Hard Drives Preloaded With GNU-Darwin

proclus writes "A 40 gig Maxtor 3.5 inch, ATA/EIDE hard drive ready to go with GNU-Darwin OS pre-installed, plus GNU-Darwin Office, plus a full ports tree and select distfiles. This bundle includes Darwin-6.0.2, GNOME desktop, AbiWord, PyMOL, The GIMP, gdFortran, parallel computing, and much more. A triple CDR set is also included. Available now for ppc and x86 computers. The PPC version includes OpenOffice-1.0.1 and Mozilla-1.0. Compatibility is as specified for our OS installer CDs. Check out our updated ordering web page. (Mirror one mirror two.) You want it."

How is this news?

This doesn't even attempt to not look like an ad! A hard disk filled with (mostly) free software? How is this news?

Re:How is this news?

Well it's just like any new distro coming out. I mean they post that and they are basically ads. How is this any different? People are interested in buying it so why not.

A distro is nothing more than a hard disk filled with mostly free software.

Advertisement?

What's the current rate for slash-er-tisements?

Re:Advertisement?

No idea on the going rate, but for the interested, here's the original announcement of slashvertisements [slashdot.org].

OS Pushing

And I though Microsoft was pushing it's operating system.

Novel Idea

But who's it for? The type of people who build their own PCs are also the type who shun all things pre-installed.

Unless there's a strain of pure hardware geeks out there...

Re:Novel Idea

There are. I am one.

Not everyone enjoys fucking with software to get it working. That's one of the reasons I'm a big fan of Mac OS and BeOS, and still use Windows.

I'd much rather spend the free time I have playing with my hardware, coming up with new and novel configurations and ideas.

Software is only what enables you to use your sweet hardware. Don't forget that, bub.

OS Pushing?

Wow, didn't anyone see this coming? Sorry we can't ship an OSS system with a computer (thanks Microsoft) but we can ship it on an HD?

Of course, Aunt Em is gunna be pissed when she upgrades and looses everything on her machine and now has to log in to it...

'What's this root crap? I just want my Yahoo!'

No faq, no real info

Hmmm. I tried to figure out what they actually offer. It *sounds* like it includes apple's desktop-on-top-of-unix, a kernel, tools/programs around it, etcetera.

But I can't find any real info on their site. I'm suspecting it to be just a collection of those few programs mentioned (gimp, fortran) that can be gotten from other locations too...

Darwin OS on the x86? I don't remember apple doing that...

Reinout

Re:No faq, no real info

Actually, Apple did do that [slashdot.org].

As for "desktop-on-top-of-unix"... if you meant by that that it comes with the Aqua GUI, i don't believe it does. That's proprietary, if i'm not mistaken.

I actually tried installing Darwin 6.0 on a laptop i got lying around here, a few weeks back. But, because the disc wouldn't boot (i made the mistake of using WinRAR to unzip and un-ISO the image), i can't really offer anything more specific about Darwin. I believe other people on Slashdot, however, are indeed running it (for x86, that is).

For all intents and purposes, it's just a BSD distro, i guess.

:Lav

No Desktop, and it's not GNU.

Nope. No desktop, apart from XFree86 I'd imagine. Apple are not going to open-source their GUI layer (and quite right too IMHO - god knows how crap it would end up if the bad GUI designers of the current Linux desktops started 'contributing' to the design). Darwin is Apple's FreeBSD/Mach 3.0 hybrid operating system and works on PPC (naturally) and on x86. You can get the source code from Apple's Public Source Site [apple.com] and at OpenDarwin [opendarwin.org] set up by the Internet Software Consortium and Apple.

This is just a bad advert for someone's cobbled together install, and an out-of-date one at that. I doubt it's based on Darwin 6.0.2 (basis of Mac OS X 10.2 Jaguar), the Mozilla included is old and so on...

Finally, one big gripe. The operating system is not called GNU-Darwin! Apple will be very pissed off (as will GNU I hope) at this rebranding of the operating system. Sure, there is a GNU-Darwin Ports structure, but the actual OS has nothin to do with GNU. It's under a BSD-style licence from Apple.

seems pretty pointless

Installing a 40gig hard drive is supposed to be less work than installing GNU Darwin from an installer CD? The only thing that suggests to me is that the GNU Darwin installer CD needs work.

