How Good Of A Unix Is Mac OS X ? 360
Anonymous Coward writes: "Greg Knauss, a UNIX guy from way back and a contributor to Suck, TeeVee, creator of Metababy, etc., has written a piece for Macworld.com. He looked at the Unix underneath the new Mac OS X Public Beta and has generally positive things to say, with a few caveats." Among these shortcomings are the lack of the GNU tools, about which Knauss says "... [W]hile the arrival of the GNU tool set -- the mainstay of Unix development -- is inevitable, it's a shame that Apple didn't see fit to include it in the Mac OS X beta."
Re:Well, that's okay... (Score:2)
It's a good paper, but I'd like to see current results for the testing, too. I guess I should hunt down a copy of the FUZZ tools. I don't have a copy of NEXTSTEP, but it looks like they were using NEXTSTEP 3.2.
However, NEXT had the worst failure rate, at 43%. If they switched to the GNU tools later, well, that's fortunate, 'cause they were the best, at only 6%...
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pb Reply or e-mail; don't vaguely moderate [ncsu.edu].
Is Mac OS X anything like A/UX (remember that)? (Score:2)
Yes (Score:2)
Not natively, but somebody could probably port it. Of course having two project managers on the same system is probably a bad idea, at least for non-hackers.
but I would be thrilled to hear that there is a real package management scheme built into Mac OS X. Is there?
Yes. The files are
A real problem with the Mac OS X of old is that it's waaay to easy to scatter installed software all over the place.
I assume you mean the "Mac OS" of old.
A real package system would also make it so convenient to upgrade the system, especially during the beta cycle.
I'm pretty sure it has signed internet-based updates (Mac OS 9 does). The help system is also dyanmically grabbed from the net, apparently. Though I hope there's backup access if TCP/IP is unavailable.
- Scott
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Scott Stevenson
Re:Come on... (Score:3)
- If there's a consistent interface, then where did my window managers and widget sets go?
Consistant doesn't mean identical. Almost no two mac desktops look the same today. What would make you think people won't customize them on OS X as well?
- If it's "easy to use", then where did my shell prompt go?
Nice use of sarcastic quotes, but easy to use means using the best tool for a particular job. With that in mind, go ahead and use a shell prompt when you want to. It's there and full-featured. What's the complaint?
- How do I turn these (*@#% tooltips off?
Ahh, that's not an OS X complaint, as MacOS doesn't have tooltips. That's more a Microsoft/Adobe/Macromedia complaint, yes? In point of fact, Mac OS X also does away with balloon help, so this is a good thing.
- How do I get a real, 8-bit-clean text editor?
Use TextEdit, the 8-bit-clean text editor that replaces SimpleText in OS X.
- Why does the shell bug me about 'filetypes' all the time? Why do I care?
It doesn't because you don't. You must have noticed all these
Linux does look pretty slick, but personally I've found that when I have work that requires my own skill (coding, composing text, etc) I use my Linux box, but when I have work that requires the computer's skill (page layout, gif animations, etc.) I use my Mac or Win laptop. The Linux OS is slick, the Linux tools are powerful, but the MacOS is friendly, and if it can give me power and slickness(?) too, I'll take it over the alternatives.
Kevin Fox
Re:NeXTSTEP wasn't a good Unix either (Score:2)
Software (Score:2)
Ah yes, but IRIX doesn't have all the Mac software -- Adobe, Macormedia, MetaCreations/Corel, games, etc. This is why Carbon is good, and Rhapsody was bad.
- Scott
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Scott Stevenson
My Innocent Comment (Score:5)
Sit back and laugh (Score:5)
On one hand, you have Unix weenies who will swear forever that MacOS is as stupid and lame as a jar of rocks painted like jellybeans, even when they themselves have to resort to FUD.
On the other you have people who have actually taken a look at OS X and can see that Apple's done a remarkable job at modernizing their OS to a Unix kernel.
Apple's finally succeded at breaking the Unix ranks into those who like Unix because it's better and those who like Unix because it makes them feel superior.
Kevin Fox
Here's why GNU tools weren't included. (Score:4)
I found this in a post from Holt Sorenson on MacWorld.
Why gnu tools weren't included [zdnet.com]
On another note, I think it's shocking that to this day I still hear talk about:
1. The price of Macs. You can scan this very list to see that it's really not an issue anymore for what you get. I think that people might just be irritated that even a low-end mac is a high-performance machine compared to a less expensive piecemeal Intel box.
2. The availability of software. In the old days, the argument was that critical apps weren't available and so the machines are fully proprietary. This is of course absolutely the opposite now. Most of the things you *can't* get now are shareware or small-scale development items. Kinda like DOS compatibility with Windows right now.
3. The quality of the operating system. The normal Mac OS has stunk for a while. But the Unix in Mac OS X has been well proven in the last ten years (since NeXT).
Here's the post I found:
Posted By: Holt Sorenson Date: 15-Sep-200011:26p.m.
At the 2000 Usenix Technical Conference, Wilfredo Sanchez of Apple gave a presentation on The Challenges of Integrating the Unix and Mac OS Environments. The paper can be found at: http://www.mit.edu/people/wsanchez/papers/USENIX_2 000/
An audio recording of the presentation of this paper at USENIX 2000, including the Q&A session, is available Dr. Dobb's TechNetCast at: http://www.technetcast.com/tnc_play_stream.html?st ream_id=332
During the questions period, he was asked if GNU tools would ship with OS X. He said that they would not because in an e-mail discussion with RMS, RMS insisted that OS X would have to be GPL'd if Apple included GNU tools.
"ugly dumptruck"? (Score:2)
I'm sorry, but I fail to see the analogy.
