Yes, Mosfet is not only busy working on themes / look and feel of KDE 2.0, he is also one of the core developers of KImageshop, a flexable corba-based image editing program.
It is similar to the GIMP -- and is compatible with all GIMP plugins, making a powerful, KDE/Corbra aware Imaging program, with an interface that doesn't totally bite (although GIMP 1.1.x is getting better -- part of the GIMP are just strangely designed -- and rely on right clicking way to much!)
A good user interface is obvious to new users -- the GIMP takes experience to figure it out.
Having Mosfet working full time on these key issues is important, users like an interface that is flexable, and yet doesn't required a degree in CS to understand how to use it.
Re:I think they are going in the wrong direction h
on
The Future of KDE
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· Score: 1
Click on a Link, hold mouse button down for 2 seconds, will get you the contextual menu in either Internet Exploiter or Netscape Navigator 4.x.
Reminder, this is alpha quality software -- it's likely to change. I think they designed the device manger to be as similar as possible to the Windows device manger (while not messing up the interface like Microsoft), so that new users that have never used UNIX for an extended time can easily use device manger -- although name the serial ports after their Windows equvalants is just plain tacky...
The current KDE 2.0 user manger is much like the one in 1.x.x, it's quite a bit different then the Wndows version, in features and in the way it works... and it works pretty good.
KDE is an open-source, open-minded project, they don't mind reusing interface ideas from other platforms, and adding radically new ones, and tossing out several bad ones (MDI / parent child windows comes to mind).
Remember if you can write a better version of KUser or the device manger in Qt 2.0/KDE 2.0 feel free to submit it ftp://ftp.kde.org/incomming/
I have to agree Darwin isn't useful for much now -- it's kind of a toy for now, kind of like old versions of Linux (pre-1.0). They lacked really useful software and did not have a GUI (X Windows didn't come instantly to Linux, it was ported slowly by various projects, most famosly XFree86.
Darwin, when it gets more apps ported to it, might be an interesting alternative to the NetBSD, MkLinux or Monolithic Linux kernels on the PowerPC -- it's something new, that likely has some benifits from other kernels.
I think we can at least hope that the vast majority of GNU utilities/programs can be ported and used on this platform -- it would be great to be able to use things like the X11, GIMP, GNOME or KDE on it -- this could make it an actually worth while project.
Remember, Darwin should be a fairly optimized kernel for PowerPC 750 computers -- since Apple is the number one desktop vendor of them, and they really know them well.
So it's just another opensource UNIX-like kernel -- obviously it will attract a whole new audience, those that don't want Monolithic Linux, Netbsd or MkLinux on there PowerMac, but they do want an really fast optimized UNIX-like OS.
And, yes Apple won't mind if you did some debugging for them or if you improved gnu utils for there platform -- but they don't really expect that.
Improved HFS+, Booting, Hardware and AppleTalk documentation (in the format of objective-c++ -- that few people understand well):-( will speed development of drivers for other populuar opensource UNIX-like kernels.
Yes, you can use Ghostscript, a free implementation of desktop postscript (tm) for Unix-like OS's (and Windows / Mac -- but it's uncommon), to display anti-aliased postscript fonts on the screen.
The biggest problems with desktop postscript (tm), is it can be sluggish on some machines, and that free postscript fonts are rarer then plain old TrueType fonts that everyone uses and that finally many postscript fonts and/or desktop postscript have all kinds of legal issues involved.
But at any rate, the last time I checked, the GIMP 1.1.x has excellent support for anti-aliased postscript fonts, as does xpdf, KDE postscript viewer app and gv. More apps are on there way, I am sure....
AFAIK, most RedHat 6.0-based distros (including the orginal RedHat 6.0), include Enlightenment which requires FreeType to render truetype fonts in ethemes.
FreeType does a great job -- you can see it's excellent anti-alaising work in the e.theme Hand of God.
For full documentation see the FreeType documentation.
