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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. "
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.
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.
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...
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.
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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
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.
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.
Yes. The distribution includes a brief "OpenPlay: Project Organization and Porting Notes," an "OpenPlay Programmers Documentation" and "Writing OpenPlay Net Modules."
The porting notes suggest that porting primarily entails: (i) modification of a single file "platform.h," (ii) extending file-system abstraction services to the new platform (mainly, finding a specific folder, iterating over files and then opening and binding to plugins), and (the hardest part), (iii) implementing a new protocol module. Sample plugins for protocol modules are provided, but it is suggested that these tend to be very target-specific and rate to require complete rewrites.
The docs are basically just API references, without much discussion or many examples. The distribution includes sample code, of course.
The docs characterize OpenPlay as a Net module manager, facilitating the programming of systems using an API, which can then be readily ported across various platforms operating from indpendent platform-localized plugins. The principal services of OpenPlay are categorized as configuration, data transfer, enumeration, human interface and miscellaneous functions.