“Apple Computer has quietly extended an overture to the Unix community, with the release of software that would make it easier for Unix applications to run on the Mac operating system.” Read the interesting article at News.com. “The XFree86 Project had been working on a port for OS X, and Apple “took the ball and ran with it a little further and integrated it more tightly into the system. We also made it easier to download,” Apple’s Brian Croll said.” NewsFactor has a similar story too. Update: Another Mac editorial today, this time a bit more controversial though.
Can the Mac Become the Unix Workstation of Choice?
About The Author
Eugenia Loli
Ex-programmer, ex-editor in chief at OSNews.com, now a visual artist/filmmaker.
Follow me on Twitter @EugeniaLoli
Well, when they brought Jordan Hubbard to Apple, I assumed they were going to do something specific with unix. This may be it.
Why did Apple see the necessity to do this? Aqua/Quartz is their GUI API, and you can download Project Builder for free from Apple. Did Apple get a message from people belonging to the ADC that Obj-C is not acceptable?
I just recently revived my iMAC 266 with a modest RAM ammount and it acts as my DNS, Mail server, NTOP monitor, occasional e-mail and WWW browsing. I can say that I was impressed with the responsiveness as from my 10.1 -> 10.2.3 upgrade and the ability to install Unix GNU apps (Webmin & NTOP).
I have been suprised by the open source software porting to MAC OS X -to make clear yes it is a BSD based box but Apple did not roadblock BSD ports. This is suprising since Apple usually is proprietary. I give Apple an A+ is a Unix workstation for Joe Computer Enthusiast.
-Metro305
Sorry.
The market for overpriced, underperforming and proprietary systems is owned by Sun and SGI.
And as soon as MS pulls support for Office and IE the rest 10,000 mac users are gonna defect.
At one time, they talk about CAD: for these kind of market it is doubtfull that Mac are adequate:
1) they lack the power
2) lack of 64 bitness: the Opteron will be big in the (small) market which need huge memory ammonts.
OTOH a laptop with MacOSX seems quite attractive for its versatility and relatively low power consumption, at least until Intel’s centrino is out.
“The market for overpriced, underperforming and proprietary systems is owned by Sun and SGI. And as soon as MS pulls support for Office and IE the rest 10,000 mac users are gonna defect.”
That’s YOUR opinion and your entitled to it. However, let me address your points with my opinion and personal experience:
1) Overpriced – based on what comparison? Apple systems come with almost everything I need or would want run/use in regards to software/hardware.
2) Underperforming – I have an 800 MHZ G4 iMac, with a 15 inch LCD screen. I have NEVER felt it was slow and certainly is faster than the PC’s I use at work.
3) proprietary systems – So? Microsoft Windows is “proprietary” as well, even if it does run on “open” hardware. does this make it less well designed? I think that it makes even better designed because Apple has control over the whole design process ( hardware/software ).
4) IE – There are quite a few good browsers on the Mac platform. There is really no need for IE.
5) Office – A good application and I doubt that MS would stop selling it on the Mac Platform since they make money with it. After all, that is the purpose of being in business. However, if they decide to pull development of Mac Office, there are other alternatives and they will continue to improve in their Office compatibility.
6) mac users are gonna defect – At least for long time Mac users, this is NOT true. They were Mac users BEFORE Office or IE and will continue to be Mac Users if those tools no longer are available.
Just my .02 cents….
For all the good things that Apple are doing with OS X, there is still a certain amount of suspicion of them and OS X amongst Unix-heads. It may be a Unix, but somehow it doesn’t feel like one for some reason, possibly because Apple markets it as MacOS first, and advertises the Unix compatibility second.
Interestingly NeXT had the same problem back in the day, they were really nice machines, and NeXTStep was very much Unix underneath, but on the whole Unix-heads preferred Suns and SGIs on their desk.
The NeXT hardware bears similarities to current Apple hardware too – really nicely inetgrated and well-thought-out machines in very attractive cases, but utterly outclassed in processing power by their more mass market rivals (Sun and SGI then, Intel PCs now).
Funny how times change but some things stay the same.
