Oh don't get me wrong we still need UI applications but for heads down productivity in a general environment a command line app rules.
I think it depends on what the task is. I use the CL in OS X all the time for certain tasks. But for example if I wanted to look through a folder of pictures, and chose say five of them to copy to another folder, i think it's easier to look at the file icons, so I know what the picture looks like and shift-click of the ones I want and option-drag them to the other folder... much faster than getting a list of file names (which I might not even recognize by name) and typing all that other stuff. Sometimes dragging a mouse is faster. Sometimes it's not. Having both options is good.
Yea it is boring as shit but I can teach a monkey to use it
I really think monkeys (or you probably mean Chimps) would find pictures easier than text.;-)
I suppose coming from a Mac designer's perspective anything more than 1 button on the mouse is considered a bad thing.... nevermind the fact that having a right click context menu is far superior and productive (and the scroll wheel is useful as well).
Raskin had certain ideas. For instance, he hated the mouse, he wanted to use a light pen or joy stick as a graphic input device, it was Jobs who wanted to use a mouse on the Macintosh, because the Lisa used one. He also wanted the Mac, then called the "Apple V" to cost only $500! Jobs hated the Macintosh for the first two years, saying it was the "dumbest thing on earth and would never sell" until he took over the project and started telling everyone he invented it!
Macs do have contextual menus, ever since Mac OS 8, and you can even add your own menu items. If you are using the one button mouse you Control-Click to get the menu, or use something like FinderPop to open the menu if you click and hold the mouse button down. I agree a multi button mouse is better for a lot of people... I have an MS Intellimouse Optical on my G4 and I feel lost without the right button and scroll wheel when I'm at work using the Apple mouse. You can use any mouse you want on a Mac though and the right button automatically works as a right click.
The whole "no customisation" argument as presented in the article assumes that everyone using a computer is a complete idiot, and is in fact nothing more than an expendable cubicle droid with a computer needing to be reassigned to a replacement at a moment's notice. I'm sure a fair proportion of computers in the world aren't used in such a way, and if some company do work to such dehumanising methods they can just disable customisation.
I think Apple wants to present a certain "user experience" and from a support point of view considered the idea of themes a Bad Thing(tm). There were themes for Mac OS 8, but they were dropped at the last minute, and Apple discouraged people from making use of the feature... same for OS X. I think everyone likes to customized their computer, and I bet Raskin does too!
Plus there are plenty of people who used both Macs and PC's and counting the transition from Win 3.x to 9x to XP would have no problem telling what the icons on the top right mean. Really the truly incompetant won't be able to use a computer properly no matter what interface you give them (unless you drop pretty much all functionalities from the applications)
Exactly. This is what I said earlier about most of the GUIs used are all pretty much alike, and use the original Xerox/Apple desktop ideas.
Raskin designed a computer (the Canon Cat) that didn't have documents and applications, as we know them. If you started typing, the computer figured you wanted a word processing function and opened a text window. But rumour has it that when Canon wanted to invest in NeXT, Jobs told them they had to kill the Cat first.
Maybe he can actually create an interface so amazing, so perfect, so right that no one would ever be able to improve upon it. I won't hold my breath, though.
He did. The Macintosh GUI. He even came up with the name "Macintosh" (and spelled it incorrectly!) And it pisses him off that he can't top that! It's not perfect, but since it set a precedent that every other OS basically uses, it's become familiar. Raskin seem to think we need to move in a totally different direction, away from keyboards and mice even.
I think skinning is a good thing, as long as it is based off a workable standard. take for instance kaleidoscope for os9. You could completely changed the way your windows looked, and the colors of everything you wanted, but it still stuck to the functional standards. menus and buttons were all in the same place, although they might look funky.
Not in the last version of Kaleidoscope though. With that one you could place your buttons anywhere you wanted, and even make your window some shape other than rectangular.
I tried a few Kaleidoscope schemes that made the interface very confusing! You couldn't even tell what was a button. They did have that "gee wiz" effect however.:)
However, with MacOS X the installer scripts continue to be intolerant of moving applications from their default directory (typically "/Applications"). For example, I moved the "/Applications/Mail" app to "/Applications/Internet/Mail" and MacOS X 10.1.3 failed to update it properly. This has been mentioned on MacFixit as well.
This was posted on MacIntouch the other day:
In the System 6-9 days, Apple used an installer that used a quasi-proprietary file format known as "tomes." The tome-based installers supported HFS file descriptors, so it could write over a file no matter where it was located in the hierarchy of the disk. It also treated aliases with respect.
Starting with Mac OS X, Apple moved to a package-based installer that uses Pax as its archival format. Pax was not created by Apple; see its man page (type "man pax" in the terminal for more information). The Pax-based installation system has two big drawbacks:
1. Pax installs files based on its path; Pax does not support the file descriptors used in HFS/HFS+. (The other Mac OS X disk format, UFS, doesn't support file descriptors.) This basically means Pax won't look to see if the item to be installed is already on the disk but in a different location.
2. If the path specified in a Pax archive actually exists physically on the disk, then Pax will correctly follow the path and overwrite the correct files. But if that path uses any type of link (hard link, symbolic link, or System 7-style alias), then Pax will blow away the link and create a physical directory structure as specified in the archive. In other words, it will not only ignore links, but it will overwrite them.
#1 may just be a sign of the times, since the Unix world doesn't have any real concept of file descriptors; they've been sort of a Mac-only thing. #2 is a flaw in Pax's design.
As a consequence of both, though, until Apple comes up with a better package system, it's a bad idea to move anything that Mac OS X installs from its default place. That includes moving stuff around and making aliases; it's broken right now.
OK here's the whole story, and it wasn't a legend! When Apple Computer came out, Apple Records' lawyers contacted Apple and told them to change their name. Apple responded that since they made computers and not records, no one would get them mixed up. Apple Corps said "OK but you have to agree not to go into the sound recording business."
Flash forward to 1984, and the new Apple Macintosh could play back sound. One of the sound files was a xylophone. Apple legal said "No instruments or music!" so the sound was changed to the familiar Sosume. When Apple legal asked what the name meant the engineer said "It's a Japanese word."
As a foot note, since Apple had become such a fixture in the recording industry, Apple Corp decided to take them to court again in the 90's and won some undisclosed settlement.
Ironically George Martin use a Mac to mix and master the Beatles Anthologies!
Far as I know, more release quality music is done on an Atari ST's than is done on a Mac. Why not give them a Mac? They were revolutionary. But oh yeah, they're not cool.
All the ST could do was MIDI sequencing. And the main reason people used them was they had built in MIDI ports and were cheap! Steinberg made music software for the ST and the C64 too. Most pro studios run ProTools on Macs nowadays to record, edit and mix audio. I remember two years ago when every Grammy winning CD was either recorded, edited, mixed or mastered on a Mac. I'm a musician and run a few apps, mainly Stienberg's Cubase VST on my G4 using an M-Audio Delta Audiophile 2496 sound card for both audio and MIDI.
OK Define UNIX then... I think you'll see all flavors of xBSD, NEXTSTEP and MACH 3 on this list.
Subject: Main Unix flavors.
6.3) Main Unix flavors.
The following is very much an early '90s view.
Until recently, there were basically two main flavors of Unix: System V (five) from AT&T, and the Berkeley Software Distribution (BSD). SVR4 is essentially a merge of these two flavors. End '91, OSF/1 from the Open Software Foundation was released (as a direct competitor to System V) and may (future will tell) change this picture.
The following lists the main releases and features of System V, BSD and OSF/1.
System V from AT&T. Typical of Intel hardware. Most often ported Unix, typically with BSD enhancements (csh, job control, termcap, curses, vi, symbolic links). System V evolution is now overseen by Unix International (UI). UI members include AT&T, Sun,.... Newsgroup: comp.unix.sysv[23]86. Main releases:
- System III (1982): first commercial Unix from AT&T - FIFOs (named pipes) (later?)
