OpenDarwin.org Releases Darwin With Fixes 151
An anonymous reader writes "OpenDarwin released a 'fixed' version of the Darwin 6.0.2 ISO (the OpenDarwin-20030213 Binary Release) for both x86 and PPC. It is currently installing, so I can't tell you all what works now, etc. Hopefully I can use my old PC box as a server with this..." Apparently, it is mostly a recompile, without local OpenDarwin modifications. It doesn't include perl, pending integration of perl 5.8 ... could this mean Mac OS X will finally have a current perl in the next Mac OS X release?
Perl version (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Perl version (Score:5, Informative)
The longer they wait, the messier the upgrade is going to be...
jwtfm (Score:1)
Re:Perl version (Score:5, Informative)
Disappointing (Score:3, Insightful)
Perl 5.8 in Mac OS X default location (Score:5, Informative)
update Berkeley DB first (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Perl version (Score:2)
Look for release dates. I was running 5.6.0 some time in the last millenium, IIRC. Ran 5.6.1 for a long time after that. 5.6.0 is two major releases behind.
Re:Perl version (Score:2)
Re:Perl version (Score:1, Informative)
hmm (Score:1)
Re:hmm (Score:2, Informative)
Re:hmm (Score:5, Informative)
Re:hmm (Score:5, Informative)
Authenticate and check "BSD Configuration Files". Now you can start using the BSD flat files, like
If I'm missing something, it's because it's early and even though I'm at my desk, I'm still at home in bed.
-/-
Mikey-San
Re:hmm (Score:1)
I did try that BSD configurations directive mentioned above, but unfortunately it turned on most, but not all of the bsd config files. My honest opinion is that OSX is gorgeous, but not what I'm looking for and isn't quite solid yet. Many apps crashed on me, pgp wouldn't even work (I'd have to buy it for the full version too!) and I just didn't care for apple's own software. If your a unix guy, a good pc is still the way to go. If you don't really know anything about computers but need a good photoshop machine with a cd burner built in, then an apple is just fine.
I prefer the unix route.
Re:hmm (Score:1)
Re:hmm (Score:1)
I'm glad you feel comfortable making that call for every unix guy on the planet. I'm a unix guy and prefer OS X on the desktop, personally.
What is your problem? (Score:1)
You're not looking for a better unix; you're looking for a simpler unix.
Perhaps you don't understand what's better about it? I can't really take your 'unix hacker' mentality seriously if you're using PGP rather than gnupg.
Re:hmm (Score:3, Insightful)
Do I think you are Informative, Interesting, or Funny? NO WAY!
Re:hmm (Score:1)
Traditionally, these "alternative" directory sources have been a major nuisance to configure. Kudos to Apple for providing a system that relies on proper databases for directory information out of the box. Bonus points for not forcing it down the throats of hobbyists with a single machine and a small handful of users.
Mark
Darwin x86 or BSD??? (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Darwin x86 or BSD??? (Score:5, Informative)
Other than that, you might get better performance out of one of the tried-n-true BSD's due to the lack of overhead taken up by the message-passing microkernel.
Re:Darwin x86 or BSD??? (Score:3, Interesting)
The primary reason for releasing Open Darwin on x86 is as a check for cross-platform coding. The reason it is public at all, is that it generates publicity with the
It is not very stable and you would gain no advantages in networking between x86 and Macs by using OpenDarwin, since there is NO gui whatsoever.
Re:Darwin x86 or BSD??? (Score:2, Interesting)
Not to mention the fear it inspires in Motorola. I'm sure this goes a long way toward helping keep PPC prices low (for Apple) and pushing PPC performance higher.
Re:Darwin x86 or BSD??? (Score:1, Insightful)
How bout xfree86 like every other nix out there
Re:Darwin x86 or BSD??? (Score:2)
Unless dont count xfree86 with inverted colors [opendarwin.org]
Microkernel performance (Score:1, Informative)
I thought Apple didn't use a true microkernel [apple.com] for precisely this reason.
Re:Darwin x86 or BSD??? (Score:5, Insightful)
Apple didn't just pick up the Mach kernel and used it, they improved it a lot and one of the things they did was to rip out all that message passing stuff, while still retaining the modular design of the kernel. The result is that they more or less get the best of both worlds: a modular design with the speed of a monolithic kernel. Of course they did lose the ability of a true microkernel where the whole kernel doesn't crash if one of its modules does.
