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Apple updates Darwin, releases OpenPlay
A reader writes "Apple has made available a binary release of Darwin on its public source server. They also released the rest of the Darwin source code which should finally let it compile out of the box.
On top of that Apple has published a third Open Source project dubbed OpenPlay. OpenPlay is a network abstraction layer designed to simplify the task of creating programs which communicate across multiple computers. "
OS X server (as I understand it) includes carbon which is a "complete distribution of the OS X BSD 4.4 UNIX layer." I suspect that the X-server for OS X is _NOT_ going to be opensourced. so their really isnt too much of an incentive to port it to i386 as we already have some great unicies.
maybe that is where openplay comes in...
Any details on the CVS server
Actually, MkLinux has used the Mach 3.0 kernel for a long time.
Who needs Open Play. After all, we already have a perfectly decent Industry Standard called DirectPlay, by Microsoft. Who would ever want another closed "innovation" by Apple?
(If you can't see my tongue in my cheek, you're blind.)
Well, then go ahead and download it & install over Linux/PPC R4 - Debian is much better. The base2_2.tgz file is only 11 megs - even a slow modem connection should handle that.
Actually, if you look at the source, you'll see a lot of i386 specific stuff, so by the looks of it, it's been ported already.
Yeah, I know OSF had a version of Mach for the x86. We used it back when I was at TIS working on Trusted Mach (a neat idea that went nowhere).
What makes you think the binary distro is running on top of Mach 3? The source is still at Mach 2.5 which is what MacOS X Server is using right now.
but where can I get the source
>I seriously doubt Darwin uses ext2
Yep, it uses UFS
I think MacOS X (and Server) use a format called Mach-O.
Does Apple really have a patent on PEF? What number? Even if they added PEF support to GNU ld, that would not necessarily give anyone a license to Apple's patents. (It'd be Open Source that is illegal to run.)
AFAIK, IBM has already done some work on getting good PPC code out of gcc.
A source where you must be registered to download, should be ported to linux? Forget! They must first made a bette license. DON'T SUPPORT OPEN PLAY WAIT FOR FREE PLAY!
At least that is my understanding. The Game Sprockets online documentation starts here.
Dude, you don't need to register at Apple to get your hands on OpenPlay. Once it's been downloaded everyone can redistribute it at his own discretion. Just get it from a mirror somewhere.
A source where you must be registered to download, should be ported to linux? Forget!
Yeah, never mind that it might be useful to some who use Linux.
And what's so bad about registering? If you've registered anything in your life i'd question your pulse. Really, who hasn't registered for something? Publishers Clearing House, Credit Card Companies, ISP's, we've all registered something somewhere. Sheesh.
I've downloaded and installed Darwin 0.2 on a Rev C iMac (with only 32MB of RAM). I had to boot from the install CD and install from my USB Zip Drive. Then, I set the system to boot into Darwin.
It looks just like my old NeXTStation when I had NS 3.3 set it to boot in text mode. It seems to be a fairly complete system, with Bash, Perl and Apache on it.
I miss not having access to extra (virtual) terminals and an adduser command but otherwise it is nice.
Didn't Avie Tevanian, Apple's VP of software devel. have something to do with the development of mach? I think he was head of a team.
Am I a clueless Idiot? Where is the source?
sure, maybe G3 is a superior chip w/ compared to PII (I really don't know, though I'd believe it if someone knowledgeable told me so). But CPU isn't the only determining factor of performance, and there are different types of calculations. An example of this is the AMD K6 vs. PII/Celeron. When 3Dnow! isn't used, Intel wins. Integer calculations (as you were pointing to Integer tests) AMD wins. I got a Celeron because of 3D gaming, price (cheaper than k6), and the near non-support of 3DNow! (which sux cuz AMD had a good idea w/ 3DNow!).
But really, I seriously don't believe those dumb Mac commercials that say "Intel would like you to believe the Pentium II is the fastest processor, but the PowerMacintosh G3 is up to 3 times faster." Though the guy in the clean room suit with the fire extinguisher was a pretty funny stab at Intel.
What source? The Darwin code is right here.
One more time...
MacOS X Server doesn't have any X Server. So WindowMaker is far from being ported to MXS.
Darwin has no graphical interface, in the near future someone will port an X Server to darwin, but for the moment...
> But in a way some people run darwin; the users of MacOS X Server
Exact.I do for more than a year now.
I also installed the darwin distribution, as there is no graphical interface is not very usable for the moment.
