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Dumping Aqua On Mac OS X For X11?
Sagefire asks: "Aqua is a beautiful interface but it can be incredibly resource intensive (especially for older/low-end machines). And, though the open source community has made great strides in reverse engineering proprietary drivers from Mac OS X, I would love to be able to simply keep using the drivers that came with it, for now. Since there is a fully functional BSD variant under the hood, is it possible (using X11.app, darwinports, and/or Fink) to boot to a command line and simply startx? Would it use less RAM to bypass Aqua?"
This seems like an exercise in pointlessness. If you're going to run X11, why not just run Linux? It's more than likely a bit faster (especially in low RAM situations), and there is more X11 software available.
If you intend to use X11 to completely replace Aqua, you may as well run Darwin or Linux or one of the BSDs. Sorry, but getting rid of all the Aqua stuff is going to involve extensive customization. And if you don't load Aqua's libraries, you aren't going to be able to run OS X apps anyway.
After all, I am strangely colored.
But even without running Aqua OS X is extremely resource-hungry. Test it yourself by logging in as username ">console" (without the quotes) for a command prompt and you'll see what I mean. Wish I had better news...
Caveat Utilitor
Is X11 really that much better than Aqua? I don't think so. Remember, Aqua has been optimized for Mac hardware. X11 (unless you've compiled it yourself) probably hasn't been optimized to as great of an extent. You can try switching, but I don't think you'll se much of an improvement with X11 vs. Aqua.
We all know what to do, but we don't know how to get re-elected once we have done it
Yes, there are already comments along the lines of "why use OS X if you're not going to use Aqua?"; that's basically what it amounts to. You get few, if any, benefits from ditching Aqua if you're still running OS X - the only thing that you get from it is the drivers that came with the system in the first place, and if that's all you want, you can always run Darwin instead and copy in the necessary kexts for the hardware that doesn't already have drivers with it, especially since, under the hood, Darwin and OS X are the same, except that Darwin comes configured to run primarily as a *nix-type command-line based system instead of as a desktop with a nice GUI.
Could it be done? Yes, but it would probably take a larger investment of time to figure out how to remove or disable the stuff you don't want than it would be to start from a system that comes ready to run the way you want it anyway.
Dogma: Dead (mostly because your Karma ran it over)
Bullshit.
I remember running a full 'nix with X11 and TWM with 4mb of RAM on a Sun 3/80. If you wanted color, a Sun 3/60 could handle it with 8mb; 16mb would give you a "screaming" 4 mips pizza box. When the Sun 3/80s and Sparc 1's came out, a 32mb system with a cg24 sbus card could get you full 24bit color with a megapixel display. And it had plenty of RAM to do real work.
Compare that with a 128mb or 256mb G3 CRT iMac and you've got way more than enough ram and CPU horsepower to run X11 with plenty of useful apps. Christ, I ran X11 on a 486 with 8mb of RAM and a 512kb XVGA card back in 1994 and it worked just fine. (And BTW: NeXTStep on an old cube ran DPS just great in 16mb of RAM too. It's not DPDF that's the hog - it's Aqua).
I remember running a full 'nix with X11 and TWM with 4mb of RAM on a Sun 3/80.
s/80/50/
You can log in as >console, and get to a pure text interface. I assume you can run X from there, though I've never actually tried.
Media that can be recorded and distributed can be recorded and distributed.
-kfg
.. ever since I heard 'Barbie Girl' in fact.
But you're better off using something else (eg some Linux variant, BSD, etc.)
/etc/ttys. The first two lines that begin with "console" has one which is commented out. Uncomment that one and comment out the second one. Now the next time you reboot, you'll enter the console directly
However, if you really want to try, do the following:
1) open
2) Install XDarwin, which can be started from the command-line as opposed to the X that Apple provides which can only be started alongside Aqua.
Have fun, but it's not really that interesting.
Since there is a fully functional BSD variant under the hood, is it possible (using X11.app, darwinports, and/or Fink) to boot to a command line and simply startx? Would it use less RAM to bypass Aqua?"
Yes, it's possible. At least, it was a few years ago, when I first installed KDE via fink then logged in at the login prompt as user ">console" (with no password) and performed a startx. I didn't use it for a terribly long time as a KDE-only box, and it was more an experiment to see what was possible - but it worked just like any other KDE setup. I didn't use Apple's own X11, but had XDarwin installed instead.
A note too - Aqua is only the default theme with OSX, and just describes the look of the OSX GUI. Quartz is the engine underneath that performance depends on. There was no noticeable difference in speed with XDarwin over Quartz, but perhaps that could be improved with more work on XDarwin.
What for you would like to do it? Just for the sake of it? None of Apple/OSX strenghts would really show up in such setup:
1. Drivers - If you need, a decent BSD with X11 go use FreeBSD and craft yourself hardware that works with FreeBSD. It should not be hard to specify a set of fully working hardware with great drivers for FreeBSD. I think you have much more options with PC hardware and FreeBSD (working decently) than with OSX. Or maybe go Linux, not much different from BSD really.
