Slashdot Mirror
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."
World's most expensive desktop linux machine
White text on a black background; that sure beats that old OSX graphical interface.
Quality Hosting e3 Servers
i wasn't aware there was a competition
I knew it was a matter of time, and knew Linux would run on it eventually. I know it's still premature, but I can't wait to buy an Intel PowerMac (or whatever name they give it...shiver) to run Linux and OS X on. I don't have any use for Windows, but would love to have my two favorite desktop OSs on one box.
fak3r.com
Let's face it, OSX being BSD means theres already a bootloader for the Mactel that will handle Linux. Didn't take much to make the jump.
...that the TPM is not "preventing" alternate OSes from booting, as some conspiracy theorists have begun to suggest.
expect to see it in, oh, maybe five years.
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
. The distro of choice was Gentoo, and instructions and patches are promised this weekend. ...when Gnome finishes compiling.
Is Microsoft planning this? Does Jobs approve of it, or will he used the DMCA to keep Microsoft of his farm?
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
I'm not even smart enough to get Gentoo booting off my PC!
See, because the background is black, you can store the color in a single 8-bit register instead of taking up a whole 32-bit register and it saves so much space in the L1 cache that it makes the computer go so much faster. Also, from a usability standpoint, the console is much better because it doesn't have any of those confusing buttons or hard to install mouse drivers. Just type the command and it's been done before you know it; no more waiting for the GUI to load its fancy pictures.
The worst thing is that I'm actually going to college with people that have that very same dinosaur mentality that I just spoofed. Then again, a little fancy ASM code in all of the C++ flying around really could speed things up, but I just have more of a preference towards ASM over higher level stuff.
Wow, Linux is more flexible and you can customize the installation routine! This is completely unexpected... In other breaking news, water still wet and gravity still in effect
If you want to run freeBSD on an iMac, you don't have to do anything.
All it proves is that *this particular implementation* doesn't prevent alternate OS's from booting. They could change it tomorrow if they felt like it.
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;
This is less ignorant than the usual "OS X is FreeBSD, so you can recompile Microsoft Office for Lunix!" that we usually get, but -- no, that's not necessarily true, either that Linux should work or that Windows shouldn't.
If you have to ask, then this isn't for you. (Hint: People probably said the same thing about Linux 1.0)
http://outcampaign.org/
The answer is "because you can".
Weaselmancer
rediculous.
Well, for one thing, you should be able to run VMWare/Linux to run Windows.....
A sentence you'll never see on an Internet discussion board: "You know what? You're right."
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
But what you don't see coming is the push to boot GNU/Hurd on these new Macs!
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...
I know a Mac-head who thinks Linux is cool. It wouldn't surprise me if he dual-booted Debian on his Mac, just to play with it.
http://outcampaign.org/
If you ignore the other uses of a tool, does that make the tool less useful, or you less useful?
I'm not bricking my new Mac trying to run linux, I just have a horrible image of waiting on the phone with Apples tech support and them going 'no its not under waranty'.
Okay, so it runs Linux now. But can it boot NetBSD yet? ;)
In Soviet Russia,
Intel beats YOU.
sorry, couldn't help myself.
"Is this just useless, or is it expensive as well?"
Main Page
Mactel-Linux is the effort to adapt the GNU/Linux operating system to Intel-based Apple Macintosh hardware.
This requires changes/additions to at least the following projects:
This site is not about Linux distributions for Intel-Macs, but about developer communication.
Status
Using elilo and a modified Linux kernel, we can boot from a USB hard disk on the 17" iMac Core Duo. We are using the hacked vesafb driver to inherit the bootloader's framebuffer, keyboard and a USB network card work. Gentoo runs and can compile the Linux kernel with a compiler that runs on linux, which was compiled in linux, on a mac running the new intel duo processors.
lspci
00:00.0 Host bridge: Intel Corporation Mobile 945GM/PM/GMS/940GML and 945GT Express Memory Controller Hub (rev 03)
00:01.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation Mobile 945GM/PM/GMS/940GML and 945GT Express PCI Express Root Port (rev 03)
00:07.0 Performance counters: Intel Corporation Unknown device 27a3 (rev 03)
00:1b.0 Audio device: Intel Corporation 82801G (ICH7 Family) High Definition Audio Controller (rev 02)
00:1c.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 82801G (ICH7 Family) PCI Express Port 1 (rev 02)
00:1c.1 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 82801G (ICH7 Family) PCI Express Port 2 (rev 02)
00:1d.0 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801G (ICH7 Family) USB UHCI #1 (rev 02)
00:1d.1 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801G (ICH7 Family) USB UHCI #2 (rev 02)
00:1d.2 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801G (ICH7 Family) USB UHCI #3 (rev 02)
00:1d.3 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801G (ICH7 Family) USB UHCI #4 (rev 02)
00:1d.7 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801G (ICH7 Family) USB2 EHCI Controller (rev 02)
00:1e.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 82801 Mobile PCI Bridge (rev e2)
00:1f.0 ISA bridge: Intel Corporation 82801GBM (ICH7-M) LPC Interface Bridge (rev 02)
00:1f.1 IDE interface: Intel Corporation 82801G (ICH7 Family) IDE Controller (rev 02)
00:1f.2 SATA controller: Intel Corporation 82801GBM/GHM (ICH7 Family) Serial ATA Storage Controllers cc=AHCI (rev 02)
00:1f.3 SMBus: Intel Corporation 82801G (ICH7 Family) SMBus Controller (rev 02)
01:00.0 VGA compatible controller: ATI Technologies Inc Unknown device 71c5
02:00.0 Ethernet controller: Marvell Technology Group Ltd. 88E8053 PCI-E Gigabit Ethernet Controller (rev 22)
03:00.0 Network controller: Broadcom Corporation BCM4310 UART (rev 01)
04:03.0 FireWire (IEEE 1394): Agere Systems FW323 (rev 61)
dmesg click if you want to see it
Instructions and Patches
Coming this weekend.