Re:Darwin x86 or BSD??? (Score:2)
Woohoo!!! Why didn't I think of that??? Just rip out message passing! It's genius! Hey, the different parts of the kernel don't need to communicate anyhow. Hey, why would the swapper need to send messages to the hard disk driver anyhow? The system will just use up so much less CPU power that way!
Re:Darwin x86 or BSD??? (Score:4, Informative)
Obviously, the message passing interface is still there and e.g. can still be used to have kernel space code communicate with userland code.
Re:Darwin x86 or BSD??? (Score:2, Insightful)
It's called sarcasm. I guess if you don't like what anyone has to say, you just call it a troll so that you don't have to deal with it.
This is no news at all... They took a microkernel and covnerted it into a monolithic kernel. 'Nuff said.
In other words, a microkernel can't be brought down by one single part.
The great thing about microkernels is that a flaw in the TCP/IP stack won't result in an exploit or a DoS on the kernel. So Apple took a microkernel, then removed all the features that make a microkernel a good thing.
Re:Darwin x86 or BSD??? (Score:1)
Re:Darwin x86 or BSD??? (Score:2)
No, you went off about message passing between userland and the kernel.
Yes you did. What I'm not sure of, is why you call it an improvement, "the best of both worlds", etc.
In fact, getting rid of message passing doesn't give you anything from both worlds, it gives you a monolithic kernel, plain and simple.
Re:Darwin x86 or BSD??? (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Darwin x86 or BSD??? (Score:3, Informative)
Actually the fact that they are running BSD + Mach [the XNU components] in the same addreess space is a speed optimization to reduce context switching for every message from BSD to Mach. This isn't a cause of slowness but a reduction. Can you imagine how bad it would have been if they hadn't done this? This is documented on Apple's website in Kernel programming so I am not just making it up. Its in the section where they clarify that XNU itself is not a proper microkernel.
Apple didn't just pick up the Mach kernel and used it, they improved it a lot and one of the things they did was to rip out all that message passing stuff, while still retaining the modular design of the kernel.
The message passing stuff still exists and is still useful [while it may not be used in the kernel space... I haven't verified this yet.] Walking through the source of CFMessagePort stuff shows you that it calls mach_msg a lot actually. It's also super fast due to out-of-line memory transfers etc.
Re:Darwin x86 or BSD??? (Score:2)
Re:Darwin x86 or BSD??? (Score:3, Informative)
FreeBSD and OpenBSD probably better on x86 though.
Re:Darwin x86 or BSD??? (Score:2, Informative)
-JD-
(waiting for KSEs to be finished . .
Use PC as a server? (Score:5, Funny)
And if that doesn't work, you might want to take a look at FreeBSD [freebsd.org], Linux [linux.org], NetBSD [netbsd.org], amongst others. I understand they're fairly popular.
Re:Use PC as a server? (Score:2, Funny)
I'd rather suggest Plan 9.
Re:Use PC as a server? (Score:3, Interesting)
I'd rather suggest Plan 9.
now if we could only get seemail and vwhois [bell-labs.com] on darwin we'd be set!
Re:Use PC as a server? (Score:1, Interesting)
Right, but a tiny shred of security through obscurity never hurts. I would bet that clueless script kiddiez trying out their latest h4cker software wouldn't be as successful against yet another unix flavor (system calls won't work exactly the same under Darwin as they do under the other *bsds). Kiddiez probably won't bother learning darwin internals just to crack
Re:Use PC as a server? (Score:2)
Re:Use PC as a server? (Score:1)
Perl (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Perl (Score:1, Insightful)
The most sensible thing to do is compile a fresh copy of perl using the compiler of choice, and then install it into a different directory, and modify the system wide PATH.
Arguably, FreeBSD learned from the complaints of the users, and detangled perl from the core OS. This way upgrading perl is a breeze, and only breaks things you install, not the core OS.
Maybe it's time for more distributions/OSes to either stop shipping perl by default, or at least make sure that nothing depends on spcifics of a perl version, so worry-free upgrading is possible?
Offtopic: Solaris and Perl (Score:1)
Basically what I do, but I install perl from here. [sunfreeware.com] They have versions compiled for older Solaris versions too, and everything's in Sun's pkg format, so it's real easy to manage.
Re:Perl (Score:2)
IMHO, Apple should adopt fink.
