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How Mac OS X, 10 Today, Changed Apple's World
CWmike writes "Ten years ago today, Apple's first full public version of Mac OS X went on sale worldwide to a gleeful reception as thousands of Mac users attended special events at their local computer shops all across the planet. What we didn't know then was that Apple was preparing to open up its own chain of retail outlets, nor had we heard Steve Jobs use the phrase, 'iPod.' Windows was still a competitor, and Google was still a search engine. These were halcyon days, when being a Mac user meant belonging to the second team, writes Jonny Evans. We're looking at the eighth significant OS X release in the next few months, Lion, which should offer some elements of unification between the iOS and OS X. There's still some bugs to iron out though, particularly the problem with ACL's (Access Control Lists) inside the Finder. Hopefully departing ex-NeXT Mac OS chief, Bertrand Serlet, will be able to fix this before he leaves."
Interesting use of the past tense there, considering Windows usage still dwarfs Mac OS usage.
"16MB (fuck off, MiB fascists)" - The Mighty Buzzard
The real reason Mac OS X exists is to fuel flamewars between nerds of different OS religions.
There's no -1 for "I don't get it."
Windows was still a competitor, and Google was still a search engine. These were halcyon days, when being a Mac user meant belonging to the second team
So mac users fancy themselves as belonging to the winning team now? And how exactly were the days when Microsoft propped up Apple to prevent Microsoft from becoming a noticeable monopoly halcyon? Apple's fire almost died, and they had to make heavy use of BSD licensed (free, wee!) software to rekindle the embers.
'nuff said.
Did anybody else spend a while trying to figure out that headline? For a minute I was wondering if they changed the name.
One word is now a phrase.
Support my political activism on Patreon.
At the time people were saying they'd just stick with yellow dog linux. Funny how times change
Yeah, hilarious. Xserves are dead now, and Mac OS X Server won't be far behind. Thankfully you can run CentOS on a 1U budget server and still use the yellow dog update manager. :)
Well if anything the proper way would be to count iOS tablet sales separately from Mac OS X sales. Combining the two is not correct as they are not compatible. When I can seamlessly run apps between both then perhaps you can count them together.
Figures don't lie but liars do figure.
fwiw I own both an iPad and iMac. I don't consider Mac OS X dominant, I only switched when I could get a native version of MS Office
* Winners compare their achievements to their goals, losers compare theirs to that of others.
Nothing is perfect, but moving to OS X from the previous MacOS/System versions was a smart move for Apple, and was one of the reasons Apple is still around today.
Before OS X, if a program did not hand control back go the OS via WaitNextEvent(), the Mac essentially need to be restarted. In fact, Macs became so unstable, people ended up just rebooting them every two hours just to be safe.
It is an ironic contrast to these days where the only time Macs go down is a reboot to install a security patch, or a Safari update (why Safari patches require a reboot is beyond me, but that is Apple for you.)
Apple did the right thing. People yelled at Apple to get an OS that did actual, preemptive multitasking for years. Multiuser security? You had to use a utility that would do tricks to create the illusion of multiple users, such as Kent Marsh's FileGuard, Empower, Casady & Greene's [1] AME, or another utility.
Of course, there was the virus issue. OS 9 and previous did have a good number of viruses on the platform. OS X has not had a single one in the wild.
All and all, OS X has withstood this decade quite well. No major breaches in the wild (except for Trojans like the one bundled with a pirated version of iWork '09). No OS is completely secure (and it often was the first to fall in hacking contests), but it has proven to have a well deserved security reputation in the real world.
Is there room for improvement? Yes. OS X needs a modern filesystem to compete with ZFS, btrfs, and possible changed to NTFS. OS X also needs full disk encryption and not just FileVault. Hopefully Apple will address these, preferably before they run out of big cat names for OS versions.
[1]: Yep, the same Casady & Greene who made the software that was renamed into iTunes.
I only switched when I could get a native version of MS Office
1989, back before it was out for Windows even? Or did you mean MS Office X from 2001?
And the two are compatible. They're just not the same. I can share files back and forth between them just fine, but I wouldn't claim that they are running the same OS, even though they share their OS roots.