Yes, the PowerPC 750 (which Apple calls the G3 since it 'sounds cool'), is designed to be the successor of the 603ev -- not really fast, but good enought for a desktop system. That's why most of IBM's lowend RS/6000 systems still use the 604e, it beats the hell out of the G3 at the same clock speeds, especially at FP.
Apple dumped the 604e from there line, because Apple wanted to make the PowerMacintosh line, cheap, simple and easy. So they all use the same processor (a consumer on), logic boards that are very much similar, and cheap PC RAM, that standard on all current machines they sell.
Apple won't go G4 (likely) untill they discontinue making all of there G3 systems -- and that may be a while.
This helped then reduce inventory, and become lean and mean -- no extra baggage.
Of course this pissed off high-end PowerMac customers -- they are either too slow or lack to many PCI slots to be usefully. But it made iMac possible, and cheap for Apple -- but it came at a cost.
PowerPC would be useful in the portible market -- except for one big problem -- there is no CHRP portables ever made -- they are all big desktop machines, and no portibles. Maybe somebody can design a portible machine....
Re: The Need to fold PowerPC Code into the 'offical' kernel.
Linus tries to keep the Linus Kernel as fair on all platforms as possible -- but unforently he is a very busy man, and sometimes he loses / messes up PowerPC patches, just like he sometimes messes up Alpha or Sparc ports (although he typically doesn't ship stable broken i386 versions;-).
Personally, I don't find it acceptable to be shipping stable production kernels that are broken -- stable to me, means it works up to the promise -- and is not unstable (if you want a broken kernel get 2.3.x, you)!
2.2.0 had support for the PowerPC--but recently Linus (and the powerpc kernel deveopers didn't get there patches in at time) had some issues. This is unaccepatible for a stable kernel -- but I guess Linus doesn't think it's important enought to make sure a Kernel 100% stable before shipping it marked stable.
One more thing to note: Linus's tree might be good for some -- but it's highly recommended that you get your Platform's stable spefic kernel (such as vger-ppc 2.2.x or vger-alpha 2.2.x).
So for the last time, shipping defective / broken code in a 'stable' product is just unacceptable.
WINE isn't / doesn't have to be a replacement for Windows -- it might just be a way to make quick and dirty ports to Linux -- not to replace Windows, but to increase the value of the program by making it avalible for more users.
The G3 processor is pretty well documented -- Motorala wrote several books on it -- which you can buy for like $100 or download for free from www.mot.com.
Plus, there is copious PowerPC documentation avalible for free on the 'net.
It's more of a Apple motherboard / really sucky Apple open firmware problem then anything.
Right now there are 3 companies (at least) producing PowerPC motherboards for all kinds of different uses -- consumer, embeded and server.
For Example:
IBM and Motorala - Low End RS/6000 Servers/Workstations Motherboards IBM and Motorala - Lots of werid Motherboards for embeded systems. Apple - Consumer level systems.
So there is a least 3 companies producing motherboards -- a while back there was a third that made RS/6000 clones (MicroVax or something?), but I don't know what happend to the company.
PowerPC processors (well at least the 604ev vs. the PII) are cheaper megahertz to megahertz.
Unforently, when you try to build a PowerPC box, it's the add on's that drive the price up -- things like fast SCSI and RAM and other things aren't cheap.
In lots of 1000, the PowerPC 604e/225 in 1997 costed like 225 bucks, while the 233 PII cost like 600 dollars (well at that time).
PC hardware, is more populuar and is cheaper then PowerPC hardware, that's were the price difference comes in mainly -- the PowerPC chip in general is pretty cheap compared to the Pentium III / K6 or K7. The celrons are cheaper in some cases, but there preformance is slower then the PowerPC in most cases.
Unforently, most of the CHRP/PreP boxes in the past have been very expensive (think like $6000), but if a cheap no name company becomes involed (and they choose standard like cheap ATAPI drives, etc), this will change greatly.
And lets not forget, sound hooked directly to the processor is a feature that isn't found on any x86 box, yet it is found on most PowerPCs (saving the PCI bus from wasting bandwith on sound data [producing smoother better sounding sound]--although it currently still wastes it on video data).
