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Apple Businesses

Linux Kernel underneath OS X? 136

Posted by CmdrTaco from the rumblings-from-afar dept.
Kelly McNeill writes "Here's a cool column that asks Why not use the Linux kernel as the basis of OS X? I think Apple would ship way more boxes running Linux than OS X server. " I've heard a lot of rumor rumblings on this topic. I don't think its all that far fetched.
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Linux Kernel underneath OS X? More

Linux Kernel underneath OS X?

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  • Nah (Score:1)

    by Gleef ( 86 )
    Jobs is too hung up on the Mach kernel to adopt a Linux kernel. Thankfully, Mach is good too :-)

  • Hmmm... (Score:1)

    by Erich ( 151 )
    For apple to use the Linux kernel they would have to write a lot more code. Most of the code that is in OS X was bought from NEXTSTEP... writing MacOS on top of linux would involve LOTS of code.

    And we ALL know how well apple creates new architectural code (not very well at all).

    Also, there are lots of GPL'd programs that are used for talking to the kernel... nfsd, mount, ipfwadm... and lots lots more that include data from the kernel headers... and all these programs have to be GPL'd. So apple couldn't use their own version of mount.

  • OS X is not going to be "rewritten" with linux, and no one should treat this as a possibility from reading this article.

    Many people said the same thing about rumors of Netscape opening their source, and look what happened there. Also, to be fair, you haven't given anyone any reason to believe your opinion is worth any more than the one you're disparaging. Not meant as an insult; just pointing it out.

    That said, I agree with you (well, minus the personal remarks about the author, anyway).

  • Posted by tubeman:

    There was an interesting artical by somebody within apple who argued that the open source movement could hurt apple much more than microsoft (it seemed like a good arguement). This guy also argued, well, that the core of OSX should be open source. Apple would retain control over the "blue box" which is the legacy compatibility side. I think they would also retain control over the next/apple carbon API's.

    From what I've seen of OSX (A bootleg copy), it appears that the OS is very BSDish. Apparently they are running the mach microkernel as well, which I'm typing this to you on (MKLinux). It strikes me as a very easy thing for them to do to use a linux version (linuxPPC?) instead of their own mach based linux. Obvioulsy there would have to be a lot of changes to accomodate the blue box and the carbon API's.

    I wouldn't be suprised if there is a lot of Linux intelectual property in that OS, after all apple was instrumental in development of MKLinux and they have all that AUX history. I'm not saying that they used linux directly and aren't disclosing it, but I'd bet some of the knowledge from the linux word migrated over.
  • It was my understanding that there was an Open Source project underway (possibly prior to apple buying next) to implement this API under Linux in much the same way as it is implemented under Windows (or at least was, dont know if apple will continue to develop that) this would allow for cross platform development with ony a recompile.

    Wouldn't that be GNUstep [gnustep.org]?

    Disclaimer: I haven't had my coffee yet.

    --

  • nooo, its Mach kernel, quite modified though


  • Arrrrgh!! Okay, MacOS X SERVER was killed on Intel because it wouldnt create a high enough profit margin to justify x86 support, but it WILL be out sometime this week(!). MacOS X THE CONSUMER VERSION will be out around Q3 1999. Both will have the MACH MICROKERNEL, a BSD 4.4 layer, YellowBox Framework layer (both Objective-C and Java), a Carbon layer (legacy MacOS API that will slowly be phased out) and a Good solid GUI. If you people bother to actually READ THINGS you might get your god damn facts STRAIGHT...SHEESH. Learn a little before you start you next flame war!

  • I ask you!!
    -Jón
  • Correct me if I'm wrong... Wouldn't it be wiser to have FreeBSD as the kernel rather than Linux? I mean, if they wanted to have a BSD based kernel FreeBSD would be the way to go...

    I guess it's a moot point though... Since they are using MACH...
  • Promoting Open Source projects is the issue.

    Period.

  • YES!! (Score:1)

    by jafac ( 1449 )
    Please, Apple, throw out all the good work that's been done on Mach, and replace it with the Linux kernal. I want to wait another 6 years for your "modern" OS. . .
  • That opinion piece on memory protection is a joke. It is like security through obscurity - it doesn't work.