Re:Perl (Score:2)
Current (6.4) Darwin kernel ? (Score:4, Interesting)
uname -a
Darwin computername.local. 6.4 Darwin Kernel Version 6.4: Wed Jan 29 18:50:42 PST 2003; root:xnu/xnu-344.26.obj~1/RELEASE_PPC Power Macintosh powerpc
However, the darwin kernel you download from Apple is only version 6.0. Does anyone know where to fetch the latest kernel ?
Re:Current (6.4) Darwin kernel ? (Score:1, Informative)
Accelerated Development (Score:1, Funny)
Update your Perl. It's easy (Score:5, Informative)
Now you don't even need to build perl yourself. Get Fink [sourceforge.net] Macos X version of Apt-get and get a perl binary. (I'm pretty sure one is available). Fink is a great tool for keeping all the gnu/opensource software up to date.
Re:Update your Perl. It's easy (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Update your Perl. It's easy (Score:2)
Re:Update your Perl. It's easy (Score:2)
[bigspender:~] twirlip% sudo apt-get install perl
Password:
sudo: apt-get: command not found
Hmm. Looks like double-clicking wins.
Re:Update your Perl. It's easy (Score:1)
[hobbit:~] ls
[hobbit:~] echo "double-click on what?"
Hmmm. Looks like apt-get wins.
Re:Update your Perl. It's easy (Score:3, Informative)
Due to the HFS filesystem not being case-sensitive if you install libwww-perl (which you will probably do when upgrading to 5.8) then it puts HEAD (a tool for manipulating http headers) in
One to watch out for.
Re:Update your Perl. It's easy (Score:2)
Re:Update your Perl. It's easy (Score:2)
Basically, they don't want to replace anything that is already provided by the system, and since so much of OSX depends on having that 5.6.0 version of Perl, they refuse to put a sanctioned Fink version under theie /sw tree. Of course, this doesn't explain why there are Fink packages for Ruby (part of Jaguar), Python (part of Jaguar, also 10.1?), Apache (part of the Public Beta, if not even earlier), or Grep (older than dirt :-) ...but not Perl.
There's a logic to it, I just don't quite agree with it. In any case, the important thing is that there is not a binary version of Perl available from the Fink project. The closest you're going to get is that, if you read the archives of the Fink-users mailing list, there has been non-official package descriptions that you can add to /sw/fink/dists/local/ in order to have your own custom Perl installed by the normal Fink tools. But this isn't & probably never will be something you can get directly from the Fink project itself -- you have to dig for it.
Re:Update your Perl. It's easy (Score:3, Informative)
A couple of people have proposed solutions, but no one has yet had enough time or inclination to come up with a solution that has a halfway feasible upgrade path.
It is true that perl is not yet in Fink, however.
Re:Update your Perl. It's easy (Score:2)
In any case, if Darwin is getting an upgrade to 5.8.0, then maybe Jaguar's successor (Panther, was it?) will as well, and the whole debate can become moot. Or at least, until 5.8.1 comes along... :-)
Re:Update your Perl. It's easy (Score:1)
It looks like one of the core Fink maintainers is working on a 5.6.1 package for now (that will at least be easier, procedure-wise, since it's binary-compatible with 5.6.0) as a stop-gap that will let us transition easier, and give people a considerably less buggy perl than we've got now. Long term it's still undecided how we'll handle it. Hopefully Apple will maybe put out 5.8 with 10.3 or something, and then it will just be a regular part of the 10.3 transition Fink will invariably have to go through.
There's been some unofficial discussion among Darwin folks about waiting for 5.8.1 and then looking into a new perl release, but I don't know how that will get affected by other deadlines and such (or if the people I talked to are even the decision-makers on the issue, for that matter).
[crosses fingers]
What's the point? (Score:1, Redundant)
Re:What's the point? (Score:3, Insightful)
Hopefully (Score:1)
Or hopefully you could use your old PC box as a server with any of these relatively new operating systems as well: FreeBSD [freebsd.org], NetBSD [netbsd.org], Debian [debian.org] =P
Backporting efforts (Score:1, Redundant)
Who cares about Darwin? (Score:2)
Darwin is decidely not Open Source per-se, due to the restricitve license, and certainly doesn't have much market share. Come on, was it THAT slow of a news day?
Re:Who cares about Darwin? (Score:2)
Re:Who cares about Darwin? (Score:1, Troll)
IMHO, it's no better than Microsoft's Open Source license, except that you are not required to pay for access up-front.
