Free Software on a Cheap Computer 625
Shell writes "Is this the solution to free software on a cheap computer? NetBSD and Yellow Dog Linux have both begun to support the Mac Mini. This article from IBM looks at open source operating system options on this new contender in the embedded PowerPC platform space." From the article: "This article looks at the current state of Linux and NetBSD support on the Mini. If you need all the hardware and options fully supported, these open source options won't do it for you ... yet. But, if all you need is a stable kernel, a C compiler, and network support, the code is high-quality and the price is unbeatable." This is part two in the series. Part One was covered a while back.
OS included? (Score:5, Insightful)
If you can't, then whats the point? You've already paid for an OS....
Unbeatable? (Score:5, Insightful)
Especially when all of these things ... as well as full hardware support comes with the f*cking computer!.
Ever hear of installing the Developer Tools on your Installation CD?
No offense, I'm a big *BSD supporter, but this article's summary is rediculous.
Re:OS included? (Score:4, Insightful)
The answer is that you can get a _free_ os with 64-bit support.
Re:Unbeatable? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:OS included? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Unbeatable? (Score:5, Insightful)
I just don't understand the need for better software on the machine, even if it is lacking in the USB/Firewire (read: hardware) department.
Nothing new... (Score:2, Insightful)
My point: two years ago I put together a 1.8ghz machine with 512 megs of RAM, decent video card, decent hard-drive, for 300 dollars. No OS included. Toss in some FreeBSD and I'm up and runnning for 300 bucks. So, again, someone please tell me how a 500 dollar computer is news these days? Just because it's a Mac? Just because Joe-sixpack can pick one up and doesn't need to know how to assemble parts? If so, why assume he would give a hoot about NetBSD or Linux?
Re:Cheap? (Score:3, Insightful)
Huh? Does it not have hardware scaling? I thought G5 came with a radeon. With almost any accelerating videocard, the CPU is not involved when scaling, which means same performance windowed/fullscreen.
Or is your friend trying to play 1080p/i movie or possibly at obscene framerates.
In that case I demand to know where you got the video.
Why not OS X? (Score:2, Insightful)
One possible point---you don't want to pay again, every 12 months or so. Another---you don't want to pay for apps, which can be way more expensive than the cost of the OS anyhow. A third---you want some of the things that are better than in OS X, such as modern X font rendering or Mozilla Firefox. A fourth---you want to be able to repair and upgrade your operating system; better yet, to have those fixes and changes integrated so that everyone can use them. A fifth---you're afraid of vendor lock-in, and want to make sure that your OS and apps are supported into the future. Shall I go on?
I think if I was willing to pay 1.5--2x for Mac hardware, I'd just run OS X. But some folks just like Apple hardware. I don't think the folks who choose to run a free OS on this hardware are insane: they have many viable reasons.
Re:OS included? (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:I don't understand (Score:4, Insightful)
PowerPC is a nice platform.
Re:Cheap? (Score:1, Insightful)
Haven't I Heard this Before? (Score:2, Insightful)
Oh really? Then when?
Re:OS included? (Score:5, Insightful)
I was so impressed on how well iTunes worked for me, though not being perfect, it seemlessly worked with my iPod and my crappy Riothingy I had at the time. When time came to buy a laptop for college, I looked at my options and saw OS X. Now, I'd seen OS X before; 10.0 disks came with my teacher's G4 desktop (our school's video editing machine), but it wasn't quite the beast I was looking at on Apple's website. I thought, "an entire operating system, as seemless as iTunes, as crashproof as OS X, and good battery life on their laptops." I was sold.
I would have NEVER considered an Apple product had it not been for OS X 10.3. 10.0 was fine and dandy, but it seemed sluggish, nothing seemed to work quite the way it should have, and required expensive hardware to run on. OS X 10.3, however, was stylish, integrated, things Just Work(tm)ed and on top of it all, it was a HELL of a lot cheaper than the Wintel laptop I considered (1300 w/ educational deal, plus 69 for another iPod, vs 2100 for the Dell I would have otherwise got [centrino]).
Re:Cheap? Hardly. (Score:1, Insightful)
I can't tell my musician friend to go out and buy your Dell and expect to get a free music sequencer installed, along with the rest of the software. He won't even get a Firewire port to use his M-Audio Firewire 410 with. And he won't get OS X instead of Windows XP.
You forgot some stuff... (Score:3, Insightful)
cheap $500 ? (Score:2, Insightful)
$200 would be cheap and about the right price point for a mac mini type box.
