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?"

Comments

Less RAM.

[Ash-Fox]

Would it use less RAM to bypass Aqua?

No.

Re:Less RAM.

[maynard]

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).

Re:Less RAM.

[Ash-Fox]

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 think this person puts it nicely.

Re:Less RAM.

[maynard]

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.

Re:Less RAM.

[Ash-Fox]

might as well just run Linux or NetBSD as monolithic kernels tend to run much faster.

Agreed.

Re:Less RAM.

[no reason to be here]

uhh, BeOS uses a microkernel, and is quite fast. much faster than Linux or NetBSD for many operations.

Re:Less RAM.

[Anonymous Coward]

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).

Re:Less RAM.

[no reason to be here]

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.

Re:Less RAM.

[BigBuckHunter]

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

Re:Less RAM.

[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.

Re:Less RAM.

[maynard]

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.

Re:Less RAM.

[Guy Harris]

And, if you're going to do that - might as well just run Linux or NetBSD as monolithic kernels tend to run much faster.

...not that there's all that much "micro" about XNU.

Re:Less RAM.

[maynard]

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.

Re:Less RAM.

[steeviant]

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.

Re:Less RAM.

[yusing]

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.

If what they mean by "MIDI" is software synths ... that's not MIDI, just MIDI controlled.

Re:Less RAM.

[Anonymous Freak]

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.

Re:Less RAM.

[vandan]

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.

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 ... 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.

Re:Less RAM.

[vandan]

For starters, most X11 setups still need to redraw a window when it's exposed -- even with a fast CPU, it's noticable

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 ... don't give a toss. When I move an app, I reposition it once, and I'm happy. If something takes 0.1 seconds to redraw underneath something I've just moved a window over, then that's fine. Whatever. For people like you, you should check out EXA or compiz.

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.

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 ... since when did Apple ever offer that? Even for the hardware that they support ( and lets be honest here, they don't support a lot of hardware ), they only offer full acceleration on the latest hardware. You can't, for example, take my old G3 PowerMac with a Rage 3D and run Quartz Extreme on it, can you? But you can use X's EXA drivers ... and I do. It also will run compiz. So really I don't know where the fuck you think you can score points on hardware support for compositing. You're well behind. The only place you score is in saying that all official systems ( ie a grand total of 2 video cards ) have accelerated compositing. Wow.

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.

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.

Re:Less RAM.

[BigBuckHunter]

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

Re:Less RAM.

[maynard]

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.

Re:Less RAM.

[Corwn of Amber]

Repeat after me:

"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) ... 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...

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?

Re:Less RAM.

[jandrese]

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?)

Re:Less RAM.

[Anonymous Freak]

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.)

Re:Less RAM.

[maynard]

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.

Why not use a better OS to do this?

[nxtw]

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.

Re:Why not use a better OS to do this?

[Ash-Fox]

why not just run Linux?

There is no 3d acceleration then from what I've seen.

Re:Why not use a better OS to do this?

[Cadallin]

Riiight. And on this machine (which can't run OS X adequately) yet has outstanding 3D capabilities (a Rage 128 maybe!) you're going to be doing exactly what?

Nope, In my considered opinion, if a machine is too old to run OS X (so we're clearly talking Macs here, remember?) then linux is probably the best option, as it will have the best software support. BSDs are also an option, but again, the software support for PPC BSD isn't going to be as good as PPC linux.

Re:Why not use a better OS to do this?

[Ash-Fox]

Riiight. And on this machine (which can't run OS X adequately) yet has outstanding 3D capabilities (a Rage 128 maybe!) you're going to be doing exactly what?

Maybe you don't notice, but I do notice the difference in X when running in a non-accelerated desktop. The switching of applications is slower. I have more troubles playing movies that I could play originally in Mac OS X/Windows.

Nope, In my considered opinion, if a machine is too old to run OS X (so we're clearly talking Macs here, remember?) then linux is probably the best option

Maybe, the guy isn't very clear on what he wants to use it for.

BSDs are also an option, but again, the software support for PPC BSD isn't going to be as good as PPC linux.

BSD generally needs better support all around.

Re:Why not use a better OS to do this?

[maynard]

Every Mac going back to the old Beige PPC 601 systems had 2D acceleration support.

Re:Why not use a better OS to do this?

[Lord Kano]

Hell, even the 68040(and 68LC040) Quadras had 2d acceleration.

LK

Re:Why not use a better OS to do this?

[maynard]

That's true. And they'll even run NetBSD! 'Cause NetBSD will run on your freak'n toaster, with enough loving care and attention. :P

Re:Why not use a better OS to do this?

[abradsn]

What do you consider low ram? 1gb? Get real.

Re:Why not use a better OS to do this?

[nxtw]

A few years ago I compared OS X 10.2 and KDE 3 (YDL) on a G3 All in One, with perhaps a Rage 128 or some other ATI GPU with 2 or 4 MB of VRAM.

With 256 and later 320MB RAM, KDE was much, much faster, by a long shot. It was a shock, since I'd long held the misconception that KDE/Gnome were slow (coming from the days of running Windows 95/NT vs. Gnome/KDE on old Pentiums with 64 MB of RAM).

OS X did not support that machine's video card for any sort of acceleration, and there was no way to turn down the needless eye candy to a level that made the OS usable.

OS X on that machine was slower than Windows 2000 with 48 MB of RAM.

Re:Why not use a better OS to do this?

[maynard]

This is a great point. Kids today... they just don't realize how good they've got it. I remember Sun 2s having VME 1mb RAM boards populated with 21256 (256K) chips. Work it out, that's 9 chips (parity) per 256K, or 36 chips just for 1MB of RAM. Add on a bunch of TTL and components to fill the board out and you've got one hell of a heat generator. Also, the damn machine was useless without at least 2MB, and really only useful with 4MB (especially if you added a megapixel display).

And that computer did useful work. Back in the day when you were lucky to get 256K - 512K in a desktop computer (and, yes - PCs really maxed out at 640K).

Re:Why not use a better OS to do this?

[Anonymous Coward]

Have you even SEEN linux? There are 3d accelerated X servers for most modern graphics cards. If its a Rage 128, there is a 3D accelerated server for it. If its the latest ATI, there are accelerated drivers for it. Maybe you just don't know how to configure a different XServer than the default, but there ARE plenty of 3D accelerated X servers.