FAQ
Can I already run Linux on the iMac Core-Duo?
Not quite. The kernel boots, and you can interact with the system on the command line, but that's as much as you can do with it at the moment. If you're a developer, though, that's a starting point.
[edit]
Why Linux? OS X is so great!
Sure OS X is great. But this is fun.
[edit]
Why Linux? Why not Windows?
Windows isn't fun.
[edit]
Why not OS X on non-Apple PCs?
That's way uncool.
[edit]
The Intel-based Macs are standard PCs, aren't they?
They share many characteristics with PCs, yes. Though, their firmware is EFI, not the old 1982 PC-BIOS.
[edit]
Then what took you so long??
Ah yes, dual booting, I forgot about that. That could be useful.
There are those that like/need to test stuff in various OS's. Having one box that can do linux/OSX/windows would be convenient.
Currently of course you need to reboot, but once VT comes out on the core duo chips then this will let you use Xen/Vmware to run all three simultaneously on the same hardware at near-full speed.
Microsoft doesn't run around posting news stories every time they get something to boot. They also don't release things they just hacked together after staying up all night drinking mountain dew to make the front page of /. Chances are MS has had prototypes of these systems in their labs being worked on before the public even knew there was an Intel Mac. Getting the kernel to boot, kinda, is nowhere near the same as releasing a version of windows that runs on a particular platform.
n.
1.
1. A distant view or prospect , especially one seen through an opening, as between rows of buildings or trees.
2. An avenue or other passage affording such a view.
2. An awareness of a range of time, events, or subjects; a broad mental view: "the deep and sweeping vistas these pioneering critics opened up" (Arthur C. Danto).
As a free bonus, may I present the fabulous Vista Cruiser!
the preceding comment is my own and in no way reflects the opinion of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
But what you don't see coming is the push to boot GNU/Hurd on these new Macs!
I tought you wrote ..But what you don't see cuming is the push to boot GNU/Hard on these new Macs!
Yes siree, it's been a looooong day!
...it was recently announced that Linux had been ported to run on a standard wrist watch. Developer John I. Ronman stated, "This is really only a tech demo. Currently, the display only shows 18:88:88, but we are confident that not only will this allow the watch to display the time, but it will be Open Source time!"
What is mankind really? Well, it's just two words put together Mank, and ind.
Linux is free*. That is reason enough. *free = liberty, freedom, etc.
It's sad that it's entirely possible that there's a Windows instance running on Intel Mac HW, somewhere behind closed Microsoft lab doors. OSS isn't just "open" when the source code is available for public download. The open project, the details of which are transparent and public, is another strong advantage. Particularly in the public relations arena, where the public claim is the prize, regardless of the real facts.
--
make install -not war
Of course, with Linux, comes Windows. In the form of emulating it using VMWare (which isn't supported on Mac OS X natively yet), and also with Wine (true, this isn't real Windows - but it satisfies people's needs to run some Windows programs).
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.
No kidding.
Besides which, with the skill and numbers of Linux fanboys, I'd almost have expected Linux to beat OSX to the punch, ya know? Dollars to doughnuts that they would've, given an equal shot at it.
why?
It seems to me that the only good reason to pay those bloated prices for Apple hardware is that you get to run OS/X.
I haven't seen much about the performance of the new Intel Macs, but I know the old G5s couldn't keep up with a comparably-priced PC. One advantage the PC has is that its competitive hardware market keeps prices lower.
What we need now is some solid Linux benchmarks on both systems. I'd wager that the PC would outperform the Mac on a price-for-performance scale. It would probably win overall, just because AMD has a better CPU on the market than Intel.
Of course, it all really depends on what you want to do with your system. Different architectures emphasize different things.
120 characters for a sig? That's bloody useless.
..seem to split 50/50 down the middle between.
The ones who think that sales of Apple hardware are dependent on noone being able to run the amazing OS X operating system on any other hardware, and that apple are therefore extremely preoccupied with preventing OSX from being run on anything else..
And the ones who think that the success of OSX depends entirely on the brilliant exclusive Apple hardware it runs on, and so that Apple's major concern is stopping anyone running anything else on their great hardware.
Having never used or cared about any of this hardware or software, I really am utterly mystified as to why this is so, or what apple's 'business model' really is, except to sell loads of ipods. Anyone?
my password really is 'stinkypants'
Wake me up when they have VMware/VirtualPC/et al., running at near native speeds on this thing, with that nifty shift-control-apple key combo to switch between OSX and whatever full screen virtual machines you've got using that cool 3D cube effect...
Now, THAT, I'd like to feel happen.
A memory loaded Macbook Pro would DEFINATELY be the only computer I'd ever need when that comes through.
S-
Because the hardware's nice but linux is a better OS? I have a powerbook, it runs Debian Linux PPC near enough full-time. Mac OS X is cloying and sluggish and UGLY (yes, I DO think it's ugly! Tough. People are different) so I just avoid it, but the laptop itself is nice, and lighter and has longer battery life than an x86 box, and runs linux ppc pretty much perfectly.
I wouldn't ever use Mac OS X by choice, unless the only other choice was windows.
I like to be able to dual-boot into linux for those Linux apps like Gnucash, which Intuit would like to charge me an arm and a leg for. I could use Gnucash in Mac, but the setup is overly hard (even with Fink and Fink commander) and then half the things don't work right, like printing without me spending half-a-day trying to figure it out. In ubuntu, I can just apt-get and forget it most of the time. I need to get work done, not configure my PC.
