Red Hat, Linux and Intel iMacs

segphault writes "Ars Technica examines the implications of Red Hat's recently announced plan to get Linux running on Intel Macs. 'Red Hat representative Gillian Farquhar announced last week that the company plans to add support for Apple's new Intel Macs to its popular distribution. Fedora and several other commonly used Linux distributions support the PowerPC architecture used by Apple in the past, and Red Hat wants to ensure that its software will continue to run on new Apple hardware in the future.'" The real question is will Windows or Linux be first?

Comments

LInux

[Anonymous Coward]

Linux will be first. Linux already supports the BIOS and should be ready to roll right out of the box.

Re:LInux

[TyrelHaveman]

The Intel Macs don't have a BIOS, and it's certainly not the same as the PowerPC Macs. They use a new EFI standard from Intel which no significant operating system (except Mac OS X for Intel, of course) supports at this time. I've heard that Windows Vista will support EFI, but I'm not aware if the current betas do or not (since there is no hardware, other than Apple's, that uses EFI, in order to try it out).

Re:LInux

[sp0rk173]

That's what he meant. He just said BIOS out of habit i'm sure. This is such a non-issue it's almost funny. There was a thread on the FreeBSD list about this actually...it boiled down to this:

(non-dev) "Will freebsd be able to support these?! I heard windows is having problems!!!"
(dev) "We've supported EFI for a while now. should be non-trivial"

Actual Thread here

I mean, if FreeBSD is already a majority of the way there without having any machines donated...i'm sure redhat should be able to do it in about a day without any problems. Seems like just them trying to get some media attention to me.

Re:LInux

[Anonymous Coward]

Non-trivial is hard, trivial is easy. Since FreeBSD supports EFI, porting it will be trivial.

Re:Ars being an arse

[fak3r]

Simon I agree, I'm tired of reading this crap, the whole "Who would run Linux on a Mac? OS X is Unix after all" type of comments do not help. The idea that anyone who does this hasn't seen what OS X has to offer, and after they will they'll dump Linux on the desktop. Other comments like "You can run all the apps you can run in Linux on OS X" also don't take into account that some people *prefer* to work in a Linux/BSD desktop environment. I'm sick of reading about how OS X is the best UI and such, while it's very nice, it's not for everyone. My main gripe is that it's not as configurable as desktops or window managers in Linux. I'm used to being able to change every thing I can so it's how I just like it, in OS X you're pretty much stuck with the options they allow you to tweak. But that's not just it, what is it is the *feel* of the OS. Yep, you can drop to a term and bang around, but wait, /User /Library...what the hell is this? Does it work for their intended audience? Sure, but people that talk down to ppl that suggest that Linux is a great fit on ppc/laptops are annoying; just because they don't get it doesn't mean it's not for anyone. Disclaimers: I run Ubuntu Linux / OS X (for iTunes to sync my iPod only) on my iBook (800mhz dual-usb) and it's a great fit with all hardware (perhaps save for the modem, I'm not sure) is supported. I can run iTunes from within Linux via Mac-on-linux, which gives me access to iTunes w/o having to leave Linux. Also, at work I *have* to run XP (yeah, I'm looking for another job right now) but I run bb4win - a blackbox desktop for Windows, which keeps me pretty happy.

Re:Im not sure I understand...

[ChibiOne]

I work as an Oracle technology consultant. The servers I deal with are all Linux distros.

My notebook is an Apple iBook. Most of the time, the apps are more than enough to get my work done. Not to mention the stability I get from OS X Tiger.

However, sometimes I wish I could install RedHat on my iBook, so I can test Oracle server products. As most of my work is done from afar, ssh'ing to the servers, it would be nice to be able to have a test environment before commiting any changes to current production servers' configuration.

Why not use a typical Intel book for that? Because I just love the Tiger experience: great GUI, a cool Unix terminal at my disposal, and a set of multimedia tools that do what I want to do with my "digital life stuff" (iLife, Final Cut).

It's cool that a lot of people work with open source software exclusively, and get to use their Linux distro of choice. But for those of us who need to use a particular distro AND also don't want to give up Tiger, the new Apple Intel machines are something to look forward to.

Re:Linux history on Macs

[Bruce Perens]

Xen needs support coded in the kernel, so it won't ever be able to run Windows (unless Microsoft assimilate Xen).

This is not an issue on CPUs that include hardware support for virtual system partitions. Intel has said it will include this support in future CPUs.

Bruce

Re:yellow dog linux

[zsmooth]

The question they "have an answer" to is "What will you do with your PowerMac after Apple switches to Intel?". Meaning, after you get a shiny Intel Mac, go ahead an install YDL on your old PPC Mac. I don't think they plan on doing YDL for intel.