Re:Why not use a better OS to do this?

[uofitorn]

For some people, not running Linux is an exercise of principle.

Re:Why not use a better OS to do this?

[Anonymous Coward]

But older ATi cards have relatively good OPEN SOURCE 3D acceleration support under x.org. I run a powermac laptop with linuxppc and 3d acceleration.

Re:Why not use a better OS to do this?

[Ash-Fox]

Have you even SEEN linux?

I use Linux on my primary workstations.

There are 3d accelerated X servers for most modern graphics cards.

I still haven't gotten any 3d acceleration working on PPC Macs yet (last attempt was between 2004-2005 I think).

If its a Rage 128, there is a 3D accelerated server for it.

It wasn't.

If its the latest ATI, there are accelerated drivers for it.

ATi don't make PPC builds of their FGLRX linux drivers to my knowledge.

Maybe you just don't know how to configure a different XServer than the default

Doubt it.

Re:Why not use a better OS to do this?

[niXcamiC]

Thats interesting, I had the exact opposite experiance, running OS X 10.4 and KDE 3 (kubuntu) on a g3 ibook with 128 megs of ram, then later 256, and OS X 10.4 was much faster. Not to mention, it ran propraitary software, which is alomst impossible on ppc linux.

Re:Why not use a better OS to do this?

[Anonymous Coward]

A truly excellent post in only 11 words.

Re:Why not use a better OS to do this?

[irc.goatse.cx troll]

My retort to that kind of analysis (that my dad was so fond of when growing up) is this:

Kids today don't know how shitty they have it compared to kids in 20-30 years.

Unfair relativistic comparisons go both ways and in the end its all perspective-- I'm pretty hungry right now. In Ethiopia there are entire villages that have eaten less than I've eaten today, surely they're more hungry than me.. But that doesn't make me feel any less hungry.

Re:Why not use a better OS to do this?

[jrockway]

You sound quite ignorant here. There are free (3d-accelerated) drivers for ATI cards called "ati". They work fine on PPC, and are fast enough to allow you to play ppracer (and friends).

If 2d isn't working acceptably, then you simply misconfigured the X Server. This might have been a problem 20 or so years ago, but nowadays it's fine.

I recently switched my old Powerbook G4 from OS X 10.4 to Kubuntu/Dapper Drake, and I find it much more responsive and easier to use. All the nicities of the Powerbook still work fine (notably power management, suspend/resume is nice'n'fast just like in OS X), but you the good OSS apps run much better. (KOffice / KMail/ amaroK / etc. Sorry, Apple's cheap imitations just don't cut it for me.)

Re:Why not use a better OS to do this?

[jrockway]

What principle is that? Throwing your freedom (and money) away?

Re:Why not use a better OS to do this?

[Handlarn]

There are a lot of software which Mac is famous for running very smoothly, for example a lot of audio and graphics software. Most of these programs are only available for MacOS and Windows.

(Although since I have very little experience of Mac, I don't really know whether running X11 instead of Aqua would break functionality of these programs, so maybe they wouldn't even run satisfactory on X11.)

Re:Why not use a better OS to do this?

[dal20402]

(KOffice / KMail/ amaroK / etc. Sorry, Apple's cheap imitations just don't cut it for me.)

I have to say I don't understand this comment. Not that there aren't plenty of good reasons to run Linux on your PB G4, but I don't get this.

There is no Apple Office-style product. iWork is designed and priced to cover a much more basic set of needs. While MS Office is made by Satan and can be absurdly expensive it is not a "cheap imitation" of KOffice or OOo -- they are imitating it, sometimes successfully, sometimes less successfully.

The great thing about OS X Mail is that it is *not* an imitation of Outlook like every other email client out there, including KMail. While it has some holes it also has unique capabilities, especially in the interface -- I love the fact that it (unlike any other client I've ever used) will seamlessly combine all my IMAP inboxes and sent-mail folders.

And if you're trying to say that iTunes is a cheap imitation of Amarok... wow. Your *K*ool-Aid is stronger than the stuff Mac zealots are drinking.

Re:Why not use a better OS to do this?

[Lord Apathy]

KDE is slower when compaired to running a unencumbered fvwm2 desktop. Don't get me wrong, KDE and Gnome are very nice projects. They have done wonders to help the transition to linux from winblows. But there is just something to building a desktop from scratch and watching it run like a cat with a bottle rocket up its arse.

Re:Why not use a better OS to do this?

[ATMD]

Maybe he just doesn't want to run Linux?

Is that so hard to believe?

Re:Why not use a better OS to do this?

[nxtw]

That software most likely requires the Aqua interface via Cocoa or Carbon...

Re:Why not use a better OS to do this?

[flydpnkrtn]

Attitudes such as the parent AC's post are what will keep Linux out of the mainstream limelight.

Yes, maybe he hasn't 'seen' Linux. Maybe he's read about X11 becuase he read about getting OpenOffice working on OSX (and didn't know about NeoOffice).

This condescending tone is what keeps "Linux off the Desktop," and will continue to do so.

Come on people stop acting like it's a religion that only we the chosen few have gained knowledge of from the Gods or something.

Re:Why not use a better OS to do this?

[TheGreek]

What principle is that? Throwing your freedom (and money) away?

I think it's the principle of using software whose primary design goal is innovation instead of being "a free clone of [software package]."

Re:Why not use a better OS to do this?

[istewart]

The G3 AIO would've been ATI Mach64 graphics. So yeah, pretty weak.

Re:Why not use a better OS to do this?

[steeviant]

What a flamebaity subject line...

I think you're right though, well... maybe you are. The guy hasn't stated what his objective is.

1) If he has found some amazing command line program that only works in OS X, then he'd probably be best served by simply turning off the GUI and forgetting X11. There are several different ways to do this for each different version of OS X at MacOSXhints.com

2) If he wants to run X11 apps, then Linux is definitely the better way to go, there will be 3d acceleration support for the ATI Rage card in his iMac that people probably haven't bothered to port to darwin.

3) If he wants to run Mac applications, he'd be better off using a version of OS 9, which can be found on auction sites for decent prices.