    Only reason Macs are perceived to be more stable than Win9x is because application programmers have been more careful on MacOS. The OS itself sucks.

    /mill

  • Linux won't be under OS X, because Apple is hanging on to something called YellowBox, which they won't open up, and which seems to be quite good for them, and wouldn't be that easy to work up a connection to Linux with (licencing and coding wise). No?

    Honestly, I don't see it happening. Anyone an expert on YellowBox here? Did I even spell that right, and is it correct that it's very closed technology, and it probably won't play well with a GPL layer above and below it?

  • No, Apple stands for big money, and it's naive, and even foolish, to suggest that they *SHOULD* or even *COULD* release a major product such as OS X with GPL'ed foundations... I cannot even IMAGINE their headaches results from trying to maintain proper licenses and seperation between the differently-licensed components within such a project.

    don't get me wrong, I love the GPL, though I think there is a LOT more room in the world at this point for BSD-style licensing - while the big corps. still hold the lions share of markets the GPL will scare many away from full-swing implementations of Linux and Linux-based products.

    In other words, as much as I like the rosy, hands-across-the-Internet vision of the post-proprietary computing world, occassionally I have to wake up and, *GASP*, produce on proprietary platforms because they run the tools that pay my bills.


    Binary Boy
  • [sarcasm]And of course, IBM's ridiculous decision to allow a teensy bit of openness absolutely ruined them. How can anyone expect Apple to be forced into something as terrible as competing in a Free market? You nasty Apple critics are so unrealisitc.[/sarcasm]
    ----
  • It's well known that OS X runs on top of NeXT, a Mach OS, and Mach is most like a "BSD 4.4" variant, not a "FreeBSD" variant. FreeBSD in fact most likely postdates Mach by several years.

    Jobs is in charge now, and he wants to use his Baby. And whatever the Apple fans say, Apple *doesn't* like free source. The BSD license has the advantage for Apple that they don't have to give anything away.
  • > The difference between PCs/Macs/OS and so on is getting less well defined as we go on.

    ...that may be, but I don't think that Apple is keen on the progression. Even the workstation market is starting to use PCI, AGP and other "PC" architectures...have you ever seen the inside of one of the new, low end Sun's? This is a very real market pressure...PCI equipment is common and cheap, giving Intel a large advantage (as if they didn't have one already). The only way to combat that in the price sector is to use the same gear. PCI is alright, but it's not as good as what most workstations used to use. It is very cost conscious, however.

    I agree with the above poster: Apple really doesn't like being open. They like controlling ALL aspects of their little universe. Many of my Mac-addict friends agree that Apple would have done much better by releasing MacOS on x86 back in the Windows 1.0/2.0 days. The software was vastly superior to the early Windows stuff, and they could have taken advantage of the more common hardware to make a killing. But they wanted to be in the software AND hardware businesses. And don't get me started about how they killed off all the Mac clones...

    As visionary as they are in many ways, I think that Apple is very short-sighted and stubborn in the strict business sense.

    --Lenny
  • As I stated, Apple could have done just fine as a software company, letting others produce hardware, but they wanted to control the WHOLE market. Think about how powerful/wealthy MS is right now because they make the unifying OS for disparate hardware clone makers (yes: I run Linux too, but that's not the point).

    IBM wouldn't have lost out so much if they had written their own OS. As it stood, when the clones came along, they bought their chips from Intel, their OS from Microsoft and nothing from IBM. The Mac clones still bought Apple software, and, in general, built better hardware than Apple. Letting them live would have made Mac-like hardware much more attractive to consumers (look what's happened in the PC sector: more competition = more variety, lower cost). This may have decreased sales of Apple hardware, but could have led to a much LARGER market for Apple software. Again I state: look at MS...I think that we'll all agree that they've been financially successful.

    --Lenny
  • Apparently someone inside Apple did it, and got his wrist slapped for it. It's not that technlogicly hard.

    It'd probably be Mac OS X server running a "Linux server" which is just like what MkLinux is: the mach microkernel running a "Linux server". For this reason, many (including Linus, apparently) don't consider Mklinux a "real" Linux.

    Someone will probably hack it to get this to happen even if Apple never tells anyone how. :)

    haaz, wadin' in the water and waitin' for the flames..