There is some use for disk-based OS distributions: eventually, external USB2.0/FireWire drives may become a reasonable choice. You plug them in and boot from them, and you get your complete environment. However, unfortunately, most BIOSes don't support that yet, so the best you could do right now is to use a DOS or Windows chain loader.

Re:seems pretty pointless

You plug them in and boot from them, and you get your complete environment. However, unfortunately, most BIOSes don't support that yet, so the best you could do right now is to use a DOS or Windows chain loader.

I'm not sure if openfirmware is considered a 'bios' or not, but it gives you considerably more flexibility in this area.
On a mac you can select the boot device at startup by holding down the option key. It even checks to see if there's more than one OS installed on a specific device. I havn't tried USB, but it works great for firewire hardrives and ipods 8). On a side note, does anyone know if openfirmware used in any non-ppc machines?

This could be great for OS-newbies...

When I first installed Linux on my PC, I performed these 2 main tasks:

1. Went out and bought a new hard drive.
2. Downloaded and installed a linux distribution.

This hard drive/OS bundle reduces that to one step... right? That seems kind of cool.

--

I don't know my sex. [tilegarden.com]

You want it.

No. No, I don't want it.

For intel boxes, I have FreeBSD.

For PPC boxes, I have OS X.

This does nothing better than either of the above in either hardware situation. Well, it does add "GNU" to everything. Woo. Be still my beating heart.

Hardware support?

Last time I checked, x86 darwin only supported a very limited set of hardware.

Hedged Bets?

Though the company remains profitable, Aapple's recent performance in the market [apple.com] has been marked by a decline in sales, in comparison to both the previous quarter, and the previous year. Per-share revenues have dropped by almost half compared with 3rd quarter 2001, down to $0.09 per share from $0.17

And now GNU/Darwin developers are marketing their products directly, for use with the considerably less expensive x86 hardware. An attempt to hedge their bets in the face of a sluggish tech market and Apple's precieved weakness? Interesting times....

Another Distro, different kernel

It seems we have another distro based around GNU tools plus the other usual suspects. The only main difference I can see here is that it is running on Darwin instead of Linux or (Net|Open|Free)BSD.

It doesn't actually say so on the site, but given the software they do list, it is pretty clearly just running X like everybody else. Not that that is bad thing.

It would be nice if they could make it very Windowmaker/GNUStep centric for nostalgia sake though.

Anyway, it is good to see other kernels making it into new Distro's. It bodes well for the future.

Jedidiah.

Should better be done by hardisk manufacturer

Instead it will be a good idea if IBM, Maxtor, WD, etc...are distributing their hd with free OS preloaded. The volume will be huge!

Also, the large capacity of current HD will allow preloading a couple of free OSes together.

MS Tax

This could be an interesting way to avoid Microsoft tax. Provide the computer with a plug in hard drive and then sell them the HD seperately.

Because the PC has no HD, it has no OS and no tax can be paid. The users then simply purchase the HD (with stuff preloaded) and drop it right in. You could just provided them with the HD to install themselves, but that would require users opening up the computer - which could cause complications and also end up with warranty issues.

Of course, the far better way would be to get rid of this pointless MS tax in the first place - but until that happens, this is as good a start as any.

(subnote: Can anyone point me to a resource that describes the history of this MS tax, how it came about and why? I'm not really up on the whole thing)

Re:MS Tax

This could be an interesting way to avoid Microsoft tax. Provide the computer with a plug in hard drive and then sell them the HD seperately.

This used to be the case with SGI's and I would love to see this option come back in more mainstream hardware. You could very easily open a panel and slide out the hard drive for reasons of swapping the IRIX distribution or security if you worked in an area where hard drives had to be locked up in safes when not in use.

Of course with new technologies like Firewire [apple.com], and the ability of Apple Macintosh machines to boot from external Firewire devices as well as CD's etc... this sort of makes this question moot. Plus, with a true plug and play UNIX, I am much happier with OS X than I ever was with IRIX and Mac's are much cheaper than the SGI's.

A big yawn

This is silly, why don't they package this software on CD instead and let people decide how and where to install it? You know, I could make a copy of my PC hard drive (currently running RedHat Linux) too, image it, and clone it on identicall disks. Not very impressive..

I just realized something!

No wonder those "Canadians" on the mailing list had strange names...

Today I realized that .cn actually stands for China and not for Canada.

Why Darwin

Would anyone like to tell me what Darwin has that (Free|Net|Open)BSD doesn't... and the BSDs are under an even less restrictive license. Not to mention that they have a serious history behind them, and they (primarily FreeBSD) have been used extensively on the desktop.

