FreeBSD For The iMac And Other Eye-Openers 45
Anonymous Coward writes: "In this interview, part III, over at GNULinux.com you can read what Jordan Hubbard, CEO of FreeBSD Inc., has to say about the future of FreeBSD. '[...] Finally, the notion of the PC is changing. One could even argue that the PC has widened to encompass the PowerPC, because there are all these iMacs on peoples' desks, and according to the original mandate we should be looking at those iMacs, too, which is what we're doing,' sounds pretty sweet." This article provides a positive (but sober) overview of recent and anticipated progress from the devil-suit side of free software. You might also be interested in Jordan's answer to the question, "Can FreeBSD scale to the PDA?"
Re:*bsd is ruining the open source revolution! (Score:2)
Re:Mac users unlikely to accept FreeBSD (Score:1)
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Re:Use NetBSD code? (Score:3)
Anyway, where do you think the Alpha port came from? Lots and lots of code was "borrowed". (In fact, this is one of the old grudges; some of the people who did the BSD-on-Alpha work originally feel they didn't get fairly credited for their work when it got borrowed.)
Anyway, the code is out there, and anyone can use it. Neat, huh? It's sort of like *actually* free software.
Re:*bsd is ruining the open source revolution! (Score:1)
Got any proof to back this up? The rest of your rant is without merit, so I'd be happy to see a URL where Mr. Cox makes claims of 'stealing'.
(I guess if you are trolling and mention alan cox, you don't get flamebait, but get a +1)
No Hardware Prejudice (Score:2)
Indeed, I don't care anymore what my hardware is. Even a 486 or a Sparcstation 1 is something I can use. Macs and PC's look pretty much the same to me unless I want to add some hardware to them, which I am comfortable with either way.
This is a really positive thing. Once the software runs on everything, the hardware will come to the aid of the software and I think things might become a bit more uniform.
Well, that's just wishful thinking. We aren't nearly as much a slave to the hardware manufacturers anymore, though, are we. "No, that costs too much for what it's worth. I will jump to architecture X instead. No skin off my nose."
--Gabriel
Re: The PC category has widened, huh? (Score:1)
The mac is not a PC
*BSD is already on the iMac (Score:2)
NetBSD/macppc [netbsd.org] already runs on the iMac [apple.com]. We've been there for over a year (since the 1.4 release in May 1999).
Re:Better compiler optimizations? (Score:2)
With IBMs commitment to Linux on the RS/6000 series I'd assume that they are going to be throwing some weight behind a gcc optimization for PPC. If they come out with an updated RS/6000 Thinkpad, I'm there, baby, I'm soooo there...
NetBSD already runs on the imac... (Score:2)
and PDA's - http://www.netbsd.org/Ports/hpcmips/ [netbsd.org].
Re:Mac users unlikely to accept FreeBSD (Score:1)
Re:Of course it can scale down! (Score:1)
Better compiler optimizations? (Score:3)
Re:*bsd is ruining the open source revolution! (Score:1)
Linux stole BSD code (PPP Compression code? How many networking and other utilities?). Linux imitates BSD (BSD has been around since before I was born, I remember when Linux was new).
As for security, stability, and scalability, why don't Hotmail or Yahoo! use Linux? It's simple, Linux just cannot handle it. Dave Filo even said they tried Linux for Yahoo! and it just couldn't handle it.
Linux and iMacs (Score:1)
Seriously, though, it is a Good Thing to have all of these *nixes going to the Apple arcitecture. Changing the OS on my (company issued) iBook from MacOS to Linux has given me a whole new respect for the hardware. Under Linux, the G3 is fast. The iBook in peticular is quite sturdy and cheap. I would actually consider buying one now that I have used *nix on it. I can't wait to try FreeBSD on it when it comes out.
What I would like to see next is cross-platform Airport support under *nix... that thing is pretty schwank under MacOS.
Just how i see it.
-legolas
Which is worse: Ignorance or Apathy?
Re:*bsd is ruining the open source revolution! (Score:1)
Re:Putting a bright face on a bad situation (Score:2)
Is there a uFreeBSD project like uLinux? Maybe there should be...