In terms of size and performance, UNIX installations can be small and nimble compared to MacOS X, which has to support a lot more "stuff".
In terms of software architecture, MacOS is a mess and a dumping ground of legacy technologies: microkernel, UNIX personality, Objective-C, Java, MacOS ROMs, etc.; no design or taste there.
In terms of appearance, there are plenty of pretty UNIX GUI interfaces.
MacOS X, with its consumer market share, may be an OK compromise for people who want UNIX reliability and some kind of consumer-oriented system. But I don't think people have been holding their breath for this; MacOS X isn't salvation for the UNIX users of the world, it's salavation for Apple: without it, the company would not have a competitive product at all. This way, they at least have a chance against NT and Linux.
Re:NeXTSTEP wasn't a good Unix either (Score:2)
NeXTstep (old spelling) was a fantastically clever GUI built upon Mach/BSD4.X and (of all things) Display Postscript. Everything I read about MacOS X tells me that the core ideas of NeXTSTEP remain buried under a slightly different Mac UI; nothing of significance has been removed. Mac OS X is NeXTSTEP.
Was the UNIX under NeXTSTEP bad? Not really. It was typically a year out of date in terms of the core utilities, but the kernel was unique (Mach) and quite powerful. If you had access to the source of BIND, Perl and other tools, you could update the essential sys admin and developer tools and be quite up to date. Remember, it was just emulating BSD 4.X (2, 3 & 4).
What makes me sad is how few of you actually got to work on the NeXT. This is like the Second Coming of NeXT, and as one of the few (lucky) ones who saw it in the Cube Daze, let me tell you, it's great to see it back.
How Good Of A Unix Is Mac OS X ? (Score:2)
Enjoy!
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ZP
We only can learn from our mistakes.
Re:Ummm.. (Score:2)
I don't think so. Microsoft has been trying since 1984 to come up with something as good as a Mac, and the best they have got is still ten years behind the Mac. There are huge, perhaps insurmountable problems with the heterogenaeity of the application base in both Windows and Linux that make it very unlikely that anyone will ever match the Mac look and feel.
Re:Sit back and laugh (Score:2)
Somebody obviously needs a jar of jelly beans...
Kevin Fox
Re:My Innocent Comment (Score:2)
Kudos to Apple for setting the default shell to tcsh, too - and aliasing ll to ls -l by default.
Something left out.... (Score:3)
What kind of file system does it use? (Score:3)
But I am curious. What about the file system? Do Macs still have separate resource and data forks with each file? Will this be supported by the file system in OS X? What about the app and creator 4-byte codes (which are actually in the resource fork). Will that be used, or will they move to the horrible filename extension crap that UNIX and DOS world suffers under? :-(
Okay, the metaphor sucks, but... (Score:3)
I agree. Particularly true in devices like Tivo. The author's metaphor is broken.
In terms of software architecture, MacOS is a mess and a dumping ground of legacy technologies: microkernel, UNIX personality, Objective-C, Java, MacOS ROMs, etc.;
I don't really agree with your assessment. There are only two real APIs to be concerned with for Mac OS X: Carbon and Cocoa. Carbon is a cleanup of Mac OS libraries so that old software still runs. Cocoa is a combination of OpenStep's Objective-C and Java. The reasoning for the inclusion of the BSD layer should be obvious. MOSX even comes with built-in Java 2 support. To the best of my knowledge, nobody else is doing that.
Nothing here is too ridiculous. People would be upset if any of this was left out. In fact, one could argue that deciding which Linux environment to develop for (GNOME, GTK) is more of a hassle. Not to mention all the basic services that X is lacking (or whoever is supposed to take care of fonts, printing, graphics, color correction, etc).
no design or taste there
I'm sorry, but I just don't feel Linux has much to say to Mac OS X in terms of design and taste. If you use the software, you'll realize this stuff has been very well thought out, and this is just the beta. Look for, example, at the fact that the configuration are XML-based, and are modified with an XML GUI front end. Linux would do well to learn from this. Consitency is certain an area where Linux could grow.
In terms of appearance, there are plenty of pretty UNIX GUI interfaces.
Pretty and intuitive are different things. Enlightenment is pretty (not as pretty as Aqua, though), but not intuitive. And frankly, that's not really E's fault as much as a function of that fact that it has to remain compatible with the way *nix is setup. Mac OS X does not.
MacOS X, with its consumer market share, may be an OK compromise for people who want UNIX reliability and some kind of consumer-oriented system. But I don't think people have been holding their breath for this
Hmmmm, even just reading slashdot posts (largely an Apple-hostive environment), I would think the opposite. Very interesting comments have also come from Carmack and other people at Id.
MacOS X isn't salvation for the UNIX users of the world, it's salavation for Apple: without it, the company would not have a competitive product at all.
I agree that Apple needs this product badly, but if you really want the Unix userbase to grow (in other words, anything that's not NT), than take a hard look at MOSX before you make sweeping generalizations. You don't have to like it if you don't want to. Heck, Linux might even learn a thing or two from it.
- Scott
(I've used/administered SunOS/Solaris/Linux/Mac OS X/Mac OS X Server and many others)
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Scott Stevenson
Re:NeXTSTEP wasn't a good Unix either (Score:2)
I spent three summers and academic years programming both cubes & slabs, B&W and color, as an undergrad. Those machines were lucious.
I'm a PC guy now, but I'm hoping OS X is good enough to lure me away.
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D. Fischer
He obviously values appearance over substance (Score:2)
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MacOS X is just what Linux needs. (Score:3)
While this replication may be viewed by some as a lack of creativity, those with an engineering backround will see the strength and resourcefulness of it.