- Future: - SVR4 MP (multiprocessor) - Use of Chorus microkernel?
Berkeley Software Distribution (BSD). Typical of VAXen, RISCs, many workstations. More dynamic, research versions now than System V. BSD is responsible for much of the popularity of Unix. Most enhancements to Unix started here. The group responsible at UCB (University of California at Berkeley) is the Computer System Research Group (CSRG). They closed down in 1992. Newsgroup: comp.unix.bsd. Main releases:
(much reorganized wrt dates and releases, hope it's converging)
- 2.xBSD (1978) for PDP-11, still of significance? (2.11BSD was released in 1992!). - csh
- 3BSD (1978): - virtual memory
- 4.?BSD: - termcap, curses - vi
- 4.0BSD (1980):
- 4.1BSD (?): base of later AT&T CRG versions - job control - automatic kernel config - vfork()
- 4.2BSD (1983): - TCP/IP, sockets, ethernet - UFS: long file names, symbolic links - new reliable signals (4.1 reliable signals now in SVR3) - select()
- 4.3BSD (1986) for VAX, ?: - 4.3 Tahoe (1988): 4.3BSD with sources, support for Tahoe (32-bit supermini) - Fat FFS - New TCP algorithms - 4.3 Reno (1990) for VAX, Tahoe, HP 9000/300: - most of P1003.1 - NFS (from Sun) - MFS (memory file system) - OSI: TP4, CLNP, ISODE's FTAM, VT and X.500; SLIP - Kerberos
- Net1 (?) and Net2 (June 1991) tapes: that portion of BSD which requires no USL copyright
- 4.4BSD (alpha June 1992) for HP 9000/300, Sparc, 386, DEC, others; neither VAX nor Tahoe; two versions, lite (~Net2 contents plus, fixes and new architectures) and encumbered (everything, requires USL license): - new virtual memory system (VMS) based on Mach 2.5 - virtual filesystem interface, log-structured filesystem, size of local filesystem up to 2^63, NFS (freely redistributable, works with Sun's, over UDP or TCP) - ISO/OSI networking support (based on ISODE): TP4/CLNP/802.3 and TP0/CONS/X.25, session and above in user space; FTAM, VT, X.500. - most of POSIX.1 (esp. new terminal driver a la SV), much of POSIX.2, improved job control; ANSI C headers - Kerberos integrated with much of the system (incl. NFS) - TCP/IP enhancements (incl. header prediction, SLIP) - important kernel changes (new system call convention,...) - other improvements: FIFOs, byte-range file locking Official 4.4BSD release was expected within 6 months of above.
The Open Software Foundation (OSF) released its Unix called OSF/1 end of 1991. Still requires an SVR2 license. Compatible/compliant with SVID 2 (and 3 coming), POSIX, X/Open, etc.. OSF members include Apollo, Dec, HP, IBM,....
- OSF/1 (1991): - based on Mach 2.5 kernel - symmetric multiprocessing, parallelized kernel, threads - logical volumes, disk mirroring, UFS (native), S5 FS, NFS - enhanced security (B1 with some B2, B3; or C2), 4.3BSD admin - STREAMS, TLI/XTI, sockets - shared libs, dynamic loader (incl. kernel) - Motif GUI
- Release 1.3 (Jun 94) - Based on MACH 3.0 Micro-kernel - Conformant with current draft of Specification 1170 (considered for standardization in X/Open's Fast Track process) - Data Capture I/F, Common Data Link I/F, - ISO 10646 and 64-bit support. - OSF/1 MK (mikrokernel) based on Mach 3.0
This list of major flavors should probably also include Xenix (Microsoft) which has been the basis for many ports. Derived from V7, S III and finally System V, it is similar externally but significantly changed internally (performance-tuned for micros).
Two very good books describe the internals of the two main flavors. These are: - System V: "Design of the Unix Operating System", M.J. Bach. - BSD: "Design and Implementation of the 4.3BSD Unix Operating System", Leffler, McKusick, Karels, Quaterman. For a good introduction to OSF/1 (not quite as technical as the previous two), see: "Guide to OSF/1, A Technical Synopsis", published by O'Reilly. On SunOS, "Virtual Memory Architecture in SunOS" and "Shared Libraries in SunOS" in Summer 1989 USENIX Proceedings.
A good set of articles on where Unix is going is "Unix Variants" in the Apr 92 issue of Unix Review. Other good sources of information include the bsd-faq file, and many of the newsgroups mentioned in the text. Subject: Brief notes on some well-known (commercial/PD) Unices. >From: "Pierre (P.) Lewis" <lew@bnr.ca> Date: Tue Aug 15 15:14:00 EDT 1995 X-Version: 2.9
6.6) Brief notes on some well-known (commercial/PD) Unices.
(I am not at all satisfied with this section, unfortunately I have neither the time nor the documents to make it much better (wrt contents). Should only list Unices known by a reasonably wide audience. Small and non-US Unices welcome, e.g. Eurix. In need of reformatting)
This section lists (in alphabetical order) some of the better known Unices along with a brief description of their nature. Unfortunately, it's out-of-date almost by definition...
(sorted alpha, ignoring numbers and other chars)
AIX: IBM's Unix, based on SVR2 (later up to SVR3.2?) with varying degrees of BSD extensions, for various hardwares. Proprietary system admin (SMIT). Both 850 and Latin-1 CPs. Quite different from most Unices and among themselves. Newsgroup: comp.unix.aix. - 1.x (for 386 PS/2) - 2.x (for PC RTs) - 3.x (for RS/6000), paging kernel, logical volume manager, i18n; 3.2 adds TLI/STREAMS. SV-based with many enhancements. 4.1 is latest (includes support for PowerPC?) - AIX/ESA, runs native on S/370 and S/390 mainframes, based on OSF/1. AIX was to have been base for OSF/1 until Mach was chosen instead. I hope this subsection is converging:-)
AOS (IBM): 4.3BSD port to IBM PC RT (for educational institutes). Don't confuse with DG's proprietary OS of same name.
Arix: SV
A3000UX (Commodore): 68030-based SVR4 Unix (?) for the Amiga.
A/UX (Apple): SV with Berkeley enhancements, NFS, Mac GUI. System 6 (later System 7) runs as guest of A/UX (opposite of MachTen). Newsgroup: comp.unix.aux. - 2.0: SVR2 with 4.2BSD, system 6 Mac applications. - 3.0 (1992): SVR2.2 with 4.3BSD and SVR3/4 extensions; X11R4, MacX, TCP/IP, NFS, NIS, RPC/XDR, various shells, UFS or S5FS. System 7 applications. - 4.0 will have/be OSF/1. But I hear Apple has decided to drop A/UX (will go for AIX now that they're together with IBM on the PPC)
3B1 (680x0): SV-based, done by Convergent for AT&T. Newsgroup: comp.sys.3b1.
BNR/2: stands for BSD Net/2 Release? Includes NetBSD/1, FreeBSD.
BOS for Bull's DPX/2 (680x0) - V1 (1990): SVR3 with BSD extensions (FFS, select, sockets), symmetric MP, X11R3 - V2 (1991): adds job control, disk mirroring, C2 security, DCE extensions - There's also BOS/X, and AIX-compatible Unix for Bull's PPC workstations. How it relates to above two is unknown.
386BSD: Jolitz's port of Net/2 software. Posix, 32-bit, still in alpha (now version 0.1).
BSD/386 (80386): from BSDI, with source (augmented Net2 software) Newsgroup: comp.unix.bsd.
Chorus/MiXV: Unix SVR3.2 (SVR4) over Chorus nucleus, ABI/BCS.
Coherent (Mark Williams Company): For 80286. Unix clone compatible with V7, some SVR2 (IPC). V4.0 is 32-bit. Newsgroup: comp.os.coherent. Mark Williams closed down early '95.
