I always thought that Apple had to release their kernel source in some form, since it was based on "Open" Projects (Mach and BSD).
The source code to Darwin is available for download via anonymous CVS and you can browse it via CVSWeb. The details are at Apple's Open Source web page. There are also lots of other sub-projects and source for related tools available there as well. Another place to keep up with developments in Darwin is Darwinfo.org
Ummm... sorry to break it to you, but the OSI found the APSL to be compliant with its open source definition. ESR has also publicly supported the APSL since the beginning.
Fortunately (or unfortunately, depending on your point of view), in Canada, "Canadian content" regulations require that radio stations play a minimum amount of Canadian material (approx 35%). Because of that, we get to hear a lot of really cool bands, many of them local, that we'd never otherwise hear. Something like 90% of the music I own, I would never have discovered had it not been for those regulations. I wonder if bands like the Crash Test Dummies, the Barnaked Ladies, the Tragically Hip or Rush would ever have been heard of in the US had Canadian stations been not been forced to pick up enough Canadian music to meet quota.
Wile some argue that the CRTC's (Candian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commision) rules are government interference, there's no doubt that we get a lot more variety than the endless "variety" of top-40 stations that seem to be a-la-mode in the US. That's not to say that there aren't some great US stations... NPR is pretty cool.
Canada isn't unique in regulating cultural content; Australia, New Zealand, France, Korea and other nations all have similar regulations setting cultural content requirements.
I'm Canadian as well and I've heard both used. In school (University of Victoria) billion was used to denote 10^9 almost universally, which I assume is due to the fact that many/most Engineering/Science profs got their doctorates in the US rather than in Canada. What with their TV and radio being shipped up here, it seems that most people go for billion = 10^9 these days.
The "ize" spellings of realise, specialise etc. are now considered fine in British Columbia schools too. That one drives me nuts... it just looks so... American.
Yes it multiboots. I have MacOS X and Debian Linux on my Powerbook G3 and have no problem dual booting. Mac partitioning allows a couple hundred partitions, rather than the paltry maximum of four primaries I get on my PC. If you only want to dual boot between MacOS X and MacOS 9.1, you can put them both on the same partition, with MacOS 9 in a directory.
As for compiling your standard unix tools, I've used the copy of gcc that comes with every copy of MacOS X to compile Bash, the GNU filesystem tools (ls, etc.) since OS X ships with the BSD versions, and I prefer the GNU tools, Python, PostgreSQL, a new version of tcpwrappers, OpenSSH and a bunch of other stuff.
With older stuff, in general the only thing you need to do to get things to compile is pick up a new copy of config.guess and config.sub from the GNU FTP site (or replace them with the ones included with OS X in/usr/libexec) and you're in business. This is because darwin is relatively new and wasn't listed in these files until recently.
While MacOS X will not ship with iTunes, neither did MacOS 9.1. iTunes CD burning will be functional in the final version, as stated on Apple's web site. Perhaps the reason for the confusion over this is a CNet article based on leaked pre-release copies that didn't include CD burning.
Apple has publicly stated that their DVD burning software (iDVD) will not ship with MacOS X, but will be available soon enough. This is probably not a huge problem, since very, very few Macs actually have DVD burners. Since MacOS X ships with MacOS 9.1 (for the Classic environment), users can simply go to the System Disk control panel and choose to re-boot into pure MacOS 9.1 (ie. not OSX classic mode, but actual 9.1), and use it there.
Re:z's - Now whose English needs fixing?
on
To Z Or Not To Z
·
· Score: 1
Perhaps it's not just the Americans' English that needs repairing. It seems I should have used the preview button:
As well as Canada, Australia, Ireland, and practically anywhere else except the US. I remember occasionally the Canadian distributors for US corporations are too lazy to repair the "English" on product packaging, and we end up with products like E-Z wipes.
I won't even mention the quality of the mandatory French translations we see. Actually, one example is worth citing:
Occaisionally we see the phrase "No preservatives" translated to "Sans preservatifs" on food packaging. The actual translation should be "Sans agents de conservation", which wouldn't be so funny except for the fact that "Sans preservatifs" translates to "No Condoms Inside".