Re:Why not OS X? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Cheap? Hardly. (Score:3, Insightful)
Sunk cost (Score:5, Insightful)
If you can't, then whats the point? You've already paid for an OS
When making decisions about your future actions, you should not take into consideration what you have already spent. That's a sunk cost [wikipedia.org], and it can only serve to bias your decision. Rather, you should be considering, from where you stand right now, what your best options are for the future. This is why companies will spend millions on building a new facility, only to abandon it one month before completion. They do this because they figure that they will wind up losing more by continuing to dump time and effort into the facility, so what's the point?
If you get more usability, security, performance, or what have you, out of Linux than you do out of MacOS X, then it does not matter whether or not you have already paid for MacOS X. That has nothing to do with what operating system you should be using from this point forward.
you mean apart from x86? (Score:1, Insightful)
This post doesn't really represent the article itself all that well.. if you read it (oh wait.. slashdot, remember?), the article dwells more on the stuff that can go wrong when installing Linux/BSD on your mac mini. With a platform like the mac mini, where every one is identical (clock speed excepted), 'can go wrong' should be interpreted as 'will go wrong', unless it involves the user screwing up..
However, the absolute uniformity of the mini may allow the development of a distro specifically for it.. x86 operating systems have to be prepared to deal with all kinds of frequently questionable hardware, whereas a mac-mini-specific distro would have much smaller field to observe, and so could possibly develop a true 'just works' free OS for the platform. Hell, since they're all the same it could be possible to get a binary driver from nvidia and really go to town on the eye-candy (i know, that's the Free aspect wrecked, but would still be pretty cool..)
Of course, given that OSS developers cannot really start work until the machine is in retail, the chances are that such a distro would only really be ready by the time that the machine itself is viewed as 'obsolete', and certainly no longer available in stores.
Re:OS included? (Score:5, Insightful)
Mind reader.
The list goes on.
"Free Software on a Cheap Computer" doesn't mean getting rid of Mac OS X, dammit.
Re:cheap $500 ? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Unbeatable? (Score:4, Insightful)
You downloaded software that had already been ported to MacOS. That's why you had to run the
Linux and MacOS are not source compatible. Linux x86 and Linux PowerPC aren't even fully compatible (byte order issues and such). As an example, MacOS lacks the aio API, while Linux lacks the kqueue API. This is a problem because they're both APIs that allow asynchronous I/O. Portable software should take this into account, using aio on Linux and kqueue on MacOS, but because you're doing something different on MacOS, you can't test on MacOS if you need to run on Linux. And you can't test on Linux x86 if you need to run on Linux PowerPC.
For example, imagine that your software needs to run on one of those big IBM POWER systems that runs lots of Linux partitions. You can't afford one (that's not difficult to imagine), but you still want to do testing so you don't have the customer running into bugs. A Mac mini running Linux is a pretty damn cheap way to get that done, assuming the software isn't 64-bit. If you needed it to be 64-bit a G5 running Linux system would still probably be cheaper than the IBM alternative.
It takes a lot of effort to make the portable software that you use. Don't assume MacOS and Linux are fully compatible just because you're lucky enough to use software that was ported by someone that knew what they were doing.
Re:cheap $500 ? (Score:2, Insightful)
Dell is selling full PC's for the $200 range. Look at their website for buisness servers. Of course, you don't get an OS.
Apple is also behind in speed. You can talk about pipelines. You can talk about the myth of Mhz. But when it is a 2 to 1 ratio, and the price is a 2 to 1 ratio in the wrong direction, the PC is still king.
Re:cheap $500 ? (Score:2, Insightful)
BS, look at small form factor PCs and you'll pay $200 just on the chasis, and it still won't be as small or quiet as a Mac mini.
$200 tag only occurs with HTPC (fad price gouging), barebones (brand + motherboard + PSU + pieces) or you're paying for a brand; otherwise you'll get chasis for <50 easily.
the Mac mini is very cheap if any off the following have value to you: -footprint -noise -beautiful, fully-functional, secure, stable OS -style
The fanboy in you seems to have disregarded the parents point that a Mac Mini isn't cheap if you aren't buying an OS. Size, style (though a computer isn't a fashion accessory), noise and OS are available elsewhere.
if you don't care about usability and judge things on "just the specs ma'am", then you can stick with your Intel box and continue to believe that uptimes should be measured in hours or that you only need 50% of your components supported anyway.
I must have missed where Mac systems caught up to and eclipsed others in uptime... oh wait no I didn't.
Re:What about Mini-ITX platform? (Score:2, Insightful)
The point is now Apple has bypassed 2 major choke points with the mac: price and size. A lot of people have wanted to try out a Mac of their own, but they were either too expensive to bother or they didn't want the iMac with it's built-in monitor taking up even more room on their desk. Now with the Mini they can get a Mac for $500 USD (base configuration) and it's small enough to put anywhere on (or under) your desk.
Now, for the non-geeks: not everyone is tech savvy enough to know
a) about mini-itx or Via low-voltage CPUs
b) how to build a machine
c) install and use Linux
Mac's "just work." Someone with no PC experience can just plug the thing in and get it working. The same can't be said about Linux.