Re:Who cares about Darwin? (Score:3, Insightful)
Wow, you do a fantastic job of taking text completely out of context. Try reading and understanding the entire licence next time. Section 2.2 clearly indicates that you may publicly deploy your code so long as the source is also made available.
Before anyone falls for nonsense like what was posted above, I would encourage you to read the licence yourself [apple.com].
The APSL is an open source licence. A major difference between it and a BSD-style licence is that you have to make your changes publicly available if you distribute binaries. But hey, there are lots of licences like that... the GPL for instance.
How about using Hexley for Darwin's topic icon? (Score:1, Interesting)
OpenDarwin question (Score:1, Redundant)
Is it possible to take an OpenDarwin install and put the closed source Mac OS X on top of it? I'd love to be able to play with the stuff underneath my Mac OS X install, but don't care to bother if I won't be able to run the pretty Quartz stuff on top of it.
Thanks...
Re:OpenDarwin question (Score:1, Redundant)
Oh well.
any advantage? (Score:2)
Re:But (Score:5, Funny)
Way to ask a stupid question that should be obvious. Why don't you email Strongbad and ask him how he types with boxing gloves on?
Re:But (Score:4, Insightful)
No it doesn't. (Score:5, Funny)
"You know, we're all so sick and tired of the same old one-button-mouse joke, so we'll get rid of that damn button once and for all", an apple representative stated.
Re:No it doesn't. (Score:2, Interesting)
If you look at recent apple mices, there is no button to speak of: the whole shell acts as a button.
The change had a funny effect: my mother did not notice anything missing, she just clicked. While some geeks I know where quite startled and tried to find the button.
Re:No it doesn't. (Score:3, Interesting)
there is some reasoning behind having just a single mouse button. To us computer literate who've gotten used to being able to right click it may seem very limiting but I believe the original reason (and why Apple still has only one mouse button) was that having a second one that is only of limited use is confusing to new users. I can verify this, having teached senior citizens to use a computer. "What's the second mouse button for?" is a frequent question to which I cannot really give an answer because it has none whatsoever at their level of usage. Another problem is that sometimes they tend to click it accidentally. I'm not saying having a second mouse button is a bad idea (I can't since I use it and the wheel daily) but there are reasons to not have it on a beginner's mouse.
BTW, nother thing that is difficult for senior citizens sometimes is getting double-clicks right and understanding why one has to doubleclick the icons while just a single click is enough everywhere else. What's the reason we have those again? Even KDE seems to have finally decided against defaulting to single-click icons in 3.1 at least on my Mandrake 9.1 beta. A shame, really.
Finally, while I've been forced to teach Windows so far, I feel that GNOME 2 would be a lot easier for beginners. There are all kinds of strange features in the Windows desktop. With GNOME I would not have to teach about My Computer and devices that it contains and there is just one logical place to save the user's files into: ~. In addition, there's all sorts of weird behaviour on the Windows desktop that has no real reason to exist (why does the start menu have to hide part of the contents of a folder if it's a little longer?). GNOME is definitely easier to use. My only wish would be is that GNOME would default to having the user's home directory as the desktop and make it function correctly in every case. Someone wrote an essay about it and I can easily see the beauty. In a way, the GUI's "home" is the desktop so why can't the two be the same?
Re:No it doesn't. (Score:4, Informative)
Apple originally had the best system for this, and it was lost in Mac OS X. You could drag files out of their respective "filed" locations on to the desktop to work with them, and when you were finished, there was a "Put Away" command (Command-Y for you OS 9 and lower users) that would return the file to it's original location.
Put Away really helped the Desktop metaphor by simplifying filing tasks and allowing the Desktop to fulfill its intended function. Unfortunately, it wasn't well documented or pushed in any way, and it was lost.
Returning to the home/desktop issue, if you were to make the Desktop the home directory, clutter becomes a more difficult issue. If I have stuff on the Desktop, I can move it into my directory to organize it, clearing my Desktop for other stuff. If my Desktop is my home directoy, I am always exposed to the filing system of my design - much like always keeping a filing cabinet open in the real world.
The biggest problem the Desktop/Filing metaphor faces, in my opinion, is the inability to leave it. We don't usually keep filing cabinets on our desks, but we can't leave our desktop, so we have to. Microsoft tucked it all under Start in Windows XP, which is simply a clumsy way to make it look more organized while actually adding layers of inconvenience to the interface. My Documents used to be on the Desktop. This is as close to a valid implementation of a filing system metaphor as possible, and they decided it was better under the Start menu.