What do you mean aqua is thier GUI of choice? Hell, apple can’t make up their mind about what to use. On one side they use aqua, then they come out with these brushed-aluminum apps that clash completely with the rest of the OS.
Certainly in my organisation we would have never allowed Mac in before, just not enough of them to make support worthwhile.
But the idea of dropping a UNIX station & a PC for one machine that can run the UNIX tools an engineer requires but sill lets them use the Intranet, email & MS office is appealing, at the very least its one less machine to support.
Apple’s current line of hardware is underpowered because they’re stuck in a dead end relationship with motorola.
They haven’t been in a hurry to replace their G3/G4’s because the fact of the matter is most people don’t need anything faster than that. Your traditional mac user doesn’t even know what a CPU is. This is why Apple has been focussing on the software side of things. Ma and Pa Johnson don’t care if their CPU is only 800mhz, but they do care if their browser sucks or their OS crashes.
I think you will find that Apple has a pretty good plan to upgrade their hardware now that their OS is up to speed.
Would you rather Apple have gone the other route? Upgrade their hardware and postpone OS X for a few years? No, not at all. That would be a horrible idea. Hell you have a P4/Opteron(sp)/IBM970 10ghz mac, but what good would it be with OS 9…?
But one can achieve the very same thing for a fraction of the cost with Crossover running on an Intel PC. Plus, you can dual boot to run less-well emulated Windows apps.
The solution could be done for free if you were to use, say Debian and the regular Wine.
Apple, IMHO, will never succeed in the desktop Unix market because of the versatility of Linux and the slower technology of the PowerPC G4. The only market it might have a chance is on laptops but even there, Linux is a big factor.
If Apple would get faster processors, they’d stand much more of a chance. If it did, they could compete w/Sun or SGI or HP. I’d much prefer using a Mac to the crappy interfaces that Sun and SGI offer (yes, one can run other WMs, but most administrators are content to leave the defaults since they’re supported by the manufacturer). There’s no way they could compete w/Linux though since their prices could never be lower than free.
To those who say Macs are fast enough: maybe for you but for someone who needs to squeeze as much out of the hardware, there’s no way a G4 can beat a Sparc, Alpha, or Itanium for video rendering, data modeling, etc. Plus, as others have pointed out, MacOS is not 64-bit.
<snip>
Well, when they brought Jordan Hubbard to Apple, I assumed they were going to do something specific with unix. This may be it.
</snip>
They brought him in because the underlying *nix is based on FreeBSD 3.x and will move to 5.0 in future revisions. He’s the best guy for overseeing that, although I hate losing him from FreeBSD.
Good point about crossover, but its still emulation, its always going to be better to run apps natively.
“If Apple would get faster processors, they’d stand much more of a chance. ”
You’re right about one thing, the more processor power the better, after all the point here is to try and tackle the workstation market, thats means lots of memory and fast processors. If the performance of the applications under MacOSx is a lot worse than their Sun/HP/SGI workstations then people won’t move.
“Well, when they brought Jordan Hubbard to Apple”
I read all of the interviews with Jordan and understand that he solicited Apple applied like any other joe!
They might become the unix workstation, but that’s because the high quality hardware mac computers have…
Put linux in it.. like I did and you can see the diference in speed between mac os x and linux.. lol… quite a BIG BOOST!
Basically, good hardware, a good arquitecture and a good kernel(linux :-p) makes it a really good UNIX workstation eh he he.
long live my ibook2.2!
Would you rather Apple have gone the other route? Upgrade their hardware and postpone OS X for a few years? No, not at all. That would be a horrible idea. Hell you have a P4/Opteron(sp)/IBM970 10ghz mac, but what good would it be with OS 9…?
Very well put. Years ago, the PC people would rag on Macs for being slow and crashing and not being compatible. Now, slow is all they have. And that slow only exists in the world of hand-built demo machines that get reviewed in magazines. It is not the real-life world of 1Ghz PCs that take 10 secs to redraw a web page or 45 secs to wake from sleep.
There’s no way they could compete w/Linux though since their prices could never be lower than free.
There is more in the world than just price. How come I can get CUPS running on MacOS X but not on RedHat?