As any introductory engineering text will tell you, the key to a succesfull, manageable project is having a well defined product specification. Replicating an existing product allows the OSS developer to focus on the early organization of the project, as opposed to fiddling over details such as the provided feature set (not to mention the lack of deadlines imposed by the financial side of things).
If Apple can make a marketable, user friendly Unix-based operating system, what's to stop us from doing the same? If nothing else, it will be an excuse to get rid of X Windows for good.
Apple's hit some major points with MacOS X, primarily of which is the inherrent strength of Unix, this is something the OSS community already knows about. The big thing here is that where Linux has been fighting to stay truthfull to the existing codebase, and continuing to use Xwin, OS X threw it away.
What's to stop somebody from developing a Linux Distro that mirrors OS X? We've been strugling for years to find the "Linux your mother could use", and Cupertino has shown it to us. All it takes is getting rid of the kludge that is Xwin, and comming up with a decent GUI (Speaking of, what ever happened to the Berlin project? I can't find any real info on it...) and some user friendly config tools.
As a bonus, we could engineer the new GUI to compatable with the Cocoa/Aqua APIs, allowing for source level compatability between the two systems, finally making Linux development justifiable to a large number of commercial software companies. Wham, two birds dead, and we've still got more stone to go.
Where right now, Linux is still the domain of 'geeks' (as most of the world considers those who can use a CLI), we wouldn't just be making the system 'user friendly enough' for mother, this might finally make Linux the user-friendly choice.
If linux drops the ball on this, there's always the Hurd, which, might arguably be a better choice for this than Linux, as both the Hurd and OS X are based upon the same micro-kernel...
Of course, with big names like IBM and SGI pushing Linux, I'm suprised this hasn't happened yet. Perhaps this is what Sun had in mind when they started their 'Gnome Foundation'...
Re:True, this is damn cool! (Score:2)
Actually, Mac OS 8.5 and higher has built in theming. Apple just never publicized how to make themes (or released any on its own). Some people did some reverse engineering magic and figured it out, though.
The hardware is better
Oh, no. I sense a flameware coming. Let's preempt this and say that Apple hardware has some great advantages, but x86 is probably a bit cheaper on average and better for hacking around with.
- Scott
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Scott Stevenson
$800 iMac (Score:2)
I didn't say "cheap," but I think "reasonable" is a good word. Also, unlike many sub-$1000 machines, this price is not contigent on signing up for three years of ISP service. The iMac also has built-in ethernet, speakers and FireWire, and ability to upgrade to wirless networking for $100. Find me another $800 machine with those features.
- Scott
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Scott Stevenson
Re:Here's why GNU tools weren't included. (Score:2)
The closest Dell Dimension 4100 I can build costs $1179, with an 800MHz PIII, 20 gig hard disk, 64 megs of memory, a DVD-ROM drive, a 16 meg Rage 128 Pro, an SB64 PCI (I'm not sure how that compares to a G4, I don't know what their sound hardware does), a 3C905C NIC, Altec Lansing speakers with subwoofer.
So I save $380 for something that is probably faster than a G4 in real use (unless I run Photoshop filters all day). And Dell aren't exactly the cheapest PC maker, and they don't sell Athlons. So it seems to me Macs are still expensive compared to PCs.
I do prefer Apple's design, though. Macs are much sexier than any PC I have seen. Though older SGI boxen are even sexier.
Re:Apple pie (Score:2)
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Re:What about mach? (Score:2)
Re:Separate GUI from system? (Score:2)
Aqua=WindowMaker.
Plus, you have to note that Quartz is absent from Darwin, (the underlying kernel and servers.) Do you think Apple takes Quartz out of Darwin for each Darwin release?
Putting the Gnu back in OS X (Score:5)
Re:Here's why GNU tools weren't included. (Score:2)
Office and MOSX (Score:2)
Actually, I think they are skipping Carbon compliance and going straight for Cocoa. I could have misread, so don't quote me.
Anyway, a good point to make is that even though Office will run in the Classic environment, it will probably still run significantly better and be more integrated than running Office 2000 on Solaris or Linux via a Win32 emulator. Plus, it doesn't have to run in a separate window.
Emulation is never optimal, however.
- Scott
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Scott Stevenson
Compiler/dev tool availability (Score:5)
The reason for this may be so that mortal users are not expected to actually compile their own software to use it. Example: Windows doesn't come with compilers, so virtually all Windows software (even Apache, PHP, etc.) come in binary form.
From what I understand, the dev tools: Project Builder and friends (and even gcc, etc) will be available for free download from the ADC (Apple Developer Connection) site in October.
I'm fairly confident that compilers, in one form or another, will be freely available.
- Scott
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Scott Stevenson
Unix as a desktop (Score:3)
What category do we put OS X under whenever somebody divides who holds desktop market share. Does this fall uner Apple's OSes or UNIX?
Re:Something left out.... (Score:2)
How to get the gnu tool set... (Score:4)
Also, Apple will release the developer tools to all online ADC members (free registration) in mid-October [apple.com].
Re:NeXTSTEP wasn't a good Unix either (Score:2)
This isn't what the article says. I've used Mac OS X DP4, and I think MOSX is a quite capable Unix, particularly when you grab an X server.
- Scott
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Scott Stevenson
Re:Something left out.... (Score:2)
I disagree (Score:2)
I think that's a bit presumptious. I know the classic slashdot opinion is that the machines just sell because they're fancy colors, and while that may be a factor, it's not the only motivator -- particularly with long-time Mac fans.
Today, people buy a mac because it looks so damn cool.
That's nice and all, but that's know why I buy them. I buy them because it's the best tool for the work I do.