2. Software - None of OSX software (such like Photoshop, Office etc.) will work under X11. And in fact it is less decently packaged X11 software than for FreeBSD or Linux.
3. Support, quality etc. - you won't get any of this from Apple in such setup. With FreeBSD or Linux you will get decent quality and community support because running kernel and userspace/X11 on top of it is what we do with Linux/FreeBSD.
So I don't really see benefits of such setup. Go get yourself decent PC or laptop with supported hardware. Install FreeBSD or Linux on it and you will have that what you are seeking in quite polished form.
Change is certain; progress is not obligatory.
Mach is a resource hog. But that's not the fault of Aqua. However, Aqua is also a huge resource hog, without much benefit if you only have 2d video acceleration. Might as well just run X11 in that case. And, if you're going to do that - might as well just run Linux or NetBSD as monolithic kernels tend to run much faster.
There are several Linux distros for Mac hardware, just install one of those. I'd give regular Ubuntu a choice, and if that's too heavy-weight, try Xubuntu.
Ubuntu comes with a lot of software pre-installed, it feels a lot more responsive than OS X on the same hardware, and it has very much a Mac-like feel. I'm running it on an old iMac and have been quite happy with it.
Change is certain; progress is not obligatory.
What you're talking about doing practically speaking wouldn't allow you to run any of the GUI apps that come with OS X or those that are sold for it. If you take that away it's not really OS X. As some have already said, one wonders what the point of that is.
There's no way of knowing what part of the system is the cause of your performance issues without profiling it. ( You could do a 'System Trace' with the latest version of Shark. )
Aqua is part of the Apple HIG. It defines what UI elements look like and how they behave but the name does not refer to an implementation. Apple ships at least two implementations of many UI elements in their Carbon and Cocoa frameworks.
'Older' machines generally performed adequately with the software that shipped with them. Meanwhile every new Apple OS requires more cycles from the machines it's installed on. This is to be expected. I'm betting that the source of your problems is that you're running a 10.4 with all kinds of add-ons on a Mac that first shipped with 10.1 Even with more RAM I'd expect this to be slow.
-Harv
sigh, I really should preview more often.
A few years ago, I had my PPC Mac booting to Yellow Dog Linux and ran MacOS under Mac On Linux.
It wasn't perfect but when it did run it ran well.
All my "usual" apps like OpenOffice and browsers ran in Linux without the Mac overhead. When I needed a Mac app, I could fire it up under MacOnLinux.
MacOnLinux hasn't been updated in a couple of years now. With the demise of the PowerPC Mac I wouldn't hold your breath.
Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.
Ive been a new mac user for the past 2 years. About a month ago, I had a day to play with my macbook.
I totally disabled Aqua, and got X running, etc... I don't know about gnome or KDE as window managers, but I did use the X session and ran a WHOLE Fedora desktop remotly off the network, which involved starting X, using Xauth, and then playing with all those initalization scripts on my linux box I was launching the session from.
Looked pretty sweet, but still, limited app functionality due to either a) not being supported by fink, and b) try compiling alot of your normal Xwindows apps on a macbook, even with the Xcode tools goodluck matching all the dependancies...
I R Stephen, and this is my 2 cents...
Use the force (play with the X commands after you configure the box to boot into console mode)
Why would you want to do this? Seriously. Why? You bought a mac, but you want to remove all the mac specific stuff from it. Why didn't you save you're money and just by a PC and install linux on it. If you're not using the mac apps, (and let's be honest, Darwin doesn't count. It's just another BSD clone, which is essentially just another unix.) then you bought the hardware to look cool. If you absolutely have to look cool, but not run any of the macosx apps, then just dual boot.
The whole point of a unix guy owning a mac is that it's unix in all the way he wants (command line, symlinks, standard unix tools) and none of the ways he doesn't (insmod, recompiliing kernels, fucking with wpasupplicant and buggy ass drivers). It Just Works(tm). You seem bent on ignoring THE advantage of the mac, and turning it into just another piece of commodity hardware, only at luxury prices. It's absolutely pointless.
It is possible to run an X server on Mac OS X that will display all of your X applications straight to your Aqua desktop. This way you can run Aqua and X11 applications side by side, and it is very easy to get it running. For more information:
http://www.apple.com/macosx/features/x11/
I will say this. Make sure that services that do not need to run, like the dock or Apache, are not running. If you want to run X11, things like emacs are great, if you get to know to use them. There is really no reason to not have most things running in X11, although I have gotten used to mail.app.
Of course, the big issue in these machines seems to be memory. *nix likes memory and always has. It has seldom been the OS for small footprints. Most G4 macs can accommodate at least 512 MB, and if you running a G3 mac, you likely have other difficulties.
"She's a scientist and a lesbian. She's not going to let it slide." Orphan Black
is if it's possible to run Aqua / Quartz apps rootless on an X11 desktop (exactly the opposite of what X11.app does). This way I can use xlogin, GNOME, etc. for the default desktop UI, but still be able to run Mac-specific programs.
uhh, BeOS uses a microkernel, and is quite fast. much faster than Linux or NetBSD for many operations.
my pet machine
You don't need 3D acceleration to speed up normal window manager tasks; Window manager tasks (for virtually all current X11 window managers) don't require them. What you need is support for your card's 2D acceleration functions.
