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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."
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
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.
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.
You know that one has always been able to run linux on regular old macs for a good decade now yeah?
I've recycled a bunch of old 'colourful' macs that are too crusty for OS/X into nice linux X-terminals and stuff.
Excuse the Unicode crap in my posts. That's an apostrophe, and slashdot is busted.
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.
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.
But what you don't see coming is the push to boot GNU/Hurd on these new Macs!
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.
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/
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'.
It was a matter of very little time in fact. Linux supports the enhanced firmware loader used by MacOS X even now. Winhoze will not support it before Vista.
Still, unless Intel made the mistake of leaving some of their PC handywork around this will not be enough.
In order to run a mobile Pentium you have to aggressively control its frequency. Otherwise it will fry itself.
The support for this in Linux is heavily dependant on ACPI. AFAIK the Intel Macs are supposed to have ACPI completely taken out and replaced by native power management. So the happiness of "we got Linux to run on this" is likely to be short lived until the smoke starts coming out from the melting plastic on top of the overheated processor. Which will not be long.
Baker's Law: Misery no longer loves company. Nowadays it insists on it
http://www.sigsegv.cx/
Okay, so it runs Linux now. But can it boot NetBSD yet? ;)
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??
Sure, they could change *anything* in a future product.
;-)
But Apple knows it's important for people to be boot and develop with other OSes, such as Linux and BSD variants, Darwin, and so on. This is how it's been on Macs as long as they've existed.
And since Trusted Computing is a direction the entire industry is moving, and since Apple has already made direct, explicit statements that they aren't doing anything to prevent any other OSes from booting, Apple is by no means unique here, with respect to TPM adoption. Just early.
Like Apple is with all new technologies.
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.
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
...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).
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.
Huh? The Mac's aren't early to using TPM. IBM laptops have had them for the last several years. In fact IBM said "Over 16 mllion IBM trusted clients have been shipped with Atmel TPM as of June 25, 2004"
There are 4 boxes to use in the defense of liberty: soap, ballot, jury, ammo. Use in that order. Starting now.
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.
dddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddd ddddddddddddddddddddddd
*Sigh*
They're the first mainstream consumer vendor doing it in the mainstream consumer marketplace.
Just like 802.11, USB, DVD writers, 64-bit processors, an online music store and a whole laundry list of other services and technologies.
You can argue Apple wasn't the "first" in any of these areas and be strictly correct.
But they were the first to do it in a widespread fashion in the consumer marketplace with a broad scope.
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.
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
In Soviet Russia,
Intel beats YOU.
Seeing a 5-digit UID post this is a bit like watching one's respected grandfather get drunk at a town-hall meeting and puke all over the podium.
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)
10Brett-T
Oh, bother.
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'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.
"Build something idiot proof, and someone will build a better idiot" - Samuel Clemens
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...
This reallly makes you wonder about what sort of product they really have left.
OS X and consumer and professional applications optimized for it.
Apple lost their identity after they dumped the Power architecture.
The number of people buying Macs because of the PPC architecture is/was vanishingly close to zero.
Now you can build their product on your own by order a Dell and installing openBSD.
Not remotely accurate. OS X is much more than a skin over BSD.
How to solve most of our problems: 1.Lots of nuclear plants. 2.Cure aging.
Enjoy.
x _running_on_an_intel_imac.html
http://www.makezine.com/blog/archive/2006/02/linu
Windows on a mac? That's just expensive hardware. +5 Insightful
Linux on a mac? That's just expensive hardware. -1 Troll
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
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.
I miss the PowerPC too, and if somebody came out with a G5 notebook with OS X, I'd buy one of those in a heartbeat. I'm not too fond of the Intel switch, either, due to the same reasons (even though I would buy a PowerBook Core Duo^W^W^W MacBook Pro if I had the money). However, Apple still has OS X. OpenBSD and OS X are two different beasts (even though OS X is a BSD derivative) OpenBSD is a standard Unix derivative that is designed for security. (I am personally a FreeBSD and Windows user). OS X is a Unix derivative designed so that way nobody would know it was Unix until somebody opened the Terminal. The Mac OS has always had a wonderful interface (OS 8 and 9 are still very usable and had wonderful applications, albeit a bit unstable), and OS X improves on it by a mile. There is also a lot of support for important proprietary software whose OSS equivalents still have some improvement or nonexistant (e.g, Photoshop, MS Office, Java [yes, it works in BSD, but not without spending a good half of a day compiling, and forget Java on an non-x86 platform in BSD], certain software required for work/school, etc). OpenBSD is a fine OS (especially for security and for CS majors), but it isn't a hallmark of usability. (I can say the same with OS X; OS X doesn't focus on security as much as OpenBSD does, and sometimes OS X is suspectible to little but annoying security issue that OpenBSD patched up years before)
Of OS X was merely BSD with lipstick, then why are so many PC users are willing to either pirate OS X or buy it for $129 and break EULAs and even the DMCA to install OS X on their vanilla PCs? For those who don't feel like cracking DRM, why are they using emulators like PearPC to run OS X that only run OS X at the speed of an old Power Mac 8600? Heck, we still have Rhapsody and NEXTSTEP/OPENSTEP users. Turns out that the lipstick makes a huge difference. Put it like this, if you had a choice between asking somebody out who is very intelligent and nice, versus somebody who was not only very intelligent and nice, but also so beautiful or handsome that you dropped everything that you were carrying when you saw her or him, who would you ask out? There are many people at the Apple store shelling out hundreds or thousands of dollars itching to have their hands on a white or aluminum object running BSD with lipstick, because that lipstick makes BSD easy to use and supports all of the applications that they need. Heck, I'd buy OS X on my PC if Apple decided to release OS X on vanilla PCs (but that will never happen, so I'm content with sticking to FreeBSD for my Unix stuff and Windows XP for compatibility with the outside world, until I switch to the Mac. Besides, my fastest machine is a 950MHz Duron; OS X for x86 requires SSE2).