If the iMac (or cube, tower, etc) were running windows, people would buy it.
I disagree. In fact, one might look at the experimental industrial designs put out by other PC manufacturers (Compaq, Dell) that have failed.
This is why Darwin exists. Apple hopes that the OSS process will apply to its darwin and individual developers will scratch their respective itches and bring breadth to darwin's hardware support.
It's not just getting the drivers running on Darwin. Windows, in theory, has better driver support than anything else, but it still has tons of hardware/software compatibility problems. Apple would not be immune from this, and it would damage the brand name.
- Scott
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Scott Stevenson
Re:Okay, the metaphor sucks, but... (Score:2)
Re:A 'zippy roadster', yeah... right! (Score:2)
I think the author was referring more to the end-user experience than the kernel.
- Scott
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Scott Stevenson
Re:And this is a step in which direction? (Score:2)
Personaly, the less we say about the BSD backing on OSX, the better we'll all be in the long run.
The BSD (or really, Mach) side of things is good for 1) performance 2) stability and 3) porting of server applications.
Many iMac users won't care or know what BSD is.
- Scott
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Scott Stevenson
Re:What kind of file system does it use? (Score:2)
I think you're thinking of HFS (without the plus). HFS+ is capable of much longer filenames, but Mac OS 9 just doesn't utilize them.
- Scott
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Scott Stevenson
Re:Come on... (Score:3)
--meredith
Re:I'll bite.... (Score:3)
2) The programming isn't that hot either. True, I haven't programmed much, but it reminds me an aweful lot of Win32.
3) It's slow. It's really really slow. Even XFree86 4 is slow. Really really slow. You'd think that KDE2 running on XFree86 4.0 and kernel 2.4 (test8) would be fast. But it's not. It's slow. Really really slow. It's so slow, I'm actually glad to be rebooting back into NT. The last time I saw a file manager take as long to load as Konqueror was when I tried Active Desktop on an old 486. Every program seems to have a built in 10-second delay before it shows up, and when resizing programs flicker and rubber-band like mad. It's not KDE's fault (GNOME does it too) and nobody ever said the kernel was slow, so it has to be X. (One day, try resizing Konqueror (on a 300MHz machine) in a folder with a lot of files. Watch the flicker and rubber-banding. Now try the same in WindowsNT. Very little flicker, no rubber-banding. Try it in BeOS. No flicker whatsoever.
4) There are dozens of toolkits for it. What most people (toolkit writers) don't realize is that toolkits take RAM. It is silly that at any one time, I've got over 4 toolkits running concurently on my system. (TK, straight-X, GNOME, KDE, (and GTK and Qt if you count those as seperate, which in terms of size they are))
MacOS X on Intel. (Score:2)
Re:The reason Apple has based MAC OS X on UNIX (Score:2)
Apple's Darwin team sort of answers this in the Darwin FAQ [apple.com].
Apple wants to regain their hold on anyone using mac hardware, instead of having ppl using ported linux distributions, as *everyone* knows BSD now natively runs linux apps and is far more secure than linux.
I don't think Linux on PPC was a big factor. I don't think Linux was even really Linux actively used on PPC back in 1997 (when Apple bought NeXT).
Also they are hoping to gain a larger user base as many people who use *NIX will be wanting to give their new user friendly OS which is actually unix a try..
Certainly a factor.
now as they have ported everything to BSD does this mean BSD will now be able to run their apps?
probably not, you will need their own gui
It's much more than the GUI. There's also QuickTime (intergral part of Mac OS), Aqua, Quartz, Carbon, Cocoa. I think the only thing out of that list that might work on BSD is Cocoa via GNUStep.
this means you have no hope in running X apps on that
There are several efforts underway for this, as other posters have mentioned. You could probably get xclock running today if you wanted.
This would please me as their are a lot of mac apps out there which i would love to use on linux especially quick time.
QuickTime is much more than an "app." It's an entire multimedia infrastructure.
- Scott
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Scott Stevenson
Re:Come on... (Score:2)
Any normal Mac file can still have type / creator information. On a HFS+ disk (the default disk format for MacOSX) this is held within the directory structure rather than the file itself. Different strategies are used on filesystems where this can't be done (such as having a document bundle - essentially a directory that looks like a document, with various bits held in differrent files inside).
The real improvement is this. When a file comes from a PC, or UNIX source and does not have type / creator info within it, the OS is able to understand the extension. Hence .app and the rest of it. The OS can also recognise some filetypes by scanning the first few hundred bytes of the file against a set of templates. Any files starting %%pdf are acrobat files, or whatever. There was a great review covering all this, and a lot more, on arstechnica.
Corrections (Score:3)
Both come built-in. The former is Apache, btw.
nothing for media playback except for the proprietary QT4 player (hopefully optimized for OSX)
Download RealPlayer. Download Microsoft Media Player. Download Macster (for Napster).
and a TCP-IP stack that's about as stable as a tall stack of dimes
Uh, what? What makes you draw that conclusion?
All of this adds up to an unpleasant unix experience.
Doesn't really sound like you've used Mac OS X yet.
- Scott
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Scott Stevenson
What about mach? (Score:2)
No (Score:2)
This gets asked constantly. The reality is it would probably be pretty easy to get Mac OS X to boot on x86 hardware, but it wouldn't be a sound business decision for Apple for a variety of reasons. The main one is that Apple is a hardware company. Selling Mac OS X for x86 would put them smack up against Microsoft.
Plus, you wouldn't have access to the existing library of Mac software. You'd only be able to run Cocoa apps.
