I take it you've never tried to run USB devices with WindowsNT 4.0, have you:-)
NT 4.0 wasn't designed to support USB, so tough luck.:( I even had trouble even getting a 3 button PS/2 mouse to work with NT, which worked fine in a shop under 95.
Before the iMac popularised USB connections, the U in USB used to stand for 'useless'.:)
"I like MacOS, but I don't want to pay for Apple hardware"
I'm guessing that much of that angst has be channeled into PearPC
I agree with your sentiment, but I think that Gnome and KDE are too well entrenched for GNUstep to have much of an impact. There's Simply GNUstep of course...
But I suspect GNUstep is tarnished for several reasons.
Cocoa is a minority platform with even fewer open source developers. And how many people know objective-c? The Mac has a long history of quality shareware; on the whole the idea of giving code away for free never caught on as with Linux. Those with skills in such a niche area are no doubt finding lucrative opportunities to sell their spare-time efforts!:)
Providing a clean-room implementation of technologies is dependant on their being killer-apps to run.
In the case of haiku, it's implementing a much cherished discontinued platform.
In the case of wine, it's running Windows apps without Windows.
In the case of classpath, it's implementing a JVM without Sun's restrictions and support on every platform.
In each case these projects aim to provide API AND binary compatibility. Achieving binary compatibility with OSX would be comparatively more difficult given that Cocoa is one of a number of technologies which might also need to be emulated.
Plus, most of us do without the niceties of OSX. Those priveleged few that do have Macs are satisfied with their choice of hardware & software, so to re-implement the wheel isn't a high priority.
Finally are there any killer opensource Cocoa apps whose equivalents don't exists in the X11 world? For example, if Apple were to donate the rest of the Safari code to the community, as Netscape did with Mozilla, it would provide a tremendous example of a large-scale Cocoa app. This would perhaps attract developers to the platform. Plus, it might spur people on to implement the missing bits in GNUstep.
And 512MB may be 'adequate' for today but isn't future proof.
Let's say one buys a mini with the 256MB option and then finds that it isn't really ideal. If one the upgrades with a 512MB, one is left with an used 256MB stick and only 256MB extra RAM. Now if the machine had two slots, like the eMac, the total would be 768MB.
If only the minimac had an extra slot; 1GB sticks are comparatively expen$ive.:(
Not to mention that the opendarwin 'distro' lags several versions behind the OSX build, i.e.
OS X 10.3.6 = Darwin 7.6
current version of OpenDarwin = 7.2.1
Darwine, if complete, would actually be good for Apple.
In theory this would enable them to develop Windows apps such as iTunes within Xcode. They could test apps within their OSX environment using OSX native tools, and native speeds, then 'cut' Win32 apps using cross compilation!
They were rumoured to be developing a Win32 execution environment for Rhapsody ('Red box'?) but that was shelved. The FUD was that companies wouldn't migrate their apps to Cocoa/Carbon.
Well for the iPod, imagine a newton with a 60GB hard drive, embedded camera and wifi/bluetooth. If development had kept pace, it would have been light years ahead of the pocket pc of today.
Thanks to the person who moderated my posting as a troll.:) I was pointing out that the latest iBook G4s use broadcom chipsets for wireless (Airport Extreme).
Airport Extreme is defined NOT supported under Linux.
So the suggestion that one ought to run Linux on an iBook instead of x86 because of the built in wireless is kidding themselves.
At least intel is making efforts to provide some open source path for the centrino, while other manufacturers cards can be run through the windows driver (ndiswrapper).
You can put Linux on the iBook
Sure, you can put Linux on an iBook, but immediately you've crippled the hardware. i.e. good luck getting your wireless card working.:(
Thus, buying an Apple notebook to run Linux is no real advantage.
(The whole point of the article about running a Linux notebook)
I think there's probably one more G4 revision coming. After all, the top of the range has only a 1.25Ghz G4. I'd expect to see them bumped up to 1.5Ghz, as powers the Powerbooks.
Besides, have you seen the size of the heatsinks in the PowerMac G5s? They're enormous. How to fit in a small dome... The G4 is still the better choice - They'd have to underclock the G5 to reduce power consumption.
Accept the license terms and port Sun's code to one's architecture/platform.
Base one's clean-room effort on gnu classpath.
It's really a non-issue for most people as a Sun licensed JVM runs on Solaris, OSX, x86 Linux, PPC Linux (IBM's impl), x86 FreeBSD (1.3.1) and, of course, Windows. Work is even under way to port 1.4.2 to BeOS!
Which is not to say that getting bugs/rfes swiftly fixed on the bug parade is simple.:(
Slashdot Mirror
Mate, this is slashdot, please don't upset the OGG zealots! :)
NT 4.0 wasn't designed to support USB, so tough luck. :(
I even had trouble even getting a 3 button PS/2 mouse to work with NT, which worked fine in a shop under 95.
Before the iMac popularised USB connections, the U in USB used to stand for 'useless'. :)
Their goal is to write a complete operating system in Java.
I'm guessing that much of that angst has be channeled into PearPC
I agree with your sentiment, but I think that Gnome and KDE are too well entrenched for GNUstep to have much of an impact. There's Simply GNUstep of course...
But I suspect GNUstep is tarnished for several reasons.