So Windows NT for Alpha doesn't count as Windows either?
I lived it, no one got really excited till about 10.2 - that was when OSX started feeling actually usable, also with 10.2 was SMB support (well, almost bug-free support, had to wait till 10.3 or something for well functioning SMB) which made the switch more compelling. Though at that point there were still lots of OS9 only apps out here (Adobe and Quark were two of the last to switch, mainly because of all the work 10 needed.) So, 10 years ago, Apple showed off something shiny, it wasn't a big thing till a couple years later.
"Enjoy what you're doing! If it becomes drudgery, you're doing it wrong!" - Jim Butterfield
It didn't just change Apple's world, it changed the whole world. We were on our way to a one-OS world (from a consumer desktop point of view) when OSX stepped up and brought UNIX to the masses. Linux wasn't going to do it (and still hasn't, numbers-wise) so personally I'm glad Apple gave the world a choice, not to mention a place where remote exploits simply don't exist.
Thanks Apple :)
But a lot of Mac's growth has been due to Windows running on it. We see that on campus all the time. People want a Mac for whatever reason. However they need software that is Windows only (this is particularly common in Engineering, where I work) or they are a gamer and want to play games that aren't on the Mac (see that with students a lot). Previously that might have turned them off from a Mac. However now they get one and then get Windows for it and maybe Fusion or Parallels. Our bookstore does a ton of business in Windows licenses and VMs.
So sure, more people are using Macs and OS-X but often it is in addition to, not at the expense of, Windows. Fine for Apple, they make money on hardware, but also fine for MS, they make money on software. MS doesn't care what you run Windows on, just that you run Windows.
Lion Server will be a part of regular Mac OS X Lion and not a separate product. So it'll still exist, but not like before. http://www.9to5mac.com/53759/apple-announced-lion-server-comes-integrated-into-mac-os-x-lion/
I don't think the big issue is "compatible"... the big issue is that iOS devices aren't *open*. IMO it's a joke to call a device like that a home computer when you can only run programs on it that Apple allows, along with requiring an account on their online store and tracking your download and installation.
Plus, there is basically NO difference between an iPod Touch/iPhone and an iPad besides the size of the screen (and that some people use a little known bonus feature of the iPhone to make calls...) And they all support video out to a monitor/TV as well as a bluetooth keyboard, so there really isn't much in the way of hardware differences from a low-end PC, either. The defining difference is in who gets control over the use of that hardware - and in that case the iPad is really just a big smartphone...
[and before anyone whines about Apple haters - I have an iPhone and iPad, and they are great. They just aren't home computers...]
as the old 32bit Intel macs may be cut from os 10.7 and some of the first intel mac's had crap video.
also the old G5 had more pci-e lanes then the new mac pro (amd systems had more as well)
Now apple needs to look at opening mac os to more hardware or at least a DESKTOP at the imac power with out a build in screen or offer a imac with a mate screen.
Market Cap (as of this post)
Microsoft 317 Bil
Chair Man -100 Bil
Apple 168 Bil
Turtleneck 150 Bil
There, fixed that for ya.
Love the way the editor counts any kind of spendy gadget as a PC. I think he was counting PKs: personal kiosks. Easy mistake to make when you conduct census by credit card.
Apple has always been the King of Lilliput. I've seen many expensive Apple computers boat-anchored over the years out of Lilliput envy: no room for expansion here. Apple needed weeny and white the same way Schindler needed war and women.
Ultimately for Apple, the walled garden is a growth-limiting move: by definition, the average person can't be cool. In their hermetic design philosophy, they should be careful what they wish for. Please god, make my prayers come true, but not until they finish clang/llvm C++0x.
Gulliver is dead. Long live the gullible.
It would be cool to hear more about those days, what it was like, how certain decisions were made (Mach kernel, for example), etc.
You must not spend much time at "StarButs". It's rare to walk into one anywhere in the world and not find a MacBook. The one I'm sitting in now in Washington DC has 5 in sight.