- Scott
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Scott Stevenson
The reason Apple has based MAC OS X on UNIX (Score:2)
Apple wants to regain their hold on anyone using mac hardware, instead of having ppl using ported linux distributions, as *everyone* knows BSD now natively runs linux apps and is far more secure than linux.
Also they are hoping to gain a larger user base as many people who use *NIX will be wanting to give their new user friendly OS which is actually unix a try..
(hell i have never liked macs but want to try out their new macos X).
now as they have ported everything to BSD does this mean BSD will now be able to run their apps?
probably not, you will need their own gui which will come with a significant price tag, and of course this means you have no hope in running X apps on that.
of course i could be wrong, maybe their gui is based on X or uses X libs in some way.
This would please me as their are a lot of mac apps out there which i would love to use on linux especially quick time.
Future tech support calls (Score:4)
User: Yeah, I am trying to use Perl to do some reporting on my apache access logs. But I have to recompile Perl to fix a bug in the regular expression matching, and there is no gcc installed on the system. What do I do?
Hotline: Ok sir is the computer plugged in?
User: Of course. (annoyed)
Hotline: Well, that fixes about 50% of the problems we get here.
User: But I just want to know how to install the GNU developer toolset.
Hotline: Ok sir, could you reboot the computer?
User: What the hell would that accomplish.
Hotline: Sir, please.
User: (pretends to reboot). Ok, rebooted
Hotline: Wow, you have a fast machine.
Did that fix your problem?
User: *dialtone*
Re:NeXTSTEP wasn't a good Unix either (Score:2)
Re:article references DeCSS-through-DNS! (Score:2)
sig:
Re:Unix as a desktop (Score:2)
This already happened 11 years ago. Remember, Mac OS X is basically just a repackaged NeXTSTEP. Unfortunately, it isn't equal to NeXTSTEP.
Re:What kind of file system does it use? (Score:2)
You mean like /usr/share/magic ?
Re:MacOS X is just what Linux needs. (Score:2)
Perhaps Apple would. I seem to recall some kind of lawsuit or something relating to an Enlightenment theme (perhaps called aqua) that looked a lot like a Mac OS interface. I don't remember how or if it was settled.
Anyone recall what I can't about this incident? Given the little that I can remember, I can't find any related references.
Re:Getting rid of Tcl/Tk and groff (Score:2)
Re:Heh. Now MS Office will run on *nix! (Score:2)
Snort.
For $12500 I could build a streetrod that would make a Porsche 911 huddle in a corner and beg for mercy.
I'd rather just go buy the stylishly packaged and quite sufficient for my needs alternative, thank you very much.
This is how a Mac user thinks. We're just not interested in being penny-scratching bottom feeders. You want to, hey good on you mate. Just don't ever think that you're going to make a Mac user do anything other than pity you.
(Moderators: This is not flamebait. Ask your nearest Mac user. Troll, maybe
Re:Compiler/dev tool availability (Score:2)
If they do want to do development it's a great convience. If they don't, it's just 40 megs or so on their HD that doesn't get used.
Re:Here's why GNU tools weren't included. (Score:2)
And thankfully RMS's license renders RMS's own opionion on this matter not worth a bucket of spit. Solaris 8 includes many GNU tools. BeOS includes the entire GNU toolchain. Cygwin is a GNU distribution for Windows. None of these OS's are GPL'd and my guess is none of them solicited RMS's opinion. My guess is neither did Apple, or for that matter, even Linus.
Re:OS X for x86? (Score:2)
It's a little more complex than that. One of the reasons the Mac is so easy to use is that the OS doesn't have to support tons and tons of video cards, SCSI cards, hard drives, etc. It's standardized hardware. So a Mac OS X on x86 would probably not work as seamlessly as one on PPC.
This intergration also allows Apple to make simultaneous changes to both the hardware and OS to introduce new features. Example: AirPort.
- Scott
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Scott Stevenson
Office is going Carbon. Period. (Score:2)
Errrr.... My guess MS is going for Carbon. I remember back in the days before Carbon when MS was reluctant to commit to moving to the native NeXTSTEP APIs (in Objective-C) for Rhapsody. These are the APIs that are now called Cocoa. When Apple announced Carbon, which is a new revision of the old Mac OS API set with all the crud removed, MS was one of the first supporters of the move. It's no wonder why!
Re:Ummm.. (Score:2)
Apple is plugging "new" OS features like memory protection that even Microsoft had 8 years ago with NT. The sky is bondi blue in your world, isn't it?
Re:Ummm.. (Score:2)
For the whole of its existence, the Macintosh operating system has been a prime example of consistency and graceful design. And for the whole of its existence, the Unix operating system has been, um, not.
Hey, hey! I beg to differ!
Simply: cat essay | sed "s/design/user interface/g"
It's okay. I figure the user interface in a year or two will be equal on Linux, BSD, BeOS, Mac and Windows. Then other aspects (stability, ease of upgrade, price point, industry standard) will affect the overall "user experience", of which UI *is* an important part.
That's not to imply that a GUI is the only good UI. But I ran bash on my Win98 box. UI is slowly evening out between the various OSes. Look at Win2k's "stability" being touted.
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Evan
GNUStep doesn't really get you there (Score:2)
From what I understand, GNUStep would probably only help you run Cocoa applications. Most of the interesting stuff that exists today is written to Carbon. More Cocoa apps should appear as time goes on.
However, even if you got something to run Cocoa apps, you still wouldn't have Quartz or QuickTime.
- Scott
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Scott Stevenson
Re:Okay, the metaphor sucks, but... (Score:2)
Neither do I (did I say anything like that?). But the comparison by the author was not between Linux and MacOS X, the comparison was between UNIX and MacOS X. UNIX (meaning, what the systems research lab at Bell Labs developed) was consistent, well designed, and clean.
