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Going To Boot Camp
An anonymous reader writes "PC World has first impressions of what it's like to run Windows with Boot Camp, the recently announced official dual-boot software for the Intel Macs." From the article: "Back in Windows, I got right down to business and installed a few games to put the graphics and sound support to the test. The quick and dirty verdict on performance? Most impressive. Doom 3 and Far Cry both ran smoothly with high-end graphics options turned on. In both cases, I had to tweak visual settings manually, since the games automatically set themselves to very low settings. Far Cry, for example, autodetected very low settings, but it ran without a hitch when I bumped the resolution up to 1280 by 720, with all visual quality options set to 'High.'"
This is truly a week of firsts.
;-). It's much less likely to be problematic for the following reasons:
Virtualization company Parallels announced a public beta of its Parallels Workstation virtualization product to Intel-based Macs (direct download. Parallels is a quasi-hypervisor-based (with a kernel module) virtual machine solution already shipping for Windows and Linux, and is the first desktop virtualization product to support Intel VT/Vanderpool CPU "partitioning". Once out of beta, It will also be only $50. Parallels also has a long list of officially supported guest OSes, and that's just the ones that are *officially* supported. It will likely run any x86-based OS you throw at it.
It's *very* fast, and has full support for Intel VT. Using Windows (or any other OS) inside of the environment is almost like using it natively on the hardware. Literally. It is quite amazing. (Here's a video someone made of it with SnapzPro - that is not my site. )This is the solution many people are waiting for; not dual booting - with the exception of things that need native 3D graphics support, of course...but otherwise, Parallels absolutely screams. This won't be novel to people who have already used things like VMware Workstation on other platforms. But to someone like myself, who has been hoping for a virtualization solution since the very second Steve Jobs uttered that Apple was switching to Intel, this, when polished and in its final form, will be something of a holy grail.
Virtualization will still be a HUGE benefit to people versus the annoyance of dual-booting. There's some overlap, but both technologies have their places.
Also, for those concerned about running a Windows environment alongside Mac OS X, this is just like the old Virtual PC model (except not horribly slow
- The entire environment is "sandboxed", network-wise, within the host OS's networking. Most Windows XP installations will now be behind the integrated software firewall anyway, but this is just another layer of protection: it's essentially like being behind a NAT router.
- A virtual machine environment, being secondary to the primary environment, is typically only used for targeted tasks, not routinely used for things like web browsing, email, and downloading - the major vectors of infection for much spyware/malware
- Since the virtual machine's disk is just a file on the host OS's drive, it can be immediately trashed and restored from a known-good pristine backup in seconds
- If no filesystem sharing is done via the VM between the Windows environment and the host (Mac OS X) environment, there is no[1] way that even severe malware within the Windows environment can cause any damage to the Mac OS X environment
- If filesystems are shared, e.g., a folder on the Mac side is shared as a drive letter on the Windows side, any malware that alters filesystems could theoretically alter the shared filesystem. If a virus, for example, attempted to delete all files on drives other than C:, that would be affected. But, 1.) Most malware doesn't just arbitrarily delete files, because its goal is to spread itself, and 2.) ONLY files that are shared could even theoretically be affected. Also, Windows malware will typically target Windows OS features and filesystem elements. But if you really are paranoid and want to be safe, you probably wouldn't want to, say, share your entire Mac OS X volume as a drive letter into the PC environment.
The bottom line is that from a technical and practical usage standpoint, running Windows in a VM is probably the safest possible way to run Windows, and there aren't really any ways, except for very specific ways via the explicit filesystem sharing, that anything that happens in t
My pics.
...it's just like running Windows XP on any other x86 hardware, but in a bright white box?
Slashdot social media options: AIM, ICQ, Yahoo, Jabber and Mobile Text. Why no MySpace?
You know, I wasn't really planning to replace my dual G5 powermac for quite some time, but this might be enough to motivate me to put it up on ebay and get an intel machine when they come out. Every once in a while I get the "hey you gotta try this awesome game" IM from a friend, and being able to fire up windows and give it a shot would sure be nice. I still have no desire to waste space with a second windows box that would only be booted once in a while, but being able to dual boot would be pretty sweet. Plus, with virtualization coming soon (beta already out), there's suddenly a whole lot more reason to upgrade to intel macs.
I want to know how it runs oblivion. That is my last switch barrier.
As the summary states, Boot Camp is there to enable Windows / Mac OS dual booting on an Intel based Mac. It includes a non-destructive partition tool plus the device drivers Windows XP needs to run on the Mac hardware. More info and the download are available from Apple. Though it's not yet officially supported by Apple, a release version should be included in Mac OS X v10.5, "Leopard".
Phoenix, Boston, Little Rock, see a pattern?
And yet, you still said it.
Mod me down with all of your hatred and your journey towards the dark side will be complete!
About 10 years ago I showed a friend my computer (a Mac, at the time) and told him about how, with VirtualPC, I could run Windows on Mac. He didn't know much about tech at the time, so his comment was "so what you're telling me is that you can 'dumb down' your computer so you can use Windows programs?"
I smirked a little and replied, "Precisely!"
My sig is too lon
Dear Mr. Dvorak:
Ann Landers wouldn't print this. I have nowhere else to turn. Have to get the word out. Warn other parents. I must be rambling on. Let me try and explain. It's about my son, Billy. He's always been a good, normal ten year old boy. Well, last spring we sat down after dinner to select summer camp for Billy. We sorted through the camp brochures. There were the usual camps with swimming, canoeing, games, singing by the campfire you know. There were sports camps and specialty camps for weight reduction, music, military camps and camps that specialized in Tibetan knot tying. I tried to talk him into Camp Winnepoopoo. It's where he went last year. (He made an adorable picture out of painted pinto beans and macaroni). Billy would have none of it. Billy pulled a brochure out of his pocket. It was for a COMPUTER CAMP| We should have put our foot down right there, if only we had known. He left three weeks ago. I don't know what's happened. He's changed. I can't explain it. See for yourself. These are some of my little Billy's letters.
Dear Mom,
The kids are dorky nerds. The food stinks. The computers are the only good part. We're learning how to program. Late at night is the best time to program, so they let us stay up.
Love, Billy.
Dear Mom,
Camp is O.K. Last night we had pizza in the middle of the night. We all get to choose what we want to drink. I drink Classic Coke. By the way, can you make Szechwan food? I'm getting used to it now. Gotta go, it's time for the flowchart class.
Love, Billy.
P.S. This is written on a word processor. Pretty swell, huh? It's spell checked too.
Dear Mom,
Don't worry. We do regular camp stuff. We told ghost stories by the glow of the green computer screens. It was real neat. I don't have much of a tan 'cause we don't go outside very often. You can't see the computer screen in the sunlight anyway. That wimp camp I went to last year fed us weird food too. Lay off, Mom. I'm okay, really.
Love, Billy.
Dear Mom,
I'm fine. I'm sleeping enough. I'm eating enough. This is the best camp ever. We scared the counselor with some phony worm code. It was real funny. He got mad and yelled. Frederick says it's okay. Can you send more money? I spent mine on a pocket protector and a box of blank diskettes. I've got to chip in on the phone bill. Did you know that you can talk to people on a computer? Give my regards to Dad.
Love, Billy.
Dear Mother,
Forget the money for the telephone. We've got a way to not pay. Sorry I haven't written. I've been learning a lot. I'm real good at getting onto any computer in the country. It's really easy! I got into the university's in less than fifteen minutes. Frederick did it in five, he's going to show me how. Frederick is my bunk partner. He's really smart. He says that I shouldn't call myself Billy anymore. So, I'm not.