Cocoa is a minority platform with even fewer open source developers. And how many people know objective-c? The Mac has a long history of quality shareware; on the whole the idea of giving code away for free never caught on as with Linux. Those with skills in such a niche area are no doubt finding lucrative opportunities to sell their spare-time efforts! :)
Providing a clean-room implementation of technologies is dependant on their being killer-apps to run.
In the case of haiku, it's implementing a much cherished discontinued platform.
In the case of wine, it's running Windows apps without Windows.
In the case of classpath, it's implementing a JVM without Sun's restrictions and support on every platform.
In each case these projects aim to provide API AND binary compatibility. Achieving binary compatibility with OSX would be comparatively more difficult given that Cocoa is one of a number of technologies which might also need to be emulated.
Plus, most of us do without the niceties of OSX. Those priveleged few that do have Macs are satisfied with their choice of hardware & software, so to re-implement the wheel isn't a high priority.
Finally are there any killer opensource Cocoa apps whose equivalents don't exists in the X11 world? For example, if Apple were to donate the rest of the Safari code to the community, as Netscape did with Mozilla, it would provide a tremendous example of a large-scale Cocoa app. This would perhaps attract developers to the platform. Plus, it might spur people on to implement the missing bits in GNUstep.
Other people's experiences may vary.
:(
And 512MB may be 'adequate' for today but isn't future proof.
Let's say one buys a mini with the 256MB option and then finds that it isn't really ideal. If one the upgrades with a 512MB, one is left with an used 256MB stick and only 256MB extra RAM. Now if the machine had two slots, like the eMac, the total would be 768MB.
If only the minimac had an extra slot; 1GB sticks are comparatively expen$ive.
Hopefully someone will complete the PPC port and you will Be able to run your BeOS software natively. A dual G5, that would Be some BeBox!!!
With still no support for 3d accelerated graphics nor Airport Extreme, one might call it a Pyrrhic victory. :(
There's Fink (Debian based), Portage and DarwinPorts
Not to mention that the opendarwin 'distro' lags several versions behind the OSX build, i.e.
OS X 10.3.6 = Darwin 7.6
current version of OpenDarwin = 7.2.1
In theory this would enable them to develop Windows apps such as iTunes within Xcode. They could test apps within their OSX environment using OSX native tools, and native speeds, then 'cut' Win32 apps using cross compilation!
They were rumoured to be developing a Win32 execution environment for Rhapsody ('Red box'?) but that was shelved. The FUD was that companies wouldn't migrate their apps to Cocoa/Carbon.
Technology wise, definitely a blunder... :(
Well, there's always Haiku. Plus, if it's time ever does come, it's open source. :)
defined == definitely
Thanks to the person who moderated my posting as a troll. :) I was pointing out that the latest iBook G4s use broadcom chipsets for wireless (Airport Extreme).
Airport Extreme is defined NOT supported under Linux.
So the suggestion that one ought to run Linux on an iBook instead of x86 because of the built in wireless is kidding themselves.
At least intel is making efforts to provide some open source path for the centrino, while other manufacturers cards can be run through the windows driver (ndiswrapper).
You can put Linux on the iBook :(
Sure, you can put Linux on an iBook, but immediately you've crippled the hardware. i.e. good luck getting your wireless card working.
Thus, buying an Apple notebook to run Linux is no real advantage.
(The whole point of the article about running a Linux notebook)
Or, you could populate it using models.
Most have abstract implementations that only require that you specify the data; providing event support for you.
while you're at it, please lobby ATi/Nvidia to release 3D drivers and ensure that the modem is supported.
:)
But seriously, why would you want to run Linux on a laptop without support for a second or third button on the built-in pointing device?
I think there's probably one more G4 revision coming. After all, the top of the range has only a 1.25Ghz G4. I'd expect to see them bumped up to 1.5Ghz, as powers the Powerbooks.
:(
Besides, have you seen the size of the heatsinks in the PowerMac G5s? They're enormous. How to fit in a small dome... The G4 is still the better choice - They'd have to underclock the G5 to reduce power consumption.
So, no iGentoo64 just yet.
You're more likely to be able to run DB2 on it given that IBM makes both DB2 and PPC.
Clarification:
Her name is Clarus and she says "Moof".
Dogcows are always female (cf. 'bulldog')
A tip: try using StrictMath instead of Math.
just linking an app against winelib is much more cost-effective than having to buy new hardware and port it to some Mac-API.
Kill several birds with one stone. If Corel are keen to port to Linux and OS X, which share a *nix backend, they could do worse than use GNUStep
I believe there once was a version of WordPerfect for NeXT/OpenStep, so dig up the old code, Corel!
As when they made enhancements to wine, they would bring GNUStep into prominence as a toolkit viable for commercial-grade apps.
They license Sun's code.
It's really a non-issue for most people as a Sun licensed JVM runs on Solaris, OSX, x86 Linux, PPC Linux (IBM's impl), x86 FreeBSD (1.3.1) and, of course, Windows. Work is even under way to port 1.4.2 to BeOS!
Which is not to say that getting bugs/rfes swiftly fixed on the bug parade is simple. :(
Visit Swing Sightings for Swing desktop apps.
Perhaps it's just that most hits are from work where IE is the corporate policy.