A Slight Discrepancy...

It might be my imagination,but doesn't the $250 price tag [sourceforge.net] strike anyone as being ludicrous???

I mean, looking at pricewatch, a similar 40GB Maxtor HD costs around $70-$80 (give or take, street value)

And supposedly, the 3 disc set of Darwin costs $15 per disc...how does that equate to $250???

BSD^H^H^HHurd is Dying

So let me see what we have here...the GNU system running on Darwin? And Darwin is Mach based? So what's that other GNU/Mach system again? Ehmm...GNU/Hurd, that's it. I love microkernels, and I love Mach, and I would liked to have seen GNU Hurd thrive, but it seems there really isn't much reason for it to survive now. Linux currently works a lot better (and has for a long time), and if you want a Mach based system, you can get Darwin, which is more stable, backed by a computer giant, and runs on more hardware. Or am I wrong here?

GPL-purists might argue that the APSL is not a Free license. This brings up a very interesting argument. [puts on flame protection suit] Apple's use of Mach illustrates the core of the liberal (BSD, MIT, public domain, etc.) licenses vs. GPL issue. Apple could use Mach as a base for their own non-Free product because it wasn't copylefted. GNU hard-liners will see this as a Bad Thing because the hard work of the Mach-developers is now being used in a non-Free product. On the flip side, this move keeps Mach alive, and will probably benefit Free Mach implementations as well. Increased interest can result in more developers for those implementations, and software developed for Apple's kernel might also be easier to port to other Mach-based systems than, say, software developed for Linux or the NT kernel. Plus the contributors to the Mach kernel Apple used can be proud that their work is featured in a product of a renowed company, and used by millions of people every day.

HURD != Darwin

If you think that just because Darwin works upon Mach it is somehow equivalent to Hurd, you are sadly mistaken. Hurd is not a Unix clone. It is as far away from Unix as VMS was, or as MacOS is. The reason why you can even talk about them in the same sentence is that Hurd can and does sport a unix personality. But Hurd can sport any personality, a Windows personality, a MacOS personality. Because basically its not Unix. It has a much more general API, over which you can host several OS personalities. A Hurd task can be a Mach task, but you can't do that either on MKLinux (Linux on Mach) or Darwin (Basically FreeBSD on Mach). There may be different reasons why Hurd will not thrive but being run of the mill won't be it. Hurd is and will be different.

Re:HURD != Darwin

From the acronym expansion, I would think you have it backwards. HURD is short for Hird of Unix Running Daemons, which suggests to me that it is indeed Unix inspired. The part that isn't Unix is _Mach_, the microkernel that Darwin and HURD (and NEXTSTEP and Lites) are based on. As I see it HURD could (theoretically) run concurrently with (for example) a win32-compatible personality, which is _not_ the same as running that personality under HURD; both HURD and the win32 personality run as servers under Mach.

You are right in saying that HURD and Darwin aren't equivalent. HURD is equivalent to a bare Unix kernel (like Linux without GNU), whereas Darwin is a full operating system distribution (like any BSD flavor, and like GNU/Linux).

What's the point?

Hi,

this is a really honest question. Why would anyone want a GNU/Darwin system? OS X is a Unix (arguably the one that is the nicest to use), and the few of tools it lacks can be gotten with Fink. And if you really really don't want anything non-free, get FreeBSD. Where is the need for any effort on Darwin? I'd really like to know.

And please don't tell me "it's so Apple can port Aqua to x86". You can't honestly believe that's going to happen.

Re:What's the point?

There is no need for any effort on GNU/Darwin. Somebody has fun doing it, someone has fun using it. Why not have fun?

Time saver

You want it.

I want it? While shipping out hard drives pre installed with Linux is a way of saving a user time, sparing the internet's bandwidth, and making their hard drive a more attractive product, they'd accomplish all these goals twenty-fold if they filled up the rest of that 40GB baby with free pr0n! Then we'd really want it. Can you imagine how much fun the hard drive manufacturing business could be?

Grammar Police

> A 40 gig Maxtor 3.5 inch, ATA/EIDE hard drive ready to go with GNU-Darwin OS pre-installed, plus GNU-Darwin Office, plus a full ports tree and select distfiles.

What about it? Where's the predicate [uottawa.ca]?

Insane...