Using a common desktop environment like stock GNOME or KDE (or such mildly reworked as with Ubuntu), try running X in framebuffer mode without DRI enabled, then try running X with the correct hardware-specific driver selected, but DRI disabled. Finally, try running X with DRI enabled.
That'll give you a good idea which portions of your video card's hardware acceleration are required for your normal desktop use.
tasks(723) drafts(105) languages(484) examples(29106)
Is it really FASTER, or does it just FEEL FASTER?
BeOS (while i never used it, sadly) is supposed to have been heavily threaded, so the UI is resposive, but those threads cut into overall performence (tho, i would say a desktop user would very much say it was faster, but a benchmark should prove its slower).
> DPS worked great on that old hardware - just as did X11.
....and as for the relationship between NeXT-step and Aqua;
True to a point but I do have some old hardware around and I used to have WAY
more patience back in the day; "fast" response then isn't even slow response now.
In particular I remember sitting at a NeXT cube and going "WOW! This will be
GREAT! as soon as they speed it up to something useable!"...but, like the Mac
before it, those speedups were a looooooong time coming. Even at the time the
NeXT was slow at its introduction (in part because getting a model with a hard
drive was like pulling teeth; you run the NeXT OS off a Magneto-optic drive and
it's gonna be slow).
Speedups have been nowhere near linear with better hardware but Aqua on my
G4 laptop spins circles around X11 on a Sun 4/110.
an awful lot of those Aqua functions start with "NS"....and I'm pretty sure
NS doesn't stand for "New Stuff"!
What you said is somewhat true. the heavy threading made it feel very fast and responsive. it also would handle media (audio, MIDI, video) very quickly. Certain benchmarks, i'm sure, would show it to be slower. but not all types of opearations, as a rule, would be slower, just because of the microkernel or the multithreading.
my pet machine
I think the only thing around here that will be burning is your karma.
i have a pismo powerbook and os x 10.3.9 works fine. granted not as good as my moms shiny new macbook. but it still runs surprisingly well for a 6 year old laptop.
lose != loose
You turned out to be correct, sir.
i'd hit it so hard, if you pulled me out you'd be the king of britain [bash.org]
1)Get YDL from http://www.terrasoftsolutions.com/tss_home.shtml
d ay_bug/ ) , some real stupid "Spyware experiment" ( http://www.reghardware.co.uk/2006/11/24/mac_os_x_a dware/ ) on Slashdot Apple?
2) Have fun on your X11 running optimised PPC Linux
Sorry but why don't we discuss the Disk image mounting exploit ( http://www.reghardware.co.uk/2006/11/22/mac_zero_
I understand the slow news due to Thanksgiving but I can't figure the meaning of discussing of X11 on Apple hardware. Yes, if you have nothing to do with Aqua, better install/run Darwin or Yellow Dog Linux.
If you want Apple frameworks, desktop technology, run X11 Aqua on OS X.
Have a nice day
I can confirm that Gentoo runs well on an old 266mhz green G3 new world IMac. The machine had 192MB of ram and I used it to test DR17 (get-e.org) on PPC. The biggest problem was installing the DRM drivers for the ATI Rage chip (Have to pull them from CVS). Aside from that everything seemed to work fine, as long as you disabled kernel pre-empt (this might be fixed in modern kernels).
BBH
Oh for crying out loud! This was a joke! It wasn't off topic. It was a funny post! Will you damn moderators pull you heads out of your asses and pay attention here? This is why I no longer post what I believe to be funny or true information on slashdot anymore. The damn moderators have their heads so far up their asses that they cannot even see simple humor. Combine that with their ignorance of the topics' threads and their elitist views of the world and you get piss poor moderation.
MODERATORS: Grow the fsck up!
Just a thought here, but you would probably get a better response from moderators if you didn't log in as Anonymous Coward.
I call bullshit on your bullshit.
Yes, you *can* run an ancient version of X11 with twm on little RAM; it wasn't very snappy, it didn't offer modern features you expect (like lots of colors), and it offered basically no features (even hardcore Linux geeks today don't run twm).
X11 takes less memory than Aqua if you run it in monochrome mode with a window manager that can barely manage windows. Is that news? I don't think "monochrome X11 with twm" is what he was asking about.
OTOH, I'm using right now the slowest/cheapest Mac you can buy (1.66GHz Core Duo -- the only 32-bit Mac you can buy! -- with Intel GMA950 graphics) and it absolutely screams at graphics. What with doing almost all graphics work on the graphics card these days, it's fast. Really fast. I've never seen a stable X11 setup so fast.
(For starters, most X11 setups still need to redraw a window when it's exposed -- even with a fast CPU, it's noticable. Yes, I know you're running a fancy new compositing manager and it looks just as slick as Aqua. I tried the latest code a couple weeks ago, and it was marginally stable, and completely unusable. Come back when it's the default install for all setups.)