4) If he wants to run Unix and Mac apps side by side, Linux+MOL+OS 9 is going to require a smaller RAM upgrade than OS X. A setup like that can be quite usable in only 256MB ram.

5) If he wants to run OS X, he will need to upgrade the ram in the machine to at least 256MB

As for modern Mac apps, tough. An old iMac is simply not going to cut it, even with 512MB ram a lot of modern applications will run too slowly to be usable. It's only worthwhile for a taste of OS X, even with a RAM upgrade.

If this fellow wants to run modern OS X applications, he's going to have to dump that old PoS and get something better, that's all there is to it. Modern apps require modern hardware, and there are no cheap shortcuts.

Re:Why not use a better OS to do this?

[jrockway]

True, a lot of OSS projects copy non-Free projects. I don't see the problem -- they take a good idea, and make it Free for other people to improve upon. That, to me, is a good thing.

Also, don't Apple and MS rip each other off all the time? Isn't Darwin a "clone" of FreeBSD? Isn't Safari a (pretty-looking) "clone" of Konqueror? Isn't TextMate a "clone" of emacs? It goes both ways.

Re:Why not use a better OS to do this?

[kelnos]

C'mon, I know no one reads the article, but your answer is write in the summary: "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."

Re:Why not use a better OS to do this?

[nxtw]

I read that, and it's not a very good reason.

Not using Aqua eliminates OS X's graphics drivers.
After that, much of the hardware in a Mac is generic (graphics card, wireless networking, usb/firewire, bluetooth) or usually well implemented (sound, ethernet) in Linux.

Re:Why not use a better OS to do this?

[LKM]

Mac OS X has become significantly faster with every new version. You should redo your test.

Re:Why not use a better OS to do this?

[nxtw]

Except this Mac is not compatible with OS X 10.3 or 10.4 (and no, I will not try out a program that will let me install it anyway).

Re:Why not use a better OS to do this?

[tverbeek]

The G3 AIO certainly is compatible with OS X.3 (and from what I've heard, X.4). I have one sitting right in front of me that proves it. It's not supported by Apple for running those versions, but that's a very different question. Apple doesn't support running PPC Linux or OpenDarwin on this machine either, but that doesn't make them incompatible with it.

Re:Why not use a better OS to do this?

[Listen Up]

OS X did not support that machine's video card for any sort of acceleration, and there was no way to turn down the needless eye candy to a level that made the OS usable.

So, you installed an OS on unsupported hardware and claim that there is a problem with the OS? Please. If any moderators score your post up, they are a bunch of idiots too.

Re:Why not use a better OS to do this?

[Listen Up]

Easier to use my ass. The reason I moved away from Linux is because it is -not- easier to use. For example, configuring the windowing environment in OS X? Nope, never have to. Installing an application? Drag the app bundle to the Applications folder. Installed. Uninstall an application? Drag app bundle to trash. No dependency hell whatsoever. No library conflicts. Absolutely incredible and easy. What to find an obscure or forgotten file or phrase of text within a file in an instant? Click Spotlight. Easy. Wireless networking? WPA? Networks in OS X are automatically detected and working within seconds. Easy. And on and on and on. After over 10 years of using Linux on Intel I had enough of the constant problems and configuration nightmares. Seriously, both Fedora and Ubuntu essentially require Unofficial How-To's to get the system usable, download simple shit like MP3 compatibility from foreign mirrors, setting up mirrors at all, getting Windows Media files to play, getting any QuickTime files to play, configuring this that and the other damn thing, and on and on and on whereas -none- of that is required on OS X.

And software on Linux is better than on OS X? Please. There is a ton of major commercial software available on OS X. One example to highlight in regards to your post, Microsoft Office 2004 would top the list. If you want OSS, there is OpenOffice/NeoOffice, which I use everyday. There is also Adium, which is OSS, and is a very capable replacement for iChat unless you need video chat capabilties. Of course, GAIM and every other chat client on Linux does not support video chat either, so it is really a draw there. iMail works perfectly with Exchange/IMAP/POP and I've never had a problem integrating iMail/iCal with our Exchange 2003 server at work. Amarok is better than iTunes/QuickTime? Yeah right. And on and on and on.

I like Linux. I've used Linux for years. Linux is fun to use. But it's like a never ending construction project. I just got sick of the constant bullshitting around to configure anything and the constant sub-par user interfaces. The people using Linux always downtalk and downplay OS's like OS X, but have nothing better to show for it, even after developing Linux for over 13 years now. If I had to move back to Intel based PC's, I would use Linux in an instant over Windows. But given the opportunity to use OS X on Intel, I jumped on it in an instant. True Unix with a beautiful, useful, and elegant user interface. And a Unix terminal and underpinnings at the touch of a finger. Absolutely brilliant.

Re:Why not use a better OS to do this?

[nxtw]

see here

Power Mac G3 is clearly listed. This would include the Power Mac G3 All-in-One.

Re:Why not use a better OS to do this?

[kelnos]

I think the wireless is really the sticking point. I have a G4 Powerbook, and I have it set up to dual-boot with OS X and Linux. I've been using the OSS bcm43xx driver for wireless on Linux, and its stability has left something to be desired. Up until my recent upgrade (had to use a release candidate kernel), the machine would hard-lock if I left it for a few hours idle with the wireless radio on. For that reason alone, I could understand a heavy wireless user not wanting to use it. And that's just one problem I (personally) have been having; it's possible there are other problems with the driver I'm not seeing.

Also, the motherboard chipset on my Powerbook (nvidia UniNorth, or something) isn't very well supported, so I don't have suspend-to-RAM capability while running Linux. Linux PPC devs claimed earlier this year that it would be a while before it's supported. I don't even think anyone's working on it.

Speaking of nvidia, all I have is the OSS 'nv' driver for X, as nvidia doesn't provide binaries for Linux PPC for their proprietary driver. So, no decent 2D acceleration, even. (Not that this would be any different if I were running XDarwin, and I guess the article poster probably wouldn't care as he claims to have an older machine.)

For me, it's fine: I run Linux probably 85% of the time on my Powerbook, and I live with the deficiencies. But I certainly see why someone else might not find it acceptable. Stable wireless and suspend-to-RAM are pretty important to some people.

