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Linux beats Windows to Intel iMac
Ctrl+Alt+De1337 writes "The Mactel-Linux folks have now successfully booted Linux on a 17" Core Duo iMac. They used the elilo bootloader, a modified kernel, and a hacked vesafb to boot from a USB drive. No GUI pictures for now, just white text on a black background. The distro of choice was Gentoo, and instructions and patches are promised this weekend."
...that the TPM is not "preventing" alternate OSes from booting, as some conspiracy theorists have begun to suggest.
Yes, I agree, the OSX GUI is awesome, and why would you be excited that someone booted Linus onto a MAC and got a b/w screen!?!?!
I can answer that- Because this is an important step into something we have all been interested in, i.e. whether or not we can boot something other than an apple os onto an intel mac...
A thousand mile journey begins with a single step, and all that jazz...
And All I Ask is a Tall Ship And a Star to Steer Her By
Does anyone know what modifications they had to make to the kernel to get it to work?
And has anyone tried sticking in a pre-release DVD of Windows Vista, holding down the D key, and seeing what happens? As I understand it, Intel-based iMacs have mostly standard PC hardware, except for using EFI and not supporting BIOS emulation (which is why they won't run XP, but Vista is supposed to support EFI). What else has to be done?
$x='S24;r)>63/* h@<5+oZ)32"5cz';$me='phroggy'x$];
$x=~y+ -xz+\0-Tx+;print$_^chop$me for split'',$x;
The cost involved with getting Windows to run on Mac hardware wouldn't be worth it to Microsoft. People who own Mac hardware already own OSX (or an older OS version if you're talking about old hardware). Additionally, most Mac users are pretty happy with their OS. Overall, the number of people who want to switch from OSX to Windows XP would be REALLY small. Microsoft would be much better off putting their money into development of other software.
This title is pretty misleading. How about we apply the same logic to previous Slashdot titles today: "Saitek beats MS to Bluetooth 2.1 speaker market", "Oracle Beats MS in mysql Bidding", etc. It's just silly to word it that way.
You have enemies? Good. That means you've stood up for something, sometime in your life. --Winston Churchill
Well, because Apple is bound to start selling Intel-based Xserves, and they will be fine boxes to run Linux (which beats OSX Server any day).
Besides, it's nice to have Linux booting on as many platforms as possible. One just never knows when it's going to be useful...
Cause he sure wouldn't want to sell hardware that ran the world's three most popular O/S's would he? Oh, wait... yes he would.
Intron: the portion of DNA which expresses nothing useful.
yep, the real deal is getting OSX running on a PC
This reallly makes you wonder about what sort of product they really have left. It was a serious undertaking to use their hardware with any other operating system when they used power architecture. Apple lost their identity after they dumped the Power architecture. I say that because their product has become something that was always available, BSD on Intel... At least with the Power architecture the product was something that you couldn't piece together on your own. The only similar product would have been a power based machine with YellowDog Linux on it, in which case you would still have to buy the computer from Apple. Also you could buy a $20,000 RS6000 and put Linux on it to have a Power based "desktop" similar to the G5, but you wouldn't have many applications natively built on such a system.
When apple dumped IBM they basically tossed out what made them unique! Now you can build their product on your own by order a Dell and installing openBSD. You would have to live without ITunes but you could have open software clones of almost everything else that OSX has.
From Apple's website, 1002:71c5 *might* be the Radeon X1600. (This is the PCI vendor:device ID for the video chip.) An ATI Radeon X1800 is 1002:7109, but ATI doesn't always number their devices in any reasonable way.
The ATI linux driver should support it ... let's wait 'til the weekend and see if they get the graphics driver working. Should be SWEET!
(drums fingers impatiently...I'm at work)
I evaluated a couple of G5 servers a while back. Aside from OSX being a poor server, a large part of the reason I decided against recommending them to my customers was that they were more expensive than their PC counterparts, with no additional benefits to justify the cost.
:)
Like I said, I'd like to see the new Intel Macs go up against a PC of similar price (both a home fab and a Dell/HP model, just to be thorough). I'm specifically interested in how AMD's new dual-core chips would fare against it.
My money is on the AMD
All that said, the new Intel Macs have piqued my interest. We're going to be in the market for a new computer soon to go in our living room, and the new iMac is attractive enough and affordable enough that I just might give it a shot.
120 characters for a sig? That's bloody useless.
I wonder if someone will/could develop an OSOSOS (ah.. thats open source operating system operating system.. oper.. oh.. nm). A low level platform that translates the various OS calls to whatever hardware? is that a ridiculous suggestion?
It's inevitable that all three operating systems will co exist peacefully on the same hardware, and I wish the manufacturers (ok I wish apple) would just play ball, but seeing as this doesn't seem to happen...
It's really the interface & the software I use various OS's for & the interface *should* be completely customisable and run on the top of the OS (I mean its a small enough foot print anyway & The kind of customisation I would like leaves me to want for linux, but then unable to use the software I require to utilise that customisation)
So that leaves the OS to deal with hardware, file management etc which should *really* be cross platform. Can anyone tell me what the actual difficultes encountered when getting OSX running on IntelPCs or Linux/Windows running on IntelMacs?
Rich Gentlemen Hide - The Existential Comic
Most Linux/Unix users don't want a software lock in. OS X may be polished, but it's a gigantic lock in. The Mac libraries don't exists on Unix systems so the programs is not "just a recompile away" that we are so accustomed to with Unix. Thats a major turd to bite for an Linux/BSD/Unix user.