What if the babysitter is trying to tell me there's been an emergency at home, and my phone doesn't even vibrate?
Extremely good point. Many doctors, especially in rural areas, are on call 24 hours a day. Jamming their cell phones could mean the death of a patient waiting for emergency treatment. Another extremely important point to consider is whether it will be mandatory to advertise that cell phones are being jammed in a particular location. How am I to know whether my phone is being jammed? Would people on-call have to sit huddled in their own home 24 hours a day?
An optional "courtesy" feature that allows the phone to vibrate instead makes much more sense.
I really wish we could see what was posted about this guy.
Nothing too exciting... From an article published last November, here's what happened.
Melvin sued the anonymous Web gossip after he posted a comment online declaring: "Judge Joan Orie Melvin has been lobbying the Ridge administration on behalf of a local attorney seeking the appointment by Gov. Ridge to fill the vacancy on the Allegheny County Court of Common Pleas created by the mandatory retirement earlier this month of Judge Robert Dauer...."
Not that I defend the guy 100%, but the original article was not written by him. He doesn't exactly have absolute control over what another author writes about him, or how he is quoted. Given the fact that 90% of the Slashdot crowd probably hasn't read anything other than that one article, it is understandable that they got the completely wrong impression from the author of the article. Reading the summary of his book The Humane Interface (available online, and linked to in a comment attached to the previous Slashdot story) gives a completely different picture of the guy.
Everyone is crying bloody murder. Some comments I've heard this morning at my workplace here 20 minutes from the bridge: "If a single accident was caused on the bridge by the increased traffic, those guys should be put away", "Think of the danger the city workers had to put themselves in removing it".
Now, hands up anyone who drove to work this morning. Guess what, you're putting a ton of people in danger too: other drivers, passengers, pedestrians and cyclists, not to mention all the deer I've seen recently with broken legs. I lost a girlfriend when she was struck by a van as she crossed the road (at UBC actually). It would be nice if, before whiling, all the motorists who are set on complaining about the danger of driving by this scaaarry Beetle, thought a little about exactly how much danger is involved in driving with a coffee in your lap and a cell phone in your ear.
Not sure whtat is up with this moronic city these days. Too many dot-commers getting laid off maybe.
try getting a car on top of a building without a crane, now there's a challange
The UBC Engineers have done this too. They placed a bug on the roof of the 17 storey Gage Towers residence. They have also placed bugs below the Lion's Gate Bridge, on top of the support arches of the Lion's Gate Bridge, below and on top of the Alex Fraser Bridge, on the side of the Vancouver Library, between two bridges downtown as well as from the SkyTrain supports. The bug was not simply hung off the side. That would be easy to recover. Cables were strung to the underside of the bridge by students experienced in climbing, then the bug was connected to these cables with another cable. It was quite well done.
Its not the point of if you think it is fair to punish them or not. This is irrelvant to the issue. Its called respect for the legal system.
Respect for the legal system??? The same one that passes the DMCA? The same one that is mocked around the world? When even many Americans have no respect for their legal system, what makes you think that foreign nationals would care one bit.
It was a prank, ok? Perhaps if Americans spent less time abusing their own system to their advantage, by suing everytime they fall over, they might be a little more relaxed and be able to sit back and appreciate the cleverness of such a prank.
The point of the annual bug toss is to draw attention to engineering and particularly to those who build bridges. It is also a challenge to city engineers made by engineering students -- specifically, can the city engineers figure a way out to recover the thing. Obviously, the Americans couldn't comprehend this, so they dumped the thing in the ocean. Greaaat.
How can a cheque be anonymous? You can always trace it back. Who signed it?
The UBC Engineering Students' Society has bank accounts of its own. Nobody said it was anonymous -- the ESS paid for it on behalf of the engineers who did it.
Hmmm... no, it looks strikingly like the dock from NeXT. The docks in Afterstep and WindowMaker look a lot like the dock from NeXT as well. Gnome most likely picked up its "dock" (panels) from those two and crossed it with Windows 95's task bar. Having used all of the above, I have to say I'm most impressed with Apple's dock. Actually, I'm more impressed with the Quartz UI layer that makes it possible.