UNIX started from scratch and developed a few novel paradigms that worked well for its user base at the time. If only Apple had done the same with their next generation OS. Instead, Apple did what they have always done: get a bunch of technology from other companies and market the hell out of it. Yes, it is still better than Windows NT, but that doesn't make it much less disappointing. For true innovation, we'll apparently have to look elsewhere.
Its not a server damnit (Score:2)
Why the GNU system is "bloated" (Score:2)
<O
( \
XGNOME vs. KDE: the game! [8m.com]
Re:This is amazing... (Score:2)
I'd feel sorry for you, but I'm suspecting you frequently play network Q3 on a LAN and a 21"... Bastard. :)
Re:Compiler/dev tool availability (Score:3)
The reason for this may be so that mortal users are not expected to actually compile their own software to use it. Example: Windows doesn't come with compilers, so virtually all Windows software (even Apache, PHP, etc.) come in binary form.
Wide availabilty of free, quality development tools is one thing that's allowed Linux to skyrocket in popularity. If MacOS [7|8|9] had included a free copy of CodeWarrior (or equivalent) with each desktop, there would be a lot more software for the Mac today. Lots of people want to learn to program for their favorite platform but few are willing or able to shell out megabucks for the necessary tools.
Dev tools don't have to be included in the default install, or even on the install CD, but making them easily and freely available can help ensure a platform's future popularity.
I agree that end users should not have to muck with compiling software. Hopefully OS X has a decent binary package format.
--
Mac OS X on x86 history (Score:4)
Anyone know if Apple are planning a port to x86?
No, they are not. It would be financial suicide since Apple is a hardware company. If Apple ever went to x86 -- say, if the other members of the AIM consordium don't come down from their server and embedded white towers to make a good desktop chip again -- it would probably be done in such a way as to require the OS to only run on machines for which Apple got a cut of the revenue. Apple cannot survive as just an OS vendor, and unlike MS, Apple does not have enough other high-priced, high-demand software to subsidize their OS development.
The History of Mac OS X and the x86 family
When Apple was shopping around for an OS to replace the Mac OS, they happened to be pointed the right way to NeXT, Inc. who sold this little known OS called OPENSTEP. OPENSTEP was a cross-platform, non-hardware dependent version of their original hardware-tied OS, NeXTSTEP. It ran on Intel, SPARC, m68k chips (and maybe a few others that I can't remember off the top of my head). Because of this, it had a beautifully portable code base. (It was also about $4000 per license, IIRC.)
Rhapsody is announced. Basically, this would be OPENSTEP on PPC and x86 which a Mac-ified interface and few new pieces of technology such as Java and Quicktime. The native environment will be known as the Yellow Box. All old Mac applications will run as second-class citizens in a seperate application known as the Blue Box environment. All new applications should be developed in the rich OPENSTEP APIs in Objective-C and, soon, Java.
Mac OS X would supposedly be the king of all Java platforms. If that wasn't good enough, the OPENSTEP APIs would be ported as an development layer for WinNT. (This was actually included for a while with WebObjects for NT.) This meant that there would be an extremely powerful and versatile set of APIs for universal Win NT and Mac development in two very clean OO languages -- Objective-C and Java. The first developer release of Rhapsody was shipped for PPC and x86.
Fast forward. Traditional Mac developers are threatening to abandon the Mac completely if they are going to have to abandon their old code base or forever have it run as a second-class citizen without the new benefits of the new Mac OS. Microsoft is one of these developers, and we all should know that if MS Office leaves the Mac, that's the death knell for the Mac -- at least at that time before the Mac's recovery had progressed far enough. Furthermore, MS was rumored to be upset at the prospect of the Yellow Box APIs for Windows and at having a viable competitor consumer OS on x86. Apple was also seeing little support for OEMs putting Rhapsody/x86 on their machines since they already had to pay MS for Windows on each one. Apple also realizes that if developers did adopt the new APIs, there would be less reason for people to by Apple hardware since they could get all the advantages without paying Apple -- especially since Rhapsody/x86 didn't require an Apple ROM.
So, all x86 releases are put on hold and cancelled. Rhapsody (a development name) is officially called Mac OS X (Ten, not Ehcks). The first developer's release of Mac OS X Server does not include an x86 version. In a year or two more, Yellow Box for NT would disappear from WebObjects. Originally, Mac OS X and Mac OS X Server would be different products, with Apple including licenses for some of their server software (WebObjects and Appletalk services) on the server version. Eventually, this is all scrapped in favor of one OS, since the distinctions between the two were minimal.
Fast forward. Apple releases the source code to the underlying BSD layer as they had previously promised as Darwin. Fast forward again. An Apple engineer boots Darwin on x86 and announces it to the world. Carmack does a little work on porting XFree86 to Darwin.
Fast forward to today. There is no x86 Mac OS X. There is an x86 port of Darwin. No, this is not the same. There is no Apple graphics layer and no Mac or OPENSTEP APIs included -- just BSD level stuff. There will probably never be an x86 Mac OS X. It would destroy Apple financially unless they take measures to secure revenue from Mac OS X sales in ways that would also make them unpopular, such as ridiculous prices for the new OS or only letting it run on machines with a special Apple ROM for which they charge money.
In the end, Mac OS X would always be more expensive than Windows since Apple does not have Office and other software to prop up its OS development, and most OEMs have to pay the Windows tax anyway. I repeat, Apple is a hardware company. Seperating the OS and the hardware divisions into two companies or eliminating one will kill them both. Apple needs a superior OS to sell their more expensive hardware, and they need to sell their hardware to pay for developing the OS. United, they stand, divided they fall.