Maybe if Apple released the Coocoa libraries as open source or helped gnustep get up to speed we may reconsider. But until that it's Linux/BSD/Unix all the way.
Why does anyone want to take a step back from a polished, finished OS?
Mac OS X is a hack of components all over the place just like Linux, the difference is no Linux user is ashamed of that fact and we see it as a strength while you see it as something to hide under the pillow. Making statements to Linux users that the OS they know and love isn't any good and unfinished is a sure way to win them over to your side. Especially since OS X is basically the same thing + a big lock in in proprietary technologies we don't want anyway.
In the end, this will come down to the "because we can" factor.
No it does not, you just don't understand why we love Linux/BSD/Unix and why Desktop Mac OS X doesn't fit at all with the other Unixes. We love Unix because of the diversityand choices you can make, but still use the same programs. Desktop Mac OS X just isn't anymore Unix than Windows XP is.
WTF ... so is it also "not news" when soldiers get killed in Iraq because "it's already known that soldiers keep getting in Iraq"? Or it's not news when there's a hurricane because "it's known that we have hurricanes"?
If you carry through the logic of the slashdot "this is not news" crowd ('X is not news because (generalisation_of_X) is known'), then nothing is actually news. I mean nearly all news boils down to a few same generalisations that have been occuring since human history began ... why bother with the details?
I know you people think it makes you look clever, but really, it's tiresome hearing the same distorted arguments over and over about why each and every bloody slashdot story ever posted "isn't news".
Because Apple laptops are prettier and have more features than similarly priced laptops from Dell, HP, Toshiba and IBM. I'd pay more for an Apple though luckily I don't have to; they cost roughly the same.
Because Linux is a better system than OS X. Although I appreciate that some of you are infatuated with the sparkly lights and whizzy animations in OS X, I tire quickly of such things and prefer the practical productivity of Linux. I like my Fullscreen button for every application (proper fullscreen, not the half-arsed attempt in OS X). I like automatic security updates for all the software on my machine. I like the fact that Linux is faster on the same hardware (subjectively and objectively it is faster). I like the fact that my servers and my laptop run the same software - even the same Linux distribution - so I don't have to "change gears" in my network. I like the fact that I'm not bound to the shaky future of a single company; Linux will always be around even if my particular distro goes under.
I also like the fact that my Linux distro cost $7 for 6 compact discs, it included every piece of software I needed including the office suite, and upgrades are free. MacOS X is surrounded by shareware vultures for trivial items - like $29.99 for what is effectively an untar utility for DMG files. No thanks. I left all that nonsense behind when I dumped MS-DOS 3 and I've no intention of going back to that particular hell.
PS: I also like the 1-second sleep, better battery life, and slick windowing system in OS X, but I don't like them enough to give up all the benefits of Linux.
Doesn't anyone else find it ironic that they are back to 32 bits now? I haven't heard that fact mentioned by anyone else, and I remember how much they touted the fact that they were the first "64 bit desktop."
When you lose something irreplaceable, you don't mourn for the thing you lost, you mourn for yourself. - Harpo Marx
I told you so.
Am I the only one that is less excited about the Linux part than about the fact that the Intel Macs can apparently boot from USB drives? Up until now Macs have only been capable of booting from Firewire drives, something about the USB bus getting reset during the boot process. This means it will eventually be possible to carry around a single USB drive from which you can boot your choice of Windows, Linux or Mac OS X on any available computer hardware that supports booting from USB, whether it's a "PC" or a Mac. This is very cool.
But maybe I'm the only one crazy enough to imagine having a drive with bootable partitions of Windows, Linux, "LinuxIntelMac", LinuxPPC, and Mac OS X, and being able to carry around my entire computing environment without carrying any computer hardware with me. Put it on a 2.5" notebook drive in a small USB 2.0/Firewire drive enclosure and it will fit in a shirt pocket. Notebook drives go up to 120GB and 7200rpm these days too, so it's not like it would be slow. Wherever you go, you're home. I've even seen some drive enclosures with integrated fingerprint readers. The whole disk is encrypted so you wouldn't have to worry about losing information if it's stolen. Keep an identical drive in a computer at home and you can probably even keep a backup of the entire multi-OS drive with something like dd.
Someday I'm going to actually turn this from a pipe dream into a reality, just you wait.
> Osama bin Laden as chairman of the fed? Good idea.
Now, that made me laugh.
You could have made your same point with some garden-variety example, positing bin Laden for a normal (albeit important) position of leadership (e.g., President of the US), wherein the cheif problems have to do with his ideology and background, but instead you chose to suggest him as Chairman of the Federal Reserve, a position with such special requirements that many people who would make fine US Presidents would be terribly inappropriate choices, at the same time setting him against Greenspan, a veritable icon, whose judgement in financial matters has been trusted by people at pretty much all points on the political spectrum for an entire generation. It's the kind of absurd overkill that doesn't just make your point, but is also hilarious.
Good show.
Cut that out, or I will ship you to Norilsk in a box.
Strictly speaking, you're right, but quality is hardly irrelevant to someone thinking of buying such a system, which was presumably part of the reason the parent asked the question.
I was mistaken about Dell making PCs with that form factor, though; it was Gateway I was thinking of, as your comment reminded me. We use a number of Gateway Profiles here at my university, and I've found them to be decent machines.