Development on OS X is a dream. Actually, development with GNUStep on Linux/FreeBSD is a dream too, if only a Glade-like tool would come out to do the reduce the boring work of UI development and let people get coding the useful stuff; OS X has Interface Builder which is both to-the-point and fast.
If you have lots of terminals/text on the screen, 0.98 might be a better setting, so things remain clearly legible.
There are a gazillion other 'undocumented' options (ie. the options aren't in any of the default plist files) available with a quick search of the web.
Now that XFree86 (4.0.2) works perfectly in tandem with Aqua, I have less and less reasons to jump over to my Linux/FreeBSD boxes. Actually, X is far easier to configure under MacOS X and Darwin than any other OS... it configures itself using IOKit -- no more tweaking XF86Config required. OS X is truly impressive... and the latest (non-public-beta) screenshots on Apple's site look spectacular.
Actually, I use Linux on my powerbook and the modifier keys work perfectly well. In fact, it's easier to manipulate modifier keys with your index fingers on a laptop than to find the correct button of the three on PC laptops using your thumb.
If you understand the basics of operating systems and you want a great reference to BSD, a GREAT book is "The Design and Implementation of the 4.4BSD Operating System", written by the original authors of 4.4BSD and published by Addison Wesley.
It covers basically anything you need to know, and makes a great reference if you want to understand the source code itself.
Not only that, but my PC USB mouse works fine on my Powerbook G3, so I'm sure it's the same for the new ones. Hey, and if you're gonna be running Debian Linux on that baby, any of the more recent 2.2 and 2.4 kernels allow you to set modifier keys for your mouse clicks anyway... I've got Right-Ctrl and Right-Alt (Right-Option) as mine, which, on a Powerbook translates to Fn-Left-Ctrl and Fn-Left-Alt. Not nearly as big a nuisance as you'd think, I find it easier than using a three-button trackpad, since my thumb doesn't have to slide way over to the left side.
You're right, for the most part, that most Mac users would choose MacOS X over Linux any day. Of course they will -- for the same reason that most PC users would choose Windows over Linux any day. Most users, and probably even an equivalent number on either side are clueless boneheads when it comes to computers. Most have no desire whatsover to run Linux.
However, just as in the PC world, there is a group of geeks that want to customise their OS, and use Free Software. Just as in the PC world, they have various reasons from technical to political that they do so. Yes, MacOS X is a funky, easy-to-use version of BSD. Yes, you can run XFree86 on MacOS X (and plain-vanilla Darwin). No, it's not all Free Software. No, not all plain-vanilla Linux/Unix apps will run on it yet, and many unmaintained apps probably never will.
Personally, I use both Linux and OS X on a daily basis. I do development on both systems. I like both systems, and until the day when OS X offers everything I like about Linux, I won't switch. While I have never used LinuxPPC (I use Debian on my Powerbook), there are a lot of geeks who swear by it. Many, but not all, will find as I did that OS X doesn't offer the utopic OS environment they expected with all the power and customisation of a Unix-like system but the ease-of-use of a Mac and they'll re-install Linux on part of their disk.
Mac OS X is great, but I'm not ready to give up Linux yet.
Without the restrictions of the PC hard disk partitionning scheme, Macs can easily host two, three or more OSes on one disk. On my Powerbook G3 Pismo, I currently run Debian GNU/Linux, MacOS 9.0.4 and MacOS X Public Beta. All three co-exist peacefully on my machine.
As a long-time Debian fanatic, I decided that this was the way to go on the PowerPC as well. I haven't tried LinuxPPC, mainly for the reason that their disk images are in Mac self-mounting-image format, and the only burners I have access to are running on Windows boxes, but mostly, I'm just really impressed with Debian. It runs absolutely smoothly once you install XFree86 4.0.2 (if you use 3.3.6, you're stuck with framebuffer graphics).