At the time people were saying they'd just stick with yellow dog linux. Funny how times change
Yeah, hilarious. Xserves are dead now, and Mac OS X Server won't be far behind. Thankfully you can run CentOS on a 1U budget server and still use the yellow dog update manager. :)
And yet the story about Lion Server kicking SMB got 680 comments so far - how many did the last CentOS story get?
Fandroids hate facts.
Yesterday I was at a meeting for engineers in a small city in the mid west. Half the laptops in the room were Macs, and no they don't develop for Mac, only Windows and embedded Linux.
Sig is on vacation
Lion Server kicking SMB
Actually, it's kicking SAMBA in favor of an Apple proprietary SMB/CIFS offering. It's like dropping apache for an in-house crafted web server.
It hasn't been for a while.
Apple is a parallel solution and will most probably continue to be so in a long, long time.
The thing is, buying a complete solution has it's uses, custom-building has other uses.
Apple is moving more and more toward complete solutions, not towards customizability.
It's not that windows is irrelevant, it's not even that it's less powerful or anything like that.
It's just that it's plain and simply not a threat to Apple, at all, they don't compete in the same markets at all.
Dell is a competitor, as is HP, google is one as well.
Microsoft however, is not.
Almost two weeks ago, I asked my web site visitors to see if they think Apple iPads were computers. Most of them think so: http://aqfl.net/node/8867 (still open). :(
Ant(Dude) @ Quality Foraged Links (AQFL.net) & The Ant Farm (antfarm.ma.cx / antfarm.home.dhs.org).
The CentOS fanboys are all far too busy actually doing real work.
No time for trolling...
A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
You screech that as if it's going to make some difference. However, anyone that uses Linux long ago had to make piece with the fact that it was MS-DOS that won the OS wars.
Apple has it's own stores and Super Bowl commercials.
Although despite of all of that, it's still just only just partially regained lost ground.
MS-DOS nearly buried it before when the gap between Apple and Microsoft was far greater.
At the end of the day, you are still a dwarf calling a midget shorty.
A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
The CentOS fanboys are all far too busy actually doing real work.
No time for trolling...
You must not have read the very post I replied to. Or you are trolling.
Fandroids hate facts.
I agree with all of this... until you jailbreak. At that point you don't have Apple's benevolent blessing anymore, but the device becomes inordinately more useful. I've got the same BSD-level stuff on my iOS devices that I have on my OS X devices... I even have X installed :)
Personally, I think that alongside Cydia, someone needs to make an iOSPorts.org similar to macports.
After all, the CPU in an iPad is closer to the original Motorola MC68000 than the x86 chip in modern Macs, and the CPU power and screen resolution is significantly improved on the iPad over the Macintosh 128k (or Plus, SE/30, Color Classic II for that matter).
And Slashdot didn't even cover the release of OS X. Seriously. I did a search http://www.google.com/search?q=site%3Aslashdot.org+2001+OS+X and all I could find was this: http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=11275&cid=341886! On the other hand, we see a lot less Windows marketing content on /. these days ... http://slashdot.org/story/01/03/28/152227/Windows-Marketing-Executive-Doug-Miller
Around the same time OS X 10.0 was being officially released, Windows XP SP2 was being reviewed... http://slashdot.org/story/01/03/26/002246/CNET-Reviews-Windows-XP-Beta-2
Back in those days I was a Linux user (I still am, I suppose, in that I have a VPS running a few websites, email services, etc., for me, CentOS based) and working as a "UNIX Administrator" running Dell PowerEdge / RedHat 6.2, and Sun UltraXXX / Solaris 8 boxen for a living. Now I'm an attorney, and it's all Mac, all the way, though I still have three Terminal.app windows open... I remember seeing one of the very first PowerBook G4 Ti machines running a developer's release of OS X; our "Advanced Platform Group" guys (who basically had an unlimited budget to buy / play with all the newest toys -- March 2001 was still in the midst of the dot-com bubble) had all the cool tech. I fell in love that day, though with law school and ExamSoft requirements, it was a while before I could go back to Mac full time...
geek. lawyer.
Then why wasn't OpenStep successful? Steve Jobs tried that approach.
