Mac OS X 10.7 'Lion' Developer Preview Available

kwolf22 writes "Today Apple is offering a developer preview of Mac OS X 10.7 (Lion) to registered Mac developers. In addition, the Lion product page has been updated with new details. Among the updates is this exciting bit of news: Lion Server is now part of Mac OS X Lion." Adds reader Orome1: the new OS X "features Mission Control, a new view of everything running on your Mac; Launchpad, a new home for all your Mac apps; full screen apps that use the entire Mac display; and new Multi-Touch gestures. Lion also includes the Mac App Store, a place to discover, install and automatically update Mac apps."

Comments

What is the point of OSX server?

[h4rr4r]

Without any server hardware to run it on, why is there even a server setup?

Honestly killing the Xserve and not letting OSX server be installed on another vendors server hardware is brain dead.

Re:What is the point of OSX server?

[SoupIsGoodFood_42]

Plenty of web developers who use Macs. Plenty of people who want a server but don't require dedicated hardware like the Xserve. Besides, Apple still make servers — check out the Mac mini page.

Re:What is the point of OSX server?

[0racle]

Home and small business users. You know, those that thought Jobs suggestion to run OS X Server on a Mac Pro or a Mini was just fine.

Apple has no real interest in the enterprise market.

Re:What is the point of OSX server?

[Anonymous Coward]

While you're absolutely correct that the mac mini isn't typical "server grade" hardware, you're wrong about your greater point. The mac mini is just fine for many (most?) people. The default server install does come with 2 disks you can raid, and has a BTO option for an external RAID5 array.

At $600 buy 2 and still be cheaper than most "basic cheap server stuff."

Re:What is the point of OSX server?

[SoupIsGoodFood_42]

Why? Time Machine works well, and if the first Mac mini packs up, you and restore on install to the second one.

Re:What is the point of OSX server?

[MyDixieWrecked]

Apple has no real interest in the enterprise market.

And this is terrible news.

Content providers for apple MUST provide video files in Apple ProRes fileformat which is ONLY able to be encoded using apple's tools which only run in OSX. I don't know how apple expects large content producers to encode high-volumes of videos for them without the xserves. MacPros are not an option as they are not enterprise ready (single PSU, no management port, they're HUGE and must be de-"racked" in order to swap drives, etc). MacMinis are not suitable for this as they don't have enough CPU/RAM. The xserves weren't even that great, but they were the right form factor.

Apple's been seriously fucking up with regard to the enterprise lately. I've been running into issues with their commandline admin utilities --they don't give access to everything that you can do with the GUI. You can't configure which port to use for management from the CLI (the docs say you can, but it doesn't work), it renames your interface when you bond network interfaces by appending " Configuration" to the name, which doesn't happen in the gui... and now, 10.6.6 doesn't properly image using System Image Utility (http://support.apple.com/kb/TS3665)

Now, they're bundling OSX Server into OSX Lion. Who knows whether they'll continue to support ALL of the non-home user features of server like OpenDirectory. WTF.

Re:What is the point of OSX server?

[MyDixieWrecked]

docs were read. mass-googling was done. I'm talking about apple's utilities... `networksetup` in the instance of the LOM and the network port bonding. There's no consistency in the docs about what they mean by "Service Name" which is what they call the "interface." However, there are 2 names for the interface... the user-specified one ("Ethernet 2") and the bsd name ("en1"), but the docs call them both the servicename. The only way I was able to figure out which gets used where is by trial and error.

in many cases, apple has provided their own tools that completely replace the standard toolset. hdiutil and networksetup are 2 prime examples.

another thing I forgot to bring up is ipmitool which mostly works unless you try to do serial-over-lan (sol) connections; it's completely unusable and you have to go to sourceforge and build your own ipmitool to do that stuff.

I mean, I'm not an OSX n00b. Typically I'm a linux engineer, but I've been OSX on the desktop since the developer previews and the server I've had running at home for a while and I've done contract server set up on versions going back to jaguar... the thing is that this is the first time that I've had to do seriously low-level shit (building a large xserve infrastructure with customized management and deployment tools) and it's like running into a concrete wall headfirst every time a new task comes down the pipe.

Maybe for you or me

[name_already_taken]

Maybe they're envisioning people buying a lot of widget-style apps.

It sure seems like it would be convenient for people like my parents.

Re:Launchpad

[Cinder6]

The nice thing with Launchpad is being able to reorganize your apps without actually changing the location of the application bundles themselves. For whatever reason, Bad Things can happen if you do this yourself in your Applications directory.

That said, I probably won't ever use it much. Alfred (or any other launcher) is way faster, anyways.

Re:Fireball!

[loom_weaver]

> eq

You are using:
[1] <Light> a back-lit keyboard
[2] <Finger> a Ring bearing the Apple logo (hums)
[3] <Finger> a one-button mouse
[4] <Neck> a black turtleneck (glows) (hums)
[5] <Neck> a thick beard
[6] <Body> a black cashmere and silk sweater (glows)
[7] <Head> The Reality Distortion Field (invisible)
[8] <Legs> Levi 501s (hums)
[9] <Feet> A Pair of Comfy Sneakers
[10] <Hands> iPhone 4 (glows)
[11] <Arms> black sleeves (glows)
[12] <Shield> a 17" MacBook Pro (hums)
[13] <About> iPod shuffle (glows) (hums)
[14] <Waist> 1st generation iPad
[15] <Wrist> An iPod Nano (glows)
[16] <Wrist> An iPod Nano (glows)
[17] <Wielded> Shrink-wrapped Xcode (glows)
[18] <Held> An iPod touch (glows)

Full screen apps

[markjhood2003]

Finally! The inability to have a real full screen application was one of the most frustrating aspects of transitioning to Mac OS X. The next most frustrating aspect was all the Apple fans telling me my head was just wired wrong if I missed that ability. Now, we have Apple promoting the full screen capability as a major innovation:

The app and nothing but the app. On iPad, every app is displayed full screen, with no distractions, and there’s one easy way to get back to all your other apps. Mac OS X Lion does the same for your desktop. You can make a window in an app full screen with one click, switch to another app’s full-screen window with a swipe of the trackpad, and swipe back to the desktop to access your other apps — all without ever leaving the full-screen experience. Systemwide support allows third-party developers to take advantage of full-screen technology to make their apps more immersive, too. So you can concentrate on every detail of your work, or play on a grander scale than ever before.*

Re:Cat theme

[caseih]

Actually until Snow Leopard, Apple seemed to be naming their OS after German tanks. Now I'm not saying they are... I'm just asking questions and you should too.