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At least not in a dual-boot environment. QEMU, WINE, Darwine evne the ghastly Virtual PC should cater for whatever obscure Windows-needs I might stumble across (though I doubt I'll ever try running Windows on my Macs other than just for trying it).

I don't think this is one of Patrick's main prioritise.
to port slackware to the new macs

Edited 2006-01-20 22:30

He isn't involved with the Slamd64 or Slackintosh projects, either, yet both of those exist, and work quite nicely (Though I must admit, the software selection for Slackintosh is a bit limited at the moment). I'm sure someone will have created an unofficial port by the time I can afford a PowerMac.

Well, if that were possible, then why not just format your hard drive and install WindowsXP?

I mean seriously, that's pretty much a no brainer.

Itanium uses EFI. Windows boots on that just fine. I doubt it'd take much to make a future version of Windows for x86 boot.

It's not likely to happen anytime soon, but if Microsoft were to find value in ditching the current PC bios in favor of something more modern, an available platform would give them extra leverage to initiate change.

Of course, that's a big if.

Hm, maybe it's not easy on the same partition, but let's say you have an external HD on firewire or something. I suppose you could easily install linux on this, probably some version of windows too.

For professional developers who make their money off of MS tools/platforms, yes it is. I would love to be able to boot into Mac for day to day non-work related stuff, and be able to boot into Windows to get some work done. The best of both worlds, on one PC...sounds like nirvana to me.

i'm not sure if I understand the point of your post?


If you're "completely satisfied" with Ubuntu, then why search further?

Having to dual-boot is an inconvenience, ad therefore a disincentive, but with Ubuntu I'm at least not paying anything. But when you have to shell out a fair amount of money to get this inconvenience, then surely the disincentive gets bigger?

Edited 2006-01-20 23:08

"...it would have to satisfy all of my needs."

Then again, the Mac may satisfy needs you never knew you had.

News.com surely doesn't know which OS'es are the most popular, considering Linux on the desktop has a userbase around twice the size of Mac OS X

Before any one else makes the obligatory response, I will:

sources, please.

At best, looking at stats from, say, w3schools, Linux and Mac are even. But I have my doubts as to how popular Linux truly is on the desktop. Other websites give much lower numbers.

Yeah, there's actually a story about this ...

Google's Zeitgeist up until a certain year reported OS statistics along with everything else that they do now. Linux usage, as reported by Google based on the entire year's, was miniscule. Some pro-Linux site complained (I guess the truth hurts?), and Google no longer provides OS statistics.

Wasn't there a large amount of "Other" OS's though? Presumably most of them were some type of Linux/Unix. And when they were added in OSX wasn't far ahead or might have even been behind.

Perhaps I'm thinking of something else though.

I wouldn't be surprised if more people use OSX than Linux, but I do think it's probably close.

Apparently osViews is now a pro-Linux site.

Who else would complain about a negative truth about Linux?

You mean the negative truth about MacOS, right?

*Excellent* dodge.

Not.

osViews is run by a Mac proponent, and the concern over Google's statistics stemmed from their use in determining the mythical "install base" of alternative operating systems like MacOS. Since you alternate between being a raving BSD, Windows, and MacOS fanatic, I found it especially entertaining that you suggested the decision was a result of a pro-Linux effort when it was actually the result of a pro-MacOS effort. This is just more of the fact-based decision making that you think you engage in.

or... fire up VMWare/vpc.

"My vote goes toward virtualization. You can freeze the guest OS, you can run it at almost full-speed which is good for most applications."

I'd have to second this. There are only a few things that people do that truely suck running in virtualized environments, and chances are if you're buying a Mac, you know it's going to be doing the things you want it to do anyway, and certainly won't be buying it just to run Windows.

There are always going to be exceptions, but when I get around to buying one of those MacBooks (perhaps in their second incarnation), I'm not going to be spending time or energy trying to get Windows, Linux, BSD or whatever else to run on it. I'll be buying it to get a decent machine that's easy to use, fairly stable and secure, with a Terminal.app security blanket for those times when the GUI just doesn't suit the job at hand.

You, my friend, have a brain that actually works. Nice job.

good idea:

download image....

jump through some hoops... jump through more hoops

keep jumping till I get dizzy

push really really really hard

ah.. there, now I have OS X on my Dell/// it only took me for ever and a day and I will have to do this all over again to upgrade the OS next time.

Actually a dual core dell laptop costs about the same price as the macbook pro (2999 swiss francs here). The difference is that the dell has a huge 17 inch screen and slightly higher clock frequency. On the other hand it looks... ugly like a dell, bulky like a dell.

I'd rather have a mac as primary system and a pc virtual process just to run explorer to view how buggy the rendering engine is and adapt css code to work through it. Currently I use a remote user on a windows 2003 server, just to run explorer. Maybe if I could do it locally, that would be better (in a faster way than VirtualPC allows me to do now).

what have they got to lose?

hmm.... their revenue stream.