Signed, William.
Dear Mother,
How nice of you to come up on Parents Day. Why'd you get so upset? I haven't gained that much weight. The glasses aren't real. Everybody wears them. I was trying to fit in. Believe me, the tape on them is cool. I thought that you'd be proud of my program. After all, I've made some money on it. A publisher is sending a check for $30,000. Anyway, I've paid for the next six weeks of camp. I won't be home until late August.
Regards, William.
Mother,
Stop treating me like a child. True -- physically I am only ten years old. It was silly of you to try to kidnap me. Do not try again. Remember, I can make your life miserable (i.e. - the bank, credit bureau, and government computers). I am not kidding. O.K.? I won't write again and this is your only warning. The emotions of this interpersonal communication drain me.
Sincerely, William.
See what I mean? It's been two weeks since I've heard from my little boy. What can I do, Mr. Dvorak? I know that it's probably too late to save my little Billy. But, if by printing these letters you can save JUST ONE...CHILD from a life of programming, please, I beg of you to do so. Thank you very much.
Sally Gates, Concerned Parent
I know this sounds like a troll, but would this be able to run Linux, *BSD, or any other x86 OS instead of windows? Just wondering...
What's next? DLL Hell?
Friends don't let friends line-dance.
To everyone who thinks this is going to be Apple's demise, you are completely wrong. No one buys a Mac for the hardware. Apple blathers on and on about how they're a hardware company, but that's bull. They're a software company, and they make the best desktop operating system on the planet.
No one is going to buy a Mac now to run Windows on it. They're going to buy a Mac because they've always wanted to try OS X, but they have a few stubborn applications that they need to run on Windows, and until now couldn't justify the risk of switching and losing access to them. People on here would say "Just keep a second computer!", but most people aren't interested in that.
It is absurd to suggest that Apple is going to die now that people can run Windows on their Mac. The whole point of a Mac is NOT to run Windows. That's why people pay Apple's high prices - for the ability to run OS X. Companies are not going to stop making OS X software just because Apples can run Windows - if people wanted Windows, they would've bought a freaking Dell!
What this does is make it possible, not convenient, for people to run any Windows applications that they still depend on. I don't understand why people think this means companies will stop porting applications to OS X - no one is going to tolerate dual-booting between OS X and Windows to use any major desktop application.
The only things that will be affected are utility programs from small companies that don't primarily make software - for instance, I have a GPS unit and Meade Telescope that can both only be updated from Windows. I'd imagine any plans for Mac ports of those utilities are going to be put on hold (I doubt they even existed). That's a little bit annoying, but you have to take the bad with good.
As for games, Mac gaming is not in an especially robust state at the moment anyway. I really don't care to see it die, I've never played a game on my Mac.
Take my dad, for instance. He loves to play chess against Fritz 8 and over the net with Playchess.com, which I bought him a few years ago. But it only runs on Windows. He's been wanting to get a Mac when his current computer dies, but until now he wouldn't be able to run his favorite software. He doesn't mind the hassle of dual-booting.
This will entice a huge population of people who have been teetering on the edge to make the switch. And now every time they reboot into OS X from Windows, or into Windows from OS X, the superiority of OS X will become clear. Even more so as time goes on, when the Windows installation becomes a spyware-infested, bloated piece of crap with fifteen different taskbar icons taking up 30MB of RAM each that starts to pause mysteriously after common tasks, and OS X just keeps humming along.
I didn't have any plans to upgrade my PowerBook before this, but I'm going to pick up a MacBook Pro this weekend.
This space intentionally left blank.
One sad thing about this, as a Mac user and Mac gamer, is that this probably puts a big fat nail in the coffin for AAA OS X-native game titles. Or maybe it's less of a nail, and more like sticky tape, meaning the coffin can be reopened if OS X attains a bigger critical mass.
Another interesting side-effect is the stats. Apple is always fond of calling people 'switchers', as if when the person buys a Mac for his home, his Windows box suddenly disappears. Well, now, we've got a machine that can run anything....so...er...what is it? Makes me feel like the only real way to track platform penetration will be browser stats.
Strange new developments, indeed, even though we all knew it would happen when Apple went Intel.
gameDB
So he installed a better browser, because IE is crap... and ran iTunes. Why is he even doing these things in XP, he has OS X on the damn machine!!
Obviously the big reason is games, but I think this is going to be bad for gaming on macs in the long run. Not many developers released their games on mac before, but why bother now? Just install XP!
Whilst this has nothing to do with the whole windows/os x debate, I didn't want to let this slide.
I gave up on PC games because of this. I want to sit down and play a game. Not sit down and spend hours fiddling with graphic settings. I hated it when I thought I had got Morrowind running fine, then I would hit a "busy" place, or scene or battle, and it would slow right down, and I would have to go back to the settings page.
It's a constant nag in your head. "Is this giving me the optimum experience, should I reduce the quality in exchange for frame rate". And it's not fun for me.
I know people like to tinker. Hell I use Linux daily, and I understand that joy. But fiddling with settings kill's the "imersion" for me. Imagine what Ocarina of Time would have been like if the first time you walked out onto the field of Hyrule, instead of thoughts on the wonderful possibilites stretching out infront of you, the first thing that popped into your head was "Frame rate's taken a hit, lets reduce settings again."
If a game company can't automatically work out what settings your game should be running at - then they've failed at their job.
(P.S. If anybody replies that I just need a better computer, then well done, you have a massive e-penis.)
http://skeptobot.blogspot.com/ - A site for the Renaissance man and woman
Given the desire for Linux to run on everything, it's not surprising that someone's already tried running Linux with Boot Camp, which apparently does seem to work. Granted, there's still the issue of Linux drivers for the hardware, but it is a start.
ok -- i did it.
... call of duty ;)
after years of grumbling about windows, drooling over macs, and making all sort of excuses, i finally opened my wallet and bought a mac. (i have literally been thinking about doing this since the tangerine iMac)
it's the 20" intel iMac. bought it last night and should be here any day.
for the record, it was the support for dual booting OS X and XP that did it for me: (a) i need a windows machine for software development purposes; (b) i had uncertainly about the availability of mac alternatives to some of my most used windows utilities (ex. dvdshrink, nero
looks like i'm officially a mac guy now -- going to have to put that white apple sticker on my rear bumper -- Yikes!
boxlight
Speaking from the scientific research community perspective, i gotta say this is amazing. In the lab that I work in we have both macs and windows machines -- and a linux box. We really have more computers than we need, simply because we need programs that are availible soley on mac or windows for linux. Well, that is all about to change. Seriously, if a researcher can buy a single machine that will run linux, mac and windows programs, he will be all over it. Desktop space is somewhat a premium and having all you programs and data on a single machine is excellent.
I personally see no reason why macs will not completely dominate the research world now. I know I cannot wait for my own. SWEET!
I find it hard to believe that Apple would willingly shoot itself in the foot by making Windows run on their computers. They must be up to something.
I recall all the propaganda on how "Apple is a hardware company" and that its software is secondary to its business model... but how far is that going to get them as their computers progress ever further to being a beige box in a magnesium case?
What's really going on here? It's obvious: Apple has decided that the first salvos in the war between OSX and Windows will be fought on their home turf. We may only be months away from a general x86 release of OSX. It's going to be a fun decade!
(It's never too late to join the Renaissance)
"Has this idiot never played FarCry before?"
Precious.
First, quite a lot of non-idiots have never played Far Cry.