Re:Why not use a better OS to do this?

[Mattintosh]

"ATY Mach64U Pro" is a Rage Pro, usually with 2MB of VRAM. Unless you specifically got the upgrade to 6MB, that is. My beige G3 tower has the same (with the upgrade). So does my old "Lombard" Powerbook G3 (1999/bronze keyboard), though it has the "LT" version (laptop? light? lame trash?) with 8MB VRAM built in.

There was a Mac OS X driver included with 10.1 (I think) for the Rage Pro, but it was unsupported and had to be installed manually, and that was a massive PITA. I'm not talking about a manual install where there's an installer script... you had to copy the file to the /Library/somethingorother folder, then register it with the kernel by messing with config files in a text editor, messing with the NetInfo database (no idea why), and rebooting. That's some info from 2002 that I didn't think I'd ever need again... eek.

Upgrade to 10.3 on those machines if you can. It runs much faster.

Re:Why not use a better OS to do this?

[jrockway]

> just got sick of the constant bullshitting around to configure anything and the constant sub-par user interfaces. The people using Linux always downtalk and downplay OS's like OS X, but have nothing better to show for it, even after developing Linux for over 13 years now.

Hmm, I got sick of bullshitting around to configure anything in OS X. Want a recent emacs? Compile it from CVS yourself. Want a sane user interface on cp/mv/etc.? Download GNU coreutils/textutils/findutils from fink/portage/ports/ftp.gnu.org and compile it yourself! Want a perl with ithreads (the default)? Rip out Apple's and compile it yourself! Want an OS that doesn't automatically kill GDB with SIGSEGV when you try to debug something Apple doesn't want you to? Compile it yourself! Oh wait, you can't, because the critical bits of the OS X kernel are closed source. ("We're Open -- open for business.") Want a broadcom wireless driver that doesn't have a multitude of remote root holes? Write it yourself! OS X is secure because we think it is!

The list goes on and on. I'm sick of the same useless music player with a new theme every month. I'm sick of "Finder", the most inconvenient file manager to date (I like spring loaded folders, but Konqueror has that now ;). I'm sick of Apple's shitty interpretation of a terminal emulator. I'm sick iTunes auto-launching and auto-deleting my iPod's music collection because it's not "authorized" on that computer. I'm sick of "critical security updates" hosing my production servers. I'm sick of Apple's broken interpretation of init/netinfo and postfix/Apache/etc. Hell, even UNIX Services for Windows is a more sane UNIX...

OS X is good for people that use their computers as toys. For everyone else, there are other OSes that are more suitable.

Re:Why not use a better OS to do this?

[abradsn]

Dude, this isn't a response. It is useless rhetoric.

Oh, What about the children?!

Maybe, you just missed the context...

Basically, a parent was like, any machine nowadays can handle linux.... even machines without much ram... and I was basically saying that any older machine without a gb of ram won't run well. 1 gb is still a good chunk of ram, and so is 512, and 256. (Linux on low amounts of ram runs like a fat slug crawling vertically up a wall)

The post you were responding to was basically saying, "Oh, interesting, this seems to be history repeating itself. I saw this once before..."

You misinterpreted this as "Oh, you stupid kids with your mountains of free memory... back in my day... memory had to be created starting with a bucket of sand and a sifter until you had enough silicon to fabricate a chip..."

Now you can see, what a little bit of understanding can do to help the situation.

Re:Why not use a better OS to do this?

[EvilTwinSkippy]

What's wrong with AquaEmacs? And if you get some water up into that crack, you might just get the sand out. Seriously, if you are ever serious about actually LEARNING to play with the mac on it's own terms, Xcode and darwinports are your friends. As far as running OS X as a server, I like Tiger Server so much my Xserve G5s running UbuntuPPC. You'll get OS X off my MacBook when you pry it from my dead hand though. I'm hard core at work, but at home I really can't give a flying hoot what is doing what as long as it works.

Re:Why not use a better OS to do this?

[philipgar]

Wow... what a troll! Nothing of what you say seems to make much sense. I don't know of any difference between cp/mv etc on my OSX boxes and my linux boxes, so not an issue. Wanting a recent emacs... I generally use aquaemacs, or whatever is currently in fink. Not a big deal, why do I need bleeding edge emacs for christsake? As far as GDB segfaulting when you debug something apple doesn't want you to... so what? Why are you trying to debug the OSX kernel anyhow. You act like the linux kernel is so great and wonderful. Except of course no one wants to make real drivers for an OS that requires supporting a billion versions of their ABI, and oh ... we're going to change the ABI every few months to make things "better". I think the every year or two changes are much more sane.

As far as broadcom wireless drivers... Seriously, don't try to compare wireless on OSX and linux. First, most every OSX box made in the past 4 years already has built in wireless, so why do you need a broadcom one? Second... have you ever tried getting wireless working in linux? It's a disaster. Oh wait, if you use a wrapper around the windows drivers they work. As for the driver giving the kernel a security hole, let me tell you about this awesome kernel driver I wrote for linux, want the module?

iTunes is also a wonderful music application. Quite frankly it just works. Plays mp3s out of the box, plays m4a out of the box etc. It doesn't support oggs, but than again aside from a handful of linux geeks most people go oggs.... what are those? I've never had a problem with itunes screwing up my ipod. If it's talking about authorized stuff, it must be dealing with itunes downloaded songs, which as far as I know don't work in linux at all (in fact most legal music download services won't work there).

Linux's big problem is it's openness. Because it can be easily changed, there are a million variants of it, and all the core interfaces (the kernel, X11, gtk,qt, gnome, kde, various other libs) change constantly. This works fine for a linux distribution, where everything is available as source, but for real applications, developers don't want to spend the time and money supporting their application on a million different variants. Additionally that requires backporting their changes too. It's just a real mess to work with.

Calling OSX a toy is just a laugh. It's a real OS, and lets people get real work done. It runs many different FOSS applications (and much better than windows does), and additionally it runs professional software as well. Additionally it's unix (for a better term try iTerm... the default one is like saying xterm sucks... linux doesn't have any good terminals). Sounds like a toy OS to me.