Carbon isn't really a distribution of the BSD layer. It's basically a new set of API's. The problem with OSX is that it's a completely different os, it cannot run any old mac apps without running in the bluebox (a macos emulator). Carbon is designed to allow developers to quickly port their apps to take advantage of new features that will be in OSX (multitasking, memory management, etc) while still allowing these apps to run on older OS's, albiet without the benefits of the OSX environment. So basically Carbon is the same mac API's available now (with a few extras thrown in), but they function differently to aid in development of OSX apps.
Mach development was continued at the University of Utah:h tml/Mach4-proj.html
http://www.cs.utah.edu/projects/flexmach/mach4/
Which sparked an even more interesting project, the Flux OSKit:
http://www.cs.utah.edu/projects/flux/index.html
Flux took the lessons learned from the Mach project and created a code kit that let's you compile your own kernel.
Oh, and both Mach4 & Flux both run on x86 processors....
Eric Bronnimann
I wouldn't want a G3 because of the Apple baggage: the extra price, the crappy OS that I'd just format, and the limited hardware support... but the chip looks nice. At least MacOS X is based around UNIX, but that will just make the price go up, because it's a commercial UNIX. Maybe the hardware support will eventually get better too, but I still don't like the design, the philosophy, the business model...
Well, OS X is actually based on FreeBSD, and since Apple does the hardware and software, you get the OS for free when you buy a computer. As for hardware support, it is getting better, especially now that the industry is moving towards USB (if only Intel wasn't bent on knocking FireWire - it's so cool, and one of the best things going out there)
The only reason Apple would want to get in on Open Source this late in the game is to cash in on it, not to change their evil ways. If they really cared, then I could walk down to the store, and buy a cheap G3 from another company, preinstalled with Linux or BeOS or something, and have Apple's blessing as a hardware reseller. Yeah, right, not in this Universe. They'd be another Microsoft, if they thought they could pull it off.
Now here's where I have to disagree with you. This makes no sense. Apple is a *hardware* company - how would your plan allow them to survive? Considering that, and the fact that they've been 100% proprietary for so long, I think it's pretty damn admirable what they're doing in regards to open source. Look how quick they were to modify the APSL, how many things they're giving away for free, how they're actually listening to their customers and developers again. I don't know where you get this idea of 'evil' unless you consider every company that's out to make a profit (which is all of them) as evil. Of course Apple's decisions are at least partly influenced by how they will make them money - that's how business works. Still, the prices aren't outrageous, the machines are fantastic. Could you imagine a world where Microsoft owned the hardware as well as the software? Now that would be evil.
The following information has been provided by someone who went to the WWDC Darwin sessions yesterday:
The Objective-C runtime was added to Darwin as well.
The Debian packaging system has been adopted for the Darwin distribution, and should be
fairly easily moved to Mac OS X Server if someone were inclined to try.
Apple has setup an anonymous CVS server with the Darwin sources.
FreeBSD is the "reference" BSD for Darwin (and by extension, Mac OS X).
There is no X Server for OSXS. Currently OSXS is a BSD compatible system, based on a modified mach kernel (currently 2.5, soon 3.0) with Apple's traditional display postscript windowing system. Apple will most likely never develop an x server for it, as this is not intended to compete with unix. In the near future, OSXS will not be a seperate OS at all, but will be a series of packages and add ons to OSX (the cosumer OS) to allow it to do server duties. OSX will also be a muti user system, with optional BSD tools, but will feature a much more advanced graphical interface, as well as numerous kernel modifications to boost performance for consumer applications.
Posted by BrianDaMac:
OpenPlay looks really cool. I hope this gets ported to Linux so game companies that use it would be more willing to port to Linux.
According to BYTEMark Integer tests, you might as well buy a K6 instead of a PII, which is what I did, but that isn't what you'd want for games. In fact, if you believe id Software (I do, 'cause they're just that cool :) you wouldn't want a G3 for games, either.
:) It works fine on a 286 running DOS. In fact, that's a great use for a ZIP drive, transferring lots of files off of an old computer...
I wouldn't want a G3 because of the Apple baggage: the extra price, the crappy OS that I'd just format, and the limited hardware support... but the chip looks nice. At least MacOS X is based around UNIX, but that will just make the price go up, because it's a commercial UNIX. Maybe the hardware support will eventually get better too, but I still don't like the design, the philosophy, the business model...
The only reason Apple would want to get in on Open Source this late in the game is to cash in on it, not to change their evil ways. If they really cared, then I could walk down to the store, and buy a cheap G3 from another company, preinstalled with Linux or BeOS or something, and have Apple's blessing as a hardware reseller. Yeah, right, not in this Universe. They'd be another Microsoft, if they thought they could pull it off.