Second, most modern games, can (and should) automatically detect graphics settings according to the computer hardware. You are free to change the settings afterwards. The importance of this is easily seen with most modern shooters (or Oblivion), which have obscene amounts of graphics settings. I'm sure Oblivion has around 20 different levers with at least ten options each. Giving a massive 10^20 number of combinations. Some help from the game designers in finding an optimal setting automatically is much appreciated.
If I wasn't so diplomatic, I'd be tempted to call anyone wanting to waste time testing all combinations a moron.
I have nothing whatsoever to do with Parallels in any way, shape, or form. What, I talk up a product that I (and many, many others) have been waiting for for YEARS, and now all of a sudden it's marketing?
It's kinda cool that Apple can essentially release ONE drivers disk and be done with it. A lot has been said over the years about Apple's benefits of having known hardware...
This is how it works out with Windows. Here, have one installer. It will work on all our machines, and support everything in it. One Installshield script. It was the fastest WinXP or ANY Windows installs I've ever done.
Thank you for playing, have a nice day.
For those of you who actually want to see the entire install/configuration process... http://features.uneasysilence.com/mactel
I would just like to know if it's possible for Bootcamp to boot Windows (or any other OS for that matter, i.e. linux) from an external (USB or firewire) hard drive. That way you could make a clean delineation between your Mac system and everything else. And you wouldn't have to lug around the extra hard drive if you don't need it.
Why would I want to run the worst possible OS on the most expensive hardware? What a perversity! I want to put together my PC myself out of stock parts, then boot MacOS X...with Windows emulation until the software developers catch on and drop Windows. It would feel so good to pay for MacOS rather than the world's biggest software turd. Heck I'd pay twice as much for a good OS...I just don't want to be locked into Apple's hardware.
Great men are almost always bad men--Lord Acton's Corollary
I'm just waiting for Microsoft to come out with a press release saying that now that Mac's can boot Windows XP they now own 100% of the desktop marketplace.
That will be followed shortly by a law suit against apple for not including XP on every Mac sold.
Since Mac virtualization looks pretty strong, Windows Vista will include virtualization, and virtualization is becoming standard fare on Linux, Boot Camp might just be the "entry level" method for running both Mac and Windows apps "on the same computer". Simultaneous execution in multiple windows under virtualization is a much bigger step, but dual-booting is much easier for the normals to understand. And it gets us down the road to a bigger technical step, but a nearly seamless migration (and great relief) for the normals: Mac/Windows apps running in the same desktop, with IPC/clipboard integration across "OS" boundaries as tight as across mere app boundaries.
How long before the OS is just another app, along with any other OS'es required to run other apps? Just a library collection, running on a "nanokernel": the virtualization SW? And which OS will best run the virtualization: Windows, Linux, or some RTOS?
--
make install -not war
BBC mentions slashdot:
c id=15065726
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/4883482.stm
Kudos to the guy who wrote that:
http://apple.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=182273&
Y
Now we can see if there is any benifit to playing a game in windows or OSX. I would like to see the same game played on one of these dual-boot macs and see if one plays better under windows or OSX. The game will be running on identical hardware.
Don't hold your breath. Adobe is busy digging itself out of the huge mess that is "we never got off Codewarrior", and won't go Universal-Binary until the next release. Microsoft isn't in quite as bad a position, but is desperate to get people to upgrade to verion N+1 in office, so don't count on a free UB version there.
Mark my words: you won't see a pro intel tower until Adobe (and possibly MS) are Universal Binary.
While the "cottage industry" is mostly embracing UB and virtually everything I use has been UB for at least one or two minor revision numbers- the big boys are dragging their feet. Even Diskwarrior (from the vaporware kings, Alsoft- DiskExpress for OSX anyone?) isn't UB yet.
I'm not exactly thrilled about Bootcamp. Why? 1)I don't want to dedicate 20-30GB to a disk partition for a host OS I'm not going to use except for gaming and 1-2 Windows-only apps I need. I much prefer an emulator-based solution like Qemu, or WINE aka "darwine". I'm also not thrilled because this just largely removed the "necessity" fire from under the pants of darwine and Qemu developers, and both projects desperately need more work.
Unfortunately, Qemu/Q is buggy enough that Windows Update doesn't run on an installed guest OS and it doesn't import VPC7 systems cleanly like it claims. Darwine can't handle anything more complex than Minesweeper; half the installers I try don't run, and what does install never works. One error I saw in the WINE log said "JPEG support not builtin". Just loooovely.
Oh yeah- and if you use Mono on OSX, there's an intel-only build, but it's missing a lot of standard important libraries, and the devs have refused to release a proper build. Oh yeah- and setting up a system to actually build mono is a goddamn pain and two thirds.
Please help metamoderate.
This is just about gaming.
Does that mean that now that it's possible to run Windows on a Mac that Microsoft will expect everyone who buys a Mac to pay their tax reguardless of whether the buyer actually plans on using Windows on it?
DEAD DEAD DEAD DELETE ME
off to take a shower now...
-- it's ridiculous how many people misspell ridiculous... (damn, damn, damn...)
Best thing Apple did since... well, I think since the MacBook Pro because they've done a lot of great things this year already.
Early in my days, I tried to get people switch to Linux by explaining all its advantages, helping them to install it, the whole nine yards. Worked sometimes, didn't work most of the time.
Since then, I've gone another path: The slow migration. Show them Firefox. Give them OpenOffice. Get them to use Thunderbird. etc. Then, when they are angry about their next windos crash, suggest Linux and show them that all of those run on Linux just the same. Instant switch. Moved my girl to Ubuntu just a few weeks ago, and she only boots dual-boots into windos for games by now.
Apple's using the same technique. Let people use what they're comfortable with, but tease them with the better thing (OSX) while making the switch as painless as possible (runs in same hardware).
By the time Vista comes out, Apple will probably have a sizeable chunk of the market, definitely more than 10%.
Assorted stuff I do sometimes: Lemuria.org
If you currently have a fully functioning windows machine, with apps, docs, etc installed. What's the deal? Can you pop that HDD in the compy and get the Mactel to recognise it, or do you have to rebuild your windows system over again?
If it's the latter I think there's still an uphill battler for Apple. I suppose that any user who wanted to buy a Mac and run windows could just transfer your docs over, but it would be nice if there was a way to keep your clean install with out reloading every app you wanted. I dunno, might not be that big of a deal...
Now, they can buy a Mac in the knowledge that, if there is some vital piece of software (be it a custom app, or a game, or whatever) it /can/ be run. And, if they just hate Mac OS, they still have a very slick Windows box. This is even more the case with the availability of virtualization solutions--Apple now has a convenient transitional platform for switchers.
What Apple is betting on is that the user experience on Mac OS X is enough better that, when users get to try OSX and Windows side-by-side, they'll prefer OSX. Where OS2 missed was not by offering compatibility, but by failing to offer any compelling advantage to running native. Apple offers many compelling advantages, including a spiffy look and feel, much better "ease of use", and much less risk from malware. And that is why this strategy makes sense.
"He who would learn astronomy, and other recondite arts, let him go elsewhere. " -- John Calvin, commenting on Genesis 1
Except that they are not overpriced.
Show me a PC with a built in 20" widescreen display, dual core CPU, half decent video controller and all the other niceties that come with owning a Mac.
At any price?
No?
That's because it doesn't exist.
On the basis that there is no lower cost alternative, it's unreasonable to call it overpriced!
I went through the XP installation process on my MacBook Pro last night. It worked perfectly. The only disappointments so far:
- Nothing available to configure the TouchPad (no tap-click)
- No way to right click with the touchpad/button (need an external mouse)
- No support for lighted keyboard (I can live with this...but it makes OSX look WOW)
- No support for auto adjusting the display for lighting conditions- this I really need
- The MacBook Pro melted right through my legs off when running a high workload 3D demo
So far it looks great. I downloaded some demos from ATI's developer web site to test out graphics and it looks great.