Phil

Re:Why not use a better OS to do this?

[jrockway]

I'll bite.

> Wow... what a troll! Nothing of what you say seems to make much sense.

Not to someone who's an idiot, true.

> I don't know of any difference between cp/mv etc on my OSX boxes and my linux boxes, so not an issue.

There is a difference. If you don't know, then I guess you don't care. My argument that your computer is just a toy to you holds.

> Not a big deal, why do I need bleeding edge emacs for christsake?

You must not need a recent emacs, because your computer is a toy. (Or you use vi, that's fine.)

> As far as GDB segfaulting when you debug something apple doesn't want you to... so what? Why are you trying to debug the OSX kernel anyhow.

It's my computer, why shouldn't I? I want to know how my computer works. I want to know that it's not spying on me.

> You act like the linux kernel is so great and wonderful. Except of course no one wants to make real drivers for an OS that requires supporting a billion versions of their ABI, and oh ... we're going to change the ABI every few months to make things "better".

Apple changes the ABI on every release.

> I think the every year or two changes are much more sane.

Whatever; write your own OS if you feel so strongly.

> As far as broadcom wireless drivers... Seriously, don't try to compare wireless on OSX and linux. First, most every OSX box made in the past 4 years already has built in wireless, so why do you need a broadcom one?

Broadcom is manufacturer of the chipset in Apple's Airport cards (built-in).

> Second... have you ever tried getting wireless working in linux? It's a disaster.

True, because most hardware that vendors shit out is a disaster. Buy supported hardware and it works fine. Windows apps don't run on your Mac, but I'll be you don't consider that a problem. Same thing here. Unsupported hardware is unsupported. Duh.

> Oh wait, if you use a wrapper around the windows drivers they work.

So wait, it works fine, you're saying?

> As for the driver giving the kernel a security hole, let me tell you about this awesome kernel driver I wrote for linux, want the module?

That's why your "awesome kernel driver" isn't bundled by default with new hardware purchased from Apple.

> iTunes is also a wonderful music application. Quite frankly it just works. Plays mp3s out of the box, plays m4a out of the box etc. It doesn't support oggs, but than again aside from a handful of linux geeks most people go oggs.... what are those?

Doesn't play FLAC, which is what I keep most of my music collection in. Lossless, and Free (so I can freely convert to a better format when one comes out). You can install a quicktime plugin to get ogg support, though. I just don't like the interface -- amaroK has a lot more options (and a lot more eye candy), and I happen to like that. Minimalism is for people with minimal intelligence ;)

> I've never had a problem with itunes screwing up my ipod.

Lucky. Google for it, I'm not the only one complaining about this.

> Linux's big problem is it's openness. Because it can be easily changed, there are a million variants of it, and all the core interfaces (the kernel, X11, gtk,qt, gnome, kde, various other libs) change constantly.

X11 has been the same for 20 years. But change is good -- why stick with a broken API when you can improve it? If the software is open, it will take very little time to port to a new version.

> This works fine for a linux distribution, where everything is available as source, but for real applications, developers don't want to spend the time and money supporting their application on a million different variants. Additionally that requires backporting their changes too. It's just a real mess to work with.

Yeah, Red Hat and Novell can't seem to manage. Good thing they're out of business now. (Same with Wolfram + Mathematica, Sun + Java, Map

Re:Why not use a better OS to do this?

[Chris Tucker]

"And that computer did useful work. Back in the day when you were lucky to get 256K - 512K in a desktop computer (and, yes - PCs really maxed out at 640K)."

Oh, what I would have given for 640K!

Well, no. For a LONG time, my only computer was a Commodore 128. Fully pimped out with JiffyDOS, 4 disk drives and the CMD SwiftLink modem interface (56k dialup on a 128? Yep. Life in the fast lane!)

I was able to do a LOT of serious, complicated work on that machine. Played some pretty fun games on it, too. (FPS games are not fun. Fast twitch shoot 'em ups are for the overly testosteroned.)

The current computer is a Mac G3, 450 Mhz, half gig of RAM, running OS X 10.3.9.

It runs a bit slow, to be sure, but hey, no big deal. Unlike some of the commenters, I don't feel the need to conflate my penis size with any particular Linux distro/hardware.

Your computer is just a calculator that displays its sums as colored dots on the display. Nothing more.

I maintain that Slashdot needs a "Linux Bigot" moderation, along with "Troll" and "Flamebait".

Re:Why not use a better OS to do this?

[maynard]

Your computer is just a calculator that displays its sums as colored dots on the display. Nothing more.

Yes yes yes yes yes!!!

Sorry

[poopdeville]

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.

I tried that

[clang_jangle]

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...

Re:I tried that

[maynard]

That's because Mach spends a shit of of resources passing messages and servicing real-time interrupts. That has nothing to do with the difference between X11 vs. Aqua in terms of resource consumption. Stick Yellow Dog or NetBSD on that old G3 if you want performance.

Re:I tried that

[the_humeister]

Not quite. The best way to test this is if you enter the command-line directly by either going into single-user mode or editing the /etc/ttys since these methods don't load Aqua at all. If you use the >console method, I don't think the system unloads Aqua from memory.

Re:I tried that

[fatphil]

How do you go into single user mode? I'd dearly like to liberate several hundred megs of RAM in order to use it for my own memory-intensive applications rather than have the GUI (which I also don't see eye-to-eye with) swallow it all up.

Re:I tried that

[ktappe]

How do you go into single user mode?

Hold down Command-S while (re)booting.

-Kurt

Re:I tried that

[Anonymous Coward]

I believe that >console just plops a full-screen termial-like window on top of the login screen.

Re:I tried that

[The Webguy]

Here's a Wiki Link with a step-by-step on how to do what the Author is asking about. http://72.14.203.104/search?q=cache:SALYCmrmMmkJ:e n.wikibooks.org/wiki/Advanced_Mac_OS_X_Tiger+tiger +login+console&hl=en&gl=us&ct=clnk&cd=5

Don't Bother

[quanticle]

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.

Re:Don't Bother

[AuMatar]

X11 is a hell of a lot less eyecandy and resource heavy than Aqua. X11 has been running since the 80s- computers didn't have as much total memory then as your smallest program likely does now.