However, when have minimum requirements ever been right? I have an old ZIP drive that lists a 386 as one of the requirements. Why? I don't know, maybe because they expect you to use Win '95 or something.
I also just got a TV card, which listed not just Windows '95, 20MB of RAM and whatnot as requirements, but also certain supported video cards (!)... it works great under Linux, with my (unlisted) cheap Trident card.
Really, I believe system requirements about as much as I believe benchmarks, or Apple press releases. In all cases, only real usage will give you the answers you need.
pb Reply or e-mail; don't vaguely moderate.
All I'm saying is that if Apple weren't so arrogant in the first place, and let other vendors sell their hardware, I would have supported that, and bought their hardware. Or if they offered their systems at reasonable prices, preferably without MacOS I would have considered it. So they lost my business, how are they supposed to make money that way?
:)
The bottom line is, I don't support arrogance. Anyone who thinks that their hardware or software is so "insanely great" that I should pay extra for the priviledge of using it deserves the shafting they get when I and other unblinded people don't buy their products and support the alternatives. This is also why I don't run Windows, I'm not about to pay for an OS that sucks so badly.
Also, MacOS is free and sucks, MacOS X is not free, and probably does not suck, because Apple didn't develop it. The PowerPC doesn't suck either, because Apple didn't develop it either. In fact, if IBM or Motorola marketed it better, I might have bought it. However, Motorola just makes the chips, and IBM can't market a paper bag.
Therefore, I have a K6/300 that runs Linux, and I can laugh at Apple. Their prices suck in comparison, and their machines are annoying and ugly. Much of this is opinion, which is why I can laugh at them.
pb Reply or e-mail; don't vaguely moderate.
only problem is, using ORBs for production distributed systems is largely a bad idea. They are still based on RPC's, primarily: not a very scalable approach.
The new CORBA Messaging spec is a start, but I don't think there are very many implementations of it.
-Stu
Apple does indeed have a patent for PEF.
However, as I understand it, OSX doesn't use PEF (or rather it can, but can read others as well). I expect that we'll see PEF gradually phased out; Apple seems to be moving away from proprietary stuff as of late (before you flame me, notice that I said seems to be and that I didn't say it had moved away completely yet.)
OSX will be moving to Mach 3; the first developer release (available now, and apparently for free if I hear correctly, and no it's not Darwin) is already there.
Interestingly enough, this is the same Mach which MkLinux uses. This could mean some significant advances for that platform...
Like most BSDs, Mac OS X Server and Darwin use UFS. Apple has included an HFS[+] filesystem implementation, but you must boot from UFS. It's expected that Apple will make Mac OS X [client] bootable from HFS+. (Classic HFS will never work, though; doesn't know how to store UNIX permissions like HFS+ does.)
- Mali
There's also MkLinux.
Actually, DisplayPostScript (DPS) is on the way outat apple. MacOS X server uses it, but MacOS X Client will not nor will any future versions of client or server. The new imaging model is based on PDF using technology initially developed by Jobs other company Pixar, a company which knows a tad about graphics. DPS was shelved, at least in part, because of Adobes excessive liscensing fees. I have even heard rumors of a minimal gui being released by apple for Darwin, but those were only rumors and mixing in the DGS system from Gnustep nay be the best bet.
since it seems that apple is moving to EGCS for OS X, I had a few questions...
What binary format does OS X Server use? What format will OS X use? even if they don't use PEF, will they integrate PEF support into the EGCS Linker? (hence, opening up their patent on PEF)... I'm assuming that they're going to be working with the EGCS folks to improve it's PPC code generation?
I haven't seen Darwin running.
You can port this to anything you like, IF you dare. Going up the software chain, OS X Server is specifically written with portability in mind, even if in practice it's only available right now for PowerPC G3 (I've seen Rhapsody DR2 for Intel but never got the damn thing to install).
I seriously doubt Darwin uses ext2.
Apple has just released some kind of basic GUI for the thing (NOT the MacOS window manager), and I believe you can download compiled binaries now, and have a completely running system that's based on BSD. Their webpage is very short on information, but it looks a bit more readable this week.
The whole thing doesn't interest me too much.. I'm waiting for OS X Server; hopefully in a few weeks that's what I'll be running. I like OS 8.6 but I'd like X if nothing than for the standard suite of UNIX tools on a Mac.
There's a GNU environment available for Windows called CYGWIN... does anyone know if something like this exists for the MacOS, besides the Conix unix-based virtual machine?
I believe Conix make a UNIX that runs on top of MacOS. It's a virtual machine so it runs more slowly, but within that environment everything is UNIX.