As far as generic hardware support, they could never have gotten the drivers to work. Microsoft spends a fortune (multiple billions per year) to support buggy hardware as well as they do and that's with full vendor support. Supporting generic hardware is really really hard. Windows users have outrageous expectations due to Microsoft.
True - but let's not reward Apple for this with inflated market share numbers, given that they say it voids your warranty, consider it illegal and pulled out the DMCA card to try to stop it.
As far as 680x0 Macs - I'm pretty sure the iPad 2 w/ the ARM A9 core would compete with a Mac PPC G4, let alone any dinosaurs from the 80's... ;)
Nobody really knew what to expect. The transitions from version 7 to 8 to 9 where really minor so its not too surprising they were ignored. Apple was beleaguered.
Thank goodness for OSx. As someone with a power computing box and various mac os versions before X, they were ok but the lack of command line. OSX worked great for grad school. Unix on the desktop and it worked.
Plus they got rid of the "chooser" which couldn't make me happier.
MS doesn't care what you run Windows on, just that you run Windows.
And that the computer it runs on connects to MS servers, or MS is called.
I switched from MS Windows to both Linux and Mac OS X because I didn't feel like being treated like a criminal.
Falcon
Should there be a Law?
Linux has only given competition to desktop Windows on netbooks.
And on servers and on desktops. Though the Linux market share on the desktop is small, less than 1%, it is growing. MS has to give away or sale at low prices Windows in un- and under-developed nations just to prevent buyers from using Linux. Monthly if not weekly it seems one business, government, or organization is moving from Windows to Linux. These stories used to be posted on Slashdot regularly.
As for me, I'm typing this on my MacBook Pro but for a server I'm in the process of rebuilding my PC then I'll probably install Ubuntu Server on it.
Maybe it needs to die and then be reborn as Android.
I might get a smartphone with Android but I think if I get a tablet/pad it will have MeGoo. I'd rather get a Modbook Pro but they'll be too expensive for me more than likely.
Falcon
Should there be a Law?
The end result: I've heard a LOT of mac fans touting the bootcamp feature to potential new converts...
Use Bootcamp? Why? It's not needed to dualboot a Mac. Okay, it does make it easier to dualboot.
After replacing the HDD in my MacBook Pro yesterday with a bigger drive, I replaced the 320GB with a 750GB drive, I installed Snow Leopard. Before I did though I partitioned the drive into three separate partitions. The first one I made 60GB and installed Snow Leopard on. The third one I also made 60GB, for Lucid Linx. The second partition takes up the rest of the drive and is for a shared user home, both SL and LL can use it. That was done using the Disk utility included on the Snow Leopard DVD. To select the OS to be booted I'll use rEFIt.
The dirty secret: none of them would think of using it without parallels or fusion.
I don't have it yet but I will get and use Fusion so I can boot up Ubuntu from inside SN. But I will only do so when I don't mind LL running slowly, such as for testing. When I use LL heavily I will bootup LL on it's own not in a VM. I've actually thought of getting Snow Leopard Server so I could run it in a VM in Ubuntu as well.
Falcon
Should there be a Law?
Well if anything the proper way would be to count iOS tablet sales separately from Mac OS X sales. Combining the two is not correct as they are not compatible.
Does that mean you agree that the recent Android market share numbers aren't true, not the least because it counts the Chines variants that where changed so they can't run Android apps but instead WinMobile apps?
Fandroids hate facts.
fwiw I own both an iPad and iMac. I don't consider Mac OS X dominant, I only switched when I could get a native version of MS Office
MS had MS Office for Macs on 68K Mac running System 7.0. And MS Word was available when the Mac was released. If you were waiting for a native Mac port of MS Office you didn't wait long.
Falcon
Should there be a Law?
So Windows NT for Alpha doesn't count as Windows either?
That's the only version of MS Window I liked. And I still have my Alpha under my desk.
Falcon
Should there be a Law?
Apple didn't kill their servers, Apple killed their blades, the Xserve. The Mac Pro can be and is used as a server. For rack mounts Apple suggests using Mac Minis, which I admit does not cut it for large installations. One problem with both solutions is they don't have a redundant power source. Mac Pros are too large for racks and the Mini lacks in throughput and bandwidth.