For those interested in trying it out on their own Powerbooks, here's a link to the instructions you need, in French. You can use BabelFish to translate if you don't speak French, though I have no idea how good the translation will be. If you want X, upgrade to Woody then get the XFree86 4.0.2 debs (they're on the FTP sites in the/debian/pool/main/x/xfree86 directory) and you're set.
Once I recompiled the kernel to my liking, the system has been the best Linux box I've ever had. The only thing that could be better is if the Helix guys would release PowerPC debs of Helix Gnome...
Anyway, as I say, what's to stop anyone from using both Linux and MacOS X? When I want down-to-earth Linuxy Goodness, I use Debian, when I want snazzy graphics, Mac Apps, and a really funky IDE for some Objective-C Goodness, I use MacOS X. Both environments have their advantages and disadvantages.
I like being able to fine-tune and fiddle with my system, as Darwin evolves, and as more and more software becomes Darwin compatible (a LOT already is) I admit I will probably use Linux less, but it'll always have a place on my drive.
The Apple ][ was indeed a wonderful machine. I started on one before they had arrow key and switched from a ][ to a//. You know that your machine is a success when a six-year old knows what CALL -151 is for. One of my weirdest childhood memories was banging in page after page of hex code from copies of Compute Magazine I found at the library.
My Apple ][ is still in the basement, but it's power supply is dead... never to PR#6 again.
Or even the ORIGINAL Castle Wolfenstein for the Apple ][. A top down 4-colour romp through a castle-turned-prison filled with Nazis, Bratwurst and Schnaps.
Of course, the best part was hearing the agents shout things like "Agony" and "Aiiieee!" through the Apple's speaker. Now THAT was a masterpiece of coding...
The sequel was Beyond Castle Wolfenstein, and had slightly better graphics and sound.
Seems they were written by a company called Muse, but it would probably be easier to remember who they were cracked by...
Slashdot Mirror
I always thought that Apple had to release their kernel source in some form, since it was based on "Open" Projects (Mach and BSD).
The source code to Darwin is available for download via anonymous CVS and you can browse it via CVSWeb. The details are at Apple's Open Source web page. There are also lots of other sub-projects and source for related tools available there as well. Another place to keep up with developments in Darwin is Darwinfo.org
You might have said the same thing about Linux in the early '90s.
Ummm... sorry to break it to you, but the OSI found the APSL to be compliant with its open source definition. ESR has also publicly supported the APSL since the beginning.
Fortunately (or unfortunately, depending on your point of view), in Canada, "Canadian content" regulations require that radio stations play a minimum amount of Canadian material (approx 35%). Because of that, we get to hear a lot of really cool bands, many of them local, that we'd never otherwise hear. Something like 90% of the music I own, I would never have discovered had it not been for those regulations. I wonder if bands like the Crash Test Dummies, the Barnaked Ladies, the Tragically Hip or Rush would ever have been heard of in the US had Canadian stations been not been forced to pick up enough Canadian music to meet quota.
Wile some argue that the CRTC's (Candian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commision) rules are government interference, there's no doubt that we get a lot more variety than the endless "variety" of top-40 stations that seem to be a-la-mode in the US. That's not to say that there aren't some great US stations... NPR is pretty cool.
Canada isn't unique in regulating cultural content; Australia, New Zealand, France, Korea and other nations all have similar regulations setting cultural content requirements.
I'm Canadian as well and I've heard both used. In school (University of Victoria) billion was used to denote 10^9 almost universally, which I assume is due to the fact that many/most Engineering/Science profs got their doctorates in the US rather than in Canada. What with their TV and radio being shipped up here, it seems that most people go for billion = 10^9 these days.
The "ize" spellings of realise, specialise etc. are now considered fine in British Columbia schools too. That one drives me nuts... it just looks so... American.
Black and White was created by Peter Molyneux, the creator of populous.
Yes it multiboots. I have MacOS X and Debian Linux on my Powerbook G3 and have no problem dual booting. Mac partitioning allows a couple hundred partitions, rather than the paltry maximum of four primaries I get on my PC. If you only want to dual boot between MacOS X and MacOS 9.1, you can put them both on the same partition, with MacOS 9 in a directory.