For another example, look again at that ArsTechnica page: Quartz2D is now much faster than QuickDraw (and will become even faster when they flip the switch on Quartz2D Extreme). Not only is that impressive by itself, but I don't see those kind of performance improvements from X11.
You'll note that on the low end I listed a Sun 3/80 (or sparc 1) with a cg24 24 bit color card. That would have been manufactured from ~1988 or ~1989, and would have had on the high end no more than 16mb to 32mb of RAM. Most shipped with 8mb.
And BTW: color support has nothing to do with window management. At the time the two competing toolkits were Athena (from the original MIT X11 and X10 distribution), Sun Openlook toolkit, and Motif. These widget toolkits are better compared to modern day GTK+ and QT toolkits in use on GNOME and KDE respectively.
And BTW: I own (and am typing on right now) a 2Ghz Macbook w/ 2GB of RAM. It's a fine machine. But a graphical unix can run all the way down to 4mb of RAM, which twenty years ago was a *huge* amount of memory.
It's a real PITA to install, but once you're there I think you'll be happy. Whether to install Linux or BSD depends upon what you're going to do with the machine.
I've got a couple of Macs running NetBSD, and they are quite responsive.
Dumping linux kernel for leaked and hacked win98 kernel on debian.
©God
Needless OS X eye candy?!
I suppose you think Paris Hilton's diamond labia ring is needless, too. Well, I'm here to tell you that OS X and Paris Hilton need their bling!
...not that there's all that much "micro" about XNU.
Yeah. I keep telling the scientists where I work, "Do your visualization on Macs; there's no better platform. But do your compute on Linux or one of the mono-kernel BSDs." You're absolutely right that heavy real-time threading tends to make a desktop "feel" faster, but that's simply UI responsiveness. If you want to do heavy compute - where context switching incurs a heavy toll on output - then, a monolithic kernel is still the best approach.
A good analogy is the difference between bandwidth and latency. Microkernels, like as is used with MacOS X, offer the best latency because the message passing allows for very fast interrupts. Just as are monolithic kernels better optimized for long tasks, with as few interrupts as necessary.
Tailor your software to meet your needs.
I tried to use Aqua for a few years on my TiBook G4/800 DVI. It was nice and pretty/etc, but I could never get used to the GUI. All that 'single menu at the top of the screen', 'click to focus', and 'focused window has to be front window' crap they forced on me. Some of these things could be worked around with 3rd party hacks, but I never managed to fix all of them. IINM, MS Windows managed to allow all these things to be fixed, but "Apple knows better how I should work" - pah.
:|
So, I switched to ubuntu earlier this year. It's been a mostly pleasant experience. Most things 'just worked'.
However, I *have* looked back, but haven't (yet) decided to go back.
Things I miss are :
1) easy ubuntu helped a *lot* by making Ubuntu useful for typical use, but I am using Edgy now, and it doesn't seem to have a version for that
2) DVI port - I've tried pretty hard to get the DVI port to work, without any success. It was pretty useful under OS X
3) sVideo/composite port - ditto - it was even more useful under OS X
4) bluetooth - I have yet to get bluetooth working (I use a dongle) acceptable, and I often used Apple's AddressBook app to receive/reply to SMS messages via my phone. Using the full sized keyboard was great. I can't find any s/w that can do that under Linux.
5) Typing Chinese is a bit of a struggle too. It can be done, but it's not the same (actually, even Aqua isn't as nice as in MS Windows - perhaps that's just a matter of familiarity, but that doesn't mean it's invalid).
6) The power management is a little shaky, but getting better (I used to always get it complain that it had failed to sleep, but maybe edgy has fixed that).
7) The networking tools is fairly flaky - locations don't seem to work as I expect (or at all). Maybe these are better under edgy too.
8) Wifi - Fine when there's no username/password for the network, but I'm pretty sure it doesn't work with some forms of encryption/logon/whatever, which is annoying at times (I visited a company and couldn't use their wifi).
The HFS+ filesystem, like NTFS, is readonly too, which is really annoying sometimes (a friend recently brought an NTFS USB disk to copy some stuff from me, but..no..I don't have a Microsoft machine here).
However, it's mostly quite usable.
Max.
I call bullshit on your bullshit calling bullshit. :)
"X11 takes less memory than Aqua if you run it in monochrome mode with a window manager that can barely manage windows. Is that news? I don't think "monochrome X11 with twm" is what he was asking about."
XFCE, which is a perfectly usable X11 desktop which can run in as little as 32MB RAM, though that's a lot like Windows "minimum requirements", you'll need double that for it to work well.
If OS X + WindowServer can even run in 64MB RAM, there's no way you'd be able to load any useful applications without it swapping to disk and slowing everything to a crawl.
"OTOH, I'm using right now the slowest/cheapest Mac you can buy (1.66GHz Core Duo -- the only 32-bit Mac you can buy! -- with Intel GMA950 graphics) and it absolutely screams at graphics. What with doing almost all graphics work on the graphics card these days, it's fast. Really fast. I've never seen a stable X11 setup so fast."