I don't need to run Windows, but I'd imagine some people are in a similiar situation with a must have program.
The nice thing with Macintel is that perhaps someone can get Windows/Linux may run on top MacOSX (like Inferno for various operating system), no rebooting or anything.
But 90% of the time, I work in OSX anyway.
Hey genius, it never occured to you that some people prefer Linux? Some of those people also like Apple hardware.
Not everone has wet dreams about OSX.
If you do want a dual-boot machine, it makes sense to do it on an Apple-built machine, rather than a self-build.
The main reason is that OS X is going to be very picky about what hardware it installs on, and Apple aren't going to support custom builds. Linux and Windows, on the other hand, have support for far more devices already, and there is more of an incentive to add the support for an Apple-built machine.
G5's are only a tad slower than Opeteron's at the same speed. The big difference though is in servers. OS X is a lousy server with extremely poor thread creation. Where as Linux on a G5 rox's.
Now for a desktop/workstation poor thread creation doesn't affect much after booting. Giving OS X an advantage there.
i thought once I was found, but it was only a dream.
> I would like to hear from those who find this useful because I don't get the point yet.
One reason is to increase the hardware diversity available to Linux. If we can run on enough different hardware we can survive when Microsoft closes the traditional PC platform down to a glorified Xbox. Granted that Apple will probably beat Bill to that step but we might at least be able to make a co-existance deal with His Steveness.
Plus this might have some potential in and of itself. Think about it. Mac on Linux gives you Mac and Linux apps side by side. This is an Intel box so Wine, Crossover Office, VMWare and eventually Xen all provide ways to get Windows apps into the mix.
Democrat delenda est
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)
Because some people need Linux. CS majors, for example, might need to study the Linux kernel for their operating system class (in which the professor decided to use Linux instead of BSD or Minix). A multi-boot box that can legally boot OS X, Linux, and (eventually) Windows can be a great test machine for software developers as well (since OS X and Linux does certain things differently; it will be good to test all common OSes).
Next, there is an openness that Linux (and the free BSDs) has but OS X doesn't have. You can study everything about a complete operating system and a complete desktop environment by pouring over the source code for KDE/GNOME, various applications, etc. By contrast, I have to be an Apple employee to look at OS X Aqua code, and I can't do anything with it.
There are some jobs that call for Linux and not just any Unix derivative. OS X is BSD, not Linux. Having Darwin source code means a hill of beans when you are writing Linux device drivers, for instance.
So, yes, there are cases where Linux is necessary, or required.
and has a pretty little flower-bed of white gardenias!
..why does Linux exist?
As copyright owner of this comment, I authorize everyone to defeat any technological measure which limits access to it.
Couldn't this just be darwin acting like gentoo??
Cliff Claven
K.E.G. Party Chairman
Founding Leader of: Koncerned for Egalitarin Governance
Not trying to flame here but I just don't get why everyone wants to install Linux and Windows on expensive Mac hardware.
Because some of us like Macs AND Linux AND Windows. And some of us NEED Macs, and Linux and Windows. And carrying 2 laptops around is a pain in the ass, and one expensive mac is still cheaper than that same mac plus a windows laptop.
Few people doing this wan't to put OS X away and never use it, but they can't afford or do not wish to put all their other OSes away and never use them either.
Now OS-X on commodity hardware, that's something to get excited about.
Ironically that is actually less useful to those of us who want a Mac and Mac OS X but can't leave PC hardware completely behind.
Its less useful because
a) some of us actually PREFER the Mac hardware, and want to use a Macbook Pro over some garish "commodity hardware" laptop.
b) we want to use OS X on a supported platform, not some community hack-fest. Think IT professionals and tech types in particular or evironments where OS X is their preferred primary OS, not a hobby project, that works when it works, and breaks everytime Apple patches.
I for example prefer OS X. I use it as my primary OS. And I would use a legally purchased and fully Apple supported MacBook Pro with OS X exclusively if I could. However, one task that I regularly perform involves flashing the firmware of devices using vendor supplied software. This software is terrible and does not run reliably under Virtual PC. So I need to drag a windows box around too just to run this software. If I could get Windows to boot on a MacBook, that would be a godsend. I could have my laptop and OS of choice, without having to drag around a windows box.
I also enjoy a number of windows only games. Currently I have a PC for those. I'd rather get a "MacTower Pro" and boot windows when i want to play a game instead of having two towers and a KVM under my desk.
I find it boggling that people keep repeating that they don't understand why people want windows/linux on intel Macs. Its not that hard to understand.
You gotta be kidding me? Mac hardware is substantually more expensive.. Software as well.
"You're not hardcore unless you shave with a rock."
... with your fingers!
Wuss. You're not hardcore unless you pluck the whiskers out individually
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.
Cheney shot a lawyer?
There won't be one. We're kind of hoping he starts a trend.
"Ladies and gentlemen, my killbot features Lotus Notes and a machine gun. It is the finest available."
MacOS X uses the Mach Kernel, so the initial booting environment is completely different from FreeBSD. You are getting way to hung up on the "MacOS X uses FreeBSD" thing.
I'm looking at the dmesg listing, and it runs through EFI first...
But then it identifies and runs through the standard ACPI listing. Processors identified, power states, the works.
Not to say you aren't right about needing to throttle the processor, but Apple made it a little easier by using ACPI instead of reinventing the wheel...
What a painfully long and boring attempt at humor.
Can you purchase/make a regular PC with the screen/compactness of the imac?
It is silly to compare the price/performance of a generic tower PC with an iMac because people don't purchase an iMac purely for the performance.