Re:Don't Bother

[muuh-gnu]

> 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.

Thats bullshit.

How do you think you can "optimize" some widget library for the hardware? You either have drivers for the graphic card running or you dont. Just recompiling some text editor doesnt "glue" it more to the underlying hardware. Or, by going with your logic, why couldnt someone just offer an "optimized" version of X for the Mac hardware in the first place?

Re:Don't Bother

[quanticle]

X11 has also been worked upon since the '80s. That means about 20 years of cruft, vs. Aqua's 6. I'm just saying that X11 today isn't the same X11 from the '80s.

Re:Don't Bother

[Anonymous Coward]

Aqua has more than 6. Remember, OS X is just the most recent version of NeXT.

Re:Don't Bother

[maynard]

What are you smoking? DPS (and the more recent OS X variant DPDF) goes back to 1988, with the introduction of NeXTSTep on the NeXT cube. Mac OS X is really just NeXTStep. Aqua, however, is an Apple addition and - IMO - is a real improvement. But it's also a resource hog.

Re:Don't Bother

[Anonymous Coward]

Incorrect, recompiling a text editor (suppose it was a static build) may glue it closer to the hardware if the libraries used were rewritten to take advantage of features such as Core Image, Quartz Extreme etc.

Remember that OS X does the majority of the rendering leg work with the GPU using OpenGL, not in a software rendering layer. X11 is way behind on this, maybe XGL will level the playing field.

The original poster was confusing Aqua with Quartz which is the system that does the rendering, Aqua is just a Look & Feel.

Also have a look at http://www.misplaced.net/fom/X11/8.html which is the Quartz enhanced WM designed for X11 on OS X. So yes, someone did offer an optimized system, or at least part of it and look at http://developers.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=752 57&cid=6734612 (a post by one of the Quartz developers) which talks about why Quartz was chosen over X11.

So really to the point, X11 is NOT optimized for mac hardware, doesn't render like Quartz, and doesn't use the GPU like Quartz Extreme.

Re:Don't Bother

[mpaque]

DPS (and the more recent OS X variant DPDF) goes back to 1988, with the introduction of NeXTSTep on the NeXT cube [wikipedia.org].

The Mac OS X window system and the Quartz and PDF rendering layers are completely new in Mac OS X, and do not share any code with the Display PostScript system from NeXTSTEP.

Re:Don't Bother

[maynard]

That's a fair point. However, you must admit that within the context of Aqua+DPDF vs. X11 for performance on old hardware, to bring up the historical significance of DPS on NeXTStep is fair. DPS worked great on that old hardware - just as did X11. Which is not to diminish the advances of Aqua on modern 3D accelerated hardware.

Re:Don't Bother

[jZnat]

New CPUs have new assembler op codes available, and ever since MMX, SIMD (useful for graphics-related processing for one) has been enhanced with each new CPU. Programs that can use SSE, for example, can take advantage of native op codes for SIMD rather than emulating it with a lot more code.

Re:Don't Bother

[BenjyD]

Aqua is optimised for the hardware in that it is drawn using the 3d hardware of the graphics card. That's why things like window dragging are so much smoother under Aqua than X11.

Re:Don't Bother

[seebs]

Well, actually, that would be rather wrong. One of the innovations of OS X's GUI is closer tie-ins with the rendering hardware; the GUI really does make more direct use of the GPU than a typical X11 interface does. The X11 interface is written in very generic terms to make rendering calls which are then handled in an optimized way... But it's still a bunch of separate rendering calls. Aqua knows quite a bit about what GPU features are necessarily available to it, and tweaks the GPU directly.

On the other hand, an X11 interface may well be enough simpler to more than make up the difference.

Re:Don't Bother

[jisom]

And lets not forget that aqua can use opengl to speed things up and nvidia and only support osx on ppc.

Why bother?

[chrisv]

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.

Re:Why bother?

[delire]

You get few, if any, benefits from ditching Aqua if you're still running OS X

There may be benefits. OS X is extremely resource intensive and has terrible memory management. A fine place to start if you're interested in a performant machine would be to strip back Aqua.

I work with 3D alot and have been surprised by just how much of an under-acheiver OS X is (Core Duo or PPC) compared to a Linux install on the same machine. OS X won't ever compete with Linux in 3D workstation market until it makes it easier to get rid of the bling. The last thing I want on a graphics workstation is having my graphics memory full of texture data and my GPU running hot on some vector math - before I even begin 3D modeling.

That should be a Sun 3/50

[maynard]

I remember running a full 'nix with X11 and TWM with 4mb of RAM on a Sun 3/80.

s/80/50/

Re:That should be a Sun 3/50

[nonsequitor]

I remember running a full 'nix with X11 and TWM with 4mb of RAM on a Sun 3/80.

s/80/50/

I'm not sure who's the bigger geek, you for posting that, or me for immediately recognizing the syntax to sed.

>console

[adavies42]

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.

I've been bypassing Aqua for ages...

[Channard]

.. ever since I heard 'Barbie Girl' in fact.

It's possible

[the_humeister]

But you're better off using something else (eg some Linux variant, BSD, etc.)

However, if you really want to try, do the following:

1) open /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

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.

Re:It's possible

[Xyde]

For anyone wanting to try this out, it's unnecessary to fiddle with the ttys file. You simply log into the system as ">console" without the quotes into the username, and no password. This will exit Aqua and dump you back to a text based console, allowing you to log in and startx.

Yes, it's possible

[baryon351]

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.

Heathen

[bar-agent]

Sacrilege! Burn the unbeliever! Burrrnnn him!!!

Re:Heathen

[cheese-cube]

I think the only thing around here that will be burning is your karma.

Re:Heathen

[bar-agent]

You turned out to be correct, sir.

Re:Heathen

[Anonymous Coward]

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!

Re:Heathen

[pbailey]

Just a thought here, but you would probably get a better response from moderators if you didn't log in as Anonymous Coward.

What for?

[kosmosik]

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.

Re:What for?

[Ash-Fox]

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.

I have never gotten 3d acceleration working in FreeBSD on PPC Macs. I do notice the difference in the desktop speed when I don't have them on X11.

Re:What for?