That's still far in excess of the requirements to run XFCE, and you don't mention how much ram it has... I'm guessing at least half a GB. You've basically disproved your own point right there. You seem surprised that OS X can run well on a Multi-gigahertz computer with at least half a GB of RAM.
Also... what the fuck does 32 bit have to do with this discussion, if you want to sell Macs go work in an Apple Store.
"(For starters, most X11 setups still need to redraw a window when it's exposed -- even with a fast CPU, it's noticable. Yes, I know you're running a fancy new compositing manager and it looks just as slick as Aqua. I tried the latest code a couple weeks ago, and it was marginally stable, and completely unusable. Come back when it's the default install for all setups.)"
Every OS needs to redraw the screen after a window is moved/created/resized, that's why windows don't leave a trail of blankness behind them when you move windows around. I think you're meaning that Applications have to redraw their own window content when it's disrupted by another window moving into it's screen space. XP does the same thing, OS X is the only one of the "big three" OSes which doesn't need the application to redraw it's own window contents when they're damaged.
Having said that, I've been using Beryl (nee compiz-quinn) on my Dapper desktop at work since Dapper was introduced. What exactly did you find "unusable" about it? It's certainly dramatically faster than standard X, doesn't require applications to redraw their windows content when damaged, and has lower hardware requirements than QuartzGL/2D Extreme or Aero Glass.
It sounds to me like you're making stuff up to make OS X sound better, I don't have anything against OS X (I'm typing this on a Powerbook running 10.5 pre-release), but it limps like a half-dead dog with one leg compared to X11 on a low resource machine.
For another example, look again at that ArsTechnica page: Quartz2D is now much faster than QuickDraw (and will become even faster when they flip the switch on Quartz2D Extreme). Not only is that impressive by itself, but I don't see those kind of performance improvements from X11.
Mmmm.... Apple flavoured Kool-aid.
Believe me, it won't get noticeably faster, I've tried activating QuartzGL in Quartz Debug and benchmarking it with XBench, I can't give any specifics obviously (being an Appleseed member) but it's actually slower a lot of the time. Hopefully it at least allows the processor to get on with other things while it's drawing more slowly, otherwise it's going to be a complete waste of everyone's time,
Also, a lot of applications seem to have increased graphics glitches once QuartzGL is enabled, Firefox being a prime example.
I guess it's not fair, or even staying within the spirit of my agreement with Apple to expect a pre-release OS to be stable, but I really take issue with the things you've been claiming. It's not good for OS X to have people lying about it like you have been. It builds false expectations for those who don't know OS X, and gives ammunition to people who point to Apple users as some kind of flag-waving Jobs-worshiping cult.
No offense meant, but *anything* can handle MIDI quickly. I keep seeing/hearing people talk about how their machines aren't fast enough for MIDI. A 6502 at 1MHz programmed in assembly (with the right vectored I/O) could handle more channels of MIDI than you could put together in a single room.
... that's not MIDI, just MIDI controlled.
If what they mean by "MIDI" is software synths
"You must try to forget all you have learned. You must begin to dream." -- Sherwood Anderson
Just install a program called Shadow Killer. It turns off the Aqua shadows and improves screen performance. The GUI will look a little OS 9-ish, but it really does help, especially on a G3 or G4.
Bah, and I used X on a 386/33 with 2 MB of RAM back in the early '90s. How does that matter in this case? It's that all modern OSes are hogs.
Another non-functioning site was "uncertainty.microsoft.com."
The purpose of that site was not known.
I was running Gentoo on a similar system - a 350Mhz G3. It worked so well I used it as my email / web / imap / database / file server for 18 months or something. Then the damned thing started having troubles detecting the hard disk when starting up. It would just throw the disk heads around, making a horrible sound, until you stopped it. But take the disk out and put it in other computer, and it was fine - could read all stuff off, etc. I would have to sit at the thing and hit the reset button for hours sometimes until it would detect the disk. After 6 months of such crap, I've finally given up and moved everything to the next slowest system around - an Athlon 1800XP.
...
... until I couldn't trust it's HD controller that is. It certainly looked the part too - nice green space-age look. It showed up many a newer server in the looks department.
But back the the G3
Other than the above, it really was a descent computer. It ran E17 fine. It was a little slow to start Firefox, but leave it running, and it was fine. It was a trusty old beast
Oh please! You're one of those window wankers, aren't you? The ones that sit in OS-X all day with the aptly-named 'mail' app running, wildly wanking it from side to side, and also sometimes from top to bottom, salivating over the speed your wallpaper is being redrawn at. Oh! You can wank SO fast! Look at how fast it wanks!
Problem is that most people
What did you try? Personally I don't believe you tried anything - you're just saying you did. I was running EXA drivers on a 1Ghz Powerbook ( a TiBook ) years ago. It was silky smooth, and I remember my friend who sold me the Powerbook looking at it in awe, asking how I got the video card to do transparency. Of course he had shown me a 'transparent' terminal of some sort, which used fake transparency - just used a pixmap from the desktop wallpaper.