It will be interesting how the standard desktop Intel Mac (whatever it will be called) compares with regular desktops, but we have no idea how they are going to spec-ed or priced.
Enjoy.
x _running_on_an_intel_imac.html
http://www.makezine.com/blog/archive/2006/02/linu
GNU/Hurd booting? Hell, that's a news!
(just joking guys, put the axes there.... ooookay... thanks for flying Comedian Airlines)
nbody2002:If you can read this you may be addicted to the internet
1. Claim Linux is just copying Windows, and/or lagging behind. "Linux is not innovative," they say. "Linux does not support hardware." That claim just went out the window.
2. Downplay the importance of Apple's offering. "You have to use Windows to be productive, and Windows won't run on Apple hardware." Well, everything else will. At least, it will now, as the EFI driver is now actively developed in the open source community.
Windows on a mac? That's just expensive hardware. +5 Insightful
Linux on a mac? That's just expensive hardware. -1 Troll
Why would we be porting GNU/HURD on a the Intel Macs? That's ridiculous. We are developing HURD to be the operating system of the future, not the past! We are working to make HURD boot on an idealized, perfect version of the Mac, which will undoubtedly be the next generation Mac systems. Why would we waste our time with a product that's already shipping.
Just kidding. We all know Hurd is just waiting for the killer app. HURD will come into it's own once everyone realizes that it's the platform Duke Nukem Forever is being developed for.
- sarcasm is just one more service we offer -
Freedom of choice.
Georg
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
"Macs dont cost any more than PCs that are comperably equipped in hardware, software and OS."
BS. I can go to HP and get the same hardware as an Intel iMac for less without even trying hard.
Vote for Pedro
Has anybody considered that Microsoft probably has already "ported" Vista to the MacIntel Developer platform. It's probably running without problems since months, but one can imagine various good reasons why Microsoft didn't issue a press release on that, yet.
Georg
Apple is perfectly happy to let you buy a Mac and run Linux or Windows or whatever on it. They won't support you, but it doesn't matter to them, you paid for the hardware and the included OS-X license, that's all they really care about.
The real idea behind that kind of thing is twofold:
1) To stop OS-X from running on non-Mac hardware. With each release of OS-X they modify it to break the workaround people have found, and a new one has to be developed. Apple does NOT want OS-X running on non-Apple hardware.
2) For all the up and comming DRM horseshit that the media companies are pushing. Both Apple and MS are getting on board with this. I suppose I can't really blame them since the alternative is that people simply won't be able to watch things like HD-DVD (the license of the decryption routines requires all this rights management crap).
So no, I don't expect Apple to do anything to stop Windows from running on their hardware. That's nothing but good for them as it might encourage people to buy more Macs, and certianly won't hurt sales.
13:37 of course.
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.
Hills of beans are very useful for programming Linux device drivers. Since you'll likely never get paid for doing it, you need to get food somehow.
Waffles rock.
Someone better let Dvorak know... He may want to update his article: "Will Apple Adopt Windows^H^H^H^H^H^H^HLinux?"
In a word, Yes. Just like when the first iMac came out and PC makers released clones, you can find LCDs with embedded PCs.
Here's one from Sony. I know it's $2,000, but it looks like it's a lot more than the iMac as features go.
Here's another one: http://www.boldata.com/html/unique.cfm
Here's one that came up on Google ads that I couldn't get to load from work: http://www.lcdpc.com/ I don't have a clue what's on it right now, but judging from the URL I think it's relevant :)
That's all I hit on three Google searches, but seeing as I had no clue what terms to search, I think it's a fair start.
120 characters for a sig? That's bloody useless.
Or, conversely stated, Apple hardware ist the most expensive dongle in the world
(but hey, a nice looking dongle, so I bought one anyway
Georg
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".
Sounds more like the linux crowd patting itself on its back again.
No, this is how OSS does its marketing. We don't have much of a TV advertising budget.
Enjoy,
It's just the normal noises in here.
*money = capitalism, efficient allocation of resources, riches for all, freedom, liberty, anything money can buy
"The White House is not an intelligence-gathering agency," -- Scott McClellan, Whitehouse spokesman.
OS X on commodity hardware? Steve Jobs offered OS X completely free for the $100 laptop project, but the organizers rejected it because OS X wasn't "free" enough. Then instead went with Red Hat, who--surprise--were large donors to the project.
We could have had $100 Macs. D'oh! So it seems the OSS community's leaders just aren't interested in OS X on commodity hardware as much as one would think.
"Sufferin' succotash."
'' Just like when the first iMac came out and PC makers released clones, you can find LCDs with embedded PCs.
Here's one from Sony. I know it's $2,000, but it looks like it's a lot more than the iMac as features go. ''
I took one look, and I know now why Sony is in trouble.
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.
And likewise, Darwin may be based on BSD, but it sure as hell ain't BSD anymore.
Anyone who wants to legally have a test machine for 99% of the market wants an intel mac. Developers and QA guys want to boot OS X / Windows / Linux / FreeBeerSD.
But, yet again, Steve's megalomania keeps a good product from being a great one. Leaving out the BIOS compatibility layer (or even an option to easily turn it on) is just petty.
Yes, it's different, but at least on PPC the OpenFirmware can load ELFs without any modification. What it does on the Mac is to load a bootloader (BootX) that will load the XNU kernel (which isn't ELF, but Mach-O).
I'm not sure about the EFI used in Intel-Macs, but maybe it can also load ELFs by itself... It'd be interesting to find out how the boot process was modified.
the glaring lack of disclosure of the tpm implementation, and worse, that it's shipping enabled. ALL other vendors follow the fair and open best practices as recommended by the trusted computing group.
this proves that it's possible to boot other os, yes, and indeed that's a good thing. it does not mean that there has been full disclosure of apple's tpm implementation, nor does it mitigate the potential privacy exposure of a tpm that's shipping enabled.
tin hats are not required to see that this needs rectification.
if I claimed I was emperor just because some watery tart lobbed a scimitar at me they'd put me away!