WRONG-O! (Score:1)
Re:Of course it can scale down! (Score:1)
So? I didn't say anything about PDAs. There are a lot of other applications besides those. For instance, the industrial security project I should be working on right now...
Re:Mac users unlikely to accept FreeBSD (Score:1)
Use NetBSD code? (Score:3)
(and would there be any point)
On a side note -- I presume "Gift-F" was the interviewer mishearing "#ifdef", right? So neither the author nor the editor bothered to understand their own sentence...
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Re:*bsd is ruining the open source revolution! (Score:1)
Re:Use NetBSD code? (Score:3)
The BSD community sometimes refers to licenses as "encumbered" or "unencumbered". Unencumbered means that the developer doesn't have to propogate someone else's restrictions onto his own code. Anything beyond "do whatever you want as long as you pass on this permission and warranty statement" enters the realm of encumbering.
The BSD community takes the opposite tack of the GPL community, focusing on the 99 people who will do the right thing, as opposed to the one person who won't. To rephrase the biblical lesson, the two cents given by the widow hacker freely and without regret far outweigh the millions given by the pharisaic developer who did it just because the license said so.
Re:See the forest. Forget the trees. (Score:1)
Ramble on!
mfspr r3, pc / lvxl v0, 0, r3 / li r0, 16 / stvxl v0, r3, r0
Re:NetBSD already runs on the imac... (Score:2)
Jordan Hubbard is welcome to look at the iMac, but it sure seems like reinventing the wheel, since NetBSD/macppc works just fine as far as I can tell:
uriel:~% uname -mprs NetBSD 1.4R macppc powerpc uriel:~% uptime 5:50PM up 11 days, 33 mins, 4 users, load averages: 0.19, 0.10, 0.09
(It's a PowerMac 7500 with a G3 processor card.)
Re:saw this coming (Score:1)
That said, Darwin's fairly up to date, but it's not the same code (or, most likely, the same design ethic) as BSD.
Even more, MacOS X uses the Mach Microkernel (as MkLinux does and LinuxPPC does not), which makes it very different from NetBSD/macppc (which, as plenty of people have noted, already exists and already runs on iMacs just fine, thank you), which boots through the Mac's OpenFirmware (hold down command-option-O-F on a PCI-arch mac).
saw this coming (Score:1)
-----BEGIN GEEK CODE BLOCK-----
v.3.12
GCS d-(--) s+: a-- C+++$>++++$$ UL++$>++++$$ P+>++++$ L++>++++$ E--- W++$>++
Of course it can scale down! (Score:5)
Lots of work by many experienced gurus has already gone into adapting FreeBSD for small applications. Currently, there is a development kit known as PicoBSD that enables one to automatically build floppy images that contain a minimal FreeBSD. Other people have created their own custom embedded versions of FreeBSD; the tight integration and cleanness of FreeBSD and its source tree make it quite easy for even an amateur to roll his/her own version. I myself am currently working on an improved development kit for building embeddded versions of FreeBSD quickly and easily. It's output is currently running off of an 8MB DiskOnChip on the desk to my right.
For more information, see Small FreeBSD Home Page [freebsd.org]. It's a bit outdated, but work is still actively going on. A maintainer is currently working on improving the site. To get at the very heart of things, subscribe to the freebsd-small mailing list (info here [freebsd.org]) or read the archive [freebsd.org].
but aren't they forgetting their point? (Score:3)
"the problem may have been that there was a stonehenge monument on the stage that was in danger of being crushed by a dwarf!" - David St. Hubbins, Spinal Tap
Hmmm .... (Score:1)
iMac and Eye Openers? (Score:1)
Sexy (Score:1)
That was nice... (Score:2)
"A goldfish was his muse, eternally amused"
Re:but aren't they forgetting their point? (Score:1)
I finally managed to get it d/l'd, it installed easily enough, now I just need to setup CVS accesss through our Proxy here at work and hopefully I'll be all set.