From Apple's Boot Camp page:
Windows running on a Mac is like Windows running on a PC. That means it'll be subject to the same attacks that plague the Windows world. So be sure to keep it updated with the latest Microsoft Windows security fixes.
While the statements are factually correct, I found that the use of the terms "plague" and "1980s" on this page to be too pretentious for my sake.
I mostly use Windows platforms, and am looking forward to buying the first Mac system I've owned in over 11 years.
Do I like and appreciate Mac OS and Apple hardware? Yes.
Do I appreciate the grotesque levels of narcissism on this page? No.
Apple, enough already. If you want some reasons to get over yourself, look at some of the hardware problems you've had with laptops in the past.
As a Mac user I'm excited about being able to run Outlook for work and IE for intranet access while being able to do everything else in OS X proper.
The reason we are excited is because we can start sneaking Macs into work right and left now without anyone noticing, since we can still get to our calendars.
I know a number of people where I work who would bring in thier own computer just to be able to use OS X daily instead of Windows.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
After reading the article I don't know what to think; I've had Linux/OS X only at my house for years, with FreeBSD handling server duties. The iBook has always had this 'mistique' (sp?) that I couldn't describe, even when it runs Linux (which is about 80% of the time) -- but now this? I could have a Mac and run OS X, OS 9, Win XP, Ubuntu Linux and FreeBSD - all on the same machine. I just don't know how I feel about it, and I posted about it today hoping to stir some sense into it all. I know, in the grand scheme of life it's very, very, very minor, but this *was Apple* for crying out loud! What are they going to be in a year, in 5 years, in 10 years? I wonder.
fak3r.com
Makes a dandy game loader, just like DOS did. ;-)
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
Why compare dissimilar systems? The M90 is a 17" notebook with a workstation graphics chip (NVIDIA® Quadro FX 1500M, 256MB (dedicated), OpenGL [Included in Price] )
The lies are people who use the ignorance of others to make their point. Anyone who took a second to look at the Dell site would know that the two machines don't compare.
The M70 set to the specs of a loaded Macbook is cheaper by at least $200 before the commoningly found Dell discounts. The nice this is that with the Dell you can push the memory to 4gb and you get a workstation style graphics cards.
* Winners compare their achievements to their goals, losers compare theirs to that of others.
You have to love the responses to this.
Type A: Woo who! Apple is going to the moon, and taking over the PC market. Brilliant... (stock market in this camp as well).
Type B: Apple just doomed themselves, OSX will die now...
Hmmm. Perhaps the truth lies somewhere in between? Which do I think it is closer?
First off, The vast majority will never dual boot. So this will not create a mass movement one way or the other. (A much bigger impact will be the virtualization program announced.
The only real impact will be those potential switchers who didn't want to abandon windows. A safety net. And the bet is that once they switch they will be doing more and more mac and less and less windows. So a small net win. I put myself in this camp.
Negative possabilities: Game devs will drop mac since they can dual boot. Well most people won't dual boot, I think they will simply watch sales of mac games. If Macs pick up market share, someone will want to exploit that with native games.
So I think this is a net positive, just not on the scale most think. This is of interest to me, but I am a small part of the market. Now where is is my Conroe Mac?
I'm out of my mind right now, but feel free to leave a message.....
I've started benchmarking this morning on a Mac Mini. Now, granted, I don't expect it to blow me away in performance, but in 3DMark05 it scored around 600 and didn't complete all the tests. My Dell laptop (nVidia Go 6800) scores around 3000 and my desktop (nVidia 7800 GTX) around 8000. Nearly all of that is due to POS integrated graphics, but I was at least hoping it'd get around half the laptop's score.
Here's a link:
http://service.futuremark.com/compare?c=1569427_1
In PCMark05 it compared more favorably. This is a comparison between my rig, a Mac Mini and a blade server we have at work. The blade server didn't totally complete the test because of its graphics card. In some cases the Mac beat my rig (stuff like media encoding/decoding), which is surprising.
http://service.futuremark.com/compare?c=1569427_2
And I understand I'm comparing Apples and oranges (literally). I've heard Macbook Pro users are floored by the performance in Windows of popular games, and I'm looking to get my hands on one.
I will say, without a doubt, Apple has the easiest to use dualboot installer I've ever seen. Getting Grub et all to work without frying partitions in Linux has always been a pain. With Apple's, couple clicks and I'm done.
So far I've found no insurmountable problems with this, including performance (I don't play games, though.) The day this is available on MacTel I'll buy one.
1280x720 (720P) is a format that a lot of flat-panel TVs understand (including mine). He's probably playing Doom on a very large monitor. In Windows. On a Mac. What a strange world we live in.
I think Dell buying MAC and Duke Nukem Forever being released will officially begin the icing over of hell.
- - - it could happen - - -
I fail to see why getting Windows to dual boot on x86 is such a HUGE deal. Yeah yeah yeah, you can run on OSX, Linux, and Windows on the same machine. But still, people are soiling themselves over a BOOTLOADER. Come on, how about getting OSX to run on more generic x86 hardware so I don't have to spend tons of cash on Apple hardware?
"A coward dies a thousand deaths, the brave but one."
While I love this announcement, its not the dual boot part. Dual booting sucks ... remember when you had to restart DOS to another config all the time? This is worse. Pain when you realize ... sheesh, the app I want to run now is on the other OS. I believe this to be transitional to the Apple XP Shell which makes XP look like a Mac, including Cocoa/Carbon or whatever that stuff is.
thank you
How many of the people that tried Boot Camp used a legal copy of Windows? And by legal I don't mean using the OEM CD that came with your Windows box (which you can't use in other than that box).
Honesty in the answer is appreciated.
I tried it yesterday and it worked great on my 20 in iMac. Tried a few games that ran beautifully.
However the drivers didn't seem to let me set the native resolution of the display... the 20in display is at 1680x1050 but the highest res allowed in the windrivers was 14xx X 10xx or something I forget. And none of the available resolutions even matched up with the ratio of this screen so no matter what the desktop was stretched one way or another. Anyone figure this out?
"This is Zombo Com, and welcome to you who have come to Zombo Com" - www.zombo.com
iirc the academic and corprate licenses for windows are upgrade/downgrade only. So to do this legitimately its very likely you will end up paying retail for windows.
that will add another significant whack on top of the apple premium for the hardware.
note: i'm known as plugwash most places but i screwd up registering that here somehow in the past and now can't register
Help me here, as one who does not have the apple logo tattooed on the back of his head. I'm on "mac" hardware (now intel based), running windows XP with the option of switching back to the Apple software.....but the programs I want to run are in the windows side of things. How is this anything but a blow to the Temple of Apple? How long will it be before companies stop making Apple versions of any program (why spend your resources on a two prong approach?)...And if you have to switch less and less to the Apple OS, why do you need that OS at all???
Vista is late, when it arrives there will be a lot of people buying new computers. Apple will have a dual-bootable system that has been tested for nearly a year by that point. This also gives Microsoft a bit of time to tweak their Vista code to make sure they give the best possible show on head-to-head OS comparisons by then.
The move/timing is brilliant and the only serious chance Apple has to regain marketshare. Fight Dell, not Windows.
The cell processor is plenty powerful, it's just not optimized to minimize heat. Intel sliced 2 years off its netburst architecture (which apple mercilesly mocked for being too hot for years) and shifted to one that was optimized for low heat. It's an easy call for Apple if the engineers are in charge. I guess they are in charge.