[maynard]

Why do you need 3D acceleration on an old Mac? Most of them never had 3D hardware support anyway. 2D acceleration is perfectly fine for good X11 performance.

Re:What for?

[Ash-Fox]

Why do you need 3D acceleration on an old Mac?

Mainly for faster task switching (I don't really notice any redrawing taking place) and being able to play movie files (hardware overlay support provided by 3d accelerated drivers).

Most of them never had 3D hardware support anyway.

Never owned one that old.

2D acceleration is perfectly fine for good X11 performance.

Perhaps it is for you, but I don't like staring at the screen redrawing.

Re:What for?

[kosmosik]

PPC Macs are out. ;) Didn't you know that?

Re:What for?

[maynard]

An old g3 with a good Rage 128 might have enough horsepower to display an mpeg. But step down to older hardware, and forget it. 2D acceleration for lines and fills was the standard for NuBus video cards from that era (early to late nineties) And before that it was just a flat frame buffer.

Re:What for?

[Jeff DeMaagd]

An old g3 with a good Rage 128 might have enough horsepower to display an mpeg.

I think you mean that the old G3 might have enough horsepower to display an MPEG, or maybe not. I don't think you'd be using any special technology with the Rage.

I don't think ATI had on-chip MPEG decoding until Radeon. Even then, Apple's record for taking advantage of GPU accellerated MPEG decoding was spotty at times. My G4 mini didn't use its GPU MPEG decoder for DVD playback, it used more than half the CPU. This is compared to a PIIIm Windows notebook of similar CPU power but with a much older Radeon that barely used any CPU at all.

Re:What for?

[Anonymous Coward]

Hardware overlays are NOT provided by 3D hardware, it part of the
2D accelaration. It is no better today on a top end 3D card than
it was almost 10 years ago on a good 2D card.

Hardware overlays is a 2D blittler that puts YUV video on top of whatever the video card is outputting.

Re:What for?

[Ash-Fox]

Hardware overlays are NOT provided by 3D hardware, it part of the
2D accelaration. It is no better today on a top end 3D card than
it was almost 10 years ago on a good 2D card.

Interesting, but, I can only recall ever getting overlays working when I got 3d acceleration working.

Re:What for?

[argent]

I have never gotten 3d acceleration working in FreeBSD on PPC Macs.

I think you missed this bit. or you missed the implications of it: and craft yourself hardware that works with FreeBSD. If that means "not a Mac" that shouldn't be an issue...

Odds are you can get more money selling your Mac as a Mac than you'd pay for a well-supported non-Mac that exceeds its performance in every respect.

just install Linux

[oohshiny]

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.

Not so cut and dry.

[Anonymous Coward]

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

s/21256/41256

[maynard]

sigh, I really should preview more often.

MacOnLinux

[davidwr]

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.

YES YOU CAN

[Anonymous Coward]

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)

And so you bought a mac because?

[coaxial]

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.

Re:And so you bought a mac because?

[Jeff DeMaagd]

The article wasn't about the new machines but the older ones. The new machines, even the cheapest ones sold new, run OS X exceedingly well, though it helps to have a good amount of memory. Given that memory is pretty cheap for the most part, I don't think that's really a problem.

Re:And so you bought a mac because?

[Epicyon]

I think you hit the nail on the head, although maybe not intentionally. I'm also wanting to replace the Aqua interface with X while still using OS X. The reason? Customization. I don't want to give up all of the "It Just Works(tm)" stuff in order to tweak the UI to a degree I enjoy. I'm running OS X on an intel Mac and am quite happy with it. The one niggling lack is the inability to tweak my UI in the same way I can with X. I do have another laptop running debian which I've enjoyed tweaking and use for quite a bit. And I'm sure this will set off a storm, but I don't feel I can rely on OpenOffice (specifically) or wine to get some of proprietary work done day to day. OO.o died 4 times Monday afternoon while trying to create a document. (It seemed to happen during a cut and past operation from IE6 under Wine, which I realize is a bit iffy in the first place.) But my point being, I don't yet have the confidence in the available applications to do day to day work, that I can get done under OS X. I don't want to completely remove Aqua, but rather have the ability to disable as needed.

Re:And so you bought a mac because?

[chill]

By "It just works", are you referring to hardware and drivers or software?

If software, will it run without Aqua? I mean, can you get something like iTunes or GarageBand to run under X?

If hardware, well...you should have just run Linux. I mean, if you want "It just works" then just buy known-supported hardware. The reason "It just works" on Mac is because Apple controls the hardware. You won't have to fiddle with driver one if you do some homework on what is supported under Linux, first.

My last couple of machines I purchases/built had no issues what-so-ever with hardware and drivers. It all just worked.

  Charles

Re:And so you bought a mac because?

[RAMMS EIN]

``And so you bought a mac because?''

Maybe because he likes the hardware? I know that's why I've been buying iBooks (unfortunately, they have been discontinued). Good battery life, easy to carry, well supported by Linux, and, as far as I can tell, pretty durable.

Re:And so you bought a mac because?

[Pink Tinkletini]

Aqua is quite customizeable, thanks to Objective-C and the Cocoa framework's highly dynamic runtime. Look up method swizzling and class posing and learn how to tweak every last aspect of your desktop. Mind-blowing stuff there.

Re:And so you bought a mac because?

[Epicyon]

Hardware and drivers for the most part. The current challenge I'm working on is EAP-TLS with wpa_supplicant on the debian box. It's far more straightforward and reliable on OS X or even XP. I don't mean to imply I'm trying to use Apple apps under X. I'm willing to switch over as necessary to Aqua. But a considerable amount of work is done in Terminal or makes use of apps which aren't Apple specific and work just fine under X. I've considered replacing OS X with a linux distro, and likely will once I'm confident I can get the day to day work done I need.

Re:And so you bought a mac because?

[Guy Harris]

Aqua is quite customizeable, thanks to Objective-C and the Cocoa framework's highly dynamic runtime. Look up method swizzling and class posing and learn how to tweak every last aspect of your desktop.

Even those aspects of your desktop implemented in, err, umm, Carbon? Such as, say, the Finder?

Re:And so you bought a mac because?