Now, as for buying a Mini just to turn it into a Linux box... that's another debate all together.
Re:Cheap? Hardly. (Score:2, Insightful)
That "featherbrain" you are making fun of is actually quite smart. Have you actually watched the show? Geeks would actually enjoy the show if they gave it a chance. Carrie is a hacker, but not of machines, but people. The whole show is about her attempt to get in there and figure out how the system we call "relationships" between men and women worked and how to nudge it, move it, and get it to do what we want. There are many parallels between Carrie's methods and conclusions as applied to relationships and those of the early phone hackers (as applied to the phone system) and today's computer hackers.
I was skeptical when I first tried out an episode in my wife's collection. I got hooked once I realized that Carrie, far from a featherbrain, has the dedicated hacker ethos and smarts.
Re:Unbeatable? (Score:3, Insightful)
For the five macs that I already own then that's $199 or roughly $40 per Mac.
How much will Longhorn cost?
Does Windows XP have a "family pack" version?
Yes, I could run NetBSD and upgrade to it and not pay anything. If I do, then I won't be able to run iPhoto, iTunes, iMovie, Safari, Photoshop, Dreamweaver, Turbo Tax, Quicken, Quickbooks, EyeHome, EyeTV, Poser, Carrara Pro, Vue Esprit, Keynote, Pages, and a myriad of other applications that I use if not on a daily basis then at least weekly.
Re:Redundant (Score:3, Insightful)
I guess you could say the same about machines that come preinstalled with Windows. Everyone should use the preinstalled OS, it obviously has to be the best one for the machine, it's the one god intended.
Except that computers have different uses, and for some of them Linux is better. I'm not saying it's always better. I think the preinstalled OS usually has better hardware integration (drivers), but not necessarily, and other aspects of the OS may outweigh the driver issues.
Use Debian - be architecture neutral (Score:2, Insightful)
Read the article in context! (Score:5, Insightful)
People need to remember that the first article in the series was talking about using the Mini as an embedded development platform. Mac OS X is hardly an embedded OS, so being able to replace it with a more customizable system (i.e., Linux, NetBSD) is a plus, especially if you can make use of the hardware provided in the sexy little package.
Putting a crippled Linux/BSD on a Mini when you have OS X installed is silly: except for the sheer studliness of it go out and buy a cheap x86 box to get your Linux fix.
Re:cheap $500 ? (Score:3, Insightful)
Yes, a Dell PC might have a lower price tag, but you'll have to use Windows. Or if you don't want to, you'll have to spend the time installing Linux. You can look at the $500 Mac Mini as a $260 computer with a $130 OS, $50 iLife suite, and $60 Quicken. (You should do similar math for the sub-$500 Dell boxes, which by my quick research comes with more hardware, but with XP Home and WordPerfect only.)
The point is, just because Apple refuses to sell its hardware and software separately doesn't mean it's fair to compare its computer systems against either basically a hardware-only price or a software-only price. If you don't want both Apple hardware and software, generally you shouldn't buy Apple at all, because the hardware-only solutions from Dell are likely to always be cheaper.
As opposed to... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:cheap $500 ? (Score:3, Insightful)
Do you forget that the $500 also includes iLife?
Wow, full of shit! (Score:1, Insightful)
$926 directly from the Dell site, not some made up reference to a forum price listing.
256MB DDR333 SDRAM - 1 DIMM 80GB Ultra ATA drive Combo Drive Wired Keyboard & Mouse Set - U.S. English 56K v.92 Modem Mac OS X - U.S. English 1.42GHz PowerPC G4
$657.00
This is a much closer comparison. As for the processor being better, that's strictly your uneducated opinion and I doubt that you've ever touched a mini to see just how responsive it is even with a "slower" proc, slower RAM and a slower FSB.
The key always comes down to the software and the Dell deal still doesn't include everything that the Mac gives you.
Re:OS included? (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:cheap $500 ? (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:Unbeatable? (Score:3, Insightful)
Who is using Linux PowerPC?
Oh pluuueeeessssseee (Score:3, Insightful)
If they wanted to run Linux or BSD Unix, they could buy one of those el cheapo $300USD or lower PC Clone systems. In fact, this is something that Linspire [linspire.com] counts on, selling their el cheapo Linspire based systems at Wal-Mart, etc.
The day you find people running Linux or BSD Unix on a Mac Mini, will be the day that Apple sells the Mac Mini sans the OS. The Chicago Cubs have a better chance of winning the World's Series, than people have of Apple selling Mac Minis without an OS.
Re:cheap $500 ? (Score:5, Insightful)
Let alone NOT WINDOWS...