DomainOS (Apollo, now HP): proprietary OS; layered on top is BSD4.3 and SVR3 (a process can use either, neither or both). Development now stopped, some features now in OSF/1 (and NT). Now at SR10.4. Name for SR9.* was DomainIX. Newsgroup: comp.sys.apollo.
DVIX (NT's DVS): SVR2
DYNIX (Sequent): 4.2BSD-based
DYNIX/PTX: SVR3-based
EP/IX (Control Data Corp.): for MIPS 2000/3000/6000/4000; based on RISC/OS 4 and 5, POSIX-ABI-compliant. SVR3, SVR4 and BSD modes.
Esix (80386): pure SVR4, X11, OpenLook (NeWS), Xview
Eurix (80?86): SVR3.2 (Germany)
FreeBSD: 386bsd 0.1 with the patchkit applied, and many updated utilities.
FTX: Stratus fault-tolerant OS (68K or i860-i960 hardware)
Generics UNIX (80386): SVR4.03 (Germany)
GNU Hurd (?): vaporware from the Free Software Foundation (FSF): Unix emulator over Mach 3.0 kernel. Many GNU tools are very popular (emacs) and used in the PD Unices.
HELIOS (Perihelion Software): for INMOS transputer and many other platforms.
HP-UX (HP): old from S III (SVRx), now SVR2 (4.2BSD?) with SV utilities (they have trouble making up their minds). - 6.5: SVR2 - 7.0: SVR3.2, symlinks - 7.5 - 8.0: BSD based? for HP-9000 CISC (300/400) and RISC (800/700), shared libs - 9.0: includes DCE
Interactive SVR3.2 (80x86): pure SVR3. Interactive has been bought by Sun; will their system survive Solaris?
Idris: first Unix clone by Whitesmith. A small Unix? For INMOS transputer and others?.
IRIX (SGI): Version 4: SVR3.2, much BSD. Version 5.x (current is 5.2) is based on SVR4. Newsgroup: comp.sys.sgi.
Linux (386/486/586): Unix under GPL (not from FSF, though). Available with sources. POSIX compliant w/ SysV and BSD extensions. Being ported to Alpha/AXP and PowerPC (ports for 680x0 Amigas and Ataris already exist; a port is also being done to the MIPS/4000). Newsgroup: comp.os.linux.{admin,announce,development,help,mis c}.
MacBSD, ?: works on Mac II (directly on H/W).
MachTen, Tenon Intersystems: runs as a guest under MacOS; 4.3BSD environment with TCP, NFS. Scaled down version: MachTen Personal.
MacMach (Mac II): 4.3BSD over Mach 3.0 microkernel, X11, Motif, GNU software, sources, experimental System 7 as Mach task. Complete with all sources (need Unix license).
Mach386: from Mt Xinu. Based on Mach 2.5, with 4.3BSD-Tahoe enhancements. Also 2.6 MSD (Mach Source Distribution).
Microport (80x86): pure SVR4, X11, OpenLook GUI
Minix (80x86, Atari, Amiga, Mac): Unix clone compatible with V7. Sold with sources. Being POSIXified (sp?). For PCs, and surely many others (eg. INMOS transputer). Newsgroup: comp.os.minix.
MipsOS: SVish (RISC/OS, now dropped, was BSDish)
more/BSD (VAX, HP 9000/300): Mt Xinu's Unix, based on 4.3BSD-Tahoe.
NCR UNIX: SVR4 (4.2?)
Net/2 tape (from Berkeley, 1991): BSD Unix, essentially compatible with 4.3BSD, includes only sources free of AT&T code, no low-level code. See 386BSD and BSD/386 above.
NetBSD 0.8: is actually 386bsd in a new suit. Ported to [34]86, MIPS, Amiga, Sun, Mac. What is relation to Net/2? - 1.0 came out in '94.
NEXTSTEP (Intel Pentium and 86486, Hewlett-Packard PA-RISC, NeXT 68040): BSD4.3 over Mach kernel, own GUI. - 1.x, 2.0, 2.1, 2.2, 3.0, 3.1 (old) - 3.2 (current version, Intel Pentium and 86486, Hewlett-Packard PA-RISC, NeXT 68040) - 3.3 (shipping; SPARC-version available) - 4.0 (to be announced, will include Sun SPARC version and will be OpenStep compliant - no NEXTSTEP for PowerPC or DEC Alpha yet announced (are there plans?
NEWS-OS (Sony) - 3.2
OSF/1 (DEC): DEC's port of OSF/1. I think this is now (4/93) available on DEC's latest Alpha AXP (64-bit machine).
OSx (Pyramid): Dualport of both SysV.3 and BSD4.3. Newsgroup: comp.sys.pyramid.
PC-IX (IBM 8086): SV
Plan 9 (AT&T): announced 1992, complete rewrite, not clear how close to Unix it is. Key points: distributed, very small, various hardwares (Sun, Mips, Next, SGI, generic hobbit, 680x0, PCs), C (not C++ as rumors had it), new compiler, "8 1/2" window system (also very small), 16-bit Unicode, CPU/file servers over high speed nets.
SCO Xenix (80x86): Versions for XT (not robust!), 286, 386 (with demand paging). Today bulk of code is from System V. Stable product.
SCO Unix (80x86): SVR3.2 (stopped taking USL source at this point).
Sinix [Siemens]: System V base.
Solaris (Sparc, x86): - 1.0: essentially same as SunOS 4.1.1, with OpenWindows 2.0 and DeskSet utilities. - 1.0.1: SunOS 4.1.2 with multiprocessing (kernel not multithreaded); not for 386 - 2.0: (initially announced as SunOS 5.0 in 1988) based on SVR4 (with symmetric MP?), will include support for 386; with OpenWindows 3.0 (X11R4) and OpenLook, DeskSet, ONC, NIS. Both a.out (BSD) and elf (SVR4) formats. Kerberos support. Compilers unbundled! - Solaris is OpenStep compliant (non-NeXT, but with NEXTSTEP API) with latest (1994?) version. - Sun will ship its OpenStep-implementation with project DOE for Solaris. First versions will be for SPARC-based Suns, but a version for Solaris 2.4 for x86 and PowerPC will appear later.
SunOS (680x0, Sparc, i386): based on 4.3BSD, includes much from System V. Main Sun achievements: NFS (1984), SunView (1985), NeWS (1986, postscript imaging, now in OpenWindows), OpenLook GUI standard, OpenWindows (NeWS, X11, SunView!). Newsgroup: comp.sys.sun.*. - 3.x: SV IPC package, FIFOs - 4.0.3: lightweight processes, new virtual mem, shared libs - 4.1: STREAMS & TLI, 8-bit clean?, async I/O, ms-dos file system (continues as Solaris -- see above).
UHC (80x86): pure SVR4, X11, Motif
Ultrix (DEC): based on 4.2BSD with much of 4.3. Newsgroup: comp.unix.ultrix. - 4.4 is latest
UNICOS (Cray): System V base. Newsgroup: comp.unix.cray - 5.x, 6,x, 7.0
UnixWare Release 4.2 [Univel]: SVR4.2; over NetWare. Univel no longer exists.
UTEK (Tektronix) - 4.0
VOLVIX (Archipel S.A.): UNIX-based OS built around a communication based, distributed, real-time micro-kernel. SVR3.2 system calls, BSD4.4 file/network system calls (VFS, FFS). Also NFS and X11. Vanilla VOLVIX is for transputers.
Xenix (80x86): 1st Unix on Intel hardware, based on SVR2 (previously on S III and even V7). Newsgroup: comp.unix.xenix.
No, but Ford doesn't have a monopoly on Mustangs, because you could buy a Chevy, using Apple apologist logic:)
What you are using is not even logic, since a Chevy is not a Mustang, is it? Therefore Ford does indeed have a monopoly on Mustangs since Chevy can't make a Mustang. They do not have a monoply on cars however. Plus I made no apologies about Apple... I was talking about IBM idiot! Sheesh!