  • Now that I've read the article, I can comment on it rather than the technology involved..

    It states:


    "After all, IBM just announced that its will be shipping and supporting Linux with its PPC server hardware."

    IBM has made no announcements about Linux on PowerPC or RS/6000. There have been articles insinuating this, but there have been no announcements about it. IBM's only recent Linux announcement was about RedHat with their x86-based netfinity servers.

    "If Apple ships Red Hat, it can benefit from the entire community of Linux programmers and of course Linux already has momentum in the server
    market."

    LinuxPPC Inc. already ships a version Red Hat Linux for PowerPC computers. While we know Apple uses LinuxPPC internally, the upper management seems resistant to any official dealings with us or with Linux.

    "IBM and Apple could even work together to optimize Linux for the power PC since IBM is already doing this. Apple would also get to run lotus notes and IBM's web sphere."

    Again, IBM has made no announcements or formal plans for work on Linux/PPC.

    The guy's got a point, but it's already happened. Whether or not it sees the light of day is a whole 'nother thought altogether.
  • Um. For the record, Apple didn't approach Applix about porting Applixware Office. Jeff Carr and I approached them at the 1998 Atlanta Linux Showcase, and a month and a half later, I was running a prerelease version of it on my PowerBook G3. Apple didn't have anything to do with it!

    Their internal Linux development (MkLinux) was all but ended back when Apple bought NeXT. Almost everyone got moved onto the Rhapsody project. As for supporting Linux, they've debated it frequently but haven't settled on anything that I'm aware of.

  • ...have you ever seen the inside of one of the new, low end Sun's? This is a very real market pressure...PCI equipment is common and cheap [...]

    Don't forget PCI is also actually better in many ways then Sun's older SBus technology. The "low-end" 33Mhz 32 bit PCI bus has more bandwidth then the 25Mhz SBus (and the older 20Mhz SBus). It is just as easy to identify a PCI card as an SBus one. The only real downsides of PCI from a workstation point of view is that almost all the boot ROMs are Intel specific (the PCI spec defines FCode boot ROMs as well, even gives lipservice to them being "more standard" then x86 boot ROMs, but we all know the score), and the non-technical downside of being "just like a PC".

    Yes, I know the PCI bus has no IOMMU like the SBus (not 100% true, AGP is basically a 66Mhz PCI bus with an IOMMU -- one that isn't tipically used). However I think it is at least as hard to keep the IOMMU and multiple-CPU MMUs in sync, as to force the OS to do scatter-gather IO. Unfortunitly that puts a little more burden on the expansion cards to do scatter gather, but high performance cards were going to have to do it anyway...

    Let's give Intel their due credit, they finally made a good bus. Every bit as good as the SBus, or the NuBus, or pretty much every other non-mainframe bus that came before it. It may not be a visonary innovation, but it isn't crap either.

  • Exactly. It's already being built using the best parts of many different OS's. They're doing an amazing job creating a completely new and modern operating system, while keeping their developers happy by not requiring extensive re-writes of existing applications. There are many pages with complete details of what's in store for OS X.

    www.mackido.com/Software/MacOSX_Files.html
    www.mackido.com/Software/YellowBoxNAPIs.html
    www.mackido.com/Software/whats_rhapsody.html
    www.mackido.com/Software/rhapsody.html
    www.macosrumors.com/osx.html

    I get the feeling that some people need to do some research before making such broad and sweeping statement like many have done. And for the platform biggots, well, I'll just say I've gotten used to the ignorant rants and petty intolerance for anything even remotely associated with the MacOS.
  • I will be delighted:
    if I can telnet to the Mac to fix problems

    Well, you can use Timbuktu, which allows you to do pretty much the same thing, except it's graphical. I use it almost daily to maintain several servers where I'm at.

    if I can keep one up for more than a week while doing hard stuff on it

    I've gotten mine to do much better. My main server is running FTP/HTTP/POP/SMTP software with no problems. There are a few tricks you can apply to make it quite stable. My universities NT box that runs the POP/SMTP server for students is down at -least- 50% more than my MacOS server.

    if it finally has preemtive multitasking

    Agreed.

    if it finally has protected memory

    It does to a certain extent. From what I've experienced, it works about the same to slightly better than your average Windows box. ( I don't know about NT ) It's obviously no where near what unix/linux/etc people enjoy, but it's certainly there. Go to www.MacKiDo.com/Software/memprotect_MacOS_Win95.ht ml to read more.

    if user-level programs cannot affect priviledged areas and viruses become moot

    Agreed. Although with the right software, you can lock a Mac up as tight as anything.
  • Linux is protected from asshole corporations like Apple and M$ due to the GPL. Apple CAN'T have linux. To hell with Apple, I don't care if they die out or what.