I've also run compiz / beryl for a number of months. I haven't had any crashes in it since I first started, so I'm not sure why you think it's unstable or unusable. Perhaps user error?
And as for having a hardware accelerated compositing manager for all setups
What the fuck is Quartz2D, what the fuck is QuickDraw, which part is impressive, and how does this relate to X? If you haven't seen any performance improvements in X recently, it's because you haven't been using X, you've been window-wanking in OS-X. Wank me another window there, boy.
you cumshitting mouth-breather. it is pathetic that you take pride in running Nigger Linux on anything, much less a Mac, much less thinking anyone gives a shit.
That's awesome! I can now skip my daily visit to bash.org! I prefer to refer to Gentoo as a "Shit Vortex of incompatibility and misconfiguration", though it is not masicism that drives me run it, but a sense of duty. I find, report, and fix package bugs before they ever see the light of day in your "Whitey" distros. All I can really say is "You're Welcome".
Thanx For the chuckle,
BBH
If you ever have the opportunity to run it again, I believe pre-link will solve/mitigate the slow application startup issue. It took FFox startup from 12 seconds down to three, and OO Writer from a half cup of coffee to a couple swigs (though, on a good day, I could still out-type the cursor with spell/grammar check enabled).
BBH
a) Assuming you had installed Linux or 386BSD, I strongly doubt you ran X in 2mb of RAM on a 386/33; even if you were running Tiny X using an MGA Hercules card. I seem to remember that was impossible.
b) How does that matter? Well, the question is: Can X11 outperform Aqua/Quartz on low end machines? The answer is: Yes. And the evidence for that answer is to show X11 running on extremely low-end hardware.
As for whether MacOS X is a "hog" in comparison to modern Windows or 'NIX variants, I don't know. Modern computers have new functionality not possible back in the late '80s. For example, not even very high end visual workstations could have handled nonlinear video editing back then. Today, a little laptop can do that. But to perform those tasks, one needs software and OS library support. Is that wasteful bloat? I don't think so. Pervasive device independent vectorization of fonts and icons is something those old systems couldn't handle. Is it worth doing, or is it bloat? I say it's worth doing.
But still - you wouldn't want to install that crap on a ten or fifteen year old computer.
NTFS is not ro anymore. Use FUSE + userland NTFS driver to get NTFS with rw support. This driver may get backported to the kernelland driver.
I haven't ever seen such a clever way to respond to trolls. If I had points, I would mod this as Informative :)
I guess thats all I have to say.
Maybe with Ubuntu's default kernel, but my Gentoo PPC box has read/write HFS+ support just fine. I use it whenever I need to mount the Mac OS 9 partition to install a new kernel (it's an Old World PowerPC 603 machine, so the Linux kernel sits in the Mac OS 9 System Folder).
End of Line.
Doesn't work as of MacOS X 10.4 ("Tiger"), unfortunately.
Regarding typing Chinese, I think it is partially what you're used to, as MS Window's default input methods all suck for me, and Apple's seem even worse. I use either SCIM or fcitx, what do you use?
SCIM's simple pinyin method is quite good. Of course, if you use traditional characters or aren't a Mandarin speaker or both, this might not be ideal. If you type Wubi, as I do, fcitx is a better option, and its pinyin mode is pretty usable, although not as good as SCIM's.
> Regarding typing Chinese, I think it is partially what you're used to, as MS Window's default input methods all suck for me, and Apple's seem even worse. I use either SCIM or fcitx, what do you use?
:)
I don't use either (I don't know much Chinese). It's my wife (she's a native), and any of the other Chinese people who happen to want to borrow my computer for a moment. They're (of course) all used to using MS's input methods and are very frustrated by anything unfamiliar.
It also isn't the most straightforward thing to install and get working - not that it's particularly straightforward on MS Windows either (just that I've done it a few times, so that's familiar too).
So, yes, it's mainly what you're used to - for multiple 'you's
Max.
Max.
If you change the bit about /System...loginwindow to /usr/libexec/getty , it will start a regular getty(1) like any other unix. You may also want to change 'vt100' to 'next' since, as far as I can tell, OS X still uses the next terminal format.
However, I don't think Darwin yet supports virtual terminals, which means that you're stuck with just one unless you start up an X session.
That's a pretty weird definition of mostly usable.
Just to recap: you have no reliable WiFi or Bluetooth, no external video output, duff power management so your laptop can't be treated like a laptop, and you can't type in your native language easily. Sounds great!
The menu is at the top of the screen because you can move there more quickly with a mouse because you can hit the edge of screen therefore don't need to take as much care.
Click to focus is a no-brainer, no accidental focus changing and clicking doesn't take appreciably more time than just moving, compared to the recovery time from occasional misfocusing.
I have some sympathy for desiring to be able to focus windows without raising them. It'd be nice if this was a right-click-on-title-bar feature or something. Obviously it shouldn't be the default, because you are more likely to want the window raised than not, so the common case should be the quickest and not take two operations (focus and raise).
