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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?
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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
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!
"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
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.
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
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
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.
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
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'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.
We may only be months away from a general x86 release of OSX.
That's completely fucking asinine.
Windows and OS X on a Mac = Hardware revenue for Apple
Windows and OS X on a PC = Hardware revenue for someone else
Explain why this is such a good idea?
I don't know what kind of crack I was on, but I suspect it was decaf.
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
Hey, I can play that game!
Windows without OS X on general x86 = Software revenue for Microsoft
Window with OS X on general x86 = Software revenue for Microsoft and Apple!
Explain why this is a good argument?
I believe posters are recognized by their sig. So I made one.
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???
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.
Because there are 100 times as many PCs in existence as there are Macs? And because Apple makes a mint every time they sell a copy of OSX, whether it's on Apple hardware or not?
Yes, and everyone knows Windows users never pirate software...
--R.J.
Electric-Escape.net
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.
Quick, someone phone Bill Gates back in the 1980s to tell him his idea of creating a $300 billion company will fail! Because of piracy!
Imposing Libertarian views on everyone online since 1992.
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.
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?
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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!
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...
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.
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.)
In addition to your point, an increase in hardware demand (XP on a Mac) more directly leads to an increase in hardware sales than when you compare software (OS X on PCs) in the same situation. It's because of piracy. That's not to say people don't buy software, but that you can't pirate hardware.
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.
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.
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
Here's that restated in simpler terms: "If the software is pre-installed, the software lives and dies with the PC and can never be transferred to another PC."
Now, I think this is unethical and should be illegal, but unfortunately the U.S. legal system doesn't agree with me.
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.