The day Apple decides to sell S X for any old PC, is the day I jump ship.

If OS X requires most of the hardware to be Apple-hardware (motherboard, cpu, memory, psu etc.), it's much easier to make a stable OS. If OS X could run on any home made budget motherboard + second hand cpu, you would see a lot of complaints.

It took a long time for Microsoft to make an OS that is stable on most hardware configurations. Apple doesn't have that time, because everything has to work right now.

Simple answer: Apple makes some incredibly sexy hardware compared to their PC counterparts, and now they are selling said hardware for a pretty decent price. I wouldn't want OSX running on my peice of crap PC, I'd want it on a Mac, along with a copy of Windows to have the best of both worlds.

Perhaps you need to calm down. You seem irrational.

As for your statements, I have never had *fewer* problems with wireless connections than with my iBook.

The 'Oh so hard' steps to setup an ad-hoc session in OSX (With Internet sharing).

1. Start your Mac.
2. Click on the Airport Icon
3. Click 'Create Network...'
4. Type a name where it says 'Name:'
5. Click OK

Now for internet Sharing...

1. Click Apple
2. Click System Prefrences
3. Click Sharing
4. Click Internet
5. Select Ethernet to Airport
6. Click 'Turn On'

Sorry dude, you luck out... no compiling kernels to get something done simply.

Now... Challange.... Tell me how you do it in linux/Windows.

If simplicity scares you, than OS X is not for you. But so far you have no point. If it took you 'Hours and Hours' with a 'Mac Support'.
Your claims are rediculus and un-founded.

Setting static IPs? Dude, Internet sharing TURNS ON A DHCP SERVER.
And without internet sharing, your 169.254.x.x is perfectly useable.
I suppose you think Bojour (Rendezvous) is worthless also?

You have some serious emotional problems to be calling people gay.

Do I have to make a movie for you??!

Client on an ad-hoc network. client on an ad-hoc network. Please understand now. You are shaking my faith in mankind.

Since the only option you have is to Create an ad-hoc session or join one, maybe you need the steps to join one..


1. Airport menu
2. Select network.

By it's very meaning, Ad Hoc is computer to computer networking without base station... what is so difficult about it?

"Not everyone agrees that OSX is best"

Certainly true, but I think it likely that most people agree that you're a foul mouthed idiot.

"You are gay"

You throw that term around often enough that I am beginning to wonder if perhaps you're looking for some action yourself.

While not all Canadians are gay, I'm sure we can magic up something long and pointy for you to sit on. Let's call it an asshole's throne, something I'm sure would be very fitting for you.

This conversation has become emotional and unreasonable. Perhaps everyone should calm down before the admins decide to eliminate all comments.

"You mac people, on top of being mainly gay and canadian,"

Is there something wrong with being Canadian? Because I'm a Candian and I wouldn't have it any other way.

How does owning a Mac make people "gay and canadian"? Last time I checked profiling people based on the hardware they buy wasn't a proven science.

It seems to me you implied that whole sentence with contempt, that whole "gay and canadian" part seems to hold obvious negative connotation to me.

Give me one good reason why I shouldn't take offence to this and moderate you down.

Someone ban him?

"Anyone who says that XP is buggy or bad interface or confusing or any of that crap hasn't used XP much.
...
Like you know, one day I tried to help my gay canadian friend set up his wireless in an ad-hoc network. Yeah right! f--king Mac support couldn't even help us after we tried for literally hours to get it working."


you tried hours to get wireless in ad-hoc mode working, because you simply haven't used MacOSX much. you proved that yourself in your comment. so funny. that means you are just a no-brainer or simply a stupid kid with much time to waste. go and do your homework first please.

Edited 2006-01-21 13:26

It's not the partition I think but rather the partition scheme. If you open Disk Utility on a mac you can see you can chose between Apple Partition Table or IBM PC partitition table (or something like that).

It is very unlikely that Windows would run on a partition inside an Apple Partition table.

umm... you go into the preferences and set it to activate a right mouse click on a ctrl-click.

Holding down a key and pressing the left click button to right click seems rather unintuitive and inconvenient to me.

Personally I'd preffer it if Apple either had two buttons, or one button that was sensitive over which side was pressed. By default both sides could count as a left click unless the settings were changed by the user. That way it's more convenient, and won't upset anyone still attached to having just one mouse button. The one button which is sensitive over which side is pressed is such a simple and small solution, who would notice the difference unless they wanted to enable the right-click feature?

I can't believe Apple would have such a hard time implementing something like this, and I can't think of any excuses why it couldn't or shouldn't be done.

http://www.apple.com/mightymouse/

I knew about that, but the problem is it's not built into their laptops. Apple could easily implement a two button mouse on their laptops the same way they implemented the two button functionality into the mighty mouse, by having it sensitive over which side was pressed. By default both sides could function like the left mouse button until the user changes the settings.

actually, on a laptop it is not that hard or awkward. you hands are already in position, and I find it more convenient since I do not mis-click, ever.

