Intel Mac OS X Catches Up With Older Brother 672
RetrogradeMotion writes "Apple is now one step closer to the Intel transition. According to the OSx86 Project, a recently leaked installation DVD of Mac OS X 10.4.3 reveals that the Intel version is in sync with the PowerPC version - the two are now identical. Initially, "OSx86" was substantially behind its PPC counterpart, but the recent update makes it ready for the public. The article also notes that Apple has continued to learn from hackers' efforts to crack the operating system and has greatly strengthened the TPM protections."
"article"???? (Score:4, Informative)
Read the Fine Summary (Score:5, Informative)
TPM protections = OSX locked to Apple hardware
Re:Hardware (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Hardware (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Hardware (Score:3, Informative)
Sure (Score:3, Informative)
http://developer.apple.com/ [apple.com]
http://developer.apple.com/membership/promo.html [apple.com]
Re:How does the protection work? (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Advice (Score:4, Informative)
Either ppc or x86 machines can produce FAT^H^H^Huniversal binraries.
Re:Read the Fine Summary (Score:5, Informative)
Anyone who has any allusions about cracking this scheme might be in for a surprise. After thoroughly reading the TPM spec [trustedcom...ggroup.org], I think that if the OS is looking for TPM_Owner = Apple's Value and doesn't find it, it ain't gonna run.
Changing TPM_Owner isn't exactly trivial, as you have to set the value during manufacturing.
Re:What I want from Apple (Score:5, Informative)
I want an OS that I can multi-boot MS-Windows and Linux on that runs on commodity hardware.
Apple has said they will not try to prevent other OS's from booting on intel boxes they sell. As for commodity hardware, well that will depend, I suspect Apple boxes will, as usual, implement lots of hardware that does not yet work in Windows. Apple will prevent OS X from running on hardware they don't sell, since the OS and all the other software they produce is a loss-leader to sell hardware and they would be losing money developing the OS and all the free applications and selling it at current market prices. Also it would put them in direct competition with MS, whose illegal contracts make business pretty much impossible. Four superior OS's (to Windows) have already died trying to sell into that market.
Otherwise, "Mac OSX on TPM'd Intel" is just another way of saying "Mac OSX on a proprieTary PlatforM." Not interested.
That will probably be your opinion of Apple boxes. They will run OSX , Linux, and the BSDs just fine, but Windows is anyone's guess. Windows will probably run fine in emulation ala VMWare and the like, and their will probably be some sort of WINE like way to run Windows programs, but I would not count on MS letting it boot out of the box. Of course Apple's PPC platform was technically even more open and runs Linux and the BSDs as well. It was even produced by multiple Vendors without reverse engineering (unlike x86). So when you say , "proprieTary PlatforM" I assume you really mean "platform that runs Windows."
Re:Read the Fine Summary (Score:3, Informative)
1)Hack the OS on the installation disk, so the hacked version is installed. THis is probably the easiest method.
2)Hack the hardware so it lies.
Re:Moving from the PowerPC to Intel... Bad Move (Score:5, Informative)
Of course, I love the machine to death, because of OS X, but the way I see it, Apple is going to gain a good deal of performance by moving to x86.
Re:Did you get the memo (Score:1, Informative)
Re:Simply running OS X does not a useable system m (Score:4, Informative)
Re:not quite caught up (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Read the Fine Summary (Score:5, Informative)
Dude. I don't think you get it.
You can't change the TPM_Owner value in a TPM. The value is set during manufacturing. You have to BE the owner to CHANGE the owner. It's on a level of permission at least two levels away from userland.
Perhaps you can hack the OS so that it doesn't look for that value in hardware, but if Apple can do a reasonably good job of burying that check in the kernel and having the TPM verify the kernel's boot process itself, you won't be able to do that either.
For the same reason, installing the OS on a GenuineApple(TM) machine's disk and installing that disk into a computer that does not have Apple's TPM_Owner value won't work.
Re:Read the Fine Summary (Score:5, Informative)
No, it's part of the kernel - and has been since the first developer versions were sent into the wild. Fooling the installer would be easier, but still far from trivial if it's relying on the TPM to authenticate the machine's origin.
Look, I'm not saying it can't or won't ever be hacked, but from what I've learned about TPM, it's going to be a LOT tougher than anyone here is thinking.
Put another way: how much is your time worth? If you want to crack TPM protection on OS X x86 for the glory, then it doesn't matter; if you want to avoid paying another two hundred bucks for an x86 Mac, it'll never be worth it - I think that at least in the near term, getting around this is going to involve some soldering.
Running OS.X on a random PC (Score:3, Informative)
I agree, I have seen OS.X for Intel installed and running on a random PC laptop (and that was an older OS.X version with less security) and the problem isn't just the effort involved in cracking OS.X and getting it to work. It is the fact that once you have it installed and working all sorts of hardware, from a simple USB key to the display card and the CD/DVD recorder, don't work 100%, some programs won't work and what does work is often unstable. All in all you have to pour more effort into installing a hacked OS.X and keeping it going on a random PC (and it's not a given that your random PC will work very well enough for OS.X to even boot) as you would getting Linux to work and keeping it working (and Linux at least is practically guaranteed to boot on your random PC and likely to work better). So why bother?
Re:not quite caught up (Score:5, Informative)
Re:not quite caught up (Score:5, Informative)
Wrong:
Not "ppc64", just "ppc", and not "Mach-O 64-bit", just "Mach-O", unlike libSystem:
You don't need a kernel built in 64-bit mode to run 64-bit binaries in userland. If you think you do, you've made an incorrect assumption somewhere.