Re:What IS the fucking deal with Apple? (readme)
on
Linux and Mac OS X
·
· Score: 2, Informative
Bzzzzt!!! Wrong. OSX is a product that includes a desktop GUI, a baffling array of APIs and subsystems, and no UNIX whatsoever.
Q: What is Darwin, and how does it relate to Mac OS X?
A: Darwin is an open source, UNIX-based operating system built on BSD 4.4 and Mach 3.0 which forms the core of Mac OS X. Darwin is primarily what is called the "core operating system" (i.e, the kernel, drivers, and command-line utilities common to UNIX distributions), but a Darwin release includes several other pieces, including the compiler toolchain, a security framework based on CDSA, and parts of the Mac OS X "Core Foundation" framework. When we say a "Darwin system", we usually mean one built only using Open Source code, though technically every "Mac OS X" system is also a Darwin system, since it is built on top of Darwin.
Q: How hard is it to port BSD or Linux applications to OS X?
A: Given Mac OS X's strong BSD roots, this is actually very easy. Thousands of existing BSD and Linux applications
(as well as Solaris, SCO, etc...) have already been ported to Mac OS X. Our dedicated Darwin developers are constantly
striving to simplify portability, since they use these applications themselves and frequently are the first to encounter any
problems. With their help, portability will surely get easier over time.
If you are interested in porting BSD or Linux applications to Mac OS X yourself, here are some common gotchas:
The latest GNU configure supports Darwin, so check to see if your package is using an up-to-date version
(currently version 1.2). Usually, it's just a matter of typing "./configure ppc"
On Mac OS X, "GCC" is called "CC," and some common libraries and headers (e.g. "-lm", "stdio.h") are
implicitly included in the System.framework, which can confuse hard-coded Makefiles. You can always create a
symbolic link from GCC to CC (i.e. "ln -s/usr/bin/cc/usr/local/bin/gcc")
Our dynamic library mechanism (dylib) and executable format (Mach-O) differs considerably from other
UNIX implementations, so applications that require detailed knowledge of runtime and user loadable modules
may need to be modified.
We currently offer limited support for POSIX threads, so some thread-intensive applications may encounter
problems. We are working to address this over time.
GNOME and KDE will get there, it will just takes a bit more time. Looking at the GNOME usability project with a.o. the work Sun is putting into it, I'm confident that by version 3.0 GNOME will be a killer.
MacOS X OTOH has had a lot of critism [asktog.com].
You are implying that Tog would like Gnome or KDE better. I think he would find just as many, if not more faults with both of them. Just because he doesn't like Aqua doesn't get away from the fact that much of it is based on many of his ideas from when he worked on the Macintosh!
I use Gnome on my Linux box, but I enjoy Aqua much better.
I've read rumors about IBM opening the PC by accident, or similar nonsense
It's not nonsense at all. Go look it up for your self.
When IBM built the first PC, they used off the shelf parts to keep the cost down and to make sure it didn't compete with their mainframes. They were in direct competition with the Apple II at the time.
While most of the IBM PC used commonly available parts, IBM wasn't about to let others make one, so they designed their own BIOS and got a patent on the design. It took Compaq to reverse engineer IBM's BIOS and make the first IBM compatible computer. If you look it up you will see that IBM fought all the clone makers in court.
Bill Gates knew this was going to happen, so he got IBM to let him sell his own version of IBM-DOS as MS-DOS. The only reason IBM let him do this is because they believed no one else could run it, because they held the patent on their PC design.
This is history. IBM never allowed people to make PC clones. This was part of the reason they went to Apple with the PowerPC CPU. Does Ford let other car makers make Mustangs?
Right - 15 years ago JL Gassee and his cronies over at Apple decided it would be a good idea to be network-incompatible with the rest of the world, thus making Macs a royal pain-in-the-ass. And this guy just figures that out yesterday, and it's Microsoft's fault?
You obviously have no idea what you are talking about. At work here we have several Macs of varying ages (1 B&W G3, 2 G4's, and a 7500 with G3 upgrade card) and an NT (4) Server box on an 10/100 Ethernet network. Just by plugging in the Macs, we can see the network, including all the printers and an image setter and the NT box just fine. The NT box can't see the Macs without first installing the Macintosh Services for NT and the AppleTalk services (and Apple is moving away from AppleTalk).
Also any Mac right out of the box can read and write to DOS and ISO9660 disks, but Windows can't read Mac format disks without installing special software. So which system is more compatible out of the box?
A "Standard" like POSIX is according to the ISO, International Standards Organization... they are the ones that define what is a standard is, not just because something is widely used.
Linux is not UNIX, it's a Unix-like operating system. BSD is UNIX, and since OS X is based on BSD and NeXTSTEP/OpenStep it is indeed UNIX. I'm not sure how Posix compliant OS X is, or even doubt Apple makes any claims that it is.
One thing I do know is that Macs are the standard in a lot of industries, such as the one I work in, publishing.
PC users don't upgrade their OS's every time one particular app gets upgraded (although it helps)
You got it backwards! Photoshop 7 will run in OS 9 and OS X, so that's not the reason to switch to X. We don't need X to run PS 7, we need PS 7 to run X! Currently most print/publishing businesses are running OS 9.
We WANT to run OS X, but can't do so unless everything is going to work properly.
So this is one more reason to switch to OS X. Now we just need Quark 5 for X.
Photoshop...
Lamest interface I can think of for a graphic app.
Mac OS X : OS for pathetic losers who can't live in the real world (with a STANDARD).
Oh and look at that fantastic tech called PDF !
Actually in the field I work, which is publishing, Macs and Adobe are the STANDARD! This is a BIG industry, and if you want to work in it, you need to know Quark, Photoshop, and Illustrator - Period!
98% of all jobs we get are in one of those three formats and 90% of all files we get are Mac files.
Most PC users seem to hate Adobe's interface, but it is the standard as based on MacDraw and MacWrite.
This is the real world were people make a living at it, not sitting in their bedroom playing with The Gimp.
Not to disrespect Mac folks, but I bet the profit involved in putting out Ultradev 5 with dot-Net authoring will result in a lot more sales than Dreamweaver in native OSX
That may be true, but they've also got to worry about the potential of lost sales. At the moment I'm using Dreamweaver 3 in Classic mode, which works fine but as more and more apps run native it becomes increasingly painful to have to do that. If GoLive is native before Dreamweaver, I may well consider switching.
It will be. It's supposed to be out at the end of the month. Adobe had some beta copies of GoLive out already. I tried one and it runs great. Plus GoLive 6.0 has some of the features of Ultradev already without having to pay extra!
Check out this review of GoLive 6 on OS X from CreativePro.com
Is it gonna suck? THAT's the point. This will be the definitive test for Aqua; I for one don't see Aqua standing up to it.
I have the beta for PS 7... it does not suck! Illustrator 10 doesn't suck either.
One things for damn sure, if Apple doesn't fix the mousing in OSX, nobody's going to even ATTEMPT to do grapics work at any resolution greater than 1024*768.
My monitor is set to 1280 X 1024 and I have no mouse problems. I'm using an MS IntellimouseOptical with USBOverdrive. I can get the mouse as fast as I need. Faster actually. You really don't want a fast mouse when you are using it to draw with or making clipping paths though. You want it to move as fast as your hand is moving.
but now that it is ported to Mac OS X wouldn't it be relatively easy to port it to other unix-like environments?
There was an Irix version of Photoshop out... I used to run it on an SGI Indy... I didn't like it very much though... it ran better on the 9500's we had at the time.
I don't see how focus-follows-mouse would be possible when the menubar is at the top of the screen. If any window was behind the one you're in, you'd lose the focus before you got to the menubar.
On a Mac you gain focus by clicking the window's title bar (or just about any part of the window)... has nothing to do with the menu bar.