Macs are still around because they offer the best package in terms of price, performance, and ease-of-use. You can find faster, cheaper, and more compatible. You won’t find another easy-to-use OS that runs thousands of apps, X11, GNU, Photoshop, Office, Windows ™ and does it on a $1500 laptop.
Does no one use Citrix?
“Well, when they brought Jordan Hubbard to Apple”
I read all of the interviews with Jordan and understand that he solicited Apple applied like any other joe!
Yes, but one can hardly call JKH “any other joe”.
<quote>
They haven’t been in a hurry to replace their G3/G4’s because the fact of the matter is most people don’t need anything faster than that. Your traditional mac user doesn’t even know what a CPU is. This is why Apple has been focussing on the software side of things. Ma and Pa Johnson don’t care if their CPU is only 800mhz, but they do care if their browser sucks or their OS crashes.
</quote>
Your are right about CPU’s and power needed for most people but you forgot one factor: money.
Ma and Pa Johnson care about there browser and the price to be able to use it! IE explorer on WindowsXP is a decent browser and WinXP can run fine on a $200 – $300 PC. Win2000 runs very happy on that basic $200 Lindows PC and 99% of hardware and software will run also on it.
Apple Computers are just to expencive for email and surfing.
Only people who spend a lot of money on their computers are gamers and proffesional users. And gamers can’t use the MAC due to lack of the newest games and proffesinal users would rather use Linux.
Chris
“Good point about crossover, but its still emulation, its always going to be better to run apps natively.”
LOL. I always get a chuckle when someone mentions Wine and then says somthing about “emulation”. Just for your own future reference you should probably do some research on what Wine a)stands for and b)actually is.
Regarding Apple becoming the Unix workstation of choice. I just don’t see that happening. Apple will continue to appeal to the people it has always appealed to. I don’t see them crossing over into the traditional Unix workstation market. Its likely they would go with Linux, or as is the trend leave for Windows.
“How come I can get CUPS running on MacOS X but not on RedHat? ”
I dunno, but maybe you just don’t know what your doing? Seriously did you ever ask for help? Most people I know have little to no problem with CUPS. I find it hard to believe that you were never able to set up a printer. If in the end even that proved to be too difficult, maybe linux just isn’t for you. It isn’t for everyone.
“Macs are still around because they offer the best package in terms of price, performance, and ease-of-use”
Sure for SOME people I guess. Not all. If that were really the case we would all be using Macs.
“You won’t find another easy-to-use OS that runs thousands of apps, X11, GNU, Photoshop, Office, Windows ™ and does it on a $1500 laptop.”
Windows XP with WinaXe does that. Of course most Windows user have no use for X11 apps, so really the X11 part doesn’t matter to 95% of users. If you really needed X11 apps, Photoshop, and of course all those other apps you can’t get for Macs, it would makes sense to just set up a linux server and use X11 software for Windows. That way you get the widespread compatibilty and industry support of Windows, the overwhelming speed advantage from running x86, the ability to run X11 via a nice free linux server,and most importantly the vastly cheaper cost.
Yes sorry you are correct, WINE is not an “emulator”, I simplified my point too much, my point is that a Windows app running on Linux using WINE still has an overhead to deal with.
The same app (e.g. Office) will run better properly compiled for the platform on which it is running.
On the same topic, it also begs the question of support, if you have issues running apps using WINE, the vendor (esp. MS) will not want to know, if you are running it on the platform it was designed for, then you have the vendor support. Of course Linux had a huge and helpful community, but is that what corporates look for?
“Linux had a huge and helpful community”
obviously I mean HAS a huge and (mostly) helpful…
I really need to learn how to type.
🙂
Your are right about CPU’s and power needed for most people but you forgot one factor: money.
Ma and Pa Johnson care about there browser and the price to be able to use it! IE explorer on WindowsXP is a decent browser and WinXP can run fine on a $200 – $300 PC. Win2000 runs very happy on that basic $200 Lindows PC and 99% of hardware and software will run also on it.