Why in the hell would I spend 250 bucks on a 40 gig Maxtor harddrive with free software on it!?!

I can go to CompUSA, get robbed at 85 bucks for a Maxtor harddrive, order the stinking CD for 15 bucks and save myself 150 bucks!

If I want to get taken to the cleaners, I'll go buy Windows!

-A

I think you mean

GNU/GNU/Darwin

Where is the news here?

Surely /. can do better than this. A new OS is always interesting, but how about a review that clarifies (a) what is special about this OS, (b) why the combination of HD+OS works, assuming it does, (c) how his can be used in combination with existing OSes , (d) etc.
What I've seen so far is one very thin infomercial followed by an uninformed discussion about useless details. Has anyone actually tried GNU-Darwin?

What a rip....

$250 for a 40 GB drive, what a rip-off. $122 for 40GB notebook drive on PriceWatch.... I suggest all steer clear of this get rich quick scheme.

That's clearly not for me.

Interesting idea. A strange one, but interesting.

But, it isn't for me. What I love about my Mac OS X is that it actually works, and works well. The GUI and applications of Mac OS X are thought through, there are Human Interface Guidlines that people actually follow, and it "just works".

Gnome has Human Interface Guidlines that either aren't followed or aren't very good. I know I'm picky here, but why is there, for example, no visible difference between a single and double click on a Gnome desktop icon? You have to wait until the application (maybe) starts to determine if your second click went through. That can take a very long time. Surely the Gnome HIG should (maybe does) say that the immediately visible change from a single- and double-click should be different? This is a small picky detail, the kind that IMO Gnome is full of and OS X has just a handful of.

Really, I'm just trying to illustrate that IMO, Gnome/GNU are miles behind when it comes to GUIs. I don't see who would actually use this. Running Gimp is nice because it doesn't cost anything, but you don't need to buy a second harddisk to do that. People that will benefit from this disk run OS X. What could there possibly be to make them interested in switching to Gnome? "It's free and therefore better, I don't care if the GUI sucks!"?

Any insights into why people that run OS X would want to switch to Gnome would be appreciated, 'cause I don't get it. ;-)

GNU/Darwin????

Uh ... I've been over all the arguments regarding why Linux should be GNU/Linux and all that, but I think the GNU folks need to realize that now they are fooling around with the name of something connected to Apple Computer - a company that does not take such matters lightly.

Half a Mirror is Better than None

Great idea mirroring the ordering page. Too bad you didn't mirror the requirements page, too

w00t + drivers

Another alternative to Windows, Linux, BSD and OSX. Good. The Darwin method of kext's for drivers is much more flexible than the one for Linux in my opinion.

Wonder how many devices are supported though?

Linux tax?

If I buy a new hard drive will I have to pay a Linux tax now? I want a machine without Linux on it! I want freedom of choice when I buy my hardware! Stop forcing me to use your software with it's restrictive licensing procedures!

Just replace Linux with Microsoft and you have a standard Slashdot rant.
/sarcasm

Knock Knock...

Knock Knock...

"Who's there?"

GNU

"GNU who?"

GNU want to give me $250 for a $50 drive with $15 worth of CDRs?

GNO!

No

Note that this is GNU-Darwin, not Apple's Darwin.

GNU-Darwin is Apple's Darwin. Or at least a binary compatible re-distribution of it. At least a fork. Frankly, their website isn't completely informative on this issue, but there seem to be three Darwins:

1. Apple's Darwin [apple.com].
2. GNU Darwin [sourceforge.net], and
3. OpenDarwin [opendarwin.org].

Frankly, I'm a little unclear on the differences but either way calling it a "shitty distro with ripped off GUI graphics" is a stretch. GNU Darwin seems to me to be a GNU operating system built on an Apple-modified BSD kernel. Which sounds kind of perverted, but not necessarily "shit." Hey, they've ported it to x86! It's got to be at least important to x86 as NetBSD. :)

Apple's lawyers are going to have a field day with this one.

The source is open. Read all about it at Apple's Darwin page [apple.com]. There's nothing to sue anyone over, although Apple can via their license simply "revoke" the source and keep all of the outside changes.

Actually, according to the license, when you take any source covered by the APSL, you're required to register with Apple. If the developers didn't do that, Apple would have a valid case to sue them over. If they did (and I'm positive they did, since they link to the damn license off their page), then Apple really doesn't have anything to get them on, unless they're keeping changes private. If they were doing that it wouldn't be GNU either.

