready for Intel OSX?
imagine, you boot up your promac (or macbook or whatever) and then put in a (pirated) XP / VISTA installer CD, then initiate the install process and even enter a (pirated) installation code, the OS is installed into the usual WINDOWS 'folders' but onto a partition emulating FAT32.
of course, you can't authenticate the install within 30 days, but hey, who cares - the DLLs and other needed are on the hard drive, even if the DRM is controlled by microsoft (they'll never tell Apple how to check the installation code for validity / authenticity)
now you execute windows apps under control of the mac os, NOT windows, accessing the libraries you need to make all of this work since the processor is compatible and all needed pieces are in place
for what it is worth, if such a scenario comes to pass, I have a LOT of clients who will buy apple 'workbooks' and use both types of apps - they are asking me every day, 'when will I be able to run Windows apps on a mac WITHOUT USING WINDOWS TO DO IT'
Ask Me About... The 80's!
In your post you say that most people are basically ignorant about the computers they buy, so they just buy cheap PCs that, while cheap, are still vastly more powerful than the average person needs to just surf the web, write papers in Word and check e-mail.
Then you go on to mock the Mac mini because it's slow and lacks expandability, when you just said that the people in its target market are already buying much more computer than they need.
Why don't you make up your fucking mind?
And oh, yeah-- the mini is aimed at SWITCHERS. They will already have a monitor. When Apple only sold the iMac, morons like you were bitching "But I already HAVE a display, why oh why is Apple making me buy another one, oh woe is me!" And now you're complaining that it DOESN'T come with a display? WTF?
Clearly, you're just one of those people who just can't be satisfied by anything Apple sells. You'd still find something to bitch about if Apple sold a quantum computer for $25 and it came with a free sexual encounter with the celebrity of your choice.
In that regard, go fuck yourself, and have a nice day.
No, they're not.
Ignoring vm8086 mode, there is nothing stopping your OS from switching back to real-mode after EFI has booted you in protected mode.
It is very possible to make an EFI bootable image that consists of a simplified PC BIOS which in turn boots DOS or OS/2 or what have you. bochsBIOS would be an excellent starting point; take a look at how LinuxBIOS boots XP.