I was simplifying for the sake of brevity. My point was there is a base to start from already.
I'll call you on that one - the new iMacs, and even G5s had performance benchmarks that mattered very much for our research group. If you take a look at the page http://www.neuro.mcw.edu/afni_speedo.html , you will see benchmark results for several different types of machines, all running the same analysis on the same set of data. The new iMacs are barely slower than an Athlon 4000 when using a single thread, and even surpasses the old G5s and everything else when using 2 threads. This benchmark tests FP and memory access performance, and let's just say that with the current performance results, people ARE looking into getting more of these newer Macs.
And also keep in mind, when you go to 64-bit and Opteron/Pentium D class machines (as with the old G5s), you're moving up into another machine and price class. For 64-bit and the performance, these machines were VERY much worth it - both the old G5s (performance and larger memory space) and seemingly, the new iMacs (performance).
"Electric shaver?! Ha! What are you, a chick? You're not hardcore unless you shave with a rock."
...ehh, not so much.
Oddly enough though, people who use rocks for deodorant
If it's for-profit but free, you're not the customer -- you're the product (e.g., the Slashdot Beta's "audience").
You mean once someone decides to actually do something with it.
I can (well, almost) hear you asking yourselves "why?". Hurd will be out in a year (or two, or next month, who knows)...
And that was 1991
English is easier said than done.
We don't actually know for sure that Windows hasn't booted yet on an Apple. It's a pretty safe bet that somebody at Microsoft has been taking more than just a look at the new machines too.
Well, Dell offers an almost identical laptop to the MacBook Pro that also came out in Januaray.
silly putty beat square peg fitting in round hole.
of course linux got there first. it so much easier to modyfy software is you have the source...
And don't forget that if you don't want to go without a GUI there are a bunch of Linux/BSD GUIs that use little RAM, such iceWM and (my favorite) fluxbox. Aqua may be very stylish but all that eye candy does use a lot of memory. That's not an entirely anti-Mac staement either - the same can be said for KDE and any window manager that tries to be fancy (and I like KDE for it's customizaility).
I dream of a better world... one in which chickens can cross roads without their motives being questioned.
"Greenman"!? WTF, I meant, "Greenspan", of course. :)
Also I see those were not "hypothetical" moderations, sorry. They linked to actual posts. However if one looks at the current moderations one sees the "hypocrisy" point crumble to dust anyway:
"Windows on a mac? That's just expensive hardware.":
40% Insightful, 30% Flamebait, 20% Troll
"Linux on a mac? That's just expensive hardware":
30% Troll, 30% Insightful, 20% Overrated
Where's the hypocrisy now? Those look like fairly equivalent moderations to me.
All these people are crazy about getting Windows or Linux running on Mac hardware, but I'd much rather see OS X running on my regular old Intel hardware. It's a shame to see something like OS X being replace with something KDE. (Much worse just a terminal, but that will no doubt progress).
Because some people perfer open operating systems?
Just, you know, a hunch.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
What about VirtualPC for Mac?
-Patrick
"They never stop thinking about new ways to harm our country and our people, and neither do we."
But in order to obtain a Mac system, don't you have to license the OS?
-Patrick
"They never stop thinking about new ways to harm our country and our people, and neither do we."
Your not hard core unless you shave with fire.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
Hell the OS under the hood is technically Darwin not BSD, it's just somewhat based on BSD.
One reason to run another OS on Mac HW is to better understand OSX. Another is to better understand one's own OS. Another is to use the quality Mac HW with an OS that runs one's preferred apps. And another is to have an OS that can compete with OSX for Mac HW clone makers - not just consumers of that HW, Mac or otherwise.
And those are just a few reasons to do so in the lab. There are others, before the value of selling one's OS on that HW is even relevant.
The first few reasons I mentioned are exactly the kinds of things that drive Linux hackers, even if the last is much more interesting to Microsoft. But it's always valuable to explore one's competitors, especially on their home turf.
--
make install -not war
or the mac crowd is starting to considering that hacking a mac is like gay porn, it's quite amusing how slashdot has turned from pro-penguin/pro-bsd to pro-mac . However everybody knows that for demanding server task and console OSX is horribly slow when compared to penguin-98 and even bsd. However you can't win against the world domination of the penguin muhahahahaha
MacOS uses the Xnu kernel, which is a different thing from the Mach kernel AND the FreeBSD kernel - it's an amalgam of the two. More info at Wikipedia
I wish there was a "Who Cares" mod. I would use that one here. :)
"..efficient allocation of resources,""
snicker
"riches for all,"
haha
" freedom,"
HAHA
"liberty"
BWAHAHAHAHAHA!!!
oh man, I'll be laughing about your post all day.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
Actually no - did you even read the original article? The article is a set of musings from someone about how they might go about getting Windows to run on the Intel Macs. They have *not* actually got Windows to run on Mac.
becasue the point of the laptop is to give as much control as possible to the people using it, no strings attached.
I am glad too here Mr. Jobs affered it, but it really doesn't fit their model.
Yes, I am sure Red Hats donation, and giving away there product was done for greed.
How are they making money giving something away? oh right, volume.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
I told you so.
And Linux has facilities to control SpeedStep.
However, the laptop cooling system design that does not let a CPU running at 100% load, 100% clockspeed, 100% voltage run for long is a BAD cooling design.
A laptop cooling system should be able to keep a CPU running at the full clockspeed with 100% CPU load within it's safe temperature range, and preferably keep the bottom of the laptop cool.