Slashdot Mirror
Inevitably, yes. Assuming it's running Windoze, how could it not? ;-)
It's a feature, not a bug!
I think it depends on what the task is. I use the CL in OS X all the time for certain tasks. But for example if I wanted to look through a folder of pictures, and chose say five of them to copy to another folder, i think it's easier to look at the file icons, so I know what the picture looks like and shift-click of the ones I want and option-drag them to the other folder ... much faster than getting a list of file names (which I might not even recognize by name) and typing all that other stuff. Sometimes dragging a mouse is faster. Sometimes it's not. Having both options is good.
Yea it is boring as shit but I can teach a monkey to use it
I really think monkeys (or you probably mean Chimps) would find pictures easier than text. ;-)
Raskin had certain ideas. For instance, he hated the mouse, he wanted to use a light pen or joy stick as a graphic input device, it was Jobs who wanted to use a mouse on the Macintosh, because the Lisa used one. He also wanted the Mac, then called the "Apple V" to cost only $500! Jobs hated the Macintosh for the first two years, saying it was the "dumbest thing on earth and would never sell" until he took over the project and started telling everyone he invented it!
Macs do have contextual menus, ever since Mac OS 8, and you can even add your own menu items. If you are using the one button mouse you Control-Click to get the menu, or use something like FinderPop to open the menu if you click and hold the mouse button down. I agree a multi button mouse is better for a lot of people... I have an MS Intellimouse Optical on my G4 and I feel lost without the right button and scroll wheel when I'm at work using the Apple mouse. You can use any mouse you want on a Mac though and the right button automatically works as a right click.
The whole "no customisation" argument as presented in the article assumes that everyone using a computer is a complete idiot, and is in fact nothing more than an expendable cubicle droid with a computer needing to be reassigned to a replacement at a moment's notice. I'm sure a fair proportion of computers in the world aren't used in such a way, and if some company do work to such dehumanising methods they can just disable customisation.
I think Apple wants to present a certain "user experience" and from a support point of view considered the idea of themes a Bad Thing(tm). There were themes for Mac OS 8, but they were dropped at the last minute, and Apple discouraged people from making use of the feature ... same for OS X. I think everyone likes to customized their computer, and I bet Raskin does too!
Plus there are plenty of people who used both Macs and PC's and counting the transition from Win 3.x to 9x to XP would have no problem telling what the icons on the top right mean. Really the truly incompetant won't be able to use a computer properly no matter what interface you give them (unless you drop pretty much all functionalities from the applications)
Exactly. This is what I said earlier about most of the GUIs used are all pretty much alike, and use the original Xerox/Apple desktop ideas.
Raskin designed a computer (the Canon Cat) that didn't have documents and applications, as we know them. If you started typing, the computer figured you wanted a word processing function and opened a text window. But rumour has it that when Canon wanted to invest in NeXT, Jobs told them they had to kill the Cat first.
He did. The Macintosh GUI. He even came up with the name "Macintosh" (and spelled it incorrectly!) And it pisses him off that he can't top that! It's not perfect, but since it set a precedent that every other OS basically uses, it's become familiar. Raskin seem to think we need to move in a totally different direction, away from keyboards and mice even.
Not in the last version of Kaleidoscope though. With that one you could place your buttons anywhere you wanted, and even make your window some shape other than rectangular.
I tried a few Kaleidoscope schemes that made the interface very confusing! You couldn't even tell what was a button. They did have that "gee wiz" effect however. :)
This was posted on MacIntouch the other day:
In the System 6-9 days, Apple used an installer that used a quasi-proprietary file format known as "tomes." The tome-based installers supported HFS file descriptors, so it could write over a file no matter where it was located in the hierarchy of the disk. It also treated aliases with respect.
Starting with Mac OS X, Apple moved to a package-based installer that uses Pax as its archival format. Pax was not created by Apple; see its man page (type "man pax" in the terminal for more information). The Pax-based installation system has two big drawbacks:
1. Pax installs files based on its path; Pax does not support the file descriptors used in HFS/HFS+. (The other Mac OS X disk format, UFS, doesn't support file descriptors.) This basically means Pax won't look to see if the item to be installed is already on the disk but in a different location.
2. If the path specified in a Pax archive actually exists physically on the disk, then Pax will correctly follow the path and overwrite the correct files. But if that path uses any type of link (hard link, symbolic link, or System 7-style alias), then Pax will blow away the link and create a physical directory structure as specified in the archive. In other words, it will not only ignore links, but it will overwrite them.
#1 may just be a sign of the times, since the Unix world doesn't have any real concept of file descriptors; they've been sort of a Mac-only thing. #2 is a flaw in Pax's design.
As a consequence of both, though, until Apple comes up with a better package system, it's a bad idea to move anything that Mac OS X installs from its default place. That includes moving stuff around and making aliases; it's broken right now.
Flash forward to 1984, and the new Apple Macintosh could play back sound. One of the sound files was a xylophone. Apple legal said "No instruments or music!" so the sound was changed to the familiar Sosume. When Apple legal asked what the name meant the engineer said "It's a Japanese word."
As a foot note, since Apple had become such a fixture in the recording industry, Apple Corp decided to take them to court again in the 90's and won some undisclosed settlement.
Ironically George Martin use a Mac to mix and master the Beatles Anthologies!
All the ST could do was MIDI sequencing. And the main reason people used them was they had built in MIDI ports and were cheap! Steinberg made music software for the ST and the C64 too. Most pro studios run ProTools on Macs nowadays to record, edit and mix audio. I remember two years ago when every Grammy winning CD was either recorded, edited, mixed or mastered on a Mac. I'm a musician and run a few apps, mainly Stienberg's Cubase VST on my G4 using an M-Audio Delta Audiophile 2496 sound card for both audio and MIDI.
OK Define UNIX then... I think you'll see all flavors of xBSD, NEXTSTEP and MACH 3 on this list.
....
...)
....
:-)
s c}.
Subject: Main Unix flavors.
6.3) Main Unix flavors.
The following is very much an early '90s view.
Until recently, there were basically two main flavors of Unix:
System V (five) from AT&T, and the Berkeley Software Distribution
(BSD). SVR4 is essentially a merge of these two flavors. End
'91, OSF/1 from the Open Software Foundation was released (as a
direct competitor to System V) and may (future will tell) change
this picture.
The following lists the main releases and features of System V,
BSD and OSF/1.
System V from AT&T. Typical of Intel hardware. Most often
ported Unix, typically with BSD enhancements (csh, job
control, termcap, curses, vi, symbolic links). System V
evolution is now overseen by Unix International (UI). UI
members include AT&T, Sun,
Newsgroup: comp.unix.sysv[23]86. Main releases:
- System III (1982): first commercial Unix from AT&T
- FIFOs (named pipes) (later?)
- System V (1983):
- IPC package (shm, msg, sem)
- SVR2 (1984):
- shell functions (sh)
- SVID (System V Interface Definition)
- SVR3 (1986) for ? platforms:
- STREAMS (inspired by V8), poll(), TLI (network software)
- RFS
- shared libs
- SVID 2
- demand paging (if hardware supports)
- SVR3.2:
- merge with Xenix (Intel 80386)
- networking
- SVR4 (1988), mainstream of Unix implementations, merge of
System V, BSD, and SunOS.
- From SVR3: sysadmin, terminal I/F, printer (from BSD?),
RFS, STREAMS, uucp
- From BSD: FFS, TCP/IP, sockets, select(), csh
- From SunOS: NFS, OpenLook GUI, X11/NeWS, virtual memory
subsystem with memory-mapped files, shared libraries
(!= SVR3 ones?)
- ksh
- ANSI C
- Internationalization (8-bit clean)
- ABI (Application Binary Interface -- routines instead of traps)
- POSIX, X/Open, SVID3
- SVR4.1
- async I/O (from SunOS?)