I think your reaction is a little uninformed. A simple websearch turned up quite a bit of information on this topic, even a nice rant from the FSF about the APSL [gnu.org].

--
Daniel

Maybe ;-)

This is an attempt to clarify some issues. Correct me if I'm wrong, Darwin's histroy is complicated and I might be off here and there. In my opinion, the question if GNU-Darwin is Apple Darwin or not is the mirror image of asking if Linux with BSD toolchain instead of GNU toolchain is Linux or not. Darwin [apple.com] is an operating system developed by Apple [apple.com], which serves as a basis for OS X [apple.com].

Apple's Darwin distribution is a BSD flavor, with a kernel based on CMU Mach [cmu.edu], and most of the utilities taken from FreeBSD [freebsd.org]. It is released under the APSL [apple.com].

GNU-Darwin [sourceforge.net] is a distribution of Darwin with some favorite GNU [fsf.org] software ported to it, as well as the FreeBSD ports tree. It is not Free Software [gnu.org], as the Darwin part is APSL, and thus considered non-free by the FSF [gnu.org]. Despite its name, its not a GNU package either. Nor is it GNU/Darwin, as that would imply that it is the GNU system on a Darwin kernel; AFAIK GNU-Darwin is a BSD system.

I don't know anything about OpenDarwin and am too lazy to go find out right now. Hopefully I have managed to enlightened some of you who were wondering what all this is.

Re:Yes

Slashdot, where the random rant becomes an education.

http://gnu-darwin.sourceforge.net/index.php?page =f aq-general

Thanks for the info, Fusiongyro.

=D

Re:Timothy - why is this news?

Why is this not newsworthy? Last time I check, this was news for nerds. I haven't seem somebody doing this before, maybe it is stupid or pointless, but it is still a new and different concept. What other group of people would this apply to better? Maybe it doesn't apply to you specificaly, but who is to say it wouldn't appeal to somebody on this site. More drunk ramblings.. need mroe beer.

WTF

. . .

Nobody is forcing anything on you, jackass. It's not like they're saying "Hey, you can't buy a hard drive without Darwin". Rather, they're saying "Hey, if you're interested in using Darwin as your operating system, here's a hard drive pre-loaded with the system; you don't have to download any CDs or mess with the installation, it's all right there for you".

I don't know what the Hell your deal is with "that Devil mascot". It's a cartoon devil. If you're implying some sort of Christian, anti-Satan, whatever... that's pretty retarded. It's a CARTOON.

There is no "bad marketing". This stems from your incorrect belief that they are forcing you to use Darwin. This is merely an attempt at getting people to try Darwin in the easiest possible way. Darwin is FREE; if you did purchase one of these hard drives and decided that you did not like Darwin, you would be more than able to format the Hell out of it. You would not lose a single penny; you would simply have yourself a new hard drive.

:Lav

PS: The mascot for Darwin isn't actually a devil (or daemon, as BSD people seem to prefer). The devil is the mascot of BSD. Darwin, while built on BSD, is not exactly BSD. Rather, Darwin's mascot is Hexley the platypus [hexley.com] (though he does where a devil costume).

Re:Makes me wonder...

I seem to recal that the basic instructions for the PPC CPUs are taken from x86, meaning that at a basic level PPC CPUs are x86.

Your recall is very wrong. The instruction sets are very dissimilar.

Re:If I see..

Absolutely correct, this is the devil's OS! However, I hear that if you run the disk backwards it boots up Windows 95.

Re:If I see..

People, this is probably someone's attempt at humor based on a story floating around about a BSD developer being hassled in some small town about the "devil" being on her BSD t-shirt.
Not Everthing is Flame Bait!

Re:Makes me wonder...

I seem to recal that the basic instructions for the PPC CPUs are taken from x86, meaning that at a basic level PPC CPUs are x86.

You recall incorrectly. x86 is a CISC instruction set, meaning it has lots of instructions that do many things per instruction. PPC is a RISC instruction set, meaning it has simple instructions that don't do much. It takes more PPC instructions to do the same work as fewer x86 instructions. This is offset by the PPC being able to process more instructions per clock cycle than the x86.

PPC and x86 are no more similar than, say, MIPS and m68k.

Somebody correct me if I'm wrong; I probably messed up a detail or two.

All I can say is...

"Holy Shit"

Re:Naughty Taco

Actually I can't take the credit, it was Google.