Yes but sence the Lindows PC’s don’t come with Windows 2000
you’ll have to spend another $200 for a legal copy of windows, and then you’ll need to ad about another $100 for a decent Moniter which brings the price to about $500. Then you won’t have any software for it.
[you]Very well put. Years ago, the PC people would rag on Macs for being slow and crashing and not being compatible. Now, slow is all they have. And that slow only exists in the world of hand-built demo machines that get reviewed in magazines. It is not the real-life world of 1Ghz PCs that take 10 secs to redraw a web page or 45 secs to wake from sleep.[/you]
I would much rather have waited for a migration to IBM processors than the dead-end Motorola. MacOS X is good enough for the desktop user and for most corporate use but it’s built on an ancient kernel (mach) and outdated BSD. It is not acceptable for high-performance applications. I imagine it could be nice as a replacement for a bunch of dumb X terminals but not for people who need real HPC devices. Again, it’s the hardware that’s holding them back.
Apple’s best untapped market right now is the college and university. Most of these students do not ask for a lot of power but many of them are interested in programming. Because 10+ supports all of the execellent and free Unix compilers and IDEs/editors, it is an ideal environment for a computer science student in addition to the regular student.
Unfortunately, Apple does not target this market from the top. They instead try to appeal to individual students which is a failed approach that Mandrake has most recently made an example of. You don’t suceed in the computer biz by appealing to the individual, instead, you appeal to their boss. That’s why Redhat and SuSE are still around. Macs are great for regular office use now that they have a decent operating system. Unfortunately, Apple is marketing to all the wrong people.
The way I see it, Linux will make more inroads at the office than Macs because the Linux companies are trying harder. Apple seems content to be a niche player. I think one of their biggest mistakes was to kill off the Mac clone market. It would’ve done wonders for the Mac platform. As it is now, Apple has no competitors on its own platform.
[you][me]There’s no way they could compete w/Linux though since their prices could never be lower than free. [me]
There is more in the world than just price. How come I can get CUPS running on MacOS X but not on RedHat?[/you]
I don’t use Redhat but I imagine if you’d call their tech support they could easily help you out. As for me, CUPS works flawlessly on my Libranet systems.
I’ll give Apple the credit for making a OSX a very good OS and Aqua is a nice, easy interface. But I don’t seeing it competing as a viable desktop. Apple has done their usual stunt of making the entire package proprietary. Proprietary OS, GUI and hardware. What office (beside graphics and sound companies) are going to pay Apples premium for box that might perform a little better than a x86 and cost 3x as much. Apple dropped the ball in my opinion. If they’d been paying better attention to the trend they would have built their own X11 window manager and developed the software to run on linux. Becoming solely a software company is not in the business model though and especially not in a market where they loose control of the intellectual rights to their creations, hence borrowing on BSD. I’m probably wrong though.
Consider Matlab for OS X http://www.mathworks.com/ mentioned in the cnet article. The current version is a pretty basic port of their Unix version and even ships with XDarwin and OroborOSX. It would be great if they released a proper GUI client, but the availability of X Windows lowered the investment of time and money for them.
Now, I don’t know if there is enough demand for Apple to release its own X Server. Perhaps Apple will not release a version with much/any support and look to Open Source to provide onging support and maintenance?
i like to read all the people who say it will never happen. maybe i just live in an interesting demographic, but i know 35 unix users, from BSD to Linux to HP….. 19 of them either have bought or are considering macs.
…..heck i am one of them.
but it isn’t going to happen, just you read these comments!
You missed the point of my comments. I think that it’s very possible for Macs to make inroads at the corporate desktop level. However, trying to pass off a machine with outdated hardware and 32-bit OS as a “Unix workstation” won’t fly for people who need their machines to do a lot of calculations.
Hopefully Apple will wise up and market the Mac to businesses as a good Unix client. Client yes, workstation no. I think they’ve done a great job integrating all of the open source networking tools like samba, apache, bind, etc.
This 1 GHz PowerBook already is my UNIX workstation of choice.
I’m a developer and network engineer. Whenever I need more power, all I have to do is ssh to more powerful computer.
The network is the computer, but this beauty has more than enough power for pretty much everything. I only “need” something more powerful to speed up compile times.