I don't expect Darwin to win Open Source converts from the Linux community, and probably neither does Apple. But this does highlight how easy it is to develop for their new OS, how "open" (documented) it is, and shines a powerful spotlight on the Black Box known as Windows NT. Anyone price what a 50-user license of Microsoft Windows NT goes for?? I don't know, but $400 for OS X is a bargain even before considering OS X's performance numbers.
I grabbed it (the binary distrib) and installed it last night.
It is in fact BS4.4 over Mach3, wth Apple/NeXT's supplemental directory structure.
There was no GUI included...it runs in/as a shell.
If you've ever used NeXT/Openstep (or MacOS X 10) it will all look familiar to you.
Apparently, *this* core, Darwin 0.2, and not the one that MacOS X Server is currently running on top of, is what Mac OS X ("Client"), which was released as a Developer Preview yesterday at WWDC, is based on.
Apple has moved to egcs as well.
So, for all those that think Apple is full of Poopy-Doo Doo's, it's right there in front of ya'.
Apple is and will be building it's libraries (MacOS API, Java and Openstep/CoCo) on top of what's on that website...just like they said.
So as much as some of us like to rag on Apple, it appears to be w/o merit this time...they are doing what they said they would. And I don't see anyone else with a commercial OS even releasing a teensy bit of what makes it tick...
The kernel should be able to be brought up on a PC, but I need to have a closer look at whether or not they run the shell in character mode on a PC), or on a bitmapped screen like in the old Openstep. If it's on a bitmapped screen, there might be driver issues...
I suppose I could just ask them...Wilfredo Sanchez spends a lot of time on the dev list...
-K
One day, you'll learn to watch what you post...
"The Debian packaging system has been adopted for the Darwin distribution, and should be fairly easily moved to Mac OS X Server if someone were inclined to try"
OS X Server doesn't use X, it uses DisplayPostscript, like NeXt did. Thanks to gnustep, DisplayPostscript is available for X, though.
--"In dreams begin responsibilities" - Delmore Schwartz
I don't see any reason OS/X couldn't run a third party X Server - there were some available for NeXTStep, for example. (The "native" GUI does not run in X however.)
Specifically, I can't imagine that a XFree86 port would be impossible, given that the BSD API is there in Darwin.
--
Business. Numbers. Money. People. Computer World.
Both NetBSD and OpenBSD have Mac ports. Furthermore, Linux, NetBSD, and OpenBSD all have Mac/m68k projects, which you might reasonably argue count as separate from the PPC versions. If so, then the tally rises to seven.
mklinux runs on ppc powermacs, hp pa-risc boxes, and x86. i have no idea how well the pa-risc and x86 ports work, though, cuz i've never run them.
i'm certain there is, somewhere. apple did not invent mach.c /www/doc/abstracts/manual.html
http://www.cs.cmu.edu/afs/cs/project/mach/publi
Irritable, left-wing and possibly humorous bumper stickers and t-shirts
macnn says that Darwin requires a G3.
.tar.gz files listed in a difficult-to-download-all-at-once line on a web site. no FTP. (though i haven't checked there in awhile).
but since it's open-source, you ought to be able to port it to any machine you want, be it low-end power mac or 486. i glanced through some of the early posts to the darwin-development mailing list, and quite a few of the people seemed to expect to be able to easily run it on an x86 machine.
actually, now that i think about it, what about this whole "mach" thing? Darwin and OS X use the mach microkernel to communicate with the hardware, right? doesn't this mean you could basically port the entire Darwin OS to a new architecture by finding an existing Mach kernel (such as the mklinux ones..) for that architecture and dumping the Darwin OS on top of that?
what i'm curious about is when, or whether, i'll get to run Darwin on this here PPC 7200/75.
really, i'm still waiting for a coherent, complete overview of Darwin (viewed as an operating system and not as an attempt to cash in on the current "hipness" of Open-Source) with, y'know, a description of what it's like, or a screenshot or something. Hell, i've yet to hear of a single case of someone installing darwin.
And since in order to install darwin before binaries you essentially had to have an existing *nix distribution to install it, i doubt anyone did install darwin. At least i assume you'd need *nix, i never saw any instructions on apple's site, just a bunch of random
And i don't know what it's like now, since i have not been able to actually get into the Darwin sections of apple's web site at any point in the last 24 hours. The server does not respond. It may just be too busy; either way i can't get in.
So while i have tried to figure it out, i'm still completely in the dark about Darwin. Does anyone have any details about this system? Like, is there some sort of GUI, is it difficult to use or incomplete or instable? What file system does it use? Ext2? HFS+?