/usr/libexec) and you're in business. This is because darwin is relatively new and wasn't listed in these files until recently.
As for compiling your standard unix tools, I've used the copy of gcc that comes with every copy of MacOS X to compile Bash, the GNU filesystem tools (ls, etc.) since OS X ships with the BSD versions, and I prefer the GNU tools, Python, PostgreSQL, a new version of tcpwrappers, OpenSSH and a bunch of other stuff.
With older stuff, in general the only thing you need to do to get things to compile is pick up a new copy of config.guess and config.sub from the GNU FTP site (or replace them with the ones included with OS X in
I don't think there's much to worry about...
While MacOS X will not ship with iTunes, neither did MacOS 9.1. iTunes CD burning will be functional in the final version, as stated on Apple's web site. Perhaps the reason for the confusion over this is a CNet article based on leaked pre-release copies that didn't include CD burning.
Apple has publicly stated that their DVD burning software (iDVD) will not ship with MacOS X, but will be available soon enough. This is probably not a huge problem, since very, very few Macs actually have DVD burners. Since MacOS X ships with MacOS 9.1 (for the Classic environment), users can simply go to the System Disk control panel and choose to re-boot into pure MacOS 9.1 (ie. not OSX classic mode, but actual 9.1), and use it there.
Perhaps it's not just the Americans' English that needs repairing. It seems I should have used the preview button:
I remember occasionally the Canadian
and of course, later on:
Occaisionally
It's still early...
may be z answer Just sounds stupid in the UK.
As well as Canada, Australia, Ireland, and practically anywhere else except the US. I remember occasionally the Canadian distributors for US corporations are too lazy to repair the "English" on product packaging, and we end up with products like E-Z wipes.
I won't even mention the quality of the mandatory French translations we see. Actually, one example is worth citing:
Occaisionally we see the phrase "No preservatives" translated to "Sans preservatifs" on food packaging. The actual translation should be "Sans agents de conservation", which wouldn't be so funny except for the fact that "Sans preservatifs" translates to "No Condoms Inside".
Brilliant.
What if the babysitter is trying to tell me there's been an emergency at home, and my phone doesn't even vibrate?
Extremely good point. Many doctors, especially in rural areas, are on call 24 hours a day. Jamming their cell phones could mean the death of a patient waiting for emergency treatment. Another extremely important point to consider is whether it will be mandatory to advertise that cell phones are being jammed in a particular location. How am I to know whether my phone is being jammed? Would people on-call have to sit huddled in their own home 24 hours a day?
An optional "courtesy" feature that allows the phone to vibrate instead makes much more sense.
I really wish we could see what was posted about this guy.
..."
Nothing too exciting... From an article published last November, here's what happened.
Melvin sued the anonymous Web gossip after he posted a comment online declaring: "Judge Joan Orie Melvin has been lobbying the Ridge administration on behalf of a local attorney seeking the appointment by Gov. Ridge to fill the vacancy on the Allegheny County Court of Common Pleas created by the mandatory retirement earlier this month of Judge Robert Dauer.
Kinda boring, really...
Not that I defend the guy 100%, but the original article was not written by him. He doesn't exactly have absolute control over what another author writes about him, or how he is quoted. Given the fact that 90% of the Slashdot crowd probably hasn't read anything other than that one article, it is understandable that they got the completely wrong impression from the author of the article. Reading the summary of his book The Humane Interface (available online, and linked to in a comment attached to the previous Slashdot story) gives a completely different picture of the guy.
And here's what's so stupid:
Everyone is crying bloody murder. Some comments I've heard this morning at my workplace here 20 minutes from the bridge: "If a single accident was caused on the bridge by the increased traffic, those guys should be put away", "Think of the danger the city workers had to put themselves in removing it".
Now, hands up anyone who drove to work this morning. Guess what, you're putting a ton of people in danger too: other drivers, passengers, pedestrians and cyclists, not to mention all the deer I've seen recently with broken legs. I lost a girlfriend when she was struck by a van as she crossed the road (at UBC actually). It would be nice if, before whiling, all the motorists who are set on complaining about the danger of driving by this scaaarry Beetle, thought a little about exactly how much danger is involved in driving with a coffee in your lap and a cell phone in your ear.