- SVR4.2 (based on SVR4.1ES)
- Veritas FS, ACLs
- Dynamically loadable kernel modules
- Future:
- SVR4 MP (multiprocessor)
- Use of Chorus microkernel?
Berkeley Software Distribution (BSD). Typical of VAXen, RISCs,
many workstations. More dynamic, research versions now than
System V. BSD is responsible for much of the popularity of
Unix. Most enhancements to Unix started here. The group
responsible at UCB (University of California at Berkeley) is
the Computer System Research Group (CSRG). They closed down
in 1992. Newsgroup: comp.unix.bsd. Main releases:
(much reorganized wrt dates and releases, hope it's converging)
- 2.xBSD (1978) for PDP-11, still of significance? (2.11BSD
was released in 1992!).
- csh
- 3BSD (1978):
- virtual memory
- 4.?BSD:
- termcap, curses
- vi
- 4.0BSD (1980):
- 4.1BSD (?): base of later AT&T CRG versions
- job control
- automatic kernel config
- vfork()
- 4.2BSD (1983):
- TCP/IP, sockets, ethernet
- UFS: long file names, symbolic links
- new reliable signals (4.1 reliable signals now in SVR3)
- select()
- 4.3BSD (1986) for VAX, ?:
- 4.3 Tahoe (1988): 4.3BSD with sources, support for Tahoe
(32-bit supermini)
- Fat FFS
- New TCP algorithms
- 4.3 Reno (1990) for VAX, Tahoe, HP 9000/300:
- most of P1003.1
- NFS (from Sun)
- MFS (memory file system)
- OSI: TP4, CLNP, ISODE's FTAM, VT and X.500; SLIP
- Kerberos
- Net1 (?) and Net2 (June 1991) tapes: that portion of BSD which
requires no USL copyright
- 4.4BSD (alpha June 1992) for HP 9000/300, Sparc, 386, DEC, others;
neither VAX nor Tahoe; two versions, lite (~Net2 contents plus,
fixes and new architectures) and encumbered (everything, requires
USL license):
- new virtual memory system (VMS) based on Mach 2.5
- virtual filesystem interface, log-structured filesystem, size
of local filesystem up to 2^63, NFS (freely redistributable,
works with Sun's, over UDP or TCP)
- ISO/OSI networking support (based on ISODE): TP4/CLNP/802.3 and
TP0/CONS/X.25, session and above in user space; FTAM, VT, X.500.
- most of POSIX.1 (esp. new terminal driver a la SV), much of
POSIX.2, improved job control; ANSI C headers
- Kerberos integrated with much of the system (incl. NFS)
- TCP/IP enhancements (incl. header prediction, SLIP)
- important kernel changes (new system call convention,
- other improvements: FIFOs, byte-range file locking
Official 4.4BSD release was expected within 6 months of above.
The Open Software Foundation (OSF) released its Unix called OSF/1
end of 1991. Still requires an SVR2 license.
Compatible/compliant with SVID 2 (and 3 coming), POSIX,
X/Open, etc.. OSF members include Apollo, Dec, HP, IBM,
- OSF/1 (1991):
- based on Mach 2.5 kernel
- symmetric multiprocessing, parallelized kernel, threads
- logical volumes, disk mirroring, UFS (native), S5 FS, NFS
- enhanced security (B1 with some B2, B3; or C2), 4.3BSD admin
- STREAMS, TLI/XTI, sockets
- shared libs, dynamic loader (incl. kernel)
- Motif GUI
- Release 1.3 (Jun 94)
- Based on MACH 3.0 Micro-kernel
- Conformant with current draft of Specification 1170
(considered for standardization in X/Open's Fast Track process)
- Data Capture I/F, Common Data Link I/F,
- ISO 10646 and 64-bit support.
- OSF/1 MK (mikrokernel) based on Mach 3.0
This list of major flavors should probably also include Xenix
(Microsoft) which has been the basis for many ports. Derived from V7,
S III and finally System V, it is similar externally but significantly
changed internally (performance-tuned for micros).
Two very good books describe the internals of the two main flavors.
These are:
- System V: "Design of the Unix Operating System", M.J. Bach.
- BSD: "Design and Implementation of the 4.3BSD Unix Operating System",
Leffler, McKusick, Karels, Quaterman.
For a good introduction to OSF/1 (not quite as technical as the
previous two), see: "Guide to OSF/1, A Technical Synopsis",
published by O'Reilly. On SunOS, "Virtual Memory Architecture in
SunOS" and "Shared Libraries in SunOS" in Summer 1989 USENIX
Proceedings.
A good set of articles on where Unix is going is "Unix Variants"
in the Apr 92 issue of Unix Review. Other good sources of
information include the bsd-faq file, and many of the newsgroups
mentioned in the text.
Subject: Brief notes on some well-known (commercial/PD) Unices.
>From: "Pierre (P.) Lewis" <lew@bnr.ca>
Date: Tue Aug 15 15:14:00 EDT 1995
X-Version: 2.9
6.6) Brief notes on some well-known (commercial/PD) Unices.
(I am not at all satisfied with this section, unfortunately I
have neither the time nor the documents to make it much better
(wrt contents). Should only list Unices known by a reasonably
wide audience. Small and non-US Unices welcome, e.g. Eurix. In
need of reformatting)
This section lists (in alphabetical order) some of the better
known Unices along with a brief description of their nature.
Unfortunately, it's out-of-date almost by definition...
(sorted alpha, ignoring numbers and other chars)
AIX: IBM's Unix, based on SVR2 (later up to SVR3.2?) with varying
degrees of BSD extensions, for various hardwares. Proprietary
system admin (SMIT). Both 850 and Latin-1 CPs. Quite
different from most Unices and among themselves.
Newsgroup: comp.unix.aix.
- 1.x (for 386 PS/2)
- 2.x (for PC RTs)
- 3.x (for RS/6000), paging kernel, logical volume manager, i18n;
3.2 adds TLI/STREAMS. SV-based with many enhancements.
4.1 is latest (includes support for PowerPC?)
- AIX/ESA, runs native on S/370 and S/390 mainframes, based on OSF/1.
AIX was to have been base for OSF/1 until Mach was chosen instead.
I hope this subsection is converging
AOS (IBM): 4.3BSD port to IBM PC RT (for educational institutes).
Don't confuse with DG's proprietary OS of same name.
Arix: SV
A3000UX (Commodore): 68030-based SVR4 Unix (?) for the Amiga.
A/UX (Apple): SV with Berkeley enhancements, NFS, Mac GUI. System 6
(later System 7) runs as guest of A/UX (opposite of MachTen).
Newsgroup: comp.unix.aux.
- 2.0: SVR2 with 4.2BSD, system 6 Mac applications.
- 3.0 (1992): SVR2.2 with 4.3BSD and SVR3/4 extensions; X11R4,
MacX, TCP/IP, NFS, NIS, RPC/XDR, various shells, UFS or S5FS.
System 7 applications.
- 4.0 will have/be OSF/1. But I hear Apple has decided to drop
A/UX (will go for AIX now that they're together with IBM on
the PPC)
3B1 (680x0): SV-based, done by Convergent for AT&T.
Newsgroup: comp.sys.3b1.
BNR/2: stands for BSD Net/2 Release? Includes NetBSD/1, FreeBSD.
BOS for Bull's DPX/2 (680x0)
- V1 (1990): SVR3 with BSD extensions (FFS, select, sockets),
symmetric MP, X11R3
- V2 (1991): adds job control, disk mirroring, C2 security,
DCE extensions
- There's also BOS/X, and AIX-compatible Unix for Bull's PPC
workstations. How it relates to above two is unknown.
386BSD: Jolitz's port of Net/2 software. Posix, 32-bit, still in alpha
(now version 0.1).
BSD/386 (80386): from BSDI, with source (augmented Net2 software)
Newsgroup: comp.unix.bsd.