They used the elilo bootloader
So it's called elilo, as in Lilo & Stitch, and it lets you tarnish the image of Apple's precious hardware with a desktop environment that hasn't been vetted by professional usability experts? Some might think that Apple and Disney, two companies in which Steve Jobs holds the plurality stake, might gang-rape these people in court.
Stop spreading FUD
It's a joke. Lighten up.
Currently it will not run on OSX86. Besides, you'd never want to if you would, else it would be running under Rosetta, emulating PPC code to emulate Intel code.
Microsoft is supposedly working on an Intel-native version, as is VMWare, but neither have surfaced yet.
A sentence you'll never see on an Internet discussion board: "You know what? You're right."
"there ain't no competition cause we all da best heyar"
"I DARE you to make less sense!"
And I thought I was alone...
I just heard some sad news on talk radio - Horror/Sci Fi writer Stephen King was found dead in his Maine home this morning. There weren't any more details. I'm sure everyone in the Slashdot community will miss him - even if you didn't enjoy his work, there's no denying his contributions to popular culture. Truly an American icon.
Did you look closely at that Sony TV-PC? The screen may be 20", but it has a resolution of only 1366x768. I'd hardly consider that an acceptable computer display for a $2200 computer.
The BOLData ones just look like crap, both visually and in terms of quality.
If you really want the iMac form factor in a "regular PC," I know Dell makes or used to make some decent ones. They still don't compare in overall quality to a Mac, though.
Sure the driver might support it, but wouldn't you want to actually run Xorg?
Shift happens. Fire it up.
Did you notice that nearly all "badnesses" after that are in the ACPI section. I somehow have doubts that this acpi interpreter will be useable. At best it will require a special module to take care of all the quirks. If it will be useable, the table for the throttling states is there so speedstep may in fact work. Dunno. It looks pretty ugly at this point.
Baker's Law: Misery no longer loves company. Nowadays it insists on it
http://www.sigsegv.cx/
For mac users the key buying points are:
No Viruses
No Noise
No Hassle
oh... and they're pretty.
They fit into the affordable luxary category, a lot like the iPod. If all you want is FIPS and MIPS, then you buy an AMD box, with water cooling and a heat sink as big as your car. Hell, why not go the whole hog and kit it out with LEDs to make it 'classy'.
Mac's are the Rolls Royce of computing, not the Ferrari. When it comes to the choice between comfort or performance, they choose comfort - but they still stick a big ol' engine in, because, let's face it, you paid for it. AMDs are the suped up Honda. Sure they get better 0-60, and are cheaper to 'upgrade', but you're still left driving a car that looks like a Honda.
If you're demanding performance specs, then either you are genuinly somebody who needs that performance (a dying breed) or your are a relic from the 1990's. Processor performance is no longer the most important factor in a desktop computer, we're still waiting for IO and memory to catch up.
Scared of flying, pointy things snce 1979!
You do realize that one can easily compile most Unix programs on Mac OS X, don't you? Since when did the definition of 'Unix' become "runs an open-source window manager by default"?
becasue the point of the laptop is to give as much control as possible to the people using it, no strings attached.
Which is a goal only idealistic OSS leaders have, not normal users who would have been better served with OS X. The underlying UNIX of OS X is all open source, and users would have been able to do plenty of hacking with gcc and bash.
Yes, I am sure Red Hats donation, and giving away there product was done for greed.
How are they making money giving something away? oh right, volume.
Well, yeah. And it's not like they don't give their product away for free already. It's Linux.
Also, you're missing the point that this would have been an easily copyable version of a generic x86 OS X. Cough.
"Sufferin' succotash."
hda: cdrom_pc_intr: The drive appears confused (ireason = 0x01)
:-)
I wonder what the 0x01 things is, I want some
j/k
A while back, I read that the BIOS on a wintel box is only really used in Windows' booting process, and that lacking the BIOS doesn't stop the EFI Intel Macs from running Windows as much as it stops them from booting Windows (and thus getting to the running part).
If this is true (is it?), couldn't Linux be used as an intermediate step to getting Windows running?
"It is our blasphemy which has made us great, and will sustain us, and which the gods secretly admire in us." - Zelazny
okay, so you have the following choice:
1/ sell the hardware with a proprietry operating system. the people who get the laptop can use it and learn how to use a computer. when they install a c-compiler, they can also write software for it (provided a free c-compiler is available for the system).
2/ sell the hardware with an open-source operating system. the people who get the laptop can use it, learn how to use a computer and learn how a computer works. they can develop the software further, they can write interesting applications for it, they can download free of charge a huge amount of software, they can become independant of one large american company telling them what they are and what they are not allowed to do.
proprietry software is a way of keeping the third world enslaved. if i wanted to found a company in a third world country and had to spend about 1000 dollars on every computer i needed, this would be a financial burden to me. as it is, i just bought a pentium III on e-bay for 50 euros and have installed a linux distribution on it with which i can run apache, gcc, samba, php, mysql, etc. etc. total cost? 50 euros (and either 10 euros for a magazine with a linux-distribution on it or some internet time). if i wanted to do that with proprietry software, i'd have to pay at least 10 times as much.
so which operating system should this laptop ship with? the one which keeps the third world in its place, or the one which allows people there to learn?
So great, you can run a UNIX like operating system on a Mac. I already do!
You do know that Gnucash will run on OSX, right? Fink ported it.
"It ain't a war against drugs.it's a war against personal freedom" --Bill Hicks
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.
Sheesh, another car analogy. Doesn't strike me as a particularly good one either.
Fact is, the current-gen Intel CPUs in the iMac are quite competitive with Opteron, clock for clock. They are also very efficient, which appeals to some people.