Not sure whtat is up with this moronic city these days. Too many dot-commers getting laid off maybe.
try getting a car on top of a building without a crane, now there's a challange
The UBC Engineers have done this too. They placed a bug on the roof of the 17 storey Gage Towers residence. They have also placed bugs below the Lion's Gate Bridge, on top of the support arches of the Lion's Gate Bridge, below and on top of the Alex Fraser Bridge, on the side of the Vancouver Library, between two bridges downtown as well as from the SkyTrain supports. The bug was not simply hung off the side. That would be easy to recover. Cables were strung to the underside of the bridge by students experienced in climbing, then the bug was connected to these cables with another cable. It was quite well done.
Its not the point of if you think it is fair to punish them or not. This is irrelvant to the issue. Its called respect for the legal system.
Respect for the legal system??? The same one that passes the DMCA? The same one that is mocked around the world? When even many Americans have no respect for their legal system, what makes you think that foreign nationals would care one bit.
It was a prank, ok? Perhaps if Americans spent less time abusing their own system to their advantage, by suing everytime they fall over, they might be a little more relaxed and be able to sit back and appreciate the cleverness of such a prank.
The point of the annual bug toss is to draw attention to engineering and particularly to those who build bridges. It is also a challenge to city engineers made by engineering students -- specifically, can the city engineers figure a way out to recover the thing. Obviously, the Americans couldn't comprehend this, so they dumped the thing in the ocean. Greaaat.
How can a cheque be anonymous? You can always trace it back. Who signed it?
The UBC Engineering Students' Society has bank accounts of its own. Nobody said it was anonymous -- the ESS paid for it on behalf of the engineers who did it.
Hmmm... no, it looks strikingly like the dock from NeXT. The docks in Afterstep and WindowMaker look a lot like the dock from NeXT as well. Gnome most likely picked up its "dock" (panels) from those two and crossed it with Windows 95's task bar. Having used all of the above, I have to say I'm most impressed with Apple's dock. Actually, I'm more impressed with the Quartz UI layer that makes it possible.
Development on OS X is a dream. Actually, development with GNUStep on Linux/FreeBSD is a dream too, if only a Glade-like tool would come out to do the reduce the boring work of UI development and let people get coding the useful stuff; OS X has Interface Builder which is both to-the-point and fast.
The defaults tool is absolutely wonderful for all sorts of customisation. For example -- if you want a translucent terminal window, a la eTerm:
defaults write com.apple.Terminal TerminalOpaqueness 0.9
If you have lots of terminals/text on the screen, 0.98 might be a better setting, so things remain clearly legible.
There are a gazillion other 'undocumented' options (ie. the options aren't in any of the default plist files) available with a quick search of the web.
Now that XFree86 (4.0.2) works perfectly in tandem with Aqua, I have less and less reasons to jump over to my Linux/FreeBSD boxes. Actually, X is far easier to configure under MacOS X and Darwin than any other OS... it configures itself using IOKit -- no more tweaking XF86Config required. OS X is truly impressive... and the latest (non-public-beta) screenshots on Apple's site look spectacular.
Actually, I use Linux on my powerbook and the modifier keys work perfectly well. In fact, it's easier to manipulate modifier keys with your index fingers on a laptop than to find the correct button of the three on PC laptops using your thumb.
If you understand the basics of operating systems and you want a great reference to BSD, a GREAT book is "The Design and Implementation of the 4.4BSD Operating System", written by the original authors of 4.4BSD and published by Addison Wesley.
It covers basically anything you need to know, and makes a great reference if you want to understand the source code itself.
An overview of the book is at this location.
Not only that, but my PC USB mouse works fine on my Powerbook G3, so I'm sure it's the same for the new ones. Hey, and if you're gonna be running Debian Linux on that baby, any of the more recent 2.2 and 2.4 kernels allow you to set modifier keys for your mouse clicks anyway... I've got Right-Ctrl and Right-Alt (Right-Option) as mine, which, on a Powerbook translates to Fn-Left-Ctrl and Fn-Left-Alt. Not nearly as big a nuisance as you'd think, I find it easier than using a three-button trackpad, since my thumb doesn't have to slide way over to the left side.