No, I don’t play games. But this about workstations, and I really don’t think you need more than 1 GHz for that (except high-end 3D modelling, perhaps, but even then the GPU is more important than the CPU).
People spend all day arguing against the obvious. The advantage of all the Unix apps and Unix underpinning + Office + Adobe + Dreamweaver + iApps + apple pro apps like FCP, is obvious. Especially on a laptop where Apple’s prices are competitive.
Also, you’re average Unix geek has enough money to pay whatever small premium there might be on a mac laptop from time to time. And reason to spend the money – often computing is their career. What’s a few hundred dollars premium when you’re talking about a tool for your career.
Hardware prices also have fallen to ridiculously low levels. And most new PCs are way fast enough for most applications. Price/performance simply isn’t as important as it once was. It still matters, but less.
I know 8 linux/solaris users who have switched to OS X in the past year alone. And I’m one of them.
People who keep ragging on Apple for being proprietary really need to read up on their standards support. Some examples:
Apple is ditching AppleTalk (proprietary) for a combination of WebDAV, HTTP, Rendevous, NFS, etc. which are all open standards
Apple is converting QuickTime from being proprietary into being an open standard (MPEG4)
Apple ditched QuickDraw 3D for OpenGL as their native 3D library and is a strong supporter of OpenGL 2.
Apple supports OpenAL.
Apple uses XML for a lot of its software and OS configuration.
Apple appears to be emphasizing JavaScript (open standard) as much as if not more than AppleScript (proprietary) for OS-level scripting.
Apple uses GCC internally for all thier builds and has contributed a lot to GCC that they’ve submitted back (like precompiled headers and PPC optimizatioons).
Apple ditched MacOS 9 (proprietary) for MacOS X (supports a plethora of standards including UNIX, BSD, and so on).
Apple uses LDAP as their native directory API.
Apple ditched their proprietary keyboard/mouse interface for USB.
Apple uses MP3 as their native music file format.
Apple uses open standards for their iCal calendars.
Apple switched to CUPS for printing.
Apple adheres to the OpenFirmware standard.
Virtually all of their applications either support standards where they exist or support an openly-documented file format and APIs where there isn’t a standard to adhere to.
Enthusiastically embracing X11 is just the latest in a long series of standards Apple has embraced.
If there is an open standard out there it’s a pretty safe bet that Apple supports it in most cases.
Contrast this to Microsoft which has a proprietary standard in place for just about all of their file formats and their programming APIs.
You can sum up Apple as competing on implementations while adhering to open standards whenever possible. I only wish all computer companies worked this way!
Apple’s only real problem is their hardware. But Apple isn’t overcharging, they just have a bad selection to choose from. If Apple was overcharging then why have their profits consistently been +/- 5% of their gross sales? Contrast this to Microsoft which achieves 80% margins on their OS and Office sales with profit margins of 30% or more. Microsoft is the one milking their customers. Apple is just charging what it needs to to get by.
I’m personally not worried about Apple’s hardware prospects because once they get everyone off MacOS 9 they can make a switch to x86 if IBM’s PPC 970 doesn’t solve the problem. What is ludicrous is the idea that Apple should switch to x86 NOW at the SAME TIME that it is trying to get people to switch from Mac OS 9 to Mac OS X. Changing processors AND operating systems on your customer base at the same time would be suicide. Apple is wisely doing one at a time.
its a plan, with a long timeframe. x11 beta now, ibm 970s in winter, from here to then well see some interesting things pop up.
“Good point about crossover, but its still emulation, its always going to be better to run apps natively.”
Using crossover plugin there is a 10% performance loss over running QuickTime native on the same hardware, it was barely noticable. (Tested on my 400MHz PII)
Apple has a great appeal on this issue. Especially for people like me who use Unix as their main development and research environment. When you need a program like Office you don’t have to run Windows for it. I think that’s great. However Windows has cygwin and emacs, so it is still ok to use Windows.
My big problem with Crossover is that when I use Crossover to run windows games under Linux, I am encouraging developers to write games using Direct3D. If I play games on OS X, I am encouraging developers to use and support OpenGL. It’s too bad that the native games for Linux market didn’t work out as well as I had hoped.