Re:OS included? (Score:2, Insightful)
UNIX-style copy and paste? You mean, totally inconsistent, different in every application, and generally useless? Hell, I HOPE MacOS doesn't support that.
My car doesn't support square wheels either.
Re:OS included? (Score:3, Insightful)
Sigh. If you don't really care what OS you're running, then sure, why not run OSX? If you want to use a device which requires proprietary drivers, then maybe you have to.
But some of us do care, don't like Apple's GUI (the main reason somebody would want to run OSX), don't need to use proprietary devices, and are clueful enough that installing a new OS is Not A Problem.
So
An aside: when I first saw a mac mini in a store, I was shocked to see what an awful blurry mess the font-rendering was, far less readable than what freetype produces on my home system. Is OSX font-rendering mis-configured by default or something?!? C'mon guys, this is your bread-n-butter!
Re:OS included? (Score:3, Insightful)
OpenPPC Project (Score:3, Insightful)
Anyway... while the Apple Mini/OSX solution isn't the same thing philosophically, I'm fairly content that it solves most of the problems for which that project was created: It's Unix, it's cheap, it's PPC.
What it *isn't* is open-source in any real way. As someone who's now more influenced by practical than ideological concerns these days, I'm content.
Re:OS included? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:OS included? (Score:5, Insightful)
Apple's X11 implementation is extremely fast, being OpenGL accelerated and such. For a silly example, fire up an xterm and run "sudo ls -R
Oh no, Aqua is only available to Cocoa/Carbon which are *gasp* non-standard! Non-standard to who? These are the default frameworks and API's for the platform. I could say just as well that X11 is non-standard on Mac OS X, or Win32 is non-standard on anything but Windows. That is such a completely bogus argument it's trollish.
OS X has a nice kernel, all of the BSD userspace tools, good debian-based package management (although I do look forward to Gentoo/MacOS, as emerge is very nice), a full X11 system that can swap back and forth between OS X and X11, full hardware support, "mainstream" applications - what the hell more do you want?
The only people OS X will not satisfy are RMS-style free software zealots, and those who want complete tweakability and control (which is perfectly valid). For everyone else who wants a UNIX workhorse that is stable, has full driver support, has "It Just Works" down pat, and wants to get work done, OS X is peerless.
Re:OS included? (Score:0, Insightful)
Think about it..people who use Mac OS X are mainly using it because they hate Windows.
Any company who ports their software to Mac OS X either ports it to Linux, or is going to in the future.
Linux runs on faster, cheaper hardware.
Take a look at a Linux desktop distro 5 years ago. Now look at a modern one. See the difference? Eventually, there will be no reason to buy a Mac - it will simply be an expensive piece of hardware with an OS equal or inferior to a free one, and fade into obscurity like the Amiga.
Re:OS included? (Score:5, Insightful)
I have never met a Mac user that would even consider Linux, not in 15 years. But there are tens of thousands of linux users who have adopted OS X. What operating system do you think all the science geeks who went out and bought powerbooks last year use?
It's not linux.
But ya know what? WHO GIVES A FUCK? The whole argument about who "wins" in the computing world sucks. Use whatever you want, it used to be a free country.
Re:OS included? (Score:0, Insightful)
Fucking fanboy moderators. Hopefully this sort of abuse will be dealt with in meta-moderation.
Re:OS included? (Score:3, Insightful)
Yes finder sucks, they should open source it and make it 100% async/threaded/cocoa. Its the one piece of apple os that is PURE CRUD that needs fixing, it has many many many faults in it.
Yeah, but TFA uses linux low cost as its' argument (Score:3, Insightful)
If you get more usability, security, performance, or what have you, out of Linux than you do out of MacOS X, then it does not matter whether or not you have already paid for MacOS X.
This is true, but the article title implied that the reason for installing Linux was that it was free. If that means free as in beer, then it's a specious argument, precisely because the cost of OS X has already been paid: you cannot save money by installing Linux.
Indeed, if your time has monetary value, as everyone does, then taking the time to install Linux in fact adds cost.
So many of you miss the point... (Score:5, Insightful)
You know, some people actually LIKE Linux systems, and they prefer to use them on whatever the hardware of the day is, be it a G5 or an Opteron or an Itanium. At the end of the day, you're still using your trusted and open OS, which you'll more then likely be able to run on the next system out the door by whatever company.
Don't you get it? Vendor lock-in sucks, I don't care if it IS the proverbial underdog that's doing it.
Re:OS included? (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:OS included? (Score:3, Insightful)
For God's sake, we should just call it both simply to stop these stupid "Apple is a hardware|software company" arguments.
Re:OS included? (Score:1, Insightful)
I don't know. Why can't I buy a new Mini Cooper without the engine for $15000? Maybe I would like to pay less for their car and put a Nissan Maxima engine in it!