The biggest "casual" overhead of Aqua/Quartz on older machines is the "shadow" around windows. There's an application extension (APE//Haxie) called "shadowkiller" that removes the shadow and significantly improves response time on older Macs.
http://unsanity.org/
(no relationship, just a former user of shadowkiller)
> That's a pretty weird definition of mostly usable.
:| I even bought a new dongle, since the one I had for my Apple was specifically for the Apple (one of the first ones to be available), but the new one seemed to be the same, as far as I could tell. Again, I could have tried harder, I suppose.
... but they took it out again, I think.
...but, yes, I wish I had one of the new Intel Apples, then Ubuntu work even better.
I guess it depends on your priorities, and I think you've exaggerated my complaints somewhat.
> Just to recap: you have no reliable WiFi
Wifi is reliable, just not with encryption (certain types; I forget which) - though I haven't really tried that hard to make it work. So, someone may have it working, I don't know. I hardly ever need encryption, but it would be nice to have it just for those occasions.
> or Bluetooth,
I couldn't get bt to work at all, and I tried fairly hard
> no external video output,
right...somewhat annoying...probably the biggest pain, actually.
> duff power management so your laptop can't be treated like a laptop,
I think it's better in edgy, but previously, it left a lot to be desired.
> and you can't type in your native language easily. Sounds great!
Actually, it's not my native language, it's the language of the country in which I live, and my wife's native language, which makes it a bit inconvenient for them, and, I guess, a little embarressing for me ("why don't you just use Windows" - but I got that with OS X too, since it was too different).
> The menu is at the top of the screen because you can move there more quickly with a mouse because you can hit the edge of screen therefore don't need to take as much care.
I know why it's there. However, I disagree with the premise that I need it there. It only helps in one dimension anyway. *Everything* else on the screen needs accurate pointer placement, and I've mastered the skill. I don't need it there, since I have to move the mouse much further to do anything. When I was using OS X, I would have a second monitor, meaning I have to move it even further for windows on the other monitor. God help us if Apple ever produce computers like SGI's where they could have hundreds of monitors. At the very least, they should give us the option, like on Linux (and MS Windows, so I'm told).
> Click to focus is a no-brainer, no accidental focus changing and clicking doesn't take appreciably more time than just moving, compared to the recovery time from occasional misfocusing.
It wouldn't be so objectionable if it didn't bring the window to the front, but I still don't much care for having to click. Again, having the option would be nice. Unfortunately, it's a pain to do because it would change the menu at the top of the screen - unless you have a full screen windows, it just won't work (perhaps a delay of some kind as the pointer travels over the desktop).
> I have some sympathy for desiring to be able to focus windows without raising them. It'd be nice if this was a right-click-on-title-bar feature or something. Obviously it shouldn't be the default, because you are more likely to want the window raised than not, so the common case should be the quickest and not take two operations (focus and raise).
They used to have this for the terminal; or was it the focus follows mouse; I forget
No. I have been using computers (mostly SGI) that work a certain way for a long time. It's (literal) pain to be forced to work a different way, but because someone thinks it's better. It might be better if you start that way, but not if you have to change. SGI's 4Dwm worked just fine, thanks.
So, yes, I stand by "It's mostly useable", since it does actually perform it's main function.
Max.
Repeat after me:
... Bridge takes an hour to launch... then I browse my images, see one I want to edit, double-click... wait an hour... photoshop is launched. Oh, I'd like to add things in that that I can only do with Illustrator! Click icon "Illustrator"... wait an hour...
"X11 is as slow as a hemiplegiac dehydrated slug in Hell with terminal generalized arthritis."
In X11, you click'n drag a window just to see the window below. Goes something along the lines of "click window, do not release button, drag window, (don't worry, it will move... at some point...), release button, go make coffee, come back. Now it is where you wanted it (hopefully, i.e. if your binary-blob drivers can get right at least x,y positions)
If you want to experience the full excitement of Windows/286 in 1992, try XFree86 (oh, yes, right, Xorg) in 2006.
I used it on a Mac and it was as slow as (see above). I tried it on a Real Good PC (new as of now) with XP, it sucked as much. And on Linux... well... not like you DO have a choice do you? (Yes you do. XFree which sucks and will never be updated ever again, or Xorg which sucks because it is X11, thus slow as (see above).)
I'm not trolling! Those ARE my experiences. Maybe you can spend 40+ unpaid hours to make it just fast enough for it to feel as responsive as, say, an Amiga. Maybe I want it to Just Work.
By the way. How comes that no matter how new a computer is, it still takes ages to launch ?
Come on, I want to browse images, I launch Bridge (since I'm using AdobeCS2 and I totally refuse to install any software that duplicates another's functions)
WHY can't I just Click, it's launched. I know the technical reasons and they're all bull. "tons of features... backwards compatibility... lots of code... bloated OS..."
Okay, stop it. Now.
It took under 1s to launch a spreadsheet on the Spectrum ZX-81. Now I'm talking about a computer with 2x3GHz and 2x2MB cache. It will never, ever launch a spreadsheet program in under 1s. Even Excel '97. (And don't even think about handing me the OpenOffice conversational bazooka. I'd talk about a DEAD hemiplegiac dehydrated slug in Hell with terminal generalized arthritis.)