[dwater]

6-pin firewire? This is important for portable firewire drives, since the extra two pins provide power, and if it's a laptop we're talking about, you'd need a separate power supply to run the drive - very inconvenient at the best of times.

Show me *any* other laptop with a 6-pin firewire port...

You may run Apple's own X11 server on Aqua

[Eravnrekaree]

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/

Re:You may run Apple's own X11 server on Aqua

[eratosthene]

Wow, are you an Apple marketing exec? You've ignored the whole point of the question (as ill-advised as it is), which was to run X11 *without* running Aqua. I think just about everybody on this site knows you can run X apps under OSX.

other services

[fermion]

I have OS X running on older G4 machines. I find the X11 performance on these machines, for instance OO.org, to as bad as the OS X performance, although the performance of most applications is good. Really, the only applications that are horrible are the iLife application, which run slow even on the high end G4 machines.

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.

Re:other services

[RAMMS EIN]

``*nix likes memory and always has. It has seldom been the OS for small footprints.''

Must be because it was originally written on a lowly, mostly abandoned PDP-7. Seriously, I'd argue that *nix systems are pretty light as operating systems go. Even today, you can get *nix systems to run in under a megabyte of memory (e.g. MINIX 2).

``Most G4 macs can accommodate at least 512 MB, and if you running a G3 mac, you likely have other difficulties.''

My desktop setup normally uses around 128 MB of RAM, and CPU speed isn't much of an issue. I am confident that, if I had a G3 Mac, I could work on it comfortably (I only have a 6100 and a G4, though). Of course, if you run memory-hungry things like desktop environments, OpenOffice.org, Firefox, etc. you will need more memory.

What I would like to know

[Geoffreyerffoeg]

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.

Re:What I would like to know

[Anonymous Coward]

no it isn't possible.

Re:What I would like to know

[RAMMS EIN]

It's not exactly what you asked, but I just wanted to point out that, if you run Linux on a PowerPC Mac, you can run OS X (and OS 9, and earlier) apps. Using Mac-on-Linux, you can boot other Power Mac operating systems in their own virtual machines.

Framebuffer vs 2D accel vs 3D accel

[Short Circuit]

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.

1991 "fast" isn't 2006 "fast"

[seawall]

> DPS worked great on that old hardware - just as did X11.

  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. ....and as for the relationship between NeXT-step and Aqua;
an awful lot of those Aqua functions start with "NS"....and I'm pretty sure
NS doesn't stand for "New Stuff"!

aqua is fine for older machines

[steak]

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.

Here is how to use X11 on Mac

[Ilgaz]

1)Get YDL from http://www.terrasoftsolutions.com/tss_home.shtml

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_d ay_bug/ ) , some real stupid "Spyware experiment" ( http://www.reghardware.co.uk/2006/11/24/mac_os_x_a dware/ ) on Slashdot Apple?

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

Just run NetBSD

[bplipschitz]

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 aqua for X11 on OSX is like.

[jozmala]

Dumping linux kernel for leaked and hacked win98 kernel on debian.

"Needless eye candy" indeed!

[Anonymous Coward]

OS X did not support that machine's video card for any sort of acceleration, and there was no way to turn down the needless eye candy to a level that made the OS usable.

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!

switched os x - ubuntu ppc ... *am* looking back.

[dwater]

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.

What an incredibly informative post

[Sexual Asspussy]

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.

once, I ran X on a Mac IIcx for a while. it worked. please +1, Informative me until my ass leaks hot white cum due to overfilling.

Re:What an incredibly informative post

[BigBuckHunter]

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

Re:What an incredibly informative post

[THE anonymus coward]

I haven't ever seen such a clever way to respond to trolls. If I had points, I would mod this as Informative :)

Re:What an incredibly informative post

[BigBuckHunter]

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

Just Install Shadow Killer

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

Re:switched os x - ubuntu ppc ... *am* looking bac

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

Re:switched os x - ubuntu ppc ... *am* looking bac

[hawaiian717]

The HFS+ filesystem, like NTFS, is readonly

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).

Re:console

[HSpirit]

Doesn't work as of MacOS X 10.4 ("Tiger"), unfortunately.

Re:switched os x - ubuntu ppc ... *am* looking bac

[808140]

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.

Re:switched os x - ubuntu ppc ... *am* looking bac

[dwater]

> 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.

YES!!! It's EASY

[Anonymous Coward]

Find & edit /etc/ttys. There's a big long line with something like

console "/System/Library/CoreServices/loginwindow.app/Cont ents/MacOS/loginwindow" vt100 on secure onoption="/usr/libexec/getty std.9600"

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.

Re:YES!!! It's EASY

[The Webguy]

Here's a Wiki Link with a step-by-step on how to do this. http://72.14.203.104/search?q=cache:SALYCmrmMmkJ:e n.wikibooks.org/wiki/Advanced_Mac_OS_X_Tiger+tiger +login+console&hl=en&gl=us&ct=clnk&cd=5

Re:switched os x - ubuntu ppc ... *am* looking bac

[BeenaBerry]

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).

shadowkiller

[argent]

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)

Re:switched os x - ubuntu ppc ... *am* looking bac

[dwater]

> That's a pretty weird definition of mostly usable.

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 :| 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.

> 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 ... but they took it out again, I think.

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. ...but, yes, I wish I had one of the new Intel Apples, then Ubuntu work even better.

Re:switched os x - ubuntu ppc ... *am* looking bac

[808140]

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):

# this tells apps you run to use the SCIM input method
export XMODIFIERS='@im=SCIM'

# You probably don't need to set the following, I think GNOME handles your
# locale settings...
export LANG=en_US.UTF-8
export LC_CTYPE=en_US.UTF-8
export LC_ALL=en_US.UTF-8

# This tells GTK2 to use the scim immodule... under GNOME you might not need to do this, it might do it
# automatically. Actually, you don't need to bother with the immodule stuff at all if you don't want,
# as gtk also understands XIM (all X apps do).
export GTK_IM_MODULE=scim

# This runs SCIM as a daemon, you need to do this part
exec scim -d &
# This sets up SCIM for the immodule stuff, you may or may not need to do this
exec scim -f socket -ns socket -c simple -d &

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.

Re:There's not magic mac video hardware in there..

[Anonymous Coward]

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.