As an aside, this is why Apple will never open the source to the higher level APIs. If you could remove the dependency on Apple to get Apple's OS, Apple would not get any more money. Apple would die. While many Open Source advocate would have no problem with this or even love to see it happen, Apple is not that stupid. This would be destroying the OS side of Apple. See the above paragraph for what would happen to the hardware side. It won't happen -- get over it.
On Apple II... (Score:2)
Apple doesn't expect it's regular users to build software; they will install pre-built binaries. That, combined with the enormous size of all of the development tools and documentation
That can be put in HTML or even PDF (with all the PDF support in the native rendering system, they could probably write Acrobat in about 1000 LOC). An extra CD in the distribution costs less than $1 (probably much less) to press. Call it an "Unsupported Extras" CD if you're worried about supporting it.
is the reason why the consumer versions of the OS won't have the tools. The development tools will always be something seperate for developers.
Back in the day when Apple was popular, Apple II computers came with two flavors of Basic interpreters (Integer Basic and Bill [microsoft.com]'s Applesoft) and a mini-assembler, along with instructions on how to use them.
<O
( \
XGNOME vs. KDE: the game! [8m.com]
Re:No (Score:2)
Cocoa apps?!?
Cocoa apps!?!
I go koo-koo [parascope.com] for Cocoa apps!!!
Sorry. Couldn't resist.
Re:No (Score:2)
big endian
little endian
big problem
Re:The ultimate irony. (Score:2)
the union of "Unix" and "Not Unix" is "everything"
OK, here's the UNIX [unix-systems.org] web site.
Here's the GNU's Not UNIX [gnu.org] web site.
Neither of those sites has everything [everything2.com].
<O
( \
XGNOME vs. KDE: the game! [8m.com]
Mac OS-X uses GNU (Score:4)
Anyway, the deal is that the development tools aren't in the public beta you can buy from the Apple Store. However, registered Apple developers get all of the development tools, which includes a very nice IDE that is brand new and not based at all on the old NeXT ProjectBuilder.
Apple doesn't expect it's regular users to build software; they will install pre-built binaries. That, combined with the enormous size of all of the development tools and documentation, is the reason why the consumer versions of the OS won't have the tools. The development tools will always be something seperate for developers.
Burris
The problem with X-Windows (Score:2)
(1) It's hideously ugly in most incarnations.
(2) People who try to make it pretty, like those nice folks who created Enlightenment, wind up producing something bloated and inefficient due to the basic design of X.
(3) Font support is mind-bendingly bad; there are hardly any fonts available that don't hurt the eyes just to look at them.
Now, it's true these problems are being worked on, but I have yet to see a solution that works well enough for me to find it appealing.
In striking contrast, MacOS X was designed from the ground up, as a major requirement, to be beautiful. And this is a job that, quite frankly, we can trust Steve Jobs to do. He may be a maniac about those poor rumors sites, and he may be a bastard to work with, but he sure does know how to design pretty stuff.
We look at our computers so much
(I have a dual G4/450 I bought about a week ago, and it's a fantastic machine even running the ancient MacOS 9).
D
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Re:Its not a server damnit (Score:2)
I think you're jumping to a lot of conclusions. Just because Apple's main focus right now is designers, consumers and education doesn't mean that's the way it's going to be forever.
I wouldn't really expect Apple to compete against Solaris anytime soon, but it can certainly evolve into a capable small-to-mid-range server platform with a little work. Heck, people have been using Mac OS (the non-Unix kind) as servers for years.
- Scott
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Scott Stevenson
Some food for thought (Score:2)
However, if I want to keep myself reasonably modern, I have to buy a PC about every year, while I only have to buy a Mac every other year. Also, a year-old PC is worth basically $ 0, while a two year old Mac is worth about $ 500.
Add this all together:
PC
$ 1,200 Year 1
$ 1,200 Year 2
----------
$ 2,400
Minus circa $200 as value of year-old system
$ 2,200
Mac
$ 2,500 Year 1
$ -0- Year 2
-----------
$ 2,500 Total spent
Minus $ 500 salvage value old machine
Net expenditure $ 2,000.
So with the lesser amount of built-in obsolescence the Mac has, it's actually slightly cheaper for me to run than a PC that's kept up to date.
Of course I could upgrade my PC, but I'm not sure how much sense that makes. After all, to take advantage of the latest technology has to offer, you really need entirely new components: Motherboards, CPUs, disk drives, memory and video cards are all getting better and better. And I really doubt you could replace all those components for less than what a completely new system would cost.
D
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Re:Unix as a desktop (Score:2)
But seriously, I'd keep it in the Apple column, simply because Apple developed it and people are going to be using it because it's the Apple OS, not because it's Unix.
D
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Re:Heh. Now MS Office will run on *nix! (Score:2)
Apple's a business. And a profitable one at that. They have shareholders.
And quite frankly, I'd be scared to see what all the hackers would do to the Mac OS X UI.
And Mac hardware cost a small fortune.
iMacs start at $799, and you can get a tower G4 for $1600 with single CPU, or $2500 for dual and gigabit ethernet built-in.
- Scott
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Scott Stevenson
Re:My Innocent Comment (Score:2)
PS> If he did't get modded down for calling GNU stuff bloated and sloppy (which it isn't) I shouldn't get modded down for calling Linux bloated and sloppy
Re:Okay, the metaphor sucks, but... (Score:2)
Or, for that matter, what should I use when I want to take off my programmer's hat and use Photoshop or Final Cut [video editing package] or even a word processor?
True, Gimp and StarOffice and friends are here and making some inroads, but even there the ugly fonts and bad printing are a royal pain.