Put the sticker in the rear window. If you have tinting, it really sets it off nicely!
HBH
"Smart is sexy." -- D. Scully ("War of the Coprophages")
90% of Windows XP is obtained from OEMs, like Dell, Gateway, IBM etc. And the licensing for the OEM version of Windows XP is that the OS is STRICLY tied to the hardware it was purchased on. Therefore the only way boot camp will work legally is for them to use ~retail~ copies of Windows XP Pro, which are few and far in between. Of course, this could spark people into being buying retail versions of Windows in the future as they want to have the bootcamp possibility. We'll see. But you'd think MS would be putting out some warnings right about now of oem users not being able to use Apple's bootcamp. That would be interesting. But who knows, maybe MS will just let the users, and then put the hammer down later
the mini has the intel 950 (i think) which while being their best integrated graphics chip is still a very very mediocre graphics chip. There is no way to compare it to a 6800go a pretty high end graphics chip for laptops. The 950 is something like a geforce 2 with some pixel shaders thrown in along wiht intels so so drivers. Mind you it has some nice accelaration for video and 2d, but definately a joke for 3d. I imagine that in just about every other benchmark the mini is pretty close to your laptop, but it is the graphics that are holding it back in 3dmark.
I would be curious how it compares to laptops that use the 950 as well. even more curious if anyone has windows media centre running on a mini (with tuner and external hdd).
Im.
I'm have the Apple Boot Camp software installed on this machine right now. Setup was easy as ever... just make sure your CD key isn't written on the CD because you can't actually eject externally...
As far as the hardware supported, it's a dream. Everything seems supported on my 17-inch G5 iMac. The video card is supported perfectly, bluetooth is enabled and working, sound, all external devices, everything is working and supported well. If you never saw the mac exterior of the machine, and only the screen, you'd never even be able to tell that it was a Mac (except for the stellar performance).
Also Mac The Ripper and Roxio Popcorn for DVD rip'n'squash. Flip4Mac WMV to play wmv in QT player. Happy days!
spoonerize "magic trackpad"
How long will it be until Apple ships Macs with dual boot pre-installed? It would be a fairly cheap option to add--OEM's get Windows for about $75 (or less, depending on quantity).
Will Windows be sold in Apple stores alongside various other Windows software?
What happens if the Mac users decide they prefer Windows?
<joke>A Texan tasted some sushi and said that if you threw it on the grill it would taste just like fish. A geek looked at a Mac and said if you installed Windows it would run just like a PC.</joke>
Envision this if you will:
Mac dealers (not apple store, but indies) will soon start offering Dual boot systems for sale, I'll bet. This is great you say, windows users can now get the elegance of Mac hardware. Billy G is probably saying that very thing right now. He's probably thinking that this situation opens up a whole new install base, just as Bill H states below. So a Mac user goes into an indie dealer and says," You mean that I can buy this Mac Mini with Windows for only $599.99? (that's $499.99 for the Mini and $99.00 for the XP home OEM)? I'll take it." Great, there's another Windows bootable sold.
However, look at it from Jobs' view. Sure, I'll bet lots of Windows users will start using Mac systems. Problem is, they're going to see that tiger icon EVERYTIME THEY BOOT THE SYSTEM. Sooner or later, they'll get curious.
They're going to click on it.
Some will use it.
Some won't look back.
Let's say that the user above was a Windows user that just wanted the sexy SFF box. They try using Tiger and decide that they like it better. The next Mac Mini they buy will only cost them $499.99 ($499.99 for the mini and $0.00 for the Windows XP they decided they didn't need.) Uh-oh, there's a lost bootable sale. Uh-oh, there's lots of lost bootable sales since the useful life of any computer is only a few years.
We all know that for whatever reason, current Mac users are fanatics. We also know that every single current Mac user has a job, or a friend or a family member with a Windows PC. They've seen Windows. They won't be the ones switching over. I haven't seen Tiger yet. I expect that neither have people like my dad and most of my co-workers. I've heard that Tiger is easier to use. What happens when people that previously had no choice, suddenly do?
I think Apple is betting that this happens.
Like others in the /. community, I am in the research area. I am a physician in a cardiovascular imaging lab. The university-wide computing solution has been Dell-branded desktops for years. Save for a few niche groups, most researchers here are Windows-tied. Part of our problem is that many of the developers of imaging and analysis software packages have no desire to support OSX (nor do they plan to based on my phone calls). The dual boot option is very exciting for us because it allows for a possible laboratory wide migration to a powerful platform for our primary tasks. ProSolv (cardiac imaging analysis) and SAS (statistical analysis) would be still tied to the XP partition. If a virtualization solution that could perform as well as the XP native platform existed, that would likely be the final impetus to switch- it would be somewhat cumbersome to keep switching between OSs. (BTW- no one should suggest SPSS Base for OSX because SPSS blows).
The dual boot option will be standard in Leopard, so they say.
That sounds tiny... Thats the same resolution of my 20" Apple monitor. And its the same rez as the Dell monitor of the same size. Apple keeps their pixels per square inch standard across the board, which is nice if your using a laptop with a desktop display. For the record i'm not, mines plugged into my card in my home build gaming rig. And before anyone says anything, i got it before any other companies were offering >17" widescreen displays, if it had been a year later i would have gotten the Dell version. Hell, the 20" Apple is the same price as the 24" Dell right now.:(
"Sic Semper Tyrannosaurus Rex."
Given that Microsoft doesn't want PC manufacturers to sell naked boxes -- http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=06/04/05/142521 6 -- this makes a Mac a good way to buy a PC without Windows.
How much do hobbyist quality video production, audio production, photo editing/cataloging and DVD authoring suites cost for Windows?
$99. Adobe Photoshop/Primere Elements Bundle. Yes, that's street price.
You can cobble stuff together from OSS/Free, but it's nowhere near the quality and ease of use of either iLife or Adobe, so I simply don't recommend trying. Particularly for the video editing/DVD authoring bit (although, on that front, Nero is decent and can be had for $40).
How much does a PDF creator cost for Windows?
Uh... free?
DevTools? A compiler?
Both downloadable for free, from either MS, Cygwin, or MinGW. But I do Unix development, so it's not of much interest to me. A decent shell is, but that's what Cygwin's for.
A full suite of enterprise capable network daemons such as http, ftp, telnet, ftp, ssh?
IIS is included in Pro (but not installed by default). As is a telnet daemon (not enabled by default under SP2).
FTP and ssh daemons are freely available online if you wanted them. And XP's remote desktop is superior to VNC (admittedly, one of the rare cases of XP being better), so I guess that's why you didn't mention it.
Are you seriously trying to say all of that is worth $1000+? I can replace the software for under $200, as I mentioned. Most of the extra functionality can be downloaded for free.
It's zero.
...which is slightly less than the number of legal windows copies on standard PC platforms.
Nobody.
Nada.
I have nothing whatsoever to do with Parallels in any way, shape, or form. What, I talk up a product that I (and many, many others) have been waiting for for YEARS, and now all of a sudden it's marketing?