I now, for 2 months, sometimes work on a MacOSX workstation
for work like; dtp and photediting. ITs is a dual G4 machine
so 2 x 1.25 mhz. I yesterday installed Yellow Dog Linux and
was shocked…Linux runs far more faster then MacOSX v.10.2.
Mozilla for example startsup in a second under YDL but it takes about 10 seconds to startup under MacOSX, OpenOffice is even more faster under Linux. ( i must say i never have run OpenOffice under YDL but i tested startup time under RedHat Linux P4 2.4 1GB mem). THe overall feeling of MacOSX is slow in comparison with Linux on the same machine but i must addmit its getting better because after the update to 10.2 things speeded up a little. I can understand that one uses MAcOSX as its desktop but using it as a server? Why?
i really so no reasons..
“Mozilla for example startsup in a second under YDL but it takes about 10 seconds to startup under MacOSX, OpenOffice is even more faster under Linux. ( i must say i never have run OpenOffice under YDL but i tested startup time under RedHat Linux P4 2.4 1GB mem).”
Jesus christ, can you possibly come up with a more unfair comparison? I mean, you’re talking about applications natively developed under Linux which have rather crufty OS X ports.
Well, I can come up with a more unfair comparison, test how long it takes MS Word to start up under OS X versus Linux… OH WAIT.
Seriously, why would you ever run Linux on an OS X capable machine? You’ve made the material investment in Apple hardware. Why would you ever use Linux on it, when you can just as easily use Linux on a much more modestly priced PC?
And you’re comparing the startup time of OpenOffice.org, an X11 application, on your 2.4GHz Pentium 4, versus how fast it would go on a relatively underpowered PPC system which must run one display server on top of the other?
Seriously, why are you doing this? You should be using your Mac to run programs you can’t just as easily on your Linux based 2.4GHz Pentium 4 system.
I’ve noticed something in my experience, something that I think bears relevance to this.
I have noted that, while free is a great price, many corporations are edgy are free things. They’re afraid there’s a hidden catch which will cost them more than the proprietary solution. I think this is one of the reasons Sun and SGI are still well entrench in the high performance marketing. Sure some go over to Linux, but many are still afraid of it.
Also, a one time purchase cost is much much cheaper than labor costs. A Mac OS X box may be relatively expensive, but if it takes less of the admin’s time to maintain, it will still come out cheaper than the Linux box which costs nothing upfront, but requires a skilled admin to keep it running.
Every time there is a mac article everyone has to chime in about what Apple *has* to do to succeed in the market (read as: in order for that person to buy one). I don’t see Apple dying. I don’t see people boycotting MacWorld. I don’t see people avoiding the Apple stores or the Apple sections of CompUSA. Obviously, everyone’s opinion here is the most important thing to themselves, but guess what – people are still buying Apples. Those people really don’t seem to agree with what people posting here think MUST be done; and most importantly (or aggitatingly) neither does Apple. I’m not saying they don’t want to have the best system they can, but they want it on their terms – not how some people here seem to want it.
Now, I’m not against posting one’s opinions or anything, but stop passing it off as “this is what apple needs to do” or “they are not going to get any where because of…”. Just because they are not doing the things some of the people here may personally want like:
– $2000 off every piece of hardware for anyone with your name
– giving you the source code to everything
– letting you run their OS on the x86 computer you white boxed from the internet for $200. (And expecting it to support everything perfectly.)
– porting all of their software to Linux
They are trying to make their system the best it can be by doing things like:
– Supporting open-standards
– Integrating X11
– iApps
– Safari
– Including FireWire 2
– Moving to 802.11g
– Supporting USB/Bluetooth
– Incorperating Rendevous
Apparently, these “other” things people overlook here seem enough for lots of people. At least enough for them to stay in business no? I haven’t seen them post a loss yet.