Falcon
Should there be a Law?
Oh, yes. Reality. I assume you mean "your" reality in this instance?
http://www.rootstrikers.org/
I don't know whether to laugh or cry... I used to maintain the ACL code in the Mac OS X kernel. This is a user-space bug in the DesktopServices framework.
Although this is not usually a problem, since only foolish/untrained administrators use Finder copies on systems being used as servers, I tried several times to get the Desktop Services folks to fix this. Mac OS X has multiple "copy engines", and the one in libc gets this right, while the one in the DesktopServices framework gets this wrong.
The problem is that the finder "copy engine" code sets an ACL in the openx_np() system call, rather than using the chmodx_np() system call after the fact to set an explicit ACL. The ACL it passes to openx_np() is obtained from the source file system object via getattrlist() (but could as easily have come from statx_np()). So the ACL being set is the combination of the ACL set explicitly by the openx_np(), and the ACL being set as a result of the inheritance bit on the container directory in which the new file or directory is being created.
This is in fact necessary, since the only way to make image backups of a subtree such that the copied subtree has exactly the same permissions in the target subtree as it had in the source subtree is to set *all* of the ACLs that were on the source object onto the target. Anything else loses permissions grants or denials on the copy of the object which were present on the original. This is either inconvenient, in the case of grants, or a critical security bug, in the case of denials.
You can also see where this would be a necessary step for a backup/restore operation, where the date is serialized into an archive format on the backup, and deserialized back into the file system on a restore, which could be a partial archive restore.
Things can get even more complicated when Time Machine and Spotlight are thrown into the mix, since Spotlight adds inherited ACEs to permit it to index directory contents that would otherwise be denied it by ACL, as does Time Machine (for some reason, they do not share a common group ID and utilize a single shared system functionality ACE, but I digress...). Likewise Time Machine sets an inherited ACE on its backup volume, for similar reasons.
The correct fix is to do ACE deduplication in the case that the target directory container has inherited ACE entries which match the ACE entries on the source object, and remove duplicates from those explicitly listed in the openx_np() call. The alternative approach is to explicitly set exactly the desired ACL on the target after the target is created -- this has the drawback that you would need to explicitly know the container ACLs inherited ACE list in order to aggregate it yourself, but has the advantage that you won't be denied access to the object during creation if your openx_np() ACL contains explicit rights grants for the group or user that the creating entity runs under (this should be coupled with a subsequent "deny everyone" ACE to avoid a security race, which makes this the less desirable workable solution).
Note that the above should make it obvious why a depth-first post-application of ACLs on copied objects wouldn't work; apart from the security problems in the order of operation window, network protocols such as AFP and NFSv$ and SMB all use connection credentials rather than request credentials (NFSv3 uses request credentials), and even privileged users do not have access to other users keychains or session passwords in effect for a given copy operation.
-- Terry
....one that costs more than a laptop and does less. And in the current economic climate, with no real business justification for having one other than showing off, they'll 'dominate next year'. Uh-huh.
I spent ten years replacing mac-offices with PC's. It was really easy - just point out to the manager that staff can always be told 'If you want a mac, bring in your own. If you want a PC, you can have one for free'. Suddenly, faced with the cost of a mac, every single user plumped for a PC - users who previously 'couldn't do without a mac'. And that was when things were relatively booming compared to now.
So, to summarise - a mac-fanboy article, posted by a Slashdot mac-fanboy.
This is what I was trying to write but failed:
"I believe they have found their niche in creating the successor to the PDA rather than the kind of computing in which users of Slashdot with UIDs below 1000000 generally engage."
In other words, they no longer focus on making computers or operating systems for people who want to make things with their computers.
You are welcome on my lawn.
Since applications written for Intel Windows are not compatible with Alpha Windows do you believe those machines should be counted separately, too?
As for the desktop I've been reading claims here about how Linux is growing for years. Every year there is a story about a government or business switching but Linux just sits at 1%.