What MacOS X really does is make it possible for us to be able to sincerely and wholeheartedly recommend a solution that actually works for our friends without making us wince.
I think it's fantastic, personally. I have a dual G4/450 right here just waiting for the new beta (which I've ordered).
D
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No, it's just optimized differently. (Score:2)
Actually, I believe in the Version 6 era, it ran on machines with ~64K of memory.
The GNU system is actually built around "no arbitrary limits." Go read the man-page for tail on a SunOS machine (ok, those are rare these days, but not so rare at the time I learned UNIX®), and it'll say something about lines being limited to 1024 characters or thereabouts. GNU saw that the functionality provided by the UNIX® toolset was desirable and the mindset of "a sharp tool for each task" was powerful, but also saw that arbitrary limits really dulled UNIX®'s blade. Therefore, as the limitations imposed by small memory and expensive CPU were no longer present, GNU optimized their efforts for flexibility rather than size.
I'd say it was the "right way" in many ways, although the featuritis in some programs has served to dull GNUs blade in other ways.
--Joe--
Re:Corrections (Score:2)
Both come built-in. The former is Apache, btw.
I think you meant to say the latter not the former.
Mark Duell
Re:Compiler/dev tool availability (Score:2)
You said it's not really necessary as binaries are the normal way of distributing software, and that development tools of some sort will be available.
So what are the cons?
Re:Why the GNU system is "bloated" (Score:2)
1) All the toolkits present in the average GNU system. Loads 'o bloat. However, very flexible FOR THE PROGRAMMER, NOT THE USER.
2) GNOME. Tons 'o stuff there that nobody really needs. Especiall Sawmill, who gives a damn if you can alter the thing with Lisp. Isn't Lisp SLOW?
3) GCC: Tons of flexibility, huge compiler.
4) The "GNU" in GNU/Linux. Lots of stuff nobody ever uses, but you have to have installed anyway because there is exactly one program you have to run that uses it. I could totally ditch Lesstif, if it wasn't for my midi player. I could get rid of TK if the kernel X config didn't use it, I could get rid of GTK if GIMP didn't use it (I use KDE), I could get rid of Perl if the system didn't use it (none of my programs do), I could get rid of gawk, bison, m4, groff, etc if there wasn't exactly one (like man and groff) program that didn't use it. Is there a reason that the minimal usable Linux install is about 400MB? A minimal usable NT install is about 250MB. A full BeOS install is 200MB, including media files and sample code.
Re:hello? good morning? gnu dev. tools *are* there (Score:2)
The article is correct. DP4 had gcc, etc. because it was intended for developers. The public beta does not, however the tools will be available for download in mid-October.
- Scott
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Scott Stevenson
Re:My Innocent Comment (Score:2)
Re:Compiler/dev tool availability (Score:2)
Re:Cons (Score:2)
The only con is extra disk space. I would leave off all the documentation (which is about half of it). The rest is probably tiny compared to all the free movies and sounds and images and ads and other stuff that is going to be on there!
Re:Sit back and laugh (Score:2)
High-end? modern? (Score:4)
Andoveer tech support calls (Score:3)
User: Hello? You guys own Slashdot.org, right?
Hotline: Yes, sir, we do. Is there a problem?
User: Well, you see, I own Slashdot stock, and...
Hotline: Huh. There's no such thing as a stock hotline. The author of this post is such a moron.
User: Shut up, bitch!
Enoch Root: Yeah!
User: Anyway, I went on Slashdot the other day, and there was this post marked Funny...
Hotline: Yes, that's call moderation. What about it?
User: Well, it wasn't funny. It was just this guy calling a hotline, and then making references to the article, but the conversation was really dumb.
Hotline: I'm sorry to hear that.
User: The worst was, it had no punchline. And it lasted too long.
Hotline: Oh.
User: Yes. Without anything happening.
Hotline: Oh.
User: Yes.
Hotline: I see.
User: Anyway, I want a refund.
Hotline: No. User: *dialtone*
What do GNU tools have to do with UNIX? (Score:4)
--
Finally (Score:4)
Suggested reading on this topic (Score:3)
Thanks to darwininfo.org [darwinfo.org] for the link!
- Scott
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Scott Stevenson
Apple will release all the GNU tools in Oct!!!! (Score:3)
Apple will release all the GNU tools plus their own spiffy IDE (called Project Builder) in mid-October!
The following comes from MacAddict's Article [macaddict.com] about getting GNU tools:
***********************************************
Apple has announced that development tools for the public beta will be made available to ADC Online members starting in mid-October. If you can bear to wait the month, it'll be worth it.
***********************************************
It is free to become an ADC Online member. I should know, I've done it. I look forward to being able to use all the GNU tools with the MacOS X beta as well.
For those of you who can't wait till mid-October, sign up as a Darwin developer and you'll be able to get all the latest code from the CVS server and you can compile your own GNU tools and new kernels and all that great stuff!
-Tom Hackett
of www.Darwinfo.org [darwinfo.org]
Yes, you are missing something (Score:3)
There are several levels of ADC member. "ADC Online" membership is free, and will get you access to the tools in question. Or, get the compilers from Darwin [macaddict.com] right now.
I'm considering developing on OSX, but not if it costs $400 for some GNU based tools. That's almost as expensive as Visual Studio...
Not only gcc, etc free, but it looks like Project Builder and company will be available for free as well.
- Scott
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Scott Stevenson
Does Mac OS X have package management? (Score:3)
A real package system would also make it so convenient to upgrade the system, especially during the beta cycle. Right now, there is apparently significant missing functionality in the beta (no airport, no USB printing) that could presumably be "dropped in" as it arrives.