0 65706
0 76276
You posted nearly the same paragraph in two threads on consecutive days. It smells a lot like marketing, even if that's not your stated intention:
http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=182273&cid=15
Virtualization company Parallels [parallels.com] announced that it will be bringing its Parallels Workstation virtualization product to Intel-based Macs [techworld.com]. Parallels is a hypervisor-based (with a kernel module) virtual machine solution already shipping for Windows and Linux, and is the first desktop virtualization product to support Intel VT/Vanderpool CPU "partitioning". It's also only $50. Parallels also has a long list of officially supported guest OSes [parallels.com], and that's just the ones that are *officially* supported. So either way, we'll have a nice dual boot solution AND a nice virtualization solution!
http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=182379&cid=15
Virtualization company Parallels [parallels.com] announced a public beta of its Parallels Workstation virtualization product to Intel-based Macs [parallels.com] (direct download [parallels.com]. Parallels is a quasi-hypervisor-based (with a kernel module) virtual machine solution already shipping for Windows and Linux, and is the first desktop virtualization product to support Intel VT/Vanderpool CPU "partitioning". Once out of beta, It will also be only $50. Parallels also has a long list of officially supported guest OSes [parallels.com], and that's just the ones that are *officially* supported. It will likely run any x86-based OS you throw at it.
Little Debian: America's #1 Snack Distro!
But you have to friggin download it first, and how many are going to stumble across it by chance?
That is as much a BS argument as the Mac guy who doesn't know that IIS comes with XP Pro.
The university I go to allows each student a free copy of Windows XP (as well as Visual Studio). I just used that to install and it's working perfectly.
In contrast, the mac offers significant advantages over XP, and few who have used OSX for a few days would willingly go back.
"He who would learn astronomy, and other recondite arts, let him go elsewhere. " -- John Calvin, commenting on Genesis 1
And yes, I'm a console gamer. I've got a DS, a Gamecube, and when it arrives this week a dreamcast. I sit in front of a pc all day, and when I get home a comfy chair in front of a TV is far more appealing.
http://skeptobot.blogspot.com/ - A site for the Renaissance man and woman
Apple might very well testing the waters to see what the result of this Boot Camp experiment is. If it turns out that Windows users are turning to Apple's OS in droves, then Apple might be tempted to sell OSX to a number of selected partners, probably in select markets (using Lenovo as a sales partner in China and someone else in India for example, both markets where Apple's prices are usually too high for general adoption)
Has anyone tried installing or even booting up off of a Linux install CD/DVD after installing Boot Camp?
I heard a few people complaining here on Slashdot that Apple is ignoring the Linux community with this Boot Camp beta, although a lot of people pointed out that a few distros already had EFI boot capability.
I got a Mac Mini last night, installed Boot Camp, installed and reinstalled WinXP several times trying to figure out what partitions would work for my purposes. That took until well past midnight, so I'm finishing up setup for OS X and WinXP this morning at work, since this is for work (where the only Windows app I ever, ever have to use is Lotus Domino Admin and Designer since they dropped Mac support after R5).
We use SuSE Linux 10 Pro on some entry-level desktops and SuSE Linux Enterprise Server 9 on all our servers. I popped in the SuSE 10 DVD, tried to pick it for booting in the Startup Disk control panel, and it worked! I tried picking it during boot-up, and it also worked. I got it to the point where I could resize the Windows partition to install Linux, and everything else gave no errors.
We have some other odd linux live-boot CD's and even Solaris x86 that we're going to try just for the heck of it. I'm not going to go as far as to install any of them until I've tested the OS X and Win XP dual-booting for about a week, since that would be most useful for our users.
I'm the I.T. Director in a business with about 300 employees world-wide, and the fact that we could boot Mac OS X, Win XP, and Linux on Apple hardware essentially removes all obstacles to purchasing these computers. I've been a Mac fan for 15 years since I started working here, and in the last 5 years it's been virtually impossible for me to convince the President or CEO that in certain cases it makes sense to buy a Mac. The reason has always been that "they don't run Windows".
For guys like me and companies like us, Apple is going to start to see business they haven't seen in years because of what they did yesterday...
Why did I do this terrible thing? Because despite a clean reinstall, NetBeans kept crashing, it was not coming properly out of hibernate and yes, dear, I tried it with a new hard disk as well as the old one. I am guessing we have a "Windows updater" issue here. Given that the Macbooks are 32 bit only, and I like to keep laptops for some time, I suspect my next one will have AMD on the processor and Ubuntu as the primary OS. I supported SuSE till they sold out to Novell, which I still think was a long term mistake, but I've grown to appreciate Gnome. Though I do have a VMWare SuSE image to hand somewhere.
It isn't as pretty as OS X but it makes really efficient use of screen real estate and I can get my work done. And the time I spent configuring it, in total, was no more than I spent last time I reinstalled OS X and downloaded all the updaters a couple of times. Really.
Yes, there is some truth in what you say, but 2006 turns out to be the year in which I decided that Linux was ready for the desktop.
Pining for the fjords
Huh. Wonder if it's possible to install it on an external USB/FW drive?
Any sect, cult, or religion will legislate its creed into law if it acquires the political power to do so.
Because they make more money on hardware sales, apparently.
Change is certain; progress is not obligatory.
Look, I detest Outlook and IE probably a lot more than you do.
But at work I have to use them every day, because the intranet with things I need to use only supports IE (well, some things will work under Mozilla since it supports NTLM but only some).
As for outlook, I have one word - Calendar. This has been true at every company I've ever worked at, not being able to use the outlook calendar means that computer is useless for business needs.
I generally also run Linux at work but it has to be on a seperate computer. If I can finally bring a mac in then I can have one computer, able to SSH properly and run X11 apps properly and run outlook properly - with two monitors. Having one computer is a lot handier to avoid shuttling stuff back and forth.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
MacBlue Screen of Death
I realize there are downloadable equivalents to just about everything, but the last thing I want to do everytime I have to wipe the drive on this Dell (only twice in a year and a half) is go through and download or install tons of software that I need/like to use. I've had miserable experiences with Windows over the last 5 years, which lead me to Linux and eventually the Mac.
The Apple is more expensive on paper and up front than the Dell, but it's worth every penny to me for reasons I can't entirely quantify. It's the first computer since my C-64 that I just plain enjoyed.
I don't think Vista will be an issue at all, because Apple is using standard Intel motherboards and standard video cards and so on. I think with these systems there are not even Mac specific video cards like there used to be.
So I think that's a totally feasable move. Buy an iMac or Macbook Pro and run games on it on a Windows only partition. The coolest thing about Boot Camp is that it apparently also includes a dymanic partition resizer (sounds like Partition Magic) so you can always minmize space needed for the Windows game partition.
The main topic was about the virtualization but I don't think that supports the video card at full speed, so a seperate boot partition might work better. Heck, perhaps you could share the install and use it virtualized sometimes and then boot Windows standalone for games.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
SK: Oh snap! I forgot, let me reboot to check my email really quick. I was just daydreaming about how great I am.
:-)
If you look back to what I was responding to they were talking about virtualization of XP... if you think about what that means you realize that means running XP inside of OS X, without rebooting...
It would have been funny otherwise though.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
This is so Not good for Apple and OSX...
Sure this may help their hardware sales, and it does offer this argument for the Apple community, "Why not buy an Apple, you can run Windows too?"
However, what this says to developers is what it said to them during OS/2 days, and why no 'native' good OS/2 ports of popular software existed. There was no need, it ran Windows just fine, so developers would just write a Windows version and expect OS/2 to run their application inside the Windows binaries.
The same could potentially happen for OSX and Apple. Especially in the games market. Why spend good money on an OSX port of your game if you assume most Mac users could just boot WindowsXP or Vista and run your game? Especially when Windows still has a video/performance margin over OSX technology for gaming.
The are two marginal ways this could benefit Apple.
1) Apple becames a major hardware vendor, and competes with Dell and Gateway, etc.