You're right, for the most part, that most Mac users would choose MacOS X over Linux any day. Of course they will -- for the same reason that most PC users would choose Windows over Linux any day. Most users, and probably even an equivalent number on either side are clueless boneheads when it comes to computers. Most have no desire whatsover to run Linux.
However, just as in the PC world, there is a group of geeks that want to customise their OS, and use Free Software. Just as in the PC world, they have various reasons from technical to political that they do so. Yes, MacOS X is a funky, easy-to-use version of BSD. Yes, you can run XFree86 on MacOS X (and plain-vanilla Darwin). No, it's not all Free Software. No, not all plain-vanilla Linux/Unix apps will run on it yet, and many unmaintained apps probably never will.
Personally, I use both Linux and OS X on a daily basis. I do development on both systems. I like both systems, and until the day when OS X offers everything I like about Linux, I won't switch. While I have never used LinuxPPC (I use Debian on my Powerbook), there are a lot of geeks who swear by it. Many, but not all, will find as I did that OS X doesn't offer the utopic OS environment they expected with all the power and customisation of a Unix-like system but the ease-of-use of a Mac and they'll re-install Linux on part of their disk.
Mac OS X is great, but I'm not ready to give up Linux yet.
Without the restrictions of the PC hard disk partitionning scheme, Macs can easily host two, three or more OSes on one disk. On my Powerbook G3 Pismo, I currently run Debian GNU/Linux, MacOS 9.0.4 and MacOS X Public Beta. All three co-exist peacefully on my machine.
/debian/pool/main/x/xfree86 directory) and you're set.
As a long-time Debian fanatic, I decided that this was the way to go on the PowerPC as well. I haven't tried LinuxPPC, mainly for the reason that their disk images are in Mac self-mounting-image format, and the only burners I have access to are running on Windows boxes, but mostly, I'm just really impressed with Debian. It runs absolutely smoothly once you install XFree86 4.0.2 (if you use 3.3.6, you're stuck with framebuffer graphics).
For those interested in trying it out on their own Powerbooks, here's a link to the instructions you need, in French. You can use BabelFish to translate if you don't speak French, though I have no idea how good the translation will be. If you want X, upgrade to Woody then get the XFree86 4.0.2 debs (they're on the FTP sites in the
Once I recompiled the kernel to my liking, the system has been the best Linux box I've ever had. The only thing that could be better is if the Helix guys would release PowerPC debs of Helix Gnome...
Anyway, as I say, what's to stop anyone from using both Linux and MacOS X? When I want down-to-earth Linuxy Goodness, I use Debian, when I want snazzy graphics, Mac Apps, and a really funky IDE for some Objective-C Goodness, I use MacOS X. Both environments have their advantages and disadvantages.
I like being able to fine-tune and fiddle with my system, as Darwin evolves, and as more and more software becomes Darwin compatible (a LOT already is) I admit I will probably use Linux less, but it'll always have a place on my drive.
The Apple ][ was indeed a wonderful machine. I started on one before they had arrow key and switched from a ][ to a //. You know that your machine is a success when a six-year old knows what CALL -151 is for. One of my weirdest childhood memories was banging in page after page of hex code from copies of Compute Magazine I found at the library.
My Apple ][ is still in the basement, but it's power supply is dead... never to PR#6 again.
Or even the ORIGINAL Castle Wolfenstein for the Apple ][. A top down 4-colour romp through a castle-turned-prison filled with Nazis, Bratwurst and Schnaps.
Of course, the best part was hearing the agents shout things like "Agony" and "Aiiieee!" through the Apple's speaker. Now THAT was a masterpiece of coding...
The sequel was Beyond Castle Wolfenstein, and had slightly better graphics and sound.
Seems they were written by a company called Muse, but it would probably be easier to remember who they were cracked by...