The Filing metaphor suffers greatly from the lack of transparency in applications. Plenty of different groups have tried to produce an Open Document Architecture (ClarisWorks, Apple's OpenDoc, Microsoft's OLE) that allows you to create a new document and then determine it's contents, but getting people on board was difficult because no one could guarantee the supremacy of their products when it was completely possible to have two different companies software interact. Making software on the basis of cost and quality didn't appeal to many (j/k) so that died quietly... OLE is only really alive within Microsoft's own Office suite.
Microsoft tried a different tactic to start handle the Application problem - the "New" submenu on the Contextual menu. While some people put this to good use, its placement and function was difficult for some to grasp, especially with many users having difficulty with the the nebulous nature of the contextual menu. The New submenu can be a great tool, but it take time to get used to it, and many forego the learning curve in favor of the Start button, which houses all your programs.
Anyway, I'm rambling now, so I'll stop. Basically, I think using home as the desktop would cause more confusion for the typical user, as it breaks the separation of filing and working. While this may not be a problem for Joe SuperUser, it could seriously impair average users.
Also, how do you handle multiple desktops? Will they have the same content? If you have too many files in your home directory to be displayed on the Desktop, will a scroll bar appear? Will you be forced to open a windowed copy of your home directory to conveniently browse it while other windows are open, or will you have to minimize everything? Will the desktop contents flow around docks?
Like I said a minute ago, I'll stop.
Re:No it doesn't. (Score:1)
The original thinking was that a single click allows you to select and unselect objects, and a double-click processes the current selection. This was quite logical, and completely consistent up until Microsoft introduced icons that looked just like "normal" icons but which react to the selection click.
Unfortunately I think people who are relatively light computer users are now more confused than ever - quite a common behaviour I've seen in relatives is double-clicking everything (including buttons in dialogs), "just to be sure".
Re:No it doesn't. (Score:1)
One more reason for the confusion is that today, accessing files is done more and more through the browser, everyday computer usage in general is heavily web-based and nothing, including opening files inside other programs, in the browser requires a double-click. The browser is even the same application as the one you use to operate with files in many cases. Also, while you mention single-click icons that Microsoft has introduced (where exactly?), also letting users have quicklaunch icons in the task bar (as done in Windows since Win98, GNOME, KDE, OS X) may have contributed to this.
Re:No it doesn't. (Score:2)
It'll have taken them a pretty long time to get around to that. Why, they might even have to licence the technology from StupidaMouse. [wantdbest.com]
Re:No it doesn't. (Score:1)
Who's pissed? I like OSX. I like the concept, execution (in general). I have not used it on a day-to-day basis. I'd like to. Maybe if they fix the X11 color palette inversion on x86 I'll even install it to play with.
What could the open source community do if someone wealthy formed a company with (more or less) unlimited resources whose charter was to build a great desktop OS with *nix underpinnings and release it as free/open source software? How fast do you think we'd end up with an OSX comparable OS?
What takes so long for open source is that it's a VOLUNTEER effort. People have to eat.
Open Source has a problem money can't fix (Score:2)
Last week I had a conversation with the Open Source leader Eric Raymond, one of the people who best exemplifies the open source movement, period. I told him most usability people recommend that you design the UI first and then write the code. He said "they're wrong".
If the open source developer community maintains such mindsets that are antithetical to the creation of a high-quality user experience, they will never, ever have a high-quality desktop OS.
If you have to use money to save our asses from the apathy of open source developers towards the end-user experience, we never really had asses that were worth saving.
A radical attitude debugging session will go further than obscenes amount of money.
Re:But (Score:1, Redundant)
Re:But (Score:5, Funny)
Sig: I can't understand why people who hate Linux and Apple read slashdot.
Microsoft pays them to. It's called astroturfing or sandbagging
Now where's my tinfoil hat, I'm going to miss my bus.
Re:But (Score:2)
Comment removed (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Can I run Mac OS on i386 ? (Score:1, Informative)
Re:darwin for intel (Score:1)
darwin is just the backend of everything that goes into os X.
http://www.apple.com/macosx/technologies/
as you can see, darwin is just the foundation. on top of that is openGL, cocca, carbon, quartz graphics, etc etc. darwin is basically an apple-modified *BSD.
Re:darwin for intel (Score:1)
Re:darwin for intel (Score:1)
A MAC is your network hardware address as opposed to a Mac.