OS X: the 64-bit OS with a 32-bit kernel (Score:4, Informative)
64-Bit Transition Guide. [apple.com] "Because 64-bit applications will be supported using a 32-bit kernel, this 64-bit support will have no impact on most device driver or kernel extension writers."
Re:Read the Fine Summary (Score:3, Informative)
Not limited (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Read the Fine Summary (Score:4, Informative)
Full copy of Windows XP Pro (for closer feature equivalence) - $135 OEM from NewEgg. We're up to $985.
Now, I'm a developer, and Apple ships their full RAD development environment with every Mac sold. I'm going to need the same for my new Windows box, so throw on a copy of Visual Studio Pro - A whopping $700 from NewEgg. Now it's costing $1685 and we haven't even started talking about the iLife equivalents...
Cheapness is largely a matter of expected use.
Re:Read the Fine Summary (Score:3, Informative)
Re:TPM (Score:3, Informative)
And why would that be? There's this little thing called "hiring". They can actually have people work on both concepts.''
There is a finite amount of effort they can invest in their OS. They don't have infinite money, and even if they did, they couldn't hire infinitely many developers.
``2) "this says that Linux is going to improve compared to OS X,"
Uhuh. Linux - the powerhouse of well designed UIs.''
I wasn't arguing that.
``3) "they will fail to attract as many hackers as they could"
Why would they *want* to attract more hackers? As far as the infrastructure goes, they're using BSD - so infrastructure stuff runs just fine. As far as the UI goes - as soon as there are OSS projects with a decent UI, we can talk about this again. Not happening so far.''
There is always room for improvement. One of the major reasons I switched to Linux is that fork is horrendously slow on OS X. More hackers means more people to fix issues like that one. However, I wasn't thinking about the OS per se, I was more concerned with applications. Applications developed on Linux don't always port easily to OS X, and if OS X doesn't have enough mindshare among the people who write these applications, they will fall behind in application support.
Also, things like Reiser4, Xen, User Mode Linux, FUSE, etc. etc. are all interesting projects that work with Linux because that's what the hackers who work on these projects use, and they don't work with OS X, because the hackers don't use that.
``4) "I already switched from OS X to Linux because I find it technically superior"
Surprise message of the day - nobody cares about technical superiority.''
That's obviously false. I switched because I care. There are others like me. Many people switch from Windows to Linux because they find it superior. Others have switched from Linux to FreeBSD, or from HP-UX to Solaris - there are plenty of examples.
``What it's all about is that it's easy to use. And since most people consider configuring kernels or drivers not part of they want to do, Linux isn't easy to use. It might be for you. It isn't for me.''
There is no need to configure kernels or drivers to use Linux. Every time I see someone write that, it makes me angry. It just plain isn't true, and you're stating it as if it were a fact. Sure, there are certain things you can achieve by building a custom kernel, but just to use Linux, there is absolutely no need to bother.
``Because I *really* don't want to run XConfig and figure out PS2 mouse intricacies and resolve interrupt conflicts when I have actual work to do.''
If you have to do all these things, you have some seriously crappy hardware. If you want to see how user friendly Linux can be, take Ubuntu for a spin on almost any half-decent hardware. It has very good autodetection, leaving you with few questions to answer (like the country you're in, the timezone, what username you'd like to use, that sort of stuff). Of course, it doesn't work with all hardware, but I'm confident that it supports a whole lot more hardware out of the box than OS X, and maybe even Windows.
Re:Notes from a clueful (Score:3, Informative)
http://developer.apple.com/documentation/Darwin/C
Wherein it is stated (amongst other things):
Because 64-bit applications will be supported using a 32-bit kernel, this 64-bit support will have no impact on most device driver or kernel extension writers.
Re:Read the Fine Summary (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Read the Fine Summary (Score:5, Informative)
$50 for a case and PSU? Not only is that going to be ugly as sin, but you're going to need a more powerful PSU if you decide that you want your homebuilt PC to, you know, turn on.
Basically, you've listed a bunch of bargain-basement components, at prices below anything I've seen at Fry's, and are telling me that this is equivalent to an iMac. Except it's much uglier, built with substantially shittier components, and has no OS (unless you install Linux or steal a copy of Windows). And no software. Oh, and you forgot the webcam and a good set of speakers, and a microphone.
Add in those components, and then add a 20% 'reality factor' to reflect the price that this stuff will actually cost (shipping, rebates that never show up), and you're right up there with the iMac.
Re:Read the Fine Summary (Score:2, Informative)
> month, to find a way around it and release the
> unprotected ISO on the P2P networks.
You underestimate hackers. OSX 10.4.3 is already distributed, and yes, TPM has been cracked. And it probably was as trivial as changing a JE/JZ instruction to an unconditional JMP. I'd be surprised if they didn't have this check in my locations, install and OS though. THere are probably a few checks that are still there but have not yet been triggered.
I give hackers about a day to break 10.4.4 when it comes out. Apple is really wasting their time.
Re:Read the Fine Summary (Score:3, Informative)
You can buy a complete PC system for $400 easily. The cheapest complete Apple system is the eMac at $800. And the $400 PC is going to kick the crap out of the eMac. Or take a typical $1000 AMD box from a vender like Compaq. A $1000 AMD box is going to be 64bit, so the comparable Mac is going to be the Powermac G5, starting out at $2000. And that $1000 AMD box is going to be faster, have more memory (at least 1GB), use less power, and be more expandable than the $2000 Powermac. It all depends on how you play the "build the comparable..." game.