2) Users do start buying Macs to dual boot, and find they like OSX much better than Windows. (Unfortunately, as hard is this is to stomach for a lot of Slashdotters, this doesn't happen in the world as much as OSX proponents would like to believe.) Usually when users are forced or try to move fully to OSX they do it kicking and screaming and if they were comfortable in Windows, end up back there. (And yes, I have seen this in several companies, management gets on the buzz, flips over a department of 20 or 30 users to OSX, and the users end up forcing the return of Windows PCs - especailly in department that were once Mac dominated like graphic design but later moved all their users to Windows in the 90s. The Users have not always been so keen to move back to Mac when it is forced on them.)
So even if this does help Apple and Mac with marketshare, it will also become a contest of preferred usability between Vista and OSX, and I don't see OSX 'always' winning.
My personal opinion is that this will boost OSX and Mac sales initially, but in the long run will destroy OSX, and Apple will potentially just become another Dell or Gateway.
Which I do not think is such a good thing. Competition is a good thing.
Besides, like I said above this type of move certainly didn't work for OS/2, and not only from the developer perspective, users liked OS/2, but not 'enough' to purchase it and Windows to run Windows applications.
So will OSX be strong enough to keep users in OSX for the majority of use or just be a side booted OS, and people end up flipping to Windows for games and applications OSX doesn't yet have?
If people keep finding themselves flipping back to Windows, they will start spending more time in Windows, just to not have to reboot. And when this slide happens, OSX will not be the dominate OS even running on Apple Macs.
(Sure Windows runs on Macs already in VirtualPC, but there is big difference between running an emulator to 'get by' for some business applications, and booting into the full experience of Windows and running Windows games at high speed. And I think Apple is a little to arrogant on how good OSX is to think they will keep the market even on their own hardware.)
"How much is IIS these days?"
IIS is part of XP and free, though it may not be installed by default. Unless you have a server version, however, it's limited to managing a single "home" website. This is done mostly to prevent people from using the home/pro products to run servers.
Any sect, cult, or religion will legislate its creed into law if it acquires the political power to do so.
Yes, I recycled that paragraph from one of my previous posts. So? It's my own text. Am I not allowed to post it twice when it's speaking to EXACTLY the same issue? Additionally, the entire rest of the message is different, and both of the complete posts were on different topics. I don't care if it "smells like marketing". It was designed to be informative, and it is.
As I said, I have nothing to do with Parallels, the product or the company (other than using it).
How about virtualization with WinXP as the host OS and MacOS X as the guest OS? Does Parallel support that?!
No, Apple will not bring Classic to the Intel Macs. Classic is dead. But there is a solution:
a ver
SheepShaver is a classic Mac emulator:
http://www.gibix.net/dokuwiki/en:projects:sheepsh
It needs a Mac ROM (which can be gotten from an iMac firmware update that can be downloaded from Apple), and a Mac OS 9.1 image. It's a little tedious to set up the first time, but once done, it's very portable and can be used on any Intel-based Mac.
Yeh, I talked about getting a Macbook when I ran into my boss yesterday, since basically there's like 3 programs I ever run on Windows... but I *have* to run them to get my timecard in and create purchase orders.
He laughed.
But he didn't say no. Yet, anyway.
No, and it won't.
Also, it's in violation of the Mac OS X license agreement to use it on anything but Apple-labeled hardware. Whether or not you "agree" with that, it still ends up meaning that no commercial company is going to make something that lets people run Mac OS X on other platforms or in virtualization (on anything but Apple hardware).
I switched to the mac in the first place because of the OS and the software available for it. I find OS X to be extremely productive. If you don't like Safari, you can always use Firefox or Shiira or Opera or Omniweb etc....
XP does not have the similicity of Frontrow nor does it support the remote. The iSight camera does not work either. If I want full hardware support, I will use OS X.
Jesus was a compassionate social conservative who called individuals to sin no more.
*blinks*
I would be, if virtualization supported 3D applications.
It would. Maybe you should read up on "virtualization," as the *entire point* of modern hardware virtualization would be to give the sandboxed OS access to the full functionality of the hardware--including 3D Hardware.
I would still be in Windows all the time anyway. (I play a lot of games and it hardly seems worth it just to reboot to use Opera in Mac OS X...)
No, you wouldn't. That would be a dual-boot system, not OS virtualization.
With OS virtualization, you would have Opera (and iChat and BitTorrent and iTunes and etc etc) running on your host system (e.g. OSX), and Far Cry running at (or near) full speed in a Windows session in a window... or in full screen (with the host desktop etc hidden). Hell, you could also have a Linux session (again at or near full speed) running at the same time, to run some other random program, if you had the RAM. You could have a Windows session running continously for as long as you want without logging out or rebooting OS X, and all at (or near) native hardware speed.
Need Outlook and Visio? Want to pwn some noobs in Planetside? Want to check how that webpage you built renders in IE 6? Open a Windows session. Then hit a hotkey and get back to all of your Mac software running on OS X at the same time. THAT is the point of virtualization--multiple operating systems running in parallel--and THAT is why people are excited about it.
Repetition does not transform a lie into the truth. - FDR
Whenever an article comes up relating running Windows on a Mac, which is something many people want to do, and the first virtualization product ever for the Mac platform is released THAT VERY DAY that can do just that WITHOUT the annoyance of rebooting (which is preferable for the majority of people interested in running Windows, since many aren't interested in gaming), yes, I will post that kind of "useless crap", thanks.
You're absolutely right. There is nobody interested in gaming. At. All.
You might notice that the only performance they talk about in the article is game performance. They didn't bother running any benchmarks, they didn't mention how movies play, they didn't mention how photoshop runs, etc etc. A few things installed ok. Then they played games for a few hours! Where did you get the "majority of people" part? The voices in your head? Because I see tons and tons of threads going back to how well games run in XP on Mac hardware. (See above for my refrences) What else are people going to run Windows side by side with OS X for? Office productivity? Audio/Video/Photo editing? Web surfing? Email? Oh wait, the one last thing that Windows actually has a real hold on. Games.
*Sigh*.
I'm at one of the largest Mac sites outside of Apple (>15000 institutionally owned Macs). The people here who are clamoring to run Windows here, and at other institutions, aren't doing it to play games. They're doing it because they have to run administrative and/or speciality applications that are Windows-only. And until now they either muddled along with an emulator, or simply didn't get a Mac. Now those very people, just in the last couple of days between Boot Camp and Parallels, are putting in orders. Big orders. (Many had seen the writing on the wall, but were just waiting for a product to materialize.) Why do you think AAPL is up $10 in the last two days?
Sure, there's a good chunk of people who care about games, and that's the only reason they want to run Windows on their Mac. And there's quite a big group of enterprise, institutional, scientific, and research users who couldn't possibly care less about games, and don't want to dual boot. That's why a virtualization solution is so attractive.
(Also, no, pretty much everything you listed at the end of your post is NOT what people want to run under Windows. They want to run Access. Or Visio. Or some crazy Windows-only scientific app. Or a stats package. Or some university/business administrative application. Or Grants.gov. Believe it or not, there's a lot more to computing than office productivity, web, email, and games. You don't have to believe me, but the non-game market for Windows virtualization on Mac OS X is *huge*, and the inroads Apple will make into markets with commercial virtualization will be even greater than the ones they make with Boot Camp, but Boot Camp will help, because it shows Apple doesn't have its head in the sand with respect to the desire of some of its customers to run Windows, for whatever reason, on their Intel-based Macs.)
Hi, Mac user here. All these posts about "Why should a company develop for Mac when they know people can just dual boot? This will kill Mac games..."