Chorus/MiXV: Unix SVR3.2 (SVR4) over Chorus nucleus, ABI/BCS.
Coherent (Mark Williams Company): For 80286. Unix clone compatible with
V7, some SVR2 (IPC). V4.0 is 32-bit. Newsgroup: comp.os.coherent.
Mark Williams closed down early '95.
Consensys: SVR4.2
CTIX: SV-based, from Convergent
D-NIX: SV
DC/OSx (Pyramid): SVR4. Newsgroup: comp.sys.pyramid.
DELL UNIX [DELL Computer Corp.]: SVR4
DomainIX: see DomainOS below.
DomainOS (Apollo, now HP): proprietary OS; layered on top is BSD4.3 and
SVR3 (a process can use either, neither or both). Development now
stopped, some features now in OSF/1 (and NT). Now at SR10.4.
Name for SR9.* was DomainIX. Newsgroup: comp.sys.apollo.
DVIX (NT's DVS): SVR2
DYNIX (Sequent): 4.2BSD-based
DYNIX/PTX: SVR3-based
EP/IX (Control Data Corp.): for MIPS 2000/3000/6000/4000; based on
RISC/OS 4 and 5, POSIX-ABI-compliant. SVR3, SVR4 and BSD modes.
Esix (80386): pure SVR4, X11, OpenLook (NeWS), Xview
Eurix (80?86): SVR3.2 (Germany)
FreeBSD: 386bsd 0.1 with the patchkit applied, and many updated
utilities.
FTX: Stratus fault-tolerant OS (68K or i860-i960 hardware)
Generics UNIX (80386): SVR4.03 (Germany)
GNU Hurd (?): vaporware from the Free Software Foundation (FSF):
Unix emulator over Mach 3.0 kernel. Many GNU tools are very
popular (emacs) and used in the PD Unices.
HELIOS (Perihelion Software): for INMOS transputer and many other
platforms.
HP-UX (HP): old from S III (SVRx), now SVR2 (4.2BSD?) with SV utilities
(they have trouble making up their minds).
- 6.5: SVR2
- 7.0: SVR3.2, symlinks
- 7.5
- 8.0: BSD based? for HP-9000 CISC (300/400) and RISC (800/700),
shared libs
- 9.0: includes DCE
Interactive SVR3.2 (80x86): pure SVR3. Interactive has been bought
by Sun; will their system survive Solaris?
Idris: first Unix clone by Whitesmith. A small Unix? For INMOS
transputer and others?.
IRIX (SGI): Version 4: SVR3.2, much BSD. Version 5.x (current is 5.2)
is based on SVR4. Newsgroup: comp.sys.sgi.
Linux (386/486/586): Unix under GPL (not from FSF, though). Available
with sources. POSIX compliant w/ SysV and BSD extensions. Being
ported to Alpha/AXP and PowerPC (ports for 680x0 Amigas and Ataris
already exist; a port is also being done to the MIPS/4000).
Newsgroup: comp.os.linux.{admin,announce,development,help,mi
MacBSD, ?: works on Mac II (directly on H/W).
MachTen, Tenon Intersystems: runs as a guest under MacOS; 4.3BSD
environment with TCP, NFS. Scaled down version: MachTen Personal.
MacMach (Mac II): 4.3BSD over Mach 3.0 microkernel, X11, Motif, GNU
software, sources, experimental System 7 as Mach task. Complete
with all sources (need Unix license).
Mach386: from Mt Xinu. Based on Mach 2.5, with 4.3BSD-Tahoe
enhancements. Also 2.6 MSD (Mach Source Distribution).
Microport (80x86): pure SVR4, X11, OpenLook GUI
Minix (80x86, Atari, Amiga, Mac): Unix clone compatible with V7.
Sold with sources. Being POSIXified (sp?). For PCs, and surely
many others (eg. INMOS transputer). Newsgroup: comp.os.minix.
MipsOS: SVish (RISC/OS, now dropped, was BSDish)
more/BSD (VAX, HP 9000/300): Mt Xinu's Unix, based on 4.3BSD-Tahoe.
NCR UNIX: SVR4 (4.2?)
Net/2 tape (from Berkeley, 1991): BSD Unix, essentially compatible with
4.3BSD, includes only sources free of AT&T code, no low-level code.
See 386BSD and BSD/386 above.
NetBSD 0.8: is actually 386bsd in a new suit. Ported to [34]86, MIPS,
Amiga, Sun, Mac. What is relation to Net/2?
- 1.0 came out in '94.
NEXTSTEP (Intel Pentium and 86486, Hewlett-Packard PA-RISC, NeXT 68040):
BSD4.3 over Mach kernel, own GUI.
- 1.x, 2.0, 2.1, 2.2, 3.0, 3.1 (old)
- 3.2 (current version,
Intel Pentium and 86486,
Hewlett-Packard PA-RISC,
NeXT 68040)
- 3.3 (shipping; SPARC-version available)
- 4.0 (to be announced, will include Sun SPARC version and
will be OpenStep compliant
- no NEXTSTEP for PowerPC or DEC Alpha yet announced (are there plans?
NEWS-OS (Sony)
- 3.2
OSF/1 (DEC): DEC's port of OSF/1. I think this is now (4/93) available
on DEC's latest Alpha AXP (64-bit machine).
OSx (Pyramid): Dualport of both SysV.3 and BSD4.3. Newsgroup:
comp.sys.pyramid.
PC-IX (IBM 8086): SV
Plan 9 (AT&T): announced 1992, complete rewrite, not clear how close to
Unix it is. Key points: distributed, very small, various hardwares
(Sun, Mips, Next, SGI, generic hobbit, 680x0, PCs), C (not C++ as
rumors had it), new compiler, "8 1/2" window system (also very
small), 16-bit Unicode, CPU/file servers over high speed nets.
SCO Xenix (80x86): Versions for XT (not robust!), 286, 386 (with demand
paging). Today bulk of code is from System V. Stable product.
SCO Unix (80x86): SVR3.2 (stopped taking USL source at this point).
Sinix [Siemens]: System V base.
Solaris (Sparc, x86):
- 1.0: essentially same as SunOS 4.1.1, with OpenWindows 2.0 and
DeskSet utilities.
- 1.0.1: SunOS 4.1.2 with multiprocessing (kernel not multithreaded);
not for 386
- 2.0: (initially announced as SunOS 5.0 in 1988) based on SVR4
(with symmetric MP?), will include support for 386; with
OpenWindows 3.0 (X11R4) and OpenLook, DeskSet, ONC, NIS. Both
a.out (BSD) and elf (SVR4) formats. Kerberos support. Compilers
unbundled!
- Solaris is OpenStep compliant (non-NeXT, but with NEXTSTEP API)
with latest (1994?) version.
- Sun will ship its OpenStep-implementation with project DOE for
Solaris. First versions will be for SPARC-based Suns, but a
version for Solaris 2.4 for x86 and PowerPC will appear later.
SunOS (680x0, Sparc, i386): based on 4.3BSD, includes much from
System V. Main Sun achievements: NFS (1984), SunView (1985), NeWS
(1986, postscript imaging, now in OpenWindows), OpenLook GUI standard,
OpenWindows (NeWS, X11, SunView!). Newsgroup: comp.sys.sun.*.
- 3.x: SV IPC package, FIFOs
- 4.0.3: lightweight processes, new virtual mem, shared libs
- 4.1: STREAMS & TLI, 8-bit clean?, async I/O, ms-dos file system
(continues as Solaris -- see above).
UHC (80x86): pure SVR4, X11, Motif
Ultrix (DEC): based on 4.2BSD with much of 4.3.
Newsgroup: comp.unix.ultrix.
- 4.4 is latest
UNICOS (Cray): System V base. Newsgroup: comp.unix.cray
- 5.x, 6,x, 7.0
UnixWare Release 4.2 [Univel]: SVR4.2; over NetWare. Univel no longer
exists.