The iMacs aren't an "enthusiast" computer, but they're fine for probably at least 90% of the computing public. That's a large sweet spot. The next-gen MacMacs (currently PowerMacs) will be the enthusiast type computers, with a fair amount of expansion, upgradable CPUs and graphics cards, and so on.
Your analogy also failed to highlight many of the advantages of Mac software beyond "no viruses", thereby failing to point out one of the highest value aspects of owning a Mac.
Galileo: "The Earth revolves around the Sun!"
Score: -1 100% Flamebait
Great! PCs form Sony have rootkits pre-installed.
Agree 100%. Also the dock is an absolute useability nightmare.
Not only that, but I personally hate the look and feel of Aqua. It's way too bubbly and distracting for me.
I actually prefer KDE with Plastik to Aqua.
In fact, the inability to natively change the theme in OSX is what keeps me *off* of Macs.
lilo was around far before that film.
The fact that Collodi's novel The Adventures of Pinocchio was out half a century before Disney adapted it to film didn't stop Disney from getting, say, a trademark on PINOCCHIO for dolls.
So it seems the OSS community's leaders just aren't interested in OS X on commodity hardware as much as one would think.
I'm not sure if I need to say anything there. Seriously. I think I should just sit here and stare blankly at you. I would think this was a troll if it wasn't so utterly bizarre.
What in hell and gods green earth could possibly make anyone think that open source software comunity leaders would be remotely interested in running a non-free operating environment on any hardware, commodity or not?
Your name was well chosen.
Look out!
It's hard to understand because nobody has explained it to me as well as you have. Now I understand. So chill out you just awakened this clueless idiot. Cheers.
Meh. Like I said, it was a quick and dirty Google search. Gateway makes some that I've heard are good, but the content filter doesn't like Gateway's site so I couldn't check it from work. Someone asked if they existed, I answered that question. Whether the two I found were up to your standards is irrelevant.
I found one that actually quite impressed me with its style, but it was a French website and I couldn't find pricing information...it appeared to be a press release or something.
120 characters for a sig? That's bloody useless.
The operating system beneath Aqua IS open source. It's called Darwin and is available for free at OpenDarwin.org.
And your #2 item has things that don't require a totally open source operating system, like "write interesting applications for it." Come on.
proprietry software is a way of keeping the third world enslaved.
Oh, God, you're one of THOSE people. Proprietary software isn't "enslaving" anybody. Get a grip on reality.
"Sufferin' succotash."
Shapeshifter.
;)
Unsanity makes some other pretty cool stuff, too.
Welcome back into the fold
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.
Which is a goal only idealistic OSS leaders have, not normal users who would have been better served with OS X. The underlying UNIX of OS X is all open source, and users would have been able to do plenty of hacking with gcc and bash.
I use OS X every day and love it, but you are in the wrong here.
Yes the users could do lots of hacking with gcc and bash etc, but they *are* better served with an open source solution because there are no strings attached. If you contract with a company to provide the OS for your computers, and those very cheap computers start to flood the markets that company profits from, what is the only rational choice for that company?
They're going to try to shut you down. Apple would not tolerate being undermined in a profitable market by a 'good enough' cheap solution running their own OS, no matter what promises Jobs made (we don't actually know what his offer was exactly, for what term, and on what terms). If they withdrew support a couple of years in to the project, it would be a real blow.
This way the project can win or lose on its own merits, with no companies which have direct commercial interests involved (Red Hat wins by association and the promotion of Linux, and they can't stop the project).
In addition Linux can be stripped down and a custom distro made for these machines made more easily than you would be able to persuade Jobs to give up the trademark shiny effects of OS X. Apple wouldn't tolerate open copying of the OS either.
That's cute, but it won't run on Macs. Mine would do all that without a virtual machine, and also boot my choice of Mac OS X or LinuxPPC/LinuxIntelMac on PPC or Intel Macs. Although Windows would probably need a virtual machine setup like that because it pukes if you try to run it on different hardware than what you installed on. One of the great things about Mac OS X is that it's portable to any Mac capable of running Mac OS X, it doesn't care if the hardware changes. Same with a properly configured Linux distro like Knoppix that has good hardware detection. Totally portable as long as it's running on the right processor. So to cover all the bases you'd need three different Linux partitions (Linux for x86, Linux for PPC, Linux for Intel Mac), and two different Mac OS X partitions (Mac OS X for PPC, Mac OS X for Intel). It's a bit complicated, but I'm sure I could make it all work.
/. post from my new (used) iBook! Yay!
By the way, this is my first
I am very sure Vista(tm) can be run under a Virtual Machine, just like XP or 98 (which runs smoothest in Virtual PC (vmware is another example). I am also very convinced os X can be running under such Virtual Machine. Everything is possible with emulation, only, you've got to pay a small price, a price of performance...
... When I started programming I had to be carefully get everything on a 360k floppy, program and data files together. If I wanted a OS I'd have to swap floppies or add a B: drive. The 720k floppy's where just coming out so I was saving for a 2x size floppy drive. The next upgrade was a 20mb drive ...
... The PC evolution has exploded in all kinds of directions; as well upwards in technology and prices as downwards in quality and programming; just like all consumer devices these times...
... I sincerely hope the same does not happen with the universal binaries and os X; I just started to work with it, after +15yrs of working with PC, grew up with OS2 v2+ and warp, DOS, GEM, cp/m, Windows v2+, Windows v3+ and trumpet netsock which was a emulator(?), ... I have finally found something which is not such a burden to maintain that hard and which just works: a Powerbook 15" with os X!
...