Wiliam
See the forest. Forget the trees. (Score:5)
386BSD came out, and the FreeBSD guys (who obviously weren't FreeBSD guys then) thought "Cool, UNIX for the masses. And it's free. We like this." But 386BSD never went anywhere. It jumped out of the blocks, but then stopped, and so FreeBSD started where 386BSD left off.
Their goal was to provide UNIX for the people out there. That meant providing BSD for the common hardware, the x86. It wasn't that they thought other platforms weren't good, or didn't deserve FreeBSD, it was (as I understand it) more a case of saying "We want to provide the best unix to the most people" and to devote their limited reources to small platforms was counter-productive.
FreeBSD was never supposed to be x86 for the sake of x86, any more than Linux was (which started off in 386 assembly). It was (and is) x86 because that's where people most needed it. Despite running on many architectures, Linux is still most popular on x86. It's where the market is. FreeBSD is highly pragmatic - don't do it cause it's cool, do it cause it acheives a purpose.
So, the conclusion then is, if the FreeBSD team feels that pouring some of the effort into a new architecture is going to provide greater overall benefit to the users, then it is within their original goals to do so.
x86 was a starting point, not an end.
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Portability (Score:1)
Re:but aren't they forgetting their point? (Score:2)
I've been using x86 platforms for 15 years now (yow!) and must say that I'm pleased to see FreeBSD isn't tied to them - I think it's time to dump the old architecture and incremental changes to it, especially in light of the friendliness both Intel and AMD have shown towards user-hostile processor "features" like software-readable serial numbers.
I can hear Jeff Goldblum now.... (Score:3)
"You are cordially invited to the marriage of frilly, fru-fru industrial design and the suave sophistication of an impenetrable user interface.
"You'll be the first on your block to have a computer no one wants to look at *or* use."
Every BSD iMac will come with a pocket protector and a black beret.
Putting a bright face on a bad situation (Score:1)
And the iMac? Most large corporations have moved away from proprietary hardware single-vendor ``solutions'' (love that word!). There is no indication that this trend will be reversed.
The article is a good example of whistling past the graveyard. It fails to offer any realistic assessment of the operating systems marketplace, and FreeBSD's actual role in it. The reality and the fantasy of this article are way out of synch.
Mac users unlikely to accept FreeBSD (Score:1)
The iMac seems to have attracted a very fashion conscious user base, who like to be on the cutting edge of technology. I think these users in particular will be repulsed by having to throw out their shiny new laser printers in order to use an old, secondhand dot matrix printer. For these reasons, I think FreeBSD on the Mac will fail, until someone comes up with a ppd (Page Printer Daemon) for it.
Re:Better compiler optimizations? (Score:2)
Re:Portability (Score:1)
And besides that, OS X isn't built around a BSD kernel, as far as i knew... I thought it was the Mach kernel running a BSD personality? Don't know if that makes much of a difference, though, except to further illustrate that OS-X and *BSD might be related, but they're definetly not twins or anything like that, if that makes any sense.
Re:WRONG-O! (Score:2)
Sun paid SCO nearly a billion dollars for the rights to SVR4!
Re:Mac users unlikely to accept FreeBSD (Score:1)
You need to pipe your lpd jobs through ghostscript
in order to print page oriented, graphical stuff.
Check out a printing HOWTO or the FreeBSD manual
for instructions on how to do this. It is more
difficult than it should be, but once you learn
how it is easy.
Re:Mac users unlikely to accept FreeBSD (Score:1)
I wonder how much of this decision to port to PPC is based on Apple's use of FreeBSD code in Mac OS X. Apparently Apple has been contributing back to FreeBSD on a regular basis, and I imagine has built a relationship with the FreeBSD people.
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Re:Portability (Score:2)
you won't be able to run Mac OS X binaries on Free- or NetBSD because they won't have access to the Carbon, Cocoa, or Quartz API's.
They can do Quartz/Cocoa once gnustep [gnustep.org] is done.
"There's very little progress on GNUStep!"
I assume this will see more progress as fellas will want to run their OS 10 apps without rebooting their boxen.