    BSD is not protected, and has been raped by every greedy bastard out there.
  • This post is one of the many that emplies that Rhasody was killed. That just isn't the case, it was expanded, and had a new API added so that apps would become native more quickly. They didn't kill it they said "we are going to give you all we promised before, AND all you have to do to make you applications take advantage of this modern os, is type 'make'".


    this took forever to type, as I started using a Kinesis KB today. errr.




  • Although MacOS X's kernel is hideously unstable, I don't think we should encourage Apple to take any more liberties with GPL'd code as they already have. They've taken large chunks of code from several GPL'd projects (Emacs, GCC, etcetera), made proprietary "improvements" and refused to re-release the source code.

    I'm not a 'pure free software' zealot, but I do believe that if we are expected to respect the "rights" of defenders of intellectual property, that when a program is made GPL, it should stay GPL.

    As they did when they copied code from EMACS to make the editor for Macintosh Common Lisp, and when NeXT took GCC and made their compiler with it, yet refused to provide their "improvements" in source code, claiming they were proprietary (read the license, people!)... I'm sure Apple would be more than happy to take a Linux kernel and GPL'd 'mount' command and make proprietary versions of both.

    Who's supposed to sue when you violate the GPL, anyway? Apple doesn't have to provide their source, they can just claim that they didn't use GPL'd stuff...
  • is fine with me. We run Suns, SGIs, PC/Windows, PC/Linuxs, and Macs. Sorry, but Linux isn't ready for prime time. Hard to load, configure, and maintain, relative to Solaris and Irix. In the proper context, however, Bill's second rate Windoesn't is the worst. For desktop applications, the Mac is tops. In fact, we replaced one Linux box with an iMac after we spent more on consultants than the cost of the PC.

    So, we'll stick with Steve's vision, it hasn't failed us yet.
  • > Something tells me he could get by, if he brought down the price of his software.. just a little

    How much is too much money? More than a billion? A million? More than you make?
  • > Open Firmware
    > RISC
    > CHRP/PREP
    > AltiVec

    Not one single layman gives a damn about these. They want to drop in a half-life CD and start blasting away. For Apple to get the gamer market is going to be nigh impossible. SOHO might be a good target market, though that damn kiddie-sized mouse doesn't make a good impression on the sales floor.
  • No, not mine, his!

    Read the article - the writer is rambling on about things he seems to be slightly clued-out on. OSX is basically written - why on earth would anyone stop it in their tracks and start over again with linux as a kernel (even if it was a good idea?)?

    Sorry Rob, but you're referencing an article here that has no authority, and unfortunately I think most Slashdot readers are going to take for gospel what is in fact uninformed, badly written rambling.
  • Sorry to make consecutive posts, but I think that the /. crew needs to start reading articles it links in.

    This one is simply idiotic, has no basis in fact or reality, is poorly written, and is of dubious origin. It has nothing interesting to say on anything happening in reality. OS X is not going to be "rewritten" with linux, and no one should treat this as a possibility from reading this article.

    Anyone can publish on the web - please don't mistake a domain name with legitimacy.
  • Ugggh, your response only reinforces my original point.
  • At least they can form sentences.

    This article was simply some knob who has a colored background and a domain name.

    At least that's my opinion on the matter.