Re:yellow dog linux

[Chanc_Gorkon]

Not looking....FOUND:

http://www.terrasoftsolutions.com/products/mercury /

Also there's this big company with the initials IBM that still make a aweful lot of PowerPC hardware.

Re:Linux history on Macs

[anourkey]

Actually the Intel Core Duo already supports Virtualization. From page 12 of http://www.intel.com/performance/resources/briefs/ mobiletechnology.pdf

Intel® Virtualization Technology The Intel® Core(TM) Duo Processor includes support for Intel® Virtualization Technology which is a set of hardware enhancements to Intel server and client systems that combined with the appropriate software, will enable enhanced virtualization robustness and performance for both enterprise and consumer uses. Intel Virtualization Technology forms the foundation of Intel technologies focused on improved virtualization, safer computing, and system stability. For client systems, Intel Virtualization Technology's hardware-based isolation helps provide the foundation for highly available and more secure client virtualization partitions.

And from the Xen 3.0 datasheet http://xensource.com/files/xen_3.0_datasheet.pdf

Virtualize All Operating Systems with Support for Intel® VT Hardware Virtualization Xen 3.0 is the industry's first virtualization infrastructure software to support Intel Virtualzation Technology (VT), which allows virtualized servers to run natively on the processor. This enables the hypervisor to exploit hardware acceleration for CPU and memory virtualization and is key to Xen's ability to virtualize all operating systems.

So put together, this already indicates that the Intel iMacs should already support running Windows XP natively without any changes to the Windows Kernel and "theorectically" (correct me if I'm wrong, i probably am) if th Xen Hypervisor were loaded, you could run both Mac OSX and Windows XP natively at the same time without any changes. Of course Xen Hypervisor actually requires a flavor of Linux to already be installed on the workstation, so I guess a bit of "hacking" may actually be required to get it working. But once RedHat manages to find a way to install itself, that will lead the way to running everything else (windows, linux, mac os x86) running close to natively on the Core Duo machine without any other modifications.

I'm game

[asv108]

I've been using Linux as my primary desktop for about 6 years now. I have owned OSX machines in the past, specifically the original powermac G5. Typically as far as laptops are concerned, I run thinkpads and single boot in to my preferred distro. If I could still run Linux as my primary and be able to boot in to OSX when I want to test something or run photoshop, that makes the new intel based macs a powerful solution.

Just because OSX is unix based, doesn't make it a replacement for desktop Linux or vice versa. There are a lot of things, that are a whole lot easier for me to do in Linux, when compared to OSX.

• Run the latest Java release
• Have a total package management solution
• Developer tools easly installable through package management
• Run the latest Openoffice.org
• Run a gnome desktop
• Run Evolution

People have different needs. OSX is a great OS, but its not the solution for everybody. PPC Linux has been around for a long time, but its always been a second class citizen. Being able to run OSX and Linux on one machine, where everything works, could be very powerful.

Why?

[Anonymous Coward]

Pick one.

a) Because I like Linux?
b) Because there are things I prefer to do from within Linux?
c) Because there are things Linux does better?
d) Because I can?
e) Because that "omg uber interface lol" nonesense is just that, I prefer e17?
f) Because all I really need OSX for is the Macrodobe tools, which Mac-on-Linux allows me to run from Linux, arguably better than doing so through Wine?
g) Because I believe in using the best tool for the job, and booting the big three OSes from the same maschine allows me to do that more effectively, considering the hardware premium is still less costly than buying three seperate maschines, one of which is an intelmac to begin with?
h) Because contrary to what seems to be consensus amongst fanboys, Steve Jobs, although brilliant, is not Jesus, and his tools aren't the best for everything?
i) all of the above
j) AM FANBOY YOUR ARGUMENTS MEAN NOTHING OGMBBQLOL!!!!!1111eleven.

Re:Ars being an arse

[thatguywhoiam]

I think when most people talk about the configurability of window managers they are talking about the feel more than the look. Can I turn off the click-to-front behavior of windows? I don't want them moving to the front unless I move them to the front. I could never find a way to change that but I've only briefly played with OSX in a store.

Like I said, Apple may not provide a shiny button to do it, but that won't scare your typical *nix hacker...

For X11 inside Aqua:

defaults write com.apple.x11 wm_ffm -bool true

for elsewhere:

defaults write com.apple.Terminal FocusFollowsMouse -string YES

and to disable:

defaults delete com.apple.Terminal FocusFollowsMouse

Re:Ars being an arse

[thatguywhoiam]

How do you make these things like middle button paste work? I searched high and low, but couldn't find anything, so it's probably something blindingly obvious that I've just overlooked.

USB Overdrive can be configured to do pretty much anything. (Including AppleScripts, so literally anything.)

Is there some webpage on how to *nixify OS X, do you know?

Really depends on how you want to approach it - x11 is there, or you can just tweak Aqua to suit your habits. MacUpdate.com and Versiontracker.com are your friends.