This emulator has to translate a lot of things like memory, cpu, disks, mouse, keyboard, com ports, network card, usb devices (plug 'n pray), printer and low system (bios) calls to the underlying OS which takes a lot of CPU power and memory usage.
If this would be still running that fast on that nice mactel; I do not know...
I am very sure a virtual machine will run os X on PC and Vista on the mactel platform; only the task to run it natively without emulating too much is a pain ful cruisade (sometimes)...
oOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoO oOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoO
Life is like a box of chocolates, You never know what you gonna get! right?
As there is a lot more to use of a human brain than currently used by the majorty; the cpu is also not used as it should be used and in most cases even overused; most stuff is programmed (very) bloated; like Windows itself, like Vista be very good in the beginning, slow (& more bloated) in the middle and bad in the end (ready to reinstall); unless you very carefully pick your applications and don't change too much than needed upgrades (like with linux: when it's running, keep it running!)
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> With Windows I learned to not to go strange with your os;
- Get rid of Internet explorer *immediately*! get Firefox or any alternative before your pc crawls
- if you got a good graphics * editor or messenger(tm) client ; stay with it and don't install 20 others to "try";
- Get a good Virusscanner, a free one like AVG or payware like F-secure Antivirus.
- If you want to get a good program you got to look at the size too, a smaller footprint can mean a smaller utilisation of memory and system usage; for a virusscanner or anti spyware utility this can be very vital!
- I repaired lots of them pc's's and it's all because of these virus/spyware/strange-installed things!
- which comes to : be sure to know what you install, verify the source a/o file (bbs 2400 baud world was hard sometimes!)
- Get rid of Outlook and Messenger, go to Trillian or alike
- Do not open files
--- I am known for the ones who want to find me on the net. Is that a privacy risk or a privilege? One might wonder..
If you contract with a company to provide the OS for your computers, and those very cheap computers start to flood the markets that company profits from, what is the only rational choice for that company?
Apple isn't in the $100 laptop market. They're in the high-end, high-quality market and always will be.
(we don't actually know what his offer was exactly, for what term, and on what terms).
Yes, we do. Steve Jobs offered OS X totally free with no strings attached. It would have been the best thing for the target audience of these laptops, but now they get to experience the "fun" of spending 30 minutes getting a soundcard to work.
"Sufferin' succotash."
The more relevant issue here (for Linux on Intel iMacs) is that Linux already has support for Apple's BIOS-substitute, because it has supported Apple hardware since before OS X started shipping. Windows hasn't and doesn't, so getting it to run on Apple hardware will be harder (than doing the same with Linux), even with the Intel CPUs. Basically, Linux already runs on Apple hardware with PPC processors, and it already runs on Intel processors, so getting it to run on Apple hardware with Intel processors is a matter of messing with compilation options and junk, maybe fixing up some make files and whatnot, shouldn't require really any new code.
Cut that out, or I will ship you to Norilsk in a box.
If you are running Photoshop or similar creative software, there is nothing faster or better than a Power Mac G5.
An Opteron with Windows just doesn't cut it.
No viruses is not a luxury.
Also, the application platform is about 1000x better. Standardized menus, key commands, sophisticated clipboard, QuickTime in and out, 32-bit multichannel audio, modern audio plug-ins, modern graphics plug-ins, modern video plug-ins. None of this is available on MS Windows.
Plus, all the UNIX software such as Apache is indispensible if you are a Web developer or similar.
There are 1000 myths about why the Mac is better and 1000 reasons why it is better and none of them overlap. A while back Scott Hacker was a BeOS advocate and then he got a Mac and on the first day he moved all his MP3's to some other file system location and he was surprised that iTunes still knew where they were. That is because of HFS+ tracking files by an ID number, not just by name or path. That kind of quiet feature is what makes the Mac so much easier.
> 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...
In particular, I'd be quite leary of buying a particular hardware if Knoppix won't run on it. That little gem has saved my bacon more times than I care to recount.
Cut that out, or I will ship you to Norilsk in a box.
Umm, OP didn't mention FreeBSD once.
... enough said with the headline ;)
--- I am known for the ones who want to find me on the net. Is that a privacy risk or a privilege? One might wonder..
The competition was over before it began based on the simple fact that we can modify the source for Linux. With non-modifiable OS's such as Windows making modifications to play nice with different hardware can be extremely challenging and illegal - see DMCA.
/2cents
Proof by very large bribes. QED.
Well, you list a few smaller items, there are lots more. I'd collected about a hundred different problems that I noticed over time before I stopped. Some that come to mind are:
-- green button does something unpredictable
-- bindings of files to applications change haphazardly and incomprehensibly
-- there's no built-in mechanism for fixing unwanted file associations
-- can't drag file items from dock
-- application menus make menu tools disappear
-- applications are inconsistent in what they do when the last window closes
-- key binding mechanisms are inconsistent between Carbon, Cocoa
-- desktop links don't work from the shell
-- MS Office uses ":" as path separator in dialog boxes
-- X11 claims to use Mac keybindings but doesn't
-- X11 doesn't support RANDR
-- You can select "use SSL" in Mail.app, but it doesn't work; it does TLS instead
At this point, Gnome and KDE are far more consistent than the OS X GUI. That's not to say that the OS X GUI is bad--it's one of the better GUIs around, but it is hardly the best, most consistent, and/or most advanced GUI around.
OS X is based on Mach with a BSD emulation layer on top of it, some BSD command line tools, and NeXTStep libraries.
Furthermore, the point of running BSD or Linux on the Mac is to get rid of a lot of the bloat that Apple has added, and instead run a pure, consistent X11 desktop; less is more in this case.
Hey moderators: You never heard of something like HUMOR, did you?
My god... what happened to slashdot...
Any sufficiently advanced intelligence is indistinguishable from stupidity.