So yes, Apple lost the PowerPC (which was a great chip, it was just the G4's performance stagnated over the past year or two), but Apple still has the Mac. As long as Apple still continues to sell Macs (even if those Macs are just PCs with pretty cases and BSD-with-lipstick), then people will still demand them, and I will still lust for them ;)
You sure about that, homeslice?
I watched C-beams glitter in the dark near the Tannhauser gate.
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.
And likewise, Darwin may be based on BSD, but it sure as hell ain't BSD anymore.
Of course, my mom can't really go out and get a Dell, build a Linux kernel on it, and assemble an array of FOSS programs that work anything remotely like Mail/Safari/iLife. Heck, I couldn't be bothered to set that up, and I sure as heck wouldn't want to try maintaining/administrating it for my mom in another state.
In fact, iTunes is about the only thing you WOULDN'T have to live without, since there have been several stabs at getting the Windows version workable on Linux. Everything else in the Mac experience is missing.
To suggest Mac OS X is anything remotely similar to "BSD + some apps" is profoundly retarded and disingenious.
The value IBM was adding to Apple's Mac platform evaporated when Apple's PPC partners decided the desktop wasn't anything they cared about. That occured around 2000, when Microsoft completely abandoned NT's cross platform strategy plans. PPC has been on life support and in denial since PPC lost out on every desktop apart from Apple's. Since then, Apple has been leading Mac OS X development away from 68K/PPC dependance and toward a place where they could jump on the only viable platform for desktop PCs.
You can cry for PPC, but there isn't any way that Apple could continue to develop a processor platform entirely independant from the rest of the desktop PC world and remain competitive with the economies of scale enjoyed by Intel/AMD, particularly after its PPC partners gave up.
--
Linux is a very useful tool for many jobs, but its versatility is actually a major barrier for anyone trying to deploy it on the desktop. Everything is splintered to fit various different needs. Commonality and standarization is the value Apple adds with their products; the processor and underlying core OS are mere elements.
Apple can jump to Intel because they control the whole Mac world. Microsoft couldn't manage to keep Windows 2000 up on Alpha, PowerPC or MIPS because they shared control of the PC world with manufacturers.
Similarly, while Apple benefits from solid BSD foundation code, they could theoretically adapt Mac OS X Cocoa frameworks to live on top of Windows (as OSE was), Solaris or Linux (yes I realize that would not be very practical). But the point is, Apple's core competency was not PPC+BSD. It is the "Mac experience," which has little to do with individual components that might be in a Mac.
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).
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 tried a few times to compose an answer to that question without being sarcastic, but I couldn't pull it off. In short, yea, pretty much everybody who has spent 2 seconds thinking about Windows on Mac has thought of this idea and/or tried it. I'll just point you to here, here, and here. I'm sorry to be pissy, but the forums where people are actually trying to work on this problem are so cluttered with this "novel" idea that it gets really annoying after a while.
So as not to be a complete rant, I'll explain why this doesn't currently work. The Mac uses the new UGA standard for video cards, and does not support VGA at all. Windows (even Vista) only supports VGA (or UGA with VGA fallback, which Mac doesn't have either). There are also drive partitioning issues, among other problems. Basically, any feature that Apple didn't need for booting MacOS was left out of the EFI, including BIOS-compatibility mode as you noted. No current PC hardware is so legacy-free. However, with a bit of massaging, the Vista install disc does boot, you just can't see anything on the screen. When Vista gets a real UGA driver, we should be able to make quite a bit more progress.
Protect your browser with the Force Safe Search add-on
um... at the hardware level I'd disagree with you... the tpm starts first, and can be used for an interactive attestation based POST (the documentation suggests this boot order, I've read it a few times now) and subsequently interactive hardware initialization. from my understanding of boot orders, this is BEFORE the OS loads, so where's the driver? the real truth is that there are best practices which state that the customer (buyer) should have opt in/out and trust verification tools to ensure the tpm is set up in keeping with the security context of where the machine is being used. in an enterprise, tpm can be a great one stop audit exposure killing tool, in a home users machine it could be a scary privacy mess.
if I claimed I was emperor just because some watery tart lobbed a scimitar at me they'd put me away!
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.
I wish there was a "Who Cares" mod. I would use that one here. :)
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.
I told you so.
I have a theory about why one could initially be +5 and another could be -1.
Now, you see, people who click on "Linux beats Windows to Intel iMac" will likely be more often than not predisposed towards using Linux. However, people who click on "Windows should someday run on the new iMac" are more likely to be predisposed towards using Windows.
Now here's where things get complicated. You see, it can be said that Windows users will be statistically more prone to helping spread falsities and half-truths about other operating systems compared to someone who has used a number of operating systems, in this case including Linux.
Now, Because of these situations, as well as the fact that moderators are chosen from a pool of over 500,000 individuals rather than a single hive mind, it can be forgiven that two messages in two different threads have two different, polar opposite, moderations.
It's been a long time.
Stop spreading FUD
It's a joke. Lighten up.
Oh, and if you want to read up on elilo, check this out:
http://elilo.sourceforge.net/cgi-bin/blosxom
Difference between lilo and elilo: lilo boots from legacy BIOS machines, elilo boots from EFI machines.
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.
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!
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.
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.
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.