Yes, when Mac-On-Linux or SheepShaver gets ported to these new CHRP boxes, you could run the Mac OS on top of Linux without problems -- just use a ROM image from a reguluar Mac.
Of course, this isn't a perfect solution -- there will be a need for new drivers, and not everything will not perectly work, but it should be do-able.
Apple has never made a direct profit on the Mac OS, but then again Microsoft has never made a direct profit on Windows. Development costs for OS's are humogous -- they are large masses of code, and people expect so much out of them.
So how do they make there money?
- Microsoft relies on it's properity Windows add-ons like NT Server, Microsoft Office (aka Cash Cow), and other things.
- Apple has always been a hardware company and that's not changing. Until recently 1% of Apple's profits were made by selling the Mac OS, now it's like 4.5% of there profits, but still that's not enough to support OS development. The idea, is that the money you spend on the hardware will justify the expense of developing the Mac OS and related projects. Until, 1995, Apple gave the Mac OS away for free -- as long as you used Apple hardware -- or for like $30 bucks for the disk -- and you were free to copy it from Mac to Mac (this excludes 7.1 Pro -- that was something different).
Apple would have to pull a 'sgi' to make it as a software company -- and if they did that, it would be by the skin of their teath. Not something that keeps those ever so important investors happy. They might be able to pull it off (just like SGI might become a ever so sucessful Linux company), it's just too much of a risk.
What happens if Mac OS X Server is a flop? Then they are left with nothing at all. If it flops, and they continue to be a dominent hardware company -- they have alot to fall back on to -- like Linux or Mac OS Classic (which is really not that bad, unlike what people call it lately).
It's too bad most people associate Mac OS Classic with accient crap code, it's certianly more then that. Major parts have been re-written, it has little m68k assembly left in it, and has many populuar programs ported to it. Apple could continue improving Mac OS Classic, without a problem, as does Microsoft Improves Windows 3.1.... err 9x, with every release of the 9x series.
This is the main reason why Mac OS cloning would not work decently -- unless clone companies payed Apple big bucks for essentaily life time ROM and system software licenses.
Hardware is a proven hit for Apple--software is just an incentive to buy Apple hardware and not some other platform.
And, lets not forget the bussiness minded and semi-commerical Yellow Dog Linux distro. It's a pretty robust, RedHat-based distro, and it seems to work better then the real RedHat x86 thing in some cases.
I guess you guys have never used Internet Exploiter for Macintosh -- leave that baby open for a couple of hours and view half a dozen complex web sites, and look, it uses much more memory (like 70 megs of RAM when it's set to only 7 meg max) then it was suppost to have in the Finder setting, and it doesn't give the memory back to the Mac OS when it's needed.
That's a bad memory leak. Netscape in my experience also leaks memory, but it seems to at least give it back to the system on the Mac OS when really needed badily. The Linux/PPC version of Netscape works without many problems with me -- it uses more memory when you load a complex site, and gives back the memory when it's done with it.
If you have the cash, IBM or Motorla (and some of the RS/6000 clone companies), will be happy to sell you a PowerPC based computer -- such as a screamer 604e running at 350 mhz (which in some benchmarks literally makes Apple's 450mhz G3 machines look like toys).
You got the bucks, you can certainly get a PowerPC computer not from Apple -- but you will pay for it, more then $2000 bucks more then an Apple Machine in many cases.
But these machines, are much faster then Apple's machines, and can run either AIX or NT or Linux. Nice machines, I must say.
Well... Apple did some werid stuff with the first generation G3's, we will never no if they were just really buggy, or Apple was trying to savatage anything not Apple or Apple just rushed the product out the door / was smoking something illegal.
Well, here is a few things they broke in the first generation G3's (it was fixed in the Colorful Genration II G3's), broken OF, broken OF IDE support, beside half a dozen of other things that were messed up. Forently, Apple manged to patch the major issues with those machines (like the Open Firmware patches), although they never fixed the problems with booting kernels off the hard drive or the other issues.