UTEK (Tektronix)
- 4.0
VOLVIX (Archipel S.A.): UNIX-based OS built around a communication
based, distributed, real-time micro-kernel. SVR3.2 system calls,
BSD4.4 file/network system calls (VFS, FFS). Also NFS and X11.
Vanilla VOLVIX is for transputers.
Xenix (80x86): 1st Unix on Intel hardware, based on SVR2 (previously on
S III and even V7). Newsgroup: comp.unix.xenix.
Ummmm OK, Mister Anonymous Coward. I happen to a Mac user however...
What you are using is not even logic, since a Chevy is not a Mustang, is it? Therefore Ford does indeed have a monopoly on Mustangs since Chevy can't make a Mustang. They do not have a monoply on cars however. Plus I made no apologies about Apple... I was talking about IBM idiot! Sheesh!
BZZZZZZ!! Wrong! From Getting Started With Darwin
Q: What is Darwin, and how does it relate to Mac OS X?
A: Darwin is an open source, UNIX-based operating system built on BSD 4.4 and Mach 3.0 which forms the core of Mac OS X. Darwin is primarily what is called the "core operating system" (i.e, the kernel, drivers, and command-line utilities common to UNIX distributions), but a Darwin release includes several other pieces, including the compiler toolchain, a security framework based on CDSA, and parts of the Mac OS X "Core Foundation" framework. When we say a "Darwin system", we usually mean one built only using Open Source code, though technically every "Mac OS X" system is also a Darwin system, since it is built on top of Darwin.
Q: How hard is it to port BSD or Linux applications to OS X?
A: Given Mac OS X's strong BSD roots, this is actually very easy. Thousands of existing BSD and Linux applications (as well as Solaris, SCO, etc...) have already been ported to Mac OS X. Our dedicated Darwin developers are constantly striving to simplify portability, since they use these applications themselves and frequently are the first to encounter any problems. With their help, portability will surely get easier over time.
If you are interested in porting BSD or Linux applications to Mac OS X yourself, here are some common gotchas:
The latest GNU configure supports Darwin, so check to see if your package is using an up-to-date version (currently version 1.2). Usually, it's just a matter of typing "./configure ppc"
On Mac OS X, "GCC" is called "CC," and some common libraries and headers (e.g. "-lm", "stdio.h") are implicitly included in the System.framework, which can confuse hard-coded Makefiles. You can always create a symbolic link from GCC to CC (i.e. "ln -s /usr/bin/cc /usr/local/bin/gcc")
Our dynamic library mechanism (dylib) and executable format (Mach-O) differs considerably from other UNIX implementations, so applications that require detailed knowledge of runtime and user loadable modules may need to be modified.
We currently offer limited support for POSIX threads, so some thread-intensive applications may encounter problems. We are working to address this over time.
You are implying that Tog would like Gnome or KDE better. I think he would find just as many, if not more faults with both of them. Just because he doesn't like Aqua doesn't get away from the fact that much of it is based on many of his ideas from when he worked on the Macintosh!
I use Gnome on my Linux box, but I enjoy Aqua much better.
It's not nonsense at all. Go look it up for your self.
When IBM built the first PC, they used off the shelf parts to keep the cost down and to make sure it didn't compete with their mainframes. They were in direct competition with the Apple II at the time.
While most of the IBM PC used commonly available parts, IBM wasn't about to let others make one, so they designed their own BIOS and got a patent on the design. It took Compaq to reverse engineer IBM's BIOS and make the first IBM compatible computer. If you look it up you will see that IBM fought all the clone makers in court.
Bill Gates knew this was going to happen, so he got IBM to let him sell his own version of IBM-DOS as MS-DOS. The only reason IBM let him do this is because they believed no one else could run it, because they held the patent on their PC design.
This is history. IBM never allowed people to make PC clones. This was part of the reason they went to Apple with the PowerPC CPU. Does Ford let other car makers make Mustangs?
They had too, or risk being sued by Amazon
o Apple crippled their DVD writing software to disallow mastering for replication.
Also to avoid lawsuits
o Apple used legal threats on non-for-profit skinners.
Nothing wrong with protecting their intellectual property.
o Apple screwed over the clone vendors.
As the owner of a Mac clone I have to say I was disappointed, but it was hurting Apple the same way it hurt IBM.
You obviously have no idea what you are talking about. At work here we have several Macs of varying ages (1 B&W G3, 2 G4's, and a 7500 with G3 upgrade card) and an NT (4) Server box on an 10/100 Ethernet network. Just by plugging in the Macs, we can see the network, including all the printers and an image setter and the NT box just fine. The NT box can't see the Macs without first installing the Macintosh Services for NT and the AppleTalk services (and Apple is moving away from AppleTalk).
Also any Mac right out of the box can read and write to DOS and ISO9660 disks, but Windows can't read Mac format disks without installing special software. So which system is more compatible out of the box?
Blame MS!
Linux is not UNIX, it's a Unix-like operating system. BSD is UNIX, and since OS X is based on BSD and NeXTSTEP/OpenStep it is indeed UNIX. I'm not sure how Posix compliant OS X is, or even doubt Apple makes any claims that it is.
One thing I do know is that Macs are the standard in a lot of industries, such as the one I work in, publishing.
You got it backwards! Photoshop 7 will run in OS 9 and OS X, so that's not the reason to switch to X. We don't need X to run PS 7, we need PS 7 to run X! Currently most print/publishing businesses are running OS 9.
We WANT to run OS X, but can't do so unless everything is going to work properly.
So this is one more reason to switch to OS X. Now we just need Quark 5 for X.
Actually in the field I work, which is publishing, Macs and Adobe are the STANDARD! This is a BIG industry, and if you want to work in it, you need to know Quark, Photoshop, and Illustrator - Period!
98% of all jobs we get are in one of those three formats and 90% of all files we get are Mac files.
Most PC users seem to hate Adobe's interface, but it is the standard as based on MacDraw and MacWrite.
This is the real world were people make a living at it, not sitting in their bedroom playing with The Gimp.
That may be true, but they've also got to worry about the potential of lost sales. At the moment I'm using Dreamweaver 3 in Classic mode, which works fine but as more and more apps run native it becomes increasingly painful to have to do that. If GoLive is native before Dreamweaver, I may well consider switching.
It will be. It's supposed to be out at the end of the month. Adobe had some beta copies of GoLive out already. I tried one and it runs great. Plus GoLive 6.0 has some of the features of Ultradev already without having to pay extra!
Check out this review of GoLive 6 on OS X from CreativePro.com
The Creative Toolbox: A First Look at GoLive 6.0
I hate Dreamweaver
I have the beta for PS 7... it does not suck! Illustrator 10 doesn't suck either.
One things for damn sure, if Apple doesn't fix the mousing in OSX, nobody's going to even ATTEMPT to do grapics work at any resolution greater than 1024*768.
My monitor is set to 1280 X 1024 and I have no mouse problems. I'm using an MS IntellimouseOptical with USBOverdrive. I can get the mouse as fast as I need. Faster actually. You really don't want a fast mouse when you are using it to draw with or making clipping paths though. You want it to move as fast as your hand is moving.
There was an Irix version of Photoshop out... I used to run it on an SGI Indy... I didn't like it very much though... it ran better on the 9500's we had at the time.
Anyone know if Adobe still makes an Irix port?
Beware! It seems Apple has not tested this release and we the users are going to pay dearly for it. This is not acceptable.
Installed fine on my G4/466 Digital Audio... I also notice a speed boost! Yay! Is your firmware up to date?
On a Mac you gain focus by clicking the window's title bar (or just about any part of the window)... has nothing to do with the menu bar.
I agree! Really lazy and stupid "feature."
Plus I like the way OS X lets me bring a bunch of windows from different programs to the front, without the whole set of windows from that program.
The last thing I want are windows coming into focus when I move my mouse around! I like clicking on that window when I want it.