Slashdot Mirror
OS X Snow Leopard Details
JD-1027 writes in to kick off a discussion of OS X Snow Leopard. Apple's stated goal: "Taking a break from adding new features, Snow Leopard — scheduled to ship in about a year — builds on Leopard's enormous innovations by delivering a new generation of core software technologies that will streamline Mac OS X, enhance its performance, and set new standards for quality." The technologies: Grand Central to get better use of multiple processors and multicore chips, OpenCL to tap the power of the GPU, 64 bit so we can finally have our 16 TB of RAM, QuickTime X for optimized modern codec performance, and built in Exchange support in iCal, Address Book, and Apple Mail that most likely will help get Macs into corporate environments. We've previously discussed ZFS in the server version of Snow Leopard."
It is rumored that 10.6 is going to be the end of PPC support. I suppose it's time, although there are some PPC machines that are less than 4 years old. Still, as bittersweet as it is, it's probably time to let go of the legacy code and firm up the OS. I'm happy running Leopard on my Frankenmac 1.8ghz (Sonnet upgraded).
A good analysis of this decision can be read at RoughlyDrafted Magazine.
"You're getting brutal, Sark. Brutal and needlessly sadistic."
"Thank you, Master Control"
-Sark and the MCP
You mean, sort of like how MacFUSE enables tons of FUSE filesystems, including NTFS, to be used with your Macintosh? Old news.
Leopard was the longest time we waited between OS X releases (And one of the top few longest between all Apple releases). You must be new to Macs/Apple. I would be very surprised if Jobs didn't say anything about the 'next' release. Whether it be 10.6 or 10.5.5
10.0 - March 24, 2001
10.1 - September 25, 2001
10.2 - August 23, 2002
10.3 - October 24, 2003
10.4 - April 29, 2005
10.5 - October 26, 2007
That's 6 months, 11 months, 14 months, 18 months, 30 months.
Heck looking at Wiki, Apple has always kept a relatively short release time (Nothing as short linux kernels, but absolutely nothing as long as Microsoft)
1.0 - Jan 84
2.0 - Apr 85
3.0 - Jan 86
4.0 - Mar 87
5.0 - ???
6.0 - Apr 88
7.0 - Jun 91
8.0 - July 97
9.0 - Oct 99
Apple indirectly causes it by setting up Xcode so that by default (and often by requirement depending on the features you want to use) it always wants to produce code that works on the same version it's running on.
There's also the case where many of Apple's own applications work in much the same way (the newest version of Safari for example, requires not only 10.5, but 10.5.2).
"People who think they know everything are very annoying to those of us who do."-Mark Twain
Apple can't "go back" to something it never went away from. Tiger had limited support for 64-bit code, whether on PPC or x86, and Leopard had 64-bit versions of most of its userland libraries. The Snow Leopard page doesn't say much about what's being done other than "Snow Leopard extends the 64-bit technology in Mac OS X to support breakthrough amounts of RAM - up to a theoretical 16TB, or 500 times more than what is possible today."
Some of the PowerPC machines were 64-bit. The notebooks and the Mac mini were 32-bit.
defaults write com.apple.desktopservices DSDontWriteNetworkStores true
What is NTFS? Is that that primitive file system that needs defragging all the time and takes forever to format a HD with that file system?
Ok, this misinformed Bumpersticker logic has to stop, and now...
NTFS may be a bit long in the tooth, but it has taken 15 years and ZFS to catch up to NTFS on a number of features. And even with that said, ZFS, still lacks several important features that is just expected to be there by people using NTFS.
Can't believe I'm going to use quick Wiki here...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ntfs
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zfs
If you want 'technical' information, go freaking read the NTFS whitepapers, or even get a academic code release version of how and why it works WITH SOURCE code. There are important reasoning to the technology of NTFS, especially in terms of performance and features just not currently found in ANY OTHER File System made, and this even includes ZFS, that gets close.
Back to the myth. Does the poster know why NTFS will fragment a bit more than older File System technologies? Apparently No...
NTFS has copy of write and snapshot features, this adds to the fragmentation on a volume by the nature of the way snapshots and copy on write operations are handled.
This feature (snapshots/copy on write) is a MAIN FEATURE of ZFS, so if OS X moves to ZFS, it will have the same inherent added fragmentation as NTFS. Whoops, guess you should be making fun of something you are getting as an UPGRADE in terms of features.
1) Microsoft never said NTFS didn't fragment, they said it was less prone to fragmenting that DOS's FAT/FAT32, which is TRUE.
2) Microsoft did state NTFS's fragmentation was not as great of a performance issue compared to FAT/FAT32 because of how NTFS's lookup behavior works, making no additional fragmentatin lookup seeks, like FAT does. This means it can get the file locations and read it in a swipe, even if it is in 1000 fragments.
3) Microsoft has always stated snapshot and copy on write features of NTFS would mean it will always have a bit more fragmentation than 'simpilier' file systems, like OS X and most default Linux installs use today.
Just to recap:
When/if Apple adds ZFS to OS X, its inherent level of fragmentation will be equal to NTFS, because it is the nature of the File System design features of both that prevent this trade off for more advanced features.
Also, people do realize that NO FS is fragmentation free, even the current mainstream file systems in OS X, right?
OS X runs a background defragmentation utility, just like Vista does. There is nothing hard or special about this. (Vista has a low I/O priority added to the inherent NTFS priority abilities, making backgroun operations like defragmenting seamless in terms of performance to the user.)
ZFS is good and finally steps up to the plate on some important and modern File System features long needed. It still is young and lacks inherent encryption, file level quota management, and other little features, but with some good support will be a good alternative to NTFS in the UNIX world. NTFS is far from primative or old in terms of features, as it has been the File System to live up to or beat outside of Microsoft.
However, NTFS is MS Intellectual property and MS probably won't be giving up the code to it anytime soon. I actually wish Sun and Microsoft had a better relationship, as it would be nice to see a unified File System technology across all platforms, and a combination of Sun's ZFS work and NTFS would be a freaking awesome mix of technology in terms of File System features, and performance.
NTFS is nothing to mock, especially when you are responding to an article talking about Snow Leopard getting ZFS which will present the same issue for OS X you are making fun of NTFS for...