In my opinion, I think Apple is doing a hell of a lot of good things. They are supporting more open-standards than they ever did, and certainly more than microsoft is trying to do. They keep comming up with “cool stuff” that is really useful like, Rendevous, incorporating Bluetooth, and the iApps. For instance I had a few trip pictures I took with my Sony Cybershot F717 on my HDD that I wanted to give to a friend of mine. I opened iChat, and sent him the files in about 30seconds. Not impressive? What if I said we did this on the airplane flying back from our trip (ie, no “established” network). Or how about being able to wirelessly sync my Palm, my iCal, my public calender on my .Mac account, at the same time using iSync and Bluetooth? I think at least the latter example is important for a workstation to be able to do. (Unless workstation doesn’t mean a computer I do work on.)
Also in my opinion I think its a good thing that they are developing X11 and Safari themselves. With X11 one gets a very well integrated version out of Apple’s effort. Much more so than one would get out of the open source projects right now. Yeah its not open source at the moment, and may never be. But, its a hell of a lot better than the alternative like on Windows – Apple just doesn’t do it and then one is stuck with an X11 that really isn’t so nice. I think its obviously a much better thing for customers since they get a better tool than they otherwise would have. As for Safari, I think its an excellent move. MS seems to be dragging their feet with IE just as much Motorola is with Apple’s processors. This way, Apple has an in house browser that they can maintain and not have to be dependant on another company. Again I think its better for the customer since they now have a browser that is maintained by a company that has a vested interest in the platform.
I really don’t understand everyone’s grip with the platform. Apple is making a lot of nice products and doing a lot to make their platform more appealing. They are even being nice to the open source community, in some cases as far as I can tell, better than some of the “open source companies.” For instance, they contribute code back to the BSD projects, and they open sourced OS X’s core and the quicktime streaming server. As for being nicer than some other companies, correct me if I’m wrong, but Lindows only gives it source modifications to people who are insiders and have paid them. Which to me is pulling one of those “GPL fake-outs” where its technically avaliable. Apple is contributing their modifications to KHTML in Safari back to the KHTML project without any of those stupid maneuvers.
>Well, I can come up with a more unfair comparison, test how >long it takes MS Word to start up under OS X versus Linux… >OH WAIT.
Crossover Office, Microsoft Office under Linux.
Underpowered PPC? 2x 1.25 mhz, 1 GB memory? underpowered?
Uhhmmm.
John! you cad!,
And I thought you loved me!
You’re nothing but a troll {sob, sniffle}
I’m LEAVING … and taking the Macintosh, go BACK to your train set … you,you BRUTE!
😉
I switched 5 days ago… and I’m quite happy with my descission. MacOS X is great. I used BeOS before and I have to use Win2K at work. But OS X is so great… it’s a really good replacement for BeOS as MainOS…
Peace,
LoCal
> Crossover Office, Microsoft Office under Linux.
interestingly all the office apps start faster for me under crossover in linux than under win2k on the same machine…….
windows really sucks.
I don’t know about “can it?” but for me, it already has! I come from a long career/background in Unix, using Linux, Solaris, Irix, HP/UX, etc. I bought a Mac in August 2001 and it has become my platform of choice. Oh sure, I still use Linux and Solaris and the others – but from my Mac desktop!
“I love it when a plan comes together.”
I see this as break out year for Apple. Soon Apple will have the IBM PPC 970, once again be competitive as far as speed is concerned. If motorola is to be blieved then there will also be a new G4 soon running upto 1.8Ghz using rapid IO and hypertransport.
Apple is also set to release OSX 10.3. I’ve heard rumors that it will be able to run at 64Bit/32 bit.
If even some of this comes true Apple will be in great shape to move into new areas.
http://www-3.ibm.com/chips/techlib/techlib.nsf/techdocs/A1387A29AC1…
Since you all are talking about the lack of a 64 bit OS for the Mac, I would like to inform you that by this summer OS X will be 64 bit, since workstation class (PowerMacs ?G5) machines will be based on the new IBM PowerPC 970, which is a 64 bit processor. If the price is right, I’am sure they will be very popular. And please don’t compare Linux to Mac OS X for ease of use or elegance. Apple is always an order of magnitude better than the others on this front!