Forently Apple has gone pretty standard with the second generation machines -- and the irony of it all is the PowerPC Linux developers haven't kept up with the 'fixed' Apple OpenFirmware, which is more standard based -- the Linux/PPC kernel ix broken so it won't boot on iMacs or Blue G3's normally (obviously excluding cheesy Mac OS booters like BootX) -- and they don't seem to be to excited to fix this right away.
And yes, NetBSD boots on these machines without a problem -- NetBSD doesn't have the broken OF header's problem.
Back to that good old argument that X is dog slow..
And that typical response, X's speed depends on the Speed of the graphic drivers for your patriculuar machine -- right now ATI Mach 64 card and the IIS Twin Turbo are the best supported in PowerPC -- meaning if you run them with No Video Driver UNchecked, and with a relatively decent X Server, you get preformance similar or better to what you get in the Mac OS (on my machine MesaGL displays 3D much faster on my X Server then in OpenGL in the Mac OS).
Depending on your video ram configuration, video card, the amount of ram you have, will depend on the speed you get with Linux/PPC.
Yes, that would be a great thing... Hopefully this deal with lead to nice cheap Powerful PowerPC boxes, for running LinuxPPC or Yellow Dog Linx on, for example.
I would really love to have a 6-slot PCI, G3 machine built on CHRP/PreP design, that I can actually afford in my life time.
The PowerPC is a well designed general processor--it's not the best at all areas, but in general it scores pretty good compared to Alphas or PIII or K7, and runs a hell of alot cooler.
Yes, with the help of some of the Linux/PPC (eg; Terrasoft and LinuxPPC, Inc.) companies, we have been able to get some decent software ported to the PowerPC, including several games.
It's not that hard for companies to port to the PowerPC, especially if the PowerPC Linux companies help supply them with PowerPC boxes.
That's how we have CTP: Civilization, Myst2 and AppplixWare, Netscape Communicator, and soon (hopefully) Acrobat Reader on the PowerPC.
Yep, they do both stand for the same thing -- an totally open PowerPC platform, that is flexable enought to run a verity of OS's including:
- Mac OS 8.0/8.1 with an enabler on early CHRP/PreP. Mac OS 8.5 doesn't work or has several issues depending on your motherboard. - Windows NT 4.0 or was it 3.5.1?/PowerPC, also on the orginal PreP/CHRP boxes. - Workstation OS/PowerPC aka PowerPC OS/2, ran on the orginal PreP/CHRP.
Most of those OS's won't or will have issues with these more modern PreP/CHRP boxes, since things have changed a bit.
Apple pretty much dumped CHRP/PreP with dumping cloning, although you can tell that the iBook, Blue G3 and the iMac are distant CHRP/PreP relatives. As are several of IBM/Motorla's workstations like the newish PowerPC RS/6000.
They are basically the same thing, the name CHRP was introduced after the PreP, since CHRP was believed to be the most advanced hardware platform out there -- and it was flexable as heck, it ran NT, OS/2, AIX and MacOS -- not bad at all -- except for the fact you can buy a CHRP machine currently for slightly more then a real nice used car. (I'm talking $6000+).
The hope is that these CHRP/PreP based machines, finally allow for cheap PowerPC machines -- Apple's machines are way to expensive and limited -- and if you don't have the budget the size of a rich CEO, you can forget buying another CHRP/PReP machine.
I am not sure that would make WINE illegal, if you look at the clause you could say WINE is just a compatiblity layer to help ease porting of programs to Linux x86 (such as Corel). It does not contain any Windows code at all, and is simply a system to remap API's from populuar programs, that run on systems with implementations of Win32 APIs or Win32-similar APIs.
WINE could be claimed by it's authors that it's not neccessarly an clone of Windows, but a compatiblity layer, designed to work with many populuar programs, that use these APIs.
Slashdot Mirror
Yes, Mosfet is not only busy working on themes / look and feel of KDE 2.0, he is also one of the core developers of KImageshop, a flexable corba-based image editing program.