...the list goes on. And if a game DOES come out, it can be as much as a year since the PC version came out. And of the games that DO exist, the older ones (e.g. Medal of Honor) are *still* full price, whereas the same PC titles are half as much as they used to be or more. So, only one of 5 high-end titles (at best) and no bargain-bin games, makes the term "Mac gaming" kind of an oxymoron.
C'mon. Mac gaming is ALREADY dead, by any measure. Look at the number of high-end demos posted on MacGameFiles.com over the past year, and you'll see that it's falled off to nearly zero in recent months. GameSpy stopped supporting Mac ladders a while ago. Go to a computer store, and if you can even find one that sells Mac games, you'll see that for all the shelves and shelves of PC games, there's only about 20% as many titles available for the Mac. Call of Duty 2? No. Battlefield 2? No? Half-Life,
OS X is nice, but I really love the Mac hardware. I'm interested in buying a MacBook Pro and putting *only* Windows on it. To get work done (cygwin, virtualization) and to play GAMES.
Can you?
This is like puting a yugo engine in a porsche!
Much more clear now, thanks. I can assure you that I read your post at least as slowly as you wrote it ;-)
Repetition does not transform a lie into the truth. - FDR
This is a non event. Someone said that this will draw "millions" of people to Macs. Boot camp will not draw millions of new Mac users. That's just flat out rediculous. "Regular" PCs are much cheaper, people will continue to buy them. You either stay with Windows or switch to a Mac, Joe A. Citizen will not spend the extra money on a Mac and dual boot. It's not going to happen. This will fail. A few Mac fantics will do it but that's it. I love my Macs but I have NO interest in doing Windows on a Mac. NONE. This is a yawner IMHO....
I've been eyeing Mac Minis since they were introduced, wondering just why the hell some PC builder didn't sell something similar.
Actually, AOpen does sell something simular to the Mini. And by simular, I mean almost identical looking.
Check it out here.
Games that are released simultaniously (or nearly so) will do just fine - i.e. most id and Blizzard games. What this will kill, however, is shipping a title for the Mac at $50 when a year and a half after the PC version was released, which is currently in the bargin bin for $20.
XP is the superior platform in nearly every respect. The fact that we are interacting in this web space right now has mostly to do with Windows machines' impact on the world of technology (and their outsourcing). Tiger is a respectable and intuitive platform, as will be Leopard, I'm sure. However, does not anyone see the irony in all of this? The "dream" Mac Machines now incorporate a processor and an OS that Windows users have been using for over a decade and as a result we call the Mac Masterminds geniuses? I am all for the dual booting idea, and have been using Linux and XP on my machine, but let's not forget that Windows brought us to where we are today in the technology world. Mac's inclusion of the Intel chip and Windows XP is a concession to that fact. One can not argue with Windows' longevity, versatility, relative stability (my machine has rarely if ever crashed), cost-effectiveness, and overall impact on the way we compute. Welcome to the robust world of Windows my friends.
So what is to prevent MS from preventing Windows from running on Macs? Either through licensing, or a DRM chip, or simply not providing support (security patches, etc.) for mac installations?
Be heard || Be herd
But that's exactly my point.
For someone who *wants* an all in one unit - there is no better choice.
You don't want an all in one unit so by definition the iMac must seem silly and pointless to you - it doesn't mean that it is to others.
More links: Enabling Accelerated 3-D for a Virtual Machine, and also checkout Experimental Support for Direct3D for limitations and issues.
As someone wittier than I related when these rumors of Windows-boot first started flying:
SARUMAN: "Do you know how the Orcs first came into being? They were Elves once."
Valid point. Hell, Firefox downloaded and installed flawlessly on my PowerBook without me even needing to install Windows on it! ;-)
Boundless Expansion, Self-Transformation, Dynamic Optimism, Intelligent Technology, Spontaneous Order- BEST DO IT SO!
You have it backwards: It's PC owners excited about the prospect of using the Mac's superior mulitmedia capabilities, programs, and integration WITHOUT having to also give up their PC. Best of all, when your PC succombs to the threat of the week, you can just boot into OS X to get something done.
It's Mac users that are guilty of groupthink? The users who are notoriously willing to swim against the current of obediant MS worshipers, who form the overwhelming majority (as they keep reminding us)?
Your point was that it is the best all-in-one machine. I didn't argue with that. I asked why someone would want one in the first place. I don't understand the thinking or reasonining behind buying something like this and was curious. I wish you could have understood that.
What Apple is betting on is that the user experience on Mac OS X is enough better that, when users get to try OSX and Windows side-by-side, they'll prefer OSX.
This new Apple "Boot Camp" seems like a death knell for the Macintosh and its Unix-based OSX as a viable alternative platform for packaged software such as Office, Adobe, and so on. Dual boot systems are disastrous for alternative OS PCs. How many Amigas do you see around today? Dual booting between Amiga and DOS hindered the development of stand-alone software for that platform. By doing this, Apple reduces the attractiveness of OSX as a release platform for major software. Why bother doing an OSX version when you can just tell your "Mac" customers to run your program in Windows? It may help Apple sell more Macs in the short term, but in the long term it further removes Apple's distinctiveness and transforms it even more into just another boutique PC vendor similar to Alienware, sorry, Dell.
Da Blog
Now that Apple Computer has quietly made it known that its new Intel-based Macs will be able to dual-boot into Windows, we finally will have a basis for benchmark comparisons which will be.... well.... Apples to Apples.
Sorry - I'll have a go then.
Some people are driven more by aesthetics than the technical capabilities of a machine. Not everyone wants a tower unit sat next to their desk, and not everyone is bothered about upgradability and expansion. Also, there are a lot of people who buy the iMac because of how it looks. It's a pretty convenient package - especially when you are using wireless accessories with it.
Most geeks won't appreciate it but you can be sure that your 'arty' type sitting in his glass and stainless steel clad loft apartment sure will.
And can you explain how you're going to check email and get to your calendars in Windows, at the same time as doing everything else in OS X?
Virtualization, check the parent post I was responding to. It went into great detail explaining just that...
Basically you have a copy of Windows running at the same time as OSX. Kind of like a terminal server session but locally.
Apple doesn't offer a virtualization solution just yet, supposedly with Panther they will. But the solution mentioned is free now and just $9 later when it comes out of beta, very reasonable for the functionality it offers.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Linux zealots have windows-phobia: objections to interoperability with such Evil things as windows.
You don't want the value windows gives you(drivers,apps/games) because your operating system is Superior.
Its can be Superior all day long,it doesn't change the choices people make.
If it was useful,bugfree,running windows drivers(1) and apps,and most important user-friendly people would switch to it.
And not a certain percent,a Majority would switch.
1.(If windows version is superior use windows version of driver/application).
So (assume no patents exists)
Let me provide analogy to this case:
a Company let it be named Intel
sells a CPU X,Which has alot of functions among them function Z which
is very useful for processing video.
Now a rival company let it be named AMD
sells a cheaper CPU Y,which does alot of functions of CPU X,except its Z function which makes it slower to process video(because it lacks Z).
Now Imagine Z is found to be trivially easy to reproduce(ex: reprogramming few copy microcodes).
Would that AMD company implement it? Or
reject it for grounds its CPU is superior and doesn't need such ugly hacks as Z.I think the company would
implement it,Don't you?
have you ever heard of virtual pc?
i rtualpc.aspx?pid=virtualpc
You could have run it "(a decent design/admin GUI for PostgreSQL)" in emulation. Why didn't you? "Had I been able to boot into Windows to use that one tool (or even better, used it under emulation/virtualisation while still in MacOS), I would almost certainly have ended up with a Mac."
http://www.microsoft.com/mac/products/virtualpc/v