Has anyone actually seen this mysterious OS?
Irritable, left-wing and possibly humorous bumper stickers and t-shirts
Is that Mozilla was "carbonated" over a weekend using a utility that Apple released to developers. Apple really went all out to make sure that porting from Mac OS to Mac OSX will be a breeze.
It's a new display format that butchers DisplayPostscript and Adobe's PDF, taking the best ideas out of both formats.
Do we really need another one of those? It's called an ORB - "Object Request Broker". App1 wants to send a message to App2, so it uses an ORB. The ORB takes care of everything else. All possible possible permutations of communication take place through an orb. There are quite a few out there.
*Condense fact from the vapor of nuance*
...then we could really pretend to be running a NEXT machine. I'm curious to see an i86 port, but then, I already have so many ways to get a bash prompt already, even in windows. Free 'nix poppin up all over the place.
"I want peace on earth and good will toward men." "We're the U.S. government. We don't do that sort of thing!!"
Any port of Darwin to x86? I would love to run it on a Dual 333 machine.. *Evil grin*
"Windows 98 Second Edition works and players better than ever." -Microsoft's Home page on Win98SE.
I ate my tag line.
-=Ellis (D)25=-
Well the theory of Darwinism some what outline the evolution theory, so therefor the system would have to update it mach kernel. I'm sorry for thinking before I spoke, but do you think that any one is going to do an x86 port of it?
"Windows 98 Second Edition works and players better than ever." -Microsoft's Home page on Win98SE.
I ate my tag line.
-=Ellis (D)25=-
I think there already a Mach kernal developed for x86.
"Windows 98 Second Edition works and players better than ever." -Microsoft's Home page on Win98SE.
I ate my tag line.
-=Ellis (D)25=-
In a post under Caldera that I made, if /. could pull together and do our own distro, this code could help us out alot trying to make the best distro.
"Windows 98 Second Edition works and players better than ever." -Microsoft's Home page on Win98SE.
I ate my tag line.
-=Ellis (D)25=-
Easy, lots of support......
"Windows 98 Second Edition works and players better than ever." -Microsoft's Home page on Win98SE.
I ate my tag line.
-=Ellis (D)25=-
Their site just has the source code zipped up, requiring registration. The FAQ gives no useful details. What kind of "network abstraction" is it? Are there any real docs?
"Whatever happened to fair use?"
-- Duff-Man
Does anyone know if this stuff (darwin and/or MacOS X Server) will work (badly/well) on an iMac?
I'm a FreeBSD fan, and I'm sick of beige boxes. =)
Oh, it wouldn't be a public server.. just another box to play with, and perhaps do some development on.
???
I not very familure with Darwin OS, is this a BSD system with a apple X server (ported to power PC of course) and with apple talk support? If apple made a X desktop enviroment under a open source license (haven't read the apple open license completely, but if it suffices :) that would compile under linux, I would love to give it a whirl. This could also help bridge the gap that the QT and Gnome folks are working on, bringing Linux to the common desktop.
Great, now the mac has two open UNIX OS. LinuxPPC and Darwin, lets hope the two can cooperate at least somehow, The HFS+ code could be used as a linux module. And maybe the MKlinux project can benefit from Darwin's mach kernel....
De lyckliga slavarna är frihetens bittraste fiender, legalisera!!!
How could anybody run darwin then they released the binary distribution and the missing parts of the system today ?
But in a way some people run darwin; the users of MacOS X Server.
De lyckliga slavarna är frihetens bittraste fiender, legalisera!!!
I've seen a lot of discussion of where it comes from, whether it's a good idea, how open is the license; but I haven't seen the merest shadow of a review from someone who's tried to use it.
Is it actually a standalone useable product? Is anyone using it as their primary OS at this point?
There's lots of Intel-oriented code in there already. Drivers, booting code, etc.
I suppose getting it up on Intel will require booting on a PowerMac, then cross-compiling the source to produce Intel binaries.
The ambitions are: wake up, breathe, keep breathing.
Umm.. a G3 300 is about as fast as a PII 400 especially when it comes to graphics computations (BTYEMark Integer tests anyone??). Honestly, I would much rather have minimum requirements be a little too high than see what the game manufacturers do with their min. requirements.
+-------+ between the wish and the thing lies the world - All the Pretty Horses
Got it to work on a 6400/180 and 5500/225, not too well though. It isn't TOO slow, but it is still dev and an improvement over the current MacOS.
Tip: Burn some cds first, I had to initialize the 6400s drive twice after some trouble...
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