It is similar to the GIMP -- and is compatible with all GIMP plugins, making a powerful, KDE/Corbra aware Imaging program, with an interface that doesn't totally bite (although GIMP 1.1.x is getting better -- part of the GIMP are just strangely designed -- and rely on right clicking way to much!)
A good user interface is obvious to new users -- the GIMP takes experience to figure it out.
Having Mosfet working full time on these key issues is important, users like an interface that is flexable, and yet doesn't required a degree in CS to understand how to use it.
Click on a Link, hold mouse button down for 2 seconds, will get you the contextual menu in either Internet Exploiter or Netscape Navigator 4.x.
Reminder, this is alpha quality software -- it's likely to change. I think they designed the device manger to be as similar as possible to the Windows device manger (while not messing up the interface like Microsoft), so that new users that have never used UNIX for an extended time can easily use device manger -- although name the serial ports after their Windows equvalants is just plain tacky...
The current KDE 2.0 user manger is much like the one in 1.x.x, it's quite a bit different then the Wndows version, in features and in the way it works... and it works pretty good.
KDE is an open-source, open-minded project, they don't mind reusing interface ideas from other platforms, and adding radically new ones, and tossing out several bad ones (MDI / parent child windows comes to mind).
Remember if you can write a better version of KUser or the device manger in Qt 2.0/KDE 2.0 feel free to submit it ftp://ftp.kde.org/incomming/
I have to agree Darwin isn't useful for much now -- it's kind of a toy for now, kind of like old versions of Linux (pre-1.0). They lacked really useful software and did not have a GUI (X Windows didn't come instantly to Linux, it was ported slowly by various projects, most famosly XFree86.
:-( will speed development of drivers for other populuar opensource UNIX-like kernels.
Darwin, when it gets more apps ported to it, might be an interesting alternative to the NetBSD, MkLinux or Monolithic Linux kernels on the PowerPC -- it's something new, that likely has some benifits from other kernels.
I think we can at least hope that the vast majority of GNU utilities/programs can be ported and used on this platform -- it would be great to be able to use things like the X11, GIMP, GNOME or KDE on it -- this could make it an actually worth while project.
Remember, Darwin should be a fairly optimized kernel for PowerPC 750 computers -- since Apple is the number one desktop vendor of them, and they really know them well.
So it's just another opensource UNIX-like kernel -- obviously it will attract a whole new audience, those that don't want Monolithic Linux, Netbsd or MkLinux on there PowerMac, but they do want an really fast optimized UNIX-like OS.
And, yes Apple won't mind if you did some debugging for them or if you improved gnu utils for there platform -- but they don't really expect that.
Improved HFS+, Booting, Hardware and AppleTalk documentation (in the format of objective-c++ -- that few people understand well)
Yes, you can use Ghostscript, a free implementation of desktop postscript (tm) for Unix-like OS's (and Windows / Mac -- but it's uncommon), to display anti-aliased postscript fonts on the screen.
The biggest problems with desktop postscript (tm), is it can be sluggish on some machines, and that free postscript fonts are rarer then plain old TrueType fonts that everyone uses and that finally many postscript fonts and/or desktop postscript have all kinds of legal issues involved.
But at any rate, the last time I checked, the GIMP 1.1.x has excellent support for anti-aliased postscript fonts, as does xpdf, KDE postscript viewer app and gv. More apps are on there way, I am sure....
AFAIK, most RedHat 6.0-based distros (including the orginal RedHat 6.0), include Enlightenment which requires FreeType to render truetype fonts in ethemes.
FreeType does a great job -- you can see it's excellent anti-alaising work in the e.theme Hand of God.
For full documentation see the FreeType documentation.
Yes, the PowerPC 750 (which Apple calls the G3 since it 'sounds cool'), is designed to be the successor of the 603ev -- not really fast, but good enought for a desktop system. That's why most of IBM's lowend RS/6000 systems still use the 604e, it beats the hell out of the G3 at the same clock speeds, especially at FP.