Oh. And. How comes that with speed and access times orders of magnitude shorter as of now than in 1995, the optical drives still take several seconds to just make the contents of a disk accessible?
Making laws based on opinions that stem up from false informations leads to witch hunts.
Ok, if I were you, I'd install the scim, scim-pinyin, and scim-gtk2-immodule packages (I use Debian, not Ubuntu, so there may be some differences in package names, but I sort of doubt it.) Most GNOME apps will immediately have access to the input method without you doing anything else because of the scim-gtk2-immodule, I think. However, to make it work in generic X apps, you will need to do some configuring.
Basically, you'll want to somehow do the following on gnome startup (I don't use GNOME, I like my old-school window managers):
SCIM's smart pinyin input method really is one of the best input methods I've seen on any operating system, and my guess is that your wife and her friends will find it very usable. You can make it even more usable by configuring it (there's a GUI configuration tool) to use the same keystroke commands as the input method she uses on Windows. If she's a southerner, she'll probably appreciate SCIM's retroflex ambiguity settings (so, for example, she can enter si for characters whose pronunciation is actually shi) and also maybe n/l ambiguity settings. It learns intelligently and picks characters accordingly. It's very high quality software.
I admit that having to futz with scripts and such is a pain -- maybe nowadays there's a way to not do that, but I don't know because I'm still stuck in the 70s :) -- but once you have SCIM setup properly, installing new scim packages (there are tons for lots of different languages) will work automagically, so think of it as a one-time annoyance.
Also, make sure that you install MS's (and maybe Apple's if you have them) fonts, in particular SimSun and SimHei, because there really aren't any readable Free Asian fonts, unfortunately.
Good luck. Hope this information helps.
Wow, when was the last time you used X? Was it back in 1992? I've run X on plenty of low end machines (A Pentium 75 with 16MB of RAM was my primary system for a long time and I ran X on it) and I've never seen behavior like you describe. I'm wondering if there wasn't something misconfigured with your system, or if you didn't have some great memory hog of a desktop manager (like KDE) installed on a machine that was just not powerful enough (or didn't have enough memory). One thing that is true about X is that it will slow down a lot if you make the X server swap to disk, but that's true on Macs too (ever run OS 10.3 on an older 128MB machine?)
I read the internet for the articles.
As for it having 2 MB RAM... That's what I recalled it having. It was a school computer, back in the early '90s, so my memory may have faded a little. It was the first time I'd seen X, and though it was great. I assume it has BSD, since that's what our mini-computer also had. I spent a lot more time on the mini-computer with its serial consoles than I did on the X machine.
And I'm not disputing that X11 alone would be faster than the full Aqua GUI. My point was really to make fun of the guy who pointed out how much faster X is on his [insert old system here]. Heck, Macintosh System 6.0.7 runs laps around my MacBook Pro when run on a Macintosh IIfx. Does that mean that I should run System 6 as my daily OS? No. (And Windows 3.1 is significantly more responsive on my 486/66 than Vista is on my Pentium 4 3.8.)
Another non-functioning site was "uncertainty.microsoft.com."
The purpose of that site was not known.
I only responded cause, in a way, he was actually dead on! This meta-distro is an absolute abortion. I've personally stuck a coat hanger into my power supply twice to rid me of it's nuisance. Yet, for some reason, I keep coming back? Addiction? Duty? Who knows. All I know is that..... Ohh, New binutils is out!!!! gotta go!!!
BBH
Right. Slower system with less RAM is a slower box with less RAM. :)
'nix on a PDP-11 with 128KW (16 bit) of RAM is the smallest I've ever seen. Of course it didn't run X. Hell, it didn't even have a network stack. I could handle 16 concurrent users on dumb terminals though. You should have seen compilations on the damn thing. Whoa. Talk about slow.
Going back to the Mac, System 6 with Multifinder was pretty nice. Right about the time the II/FX, II/ci and II/cx were released I came really close to buying a Mac. But I just couldn't afford it. So I bought a 386sx/16 with 4mb and stuck Win 3.0 on it. God, I hated that thing. What a piece of shit. It wasn't until I got 386BSD installed that I finally felt like that computer could do actual _work_. Then Linux started getting better hardware support and I switched to that. 386BSD really stagnated while the whole AT&T lawsuit was worked out.
Anyway. History and all that.
Topic says it all. There's not some custom Mac video hardware X11 has to be specially built to support. The Nubus Macs had some pretty odd cards at times, but for PCI, the cards are eseentially bone stock except with a Mac-compatible ROM. From the G3 series up, they've hard Mach64s (some with like 4 megs of RAM.. barf..), ATI Radeons of various flavors, then NVidia cards... just like PCs. Oh, and now some Intel integrated graphics for the Intel portables. Sometimes Apple did have a little extra customization done (particularly, the Mac Cube and some G4s had this card with VGA and ADC.. ADC would run a CRT or LCD through a single cable.. software-wise, though, it's just a dual-head card with VGA and DVI.)
These cards are all supported quite well by X11.