It comes down to a matter of preference, the way it is now works for you but I would find it inconvenient. If the option I suggested were available there would be an ideal solution for both of us don't you think?

I suppose that should tell you something about the useability of the user-interfaces on other platforms.
If you cant do something because you do not have 2 mouse buttons, someone did not think the GUI out properly.

I know it's hard, but let me give you an example.
Just this morning, I booted my mac into Ubuntu linux, everything seems to work great... until I needed to eject the cd from the cdrom...
I noticed that there was no menu option for it, there was no settings for the keyboard to setup control-click of any sort. I am a tad bit smarter and used umount and eject in a terminal session, but how many computer users know this?

You mean in the day and age that almost no one but people you would call your friends know what the right click mouse button EVEN is, that the UI guidelines are not the problem it's the one button mouse?

I know thinking makes your toes hurt, so you do not have to reply to this post.

"I suppose that should tell you something about the useability of the user-interfaces on other platforms."

I dissagree, I'll even go so far as to say that's a typical knee-jerk reaction against having two mouse buttons and it's foundation is purely subjective, hence your total lack of facts to back such an absurde statement.

Two mouse buttons may seem foreign or poorly designed to you if you're not used to it, but to someone who is it's a convenient feature. Right clicking gives me a convenient menu with quick access to related functions for the widget my mouse is over. I don't know how Macs handle this because I haven't had a chance to use one, but I've found right clicking to be very usefull and never poorly designed beyond the layout of the menu in some software.

I'm curious, do you have something like a right click menu on your mac, or do you have to move your mouse all the way up to the menus at the top of the screen in order to get the same functionality? If your software doesn't have right click menus, getting to the functionality you want would probably involve learning hot-keys which is more work than right clicking, or moving your mouse all the way to the menus at the top of the screen which again is more work. I'd much rather have my right click menu.

Yes, there is... it's Control Click, read my prev post. My issue is not two buttons. My issue is the developers lack of adding full functionality for single clicks.

In my example of ejecting a cdrom. The option is most certanly there, but ONLY available for right clicking. Most people do not know what the right button even does.

There is nothing wrong with 2 or 12 button mice, but the developers need to think about user interface guidelines put in place for someone that might not be as smart as self.

OSX was designed to be used with a two-button mouse. There's right clicking pretty much everywhere there is on Windows. In that respect, my Apple Pro mouse is actually very inconvenient. $30 down the drain on that one, eh?

I think I had the same problem once. My browser didn't send a "referrer"-header, and OSNews requires that for some reason.

Turn on the referrer-header in your options menu, and it should solve the problem.

The reason for buying a Mac will be that it can run OS X without people having to circumvent the ball and chain Apple intends to use to keep it from running on non-Mac hardware. Correct me of I'm wrong, but in the US circumventing Apple's features like that counts as a violation of the DMCA.

Then there's the people who couldn't care less about OS X and just want the alluminum box and it's innards.

Oh, no! My next computer is the Intel-equivalent PowerMac running Windows (they'll find a way). Apple hardware is absolutely top-of-the-line in every respect. The case design alone is worth it, not to mention the cooling system inside.

"Oh, no! My next computer is the Intel-equivalent PowerMac running Windows (they'll find a way). Apple hardware is absolutely top-of-the-line in every respect. The case design alone is worth it, not to mention the cooling system inside"

Oh my God I can't tell who's serious and who's sarcastic anymore

That's a good post, but it just proves my point even more.
My issue is not the fact of having/not having right button on mouse. My issue is not even about having/not having a right click menu.
My issue is the developers who do not write code for the norm.

My example of Gnome ejecting a cdrom, how would anyone new to linux eject a cdrom without knowing the CLI commands?

One of the smartest implamentations for right click I have ever seen started on the mac with OS X, and works flawlessly with FireFox for OS X.
Simply hold your click for more than one second, there is the right click menu.

What is funny is how this mouse stuff relates to another thread on OSNews, where people are objecting to the waste and duplication of effort involved in OSS projects.

The lesson, though its one that Apple will never learn, is that human interface guidelines are totally out of date. They were an 80s concept. Now that the market has matured, uses of computers have proliferated, and users are much more heterogenous lot than they were, it is surely obvious that one size does not fit all?

When the mac users talk about one button being all you need because it is all they personally need, this is what Linus called UI Fascism, or something like that. It is not that you need more than one button because the interface or app is designed wrong. You need more than one button because you feel like having more than one.

What's wrong with that? If enough people feel that way, one button is wrong. For most people. This is what has happened. The right solution for a provider is to offer both. For a couple of percent of the market to tell the rest that what they like is wrong is ridiculous. The other 95% are probably working differently, that's all.

Apple's problem is that it is stuck in a time warp on this.

Um, Apple offers a damn three-button 360-degree scrolling mouse now. It's standard on the iMac. Get over the one button thing already.