Apple dumped the 604e from there line, because Apple wanted to make the PowerMacintosh line, cheap, simple and easy. So they all use the same processor (a consumer on), logic boards that are very much similar, and cheap PC RAM, that standard on all current machines they sell.
Apple won't go G4 (likely) untill they discontinue making all of there G3 systems -- and that may be a while.
This helped then reduce inventory, and become lean and mean -- no extra baggage.
Of course this pissed off high-end PowerMac customers -- they are either too slow or lack to many PCI slots to be usefully. But it made iMac possible, and cheap for Apple -- but it came at a cost.
PowerPC would be useful in the portible market -- except for one big problem -- there is no CHRP portables ever made -- they are all big desktop machines, and no portibles. Maybe somebody can design a portible machine....
Re: The Need to fold PowerPC Code into the 'offical' kernel.
;-).
Linus tries to keep the Linus Kernel as fair on all platforms as possible -- but unforently he is a very busy man, and sometimes he loses / messes up PowerPC patches, just like he sometimes messes up Alpha or Sparc ports (although he typically doesn't ship stable broken i386 versions
Personally, I don't find it acceptable to be shipping stable production kernels that are broken -- stable to me, means it works up to the promise -- and is not unstable (if you want a broken kernel get 2.3.x, you)!
2.2.0 had support for the PowerPC--but recently Linus (and the powerpc kernel deveopers didn't get there patches in at time) had some issues. This is unaccepatible for a stable kernel -- but I guess Linus doesn't think it's important enought to make sure a Kernel 100% stable before shipping it marked stable.
One more thing to note: Linus's tree might be good for some -- but it's highly recommended that you get your Platform's stable spefic kernel (such as vger-ppc 2.2.x or vger-alpha 2.2.x).
So for the last time, shipping defective / broken code in a 'stable' product is just unacceptable.
WINE isn't / doesn't have to be a replacement for Windows -- it might just be a way to make quick and dirty ports to Linux -- not to replace Windows, but to increase the value of the program by making it avalible for more users.
Yes, that always explains Be's desire to go x86 -- Intel is read to invest in alternative x86 OS's.
The G3 processor is pretty well documented -- Motorala wrote several books on it -- which you can buy for like $100 or download for free from www.mot.com.
Plus, there is copious PowerPC documentation avalible for free on the 'net.
It's more of a Apple motherboard / really sucky Apple open firmware problem then anything.
Right now there are 3 companies (at least) producing PowerPC motherboards for all kinds of different uses -- consumer, embeded and server.
For Example:
IBM and Motorala - Low End RS/6000 Servers/Workstations Motherboards
IBM and Motorala - Lots of werid Motherboards for embeded systems.
Apple - Consumer level systems.
So there is a least 3 companies producing motherboards -- a while back there was a third that made RS/6000 clones (MicroVax or something?), but I don't know what happend to the company.
That's the main reason why all of IBM's low end RS/6000's ship with 604ev's and not G3 processors.
PowerPC processors (well at least the 604ev vs. the PII) are cheaper megahertz to megahertz.
Unforently, when you try to build a PowerPC box, it's the add on's that drive the price up -- things like fast SCSI and RAM and other things aren't cheap.
In lots of 1000, the PowerPC 604e/225 in 1997 costed like 225 bucks, while the 233 PII cost like 600 dollars (well at that time).
PC hardware, is more populuar and is cheaper then PowerPC hardware, that's were the price difference comes in mainly -- the PowerPC chip in general is pretty cheap compared to the Pentium III / K6 or K7. The celrons are cheaper in some cases, but there preformance is slower then the PowerPC in most cases.
Unforently, most of the CHRP/PreP boxes in the past have been very expensive (think like $6000), but if a cheap no name company becomes involed (and they choose standard like cheap ATAPI drives, etc), this will change greatly.
And lets not forget, sound hooked directly to the processor is a feature that isn't found on any x86 box, yet it is found on most PowerPCs (saving the PCI bus from wasting bandwith on sound data [producing smoother better sounding sound]--although it currently still wastes it on video data).