“Well, I can come up with a more unfair comparison, test how long it takes MS Word to start up under OS X versus Linux… OH WAIT. ”
2.5 seconds RedHat 8.0 PII 400
Sure, it will come with Duke Nukem forever preinstalled.
>Don’t worry, by summer Apple WILL have a 64-bit Mac OS X
>>Sure, it will come with Duke Nukem forever preinstalled.
lol yeah.
I think it’d be Apples doom if they went ahead and made another major update of their OS that soon. A shift from 32 -> 64 bit could kill developer interrest UNLESS they make absolutely sure it is 110% compatible with their 32bit OS. Frankly Apple have not been keen on those not willing to upgrade sofar so we’ll se about that. I predict a 64bit MacOS no sooner than a year from now at earliest on consumer Macs.
Let me just remind you when we’re talking about workstations. They do not come cheap! They have top notch performance!
Apple is not at a price disadvantage in this segment but they have, at the moment, a huge performance disadvantage against a PC workstation. Now, we’re not talking $1500 PCs here. We’re talking high performance computing. Apple need a high performing chip to equipped for this and maybe the 970 can fix this for them. If not Apple will have to shift market focus ASAP.
First off the NeXT comparison where the hell does that come from the original NeXT cubes were using M68k processors the rolls royce of microprocessors of that time, most workstations used the chip, the 68040 was very quick. As for Sparc processors they are not much faster than what apple is packing. When and if apple gets the PPC970 they will get 64 bit addressing and a class leading processor.
As for MAC OS is not 64bit, generally it is not the os people are talking about, it is the addressing. This is the importance of 64 bits, it allows us to add terabytes of memory to a system. The PPC FPU is already 64 bit.
First off I am an Apple fanatic I love Apple but they are never gonna do anything unless they go for it against Microshit. Everytime Apple releases something excellent no one knows. Why? Because not everyone is an Apple nut or owns a Mac and they aren’t aware of thier achievements and then some other company copies Apple but for the PC and they don’t realize they need to thank Apple for it. Apple needs to allow clones again and license the OS and not worry about the bread and butter hardware profits. People will continue to buy Apple computers because of style and status. The clones can not compete in style with Apple because they will be too focused on cost between other clone, plus Apple needs cheaper computers to compete with bargain basement PCs. Besides Apple needs to become more dependent on software anyway if they want to expand marketshare. Allowing clones will also spur IBM and Moto to make the faster proccessors because the demand would be higher. But Apple continues to believe everyone will drop everything and go running to Apple. Steve I love ya but grow up.
First off I am an Apple fanatic I love Apple but they are never gonna do anything unless they go for it against Microshit. Everytime Apple releases something excellent no one knows. Why? Because not everyone is an Apple nut or owns a Mac and they aren’t aware of thier achievements and then some other company copies Apple but for the PC and they don’t realize they need to thank Apple for it. Apple needs to allow clones again and license the OS and not worry about the bread and butter hardware profits. People will continue to buy Apple computers because of style and status. The clones can not compete in style with Apple because they will be too focused on cost between other clone, plus Apple needs cheaper computers to compete with bargain basement PCs. Besides Apple needs to become more dependent on software anyway if they want to expand marketshare. Allowing clones will also spur IBM and Moto to make the faster proccessors because the demand would be higher. But Apple continues to believe everyone will drop everything and go running to Apple. Steve I love ya but grow up.
If by the G4 FPU you mean the altivec co-processor, I understood that its a 128 bit unit.
A 64-bit FPU is nothing. The m68k FPU is (was, to some) 80-bit. I love listening to my home-encoded MP3s with 80-bit precision, it makes the 3-hour wait worthwhile.
How much of you really needs superfast computing? Go to NEC laboratories and pick that supercomputer, or maybe ’cause it doesn’t run MShit Office, Internet Destroyer, Wildo’s Media Crasher and $ Gates “NEVER” will see any cent of any supercomputer on the earth doesn’t deserve your precious time and attention. Yeah, my Dual G4 it’s not the fastest computer on the earth, but i have much more productive time than when i was using blindows, and i don’t need to “try” to manage my computer internal components, drivers etc… i have had too many “configuration nightmares” and with the mac not, it simply works.