But I think it is working, just not as good as a better strategy may. Sure Linux hasn't increased its desktop market share, at least that anyone can show stats, but that market is growing. Because there is no one place, or two, to look for how many desktops Linux runs on nobody knows just how much Linux is used. Two PCs I bought, with MS Windows, I planned on installing Linux. I was a fool not making sure their hardware was Linux compatible, they weren't, but where would that have shown up in stats? Another PC I bought I bought it as a dualboot PC, Windows NT4 and Redhat Linux. I'm typing this on a MacBook Pro. A couple of days ago I replaced the 320GB with a 750GB HDD. When I installed Snow Leopard I partitioned the drive first into 3 partitions. On the first partition I installed Snow Leopard. I'm about to install Lucid Linx on the third partition. On what stats will that show up?
Falcon
Should there be a Law?
Since applications written for Intel Windows are not compatible with Alpha Windows do you believe those machines should be counted separately, too?
NT4 for Alpha is still Windows.
As for what applications were compatible and what weren't, when I bought my Alpha I also bought a laptop and some software. The only application I bought I was able to install on both was Borland C++, of course the code it wrote was for Intel. However I installed a number of open source and shareware programs on both. I was able to install free software on my Alpha but not commercial software? I thought that was ironic, unless of course the commercial software was written to test the CPU. Which Microsoft did, someone gave me MS Office and I tried installing it. It told me it could not be installed because the CPU was an Alpha not an Intel.
Falcon
Should there be a Law?
Speaking of gnome-terminal, how the fuck do you set the default window size? In Terminal.app, you just resize and Shell -> Use Settings As Default.
Using gconf to set a default size in certain versions of GNOME Terminal is broken but looking at the gnome-terminal 2.33.90 shows a "Use custom default terminal size" (yeah I know that page talks about Ubuntu but the option was there in a Fedora 15 Alpha live CD too). gnome-terminal 2.30 and peering at gnome-terminal's git suggests the option would have gone in around 2.31.
But hey - Slashdot ain't a bug tracker so here might not have been the best place to ask (even if you did work at NetApp)... :)
I use the freebie "Mouse Acceleration" A flick of my wrist sents the mouse 3000 pixels away.
I agree that there are aggravating things about the GUI, but *EVERY* gui I've used has aggravations. One of the things I like about Mac and Linux is that so much of what you can do with a GUI you can do with a CLI too. And with the macports project you can have most of the linux world too. (We now have enough computers in the house that DNS became desirable. "port install maradns" (bind would be overkill) Done.
Now if I could get Spotlight to default to searching for filenames, not content...
Third Career: Tree Farmer Second Career: Computer Geek First Career: Teacher, Outdoor Instructor, Photographer.
I like to compare it to this... lowendmac.com/ppc/20th-anniversary-macintosh.html
Pink. Taligent. OpenDoc. Copeland.
Guess it's a good thing NeXTSTEP was acquired, or Apple would NEVER have developed a new OS.
Any sect, cult, or religion will legislate its creed into law if it acquires the political power to do so.
SAMBA changed the terms of their license. It's like Apache changing their terms after the fact and requiring that any website built using Apache be completely and totally free. No paywalls. No ads. No sales. Zip.
Any sect, cult, or religion will legislate its creed into law if it acquires the political power to do so.
"...or the real reality?"
I guess now we're talking about your reality.
http://www.rootstrikers.org/
http://gs.statcounter.com/#os-na-monthly-201002-201102
Was that link supposed to have web stats for Linux usage? I didn't see any. Googling though I did find this: OS Platform Statistics. It shows web stats for Linux being above 5%. The stats have Linux breaking 5% in November 2010. Going further and comparing Linux stats with Windows stats, it has all versions of MS Windows having 86.5% of the OS market in December. In February it was 85.9%. In the same tyme period both Linux and Mac OSX gained share.
Again going further, there's OS and browser spoofing. Using Firefox I don't know how many webpages I've landed on that says "Best viewed with X" where X is a version of IE. Spoof IE on those pages and some render fine while others don't.
Falcon
Should there be a Law?