Yes, when Mac-On-Linux or SheepShaver gets ported to these new CHRP boxes, you could run the Mac OS on top of Linux without problems -- just use a ROM image from a reguluar Mac.
Of course, this isn't a perfect solution -- there will be a need for new drivers, and not everything will not perectly work, but it should be do-able.
Apple has never made a direct profit on the Mac OS, but then again Microsoft has never made a direct profit on Windows. Development costs for OS's are humogous -- they are large masses of code, and people expect so much out of them.
.... err 9x, with every release of the 9x series.
So how do they make there money?
- Microsoft relies on it's properity Windows add-ons like NT Server, Microsoft Office (aka Cash Cow), and other things.
- Apple has always been a hardware company and that's not changing. Until recently 1% of Apple's profits were made by selling the Mac OS, now it's like 4.5% of there profits, but still that's not enough to support OS development. The idea, is that the money you spend on the hardware will justify the expense of developing the Mac OS and related projects. Until, 1995, Apple gave the Mac OS away for free -- as long as you used Apple hardware -- or for like $30 bucks for the disk -- and you were free to copy it from Mac to Mac (this excludes 7.1 Pro -- that was something different).
Apple would have to pull a 'sgi' to make it as a software company -- and if they did that, it would be by the skin of their teath. Not something that keeps those ever so important investors happy. They might be able to pull it off (just like SGI might become a ever so sucessful Linux company), it's just too much of a risk.
What happens if Mac OS X Server is a flop? Then they are left with nothing at all. If it flops, and they continue to be a dominent hardware company -- they have alot to fall back on to -- like Linux or Mac OS Classic (which is really not that bad, unlike what people call it lately).
It's too bad most people associate Mac OS Classic with accient crap code, it's certianly more then that. Major parts have been re-written, it has little m68k assembly left in it, and has many populuar programs ported to it. Apple could continue improving Mac OS Classic, without a problem, as does Microsoft Improves Windows 3.1
This is the main reason why Mac OS cloning would not work decently -- unless clone companies payed Apple big bucks for essentaily life time ROM and system software licenses.
Hardware is a proven hit for Apple--software is just an incentive to buy Apple hardware and not some other platform.
And, lets not forget the bussiness minded and semi-commerical Yellow Dog Linux distro. It's a pretty robust, RedHat-based distro, and it seems to work better then the real RedHat x86 thing in some cases.
I guess you guys have never used Internet Exploiter for Macintosh -- leave that baby open for a couple of hours and view half a dozen complex web sites, and look, it uses much more memory (like 70 megs of RAM when it's set to only 7 meg max) then it was suppost to have in the Finder setting, and it doesn't give the memory back to the Mac OS when it's needed.
That's a bad memory leak. Netscape in my experience also leaks memory, but it seems to at least give it back to the system on the Mac OS when really needed badily. The Linux/PPC version of Netscape works without many problems with me -- it uses more memory when you load a complex site, and gives back the memory when it's done with it.
If you have the cash, IBM or Motorla (and some of the RS/6000 clone companies), will be happy to sell you a PowerPC based computer -- such as a screamer 604e running at 350 mhz (which in some benchmarks literally makes Apple's 450mhz G3 machines look like toys).
You got the bucks, you can certainly get a PowerPC computer not from Apple -- but you will pay for it, more then $2000 bucks more then an Apple Machine in many cases.
But these machines, are much faster then Apple's machines, and can run either AIX or NT or Linux. Nice machines, I must say.
Well... Apple did some werid stuff with the first generation G3's, we will never no if they were just really buggy, or Apple was trying to savatage anything not Apple or Apple just rushed the product out the door / was smoking something illegal.
Well, here is a few things they broke in the first generation G3's (it was fixed in the Colorful Genration II G3's), broken OF, broken OF IDE support, beside half a dozen of other things that were messed up. Forently, Apple manged to patch the major issues with those machines (like the Open Firmware patches), although they never fixed the problems with booting kernels off the hard drive or the other issues.
Forently Apple has gone pretty standard with the second generation machines -- and the irony of it all is the PowerPC Linux developers haven't kept up with the 'fixed' Apple OpenFirmware, which is more standard based -- the Linux/PPC kernel ix broken so it won't boot on iMacs or Blue G3's normally (obviously excluding cheesy Mac OS booters like BootX) -- and they don't seem to be to excited to fix this right away.
And yes, NetBSD boots on these machines without a problem -- NetBSD doesn't have the broken OF header's problem.
Back to that good old argument that X is dog slow..
And that typical response, X's speed depends on the Speed of the graphic drivers for your patriculuar machine -- right now ATI Mach 64 card and the IIS Twin Turbo are the best supported in PowerPC -- meaning if you run them with No Video Driver UNchecked, and with a relatively decent X Server, you get preformance similar or better to what you get in the Mac OS (on my machine MesaGL displays 3D much faster on my X Server then in OpenGL in the Mac OS).
Depending on your video ram configuration, video card, the amount of ram you have, will depend on the speed you get with Linux/PPC.
Yes, that would be a great thing... Hopefully this deal with lead to nice cheap Powerful PowerPC boxes, for running LinuxPPC or Yellow Dog Linx on, for example.
I would really love to have a 6-slot PCI, G3 machine built on CHRP/PreP design, that I can actually afford in my life time.
The PowerPC is a well designed general processor--it's not the best at all areas, but in general it scores pretty good compared to Alphas or PIII or K7, and runs a hell of alot cooler.
Yes, with the help of some of the Linux/PPC (eg; Terrasoft and LinuxPPC, Inc.) companies, we have been able to get some decent software ported to the PowerPC, including several games.
It's not that hard for companies to port to the PowerPC, especially if the PowerPC Linux companies help supply them with PowerPC boxes.
That's how we have CTP: Civilization, Myst2 and AppplixWare, Netscape Communicator, and soon (hopefully) Acrobat Reader on the PowerPC.
Yep, they do both stand for the same thing -- an totally open PowerPC platform, that is flexable enought to run a verity of OS's including:
- Mac OS 8.0/8.1 with an enabler on early CHRP/PreP. Mac OS 8.5 doesn't work or has several issues depending on your motherboard.
- Windows NT 4.0 or was it 3.5.1?/PowerPC, also on the orginal PreP/CHRP boxes.
- Workstation OS/PowerPC aka PowerPC OS/2, ran on the orginal PreP/CHRP.
Most of those OS's won't or will have issues with these more modern PreP/CHRP boxes, since things have changed a bit.
Apple pretty much dumped CHRP/PreP with dumping cloning, although you can tell that the iBook, Blue G3 and the iMac are distant CHRP/PreP relatives. As are several of IBM/Motorla's workstations like the newish PowerPC RS/6000.
CHRP - Common Hardware Reference Platform
PreP - PowerPC Reference Platform
They are basically the same thing, the name CHRP was introduced after the PreP, since CHRP was believed to be the most advanced hardware platform out there -- and it was flexable as heck, it ran NT, OS/2, AIX and MacOS -- not bad at all -- except for the fact you can buy a CHRP machine currently for slightly more then a real nice used car. (I'm talking $6000+).
The hope is that these CHRP/PreP based machines, finally allow for cheap PowerPC machines -- Apple's machines are way to expensive and limited -- and if you don't have the budget the size of a rich CEO, you can forget buying another CHRP/PReP machine.
I am not sure that would make WINE illegal, if you look at the clause you could say WINE is just a compatiblity layer to help ease porting of programs to Linux x86 (such as Corel). It does not contain any Windows code at all, and is simply a system to remap API's from populuar programs, that run on systems with implementations of Win32 APIs or Win32-similar APIs.
WINE could be claimed by it's authors that it's not neccessarly an clone of Windows, but a compatiblity layer, designed to work with many populuar programs, that use these APIs.