  • Huh? (Score:1)

    by Cassius ( 9481 )
    You seem to be misinformed - according to Apple, it should ship within thirty days.
  • Yellow box is more or less the NextStep API. All the various objects still start with "NS," which is fairly amusing. I'd suspect that YellowBox is openstep compliant so, no, it's not closed, but it isn't really open either.
  • >It used Objective C when C++ was on it's way to
    >becoming standard;
    They used Objective C for several reasons:
    1) There are things that you can do in Objective C that are tricky or impossible to do in C++
    2) NextStep was designed for Academics and Academics already had knowledge of Real OO languages like SmallTalk
    3) C++ isn't just an object orientated lanuage; it's just as the name implies, an extension to C. Objective C is a real OO lanuage

    Besides, Objective-C just plain rocks. It's everything great about C, the managable OOness of SmallTalk, and the almost VM nature of java.
  • Actually, it's BSD*ish* with a Mach 3.0 base. Not quite the same as a traditional monolithic BSD kernel, though it'll look the same to most programmers.
  • you can't even compare dell, compaq, et. al. with apple. compare apple with ibm or sun if you must- they're the only comparable companies with a stake in both the hardware and software side. apple makes their money off the hardware, but sells the software, so it makes perfect sense that they want the tightest possible control over the system as a whole. if the hardware isn't solid and 100% compatible, the os and the user experience sucks.
    that's not to say they haven't shot themselves in the foot multiple times over the years on their hardware decisions, but overall, their systems are of the cohesion and quality that only similar vendors such as sun and ibm. dell, gateway, and the others are merely assemblers. they can make the hardware work with the m$ os, but they react, they can't lead.
  • As someone who actually USED Rhapsody (and NOT a pirated copy) as a desktop OS for several months, I feel more qualified to talk than most of you.

    1) It's based on a Mach kernel. That's not gonna change. Of course, you CAN build Linux on top of a Mach kernel; Apple did that.

    2) On top of that, it has a bunch of BSD utilities. The source for many of these WAS available on Apple's FTP site. Y'all should look before you gripe.

    3) The core OS is simply not gonna be Open Source.

    4) Imho, MacOS X Server is really a *light* server because it's not GUI-optional. With all that CPU sucked up in prettiness, it's simply going to nullify any difference (real or imagined) between a G3 and a Px at the same clock speed. Sorry Apple.

    5) I think Apple's decision to kill Rhaptel was ill-advised and heinous. This *should* be a new Apple that isn't backstabbing its developer community.

    6) Despite all this, it's cool, I want it, I will probably buy it anyway.

    _Deirdre
  • That was a funny article. I'll tell you why it's not going to happen. Jobs. He's not gonna give up his dream, his baby, his wonderful little translucent-blue-goodness up to a bunch of hackers. Jobs' ego will keep linux far enough away from Macintosh. Look at the past. Apple threw Jobs out, so he said "fuck you, I'm going to go make me an os that kicks your OS' ass," and he did. NeXT rocks. Objective-C rocks. The NeXT UI rocks. Jobs has his agenda with macintosh - he has a plan for it, and I really dont think Linux is part of that plan. This does not necessarily mean that his plan for Mac is bad, but simply that it's his and his only.

    -Laxative
  • Even the workstation market is starting to use PCI, AGP and other "PC" architectures...have you ever seen the inside of one of the new, low end Sun's?

    Even the low-end AS/400s use PCI. To say that this makes them more "PC-like" is about like saying the addition of a standard power cord would make them more PC-like.
  • excpet for the fact its BSD, it is supposed to be Mac, it runs on PPC hardware which is too pricy, and its made by a company thaat calls different computers flavors.... and they mean flavors.

    Ex Machina "From the Machine"
    xm@GeekMafia.dynip.com [http://GeekMafia.dynip.com/]
  • Well, in my opinion, I've never seen a viable, well-written article come from that OSO junk-heap.

    JeC
  • Linux could not be used for the OS X kernel because of the GPL license. The BSD license allows anyone to use the software.
  • The question should be, why won't Apple give out
    the sources?
  • So what should be done about it to improve them?

    Really, what is so bad about them (linux interfaces, mainly gnome and kde). There are standards for drag and drop, and other crap. The apps I use most support them, even though I don't much care for it. I drag files around the system. What else do I really need d&d for. Even if you do need more, most people don't.

  • It's not FreeBSD--it's a Mach modified version of the Mac 2.x kernel with a BSD 4.4 Unix interface. Not quite the same thing, since it picks up some things like Mach messaging. Apple could port to Linux easily enough if they wanted to; YB runs on top of NT, after all. But they probably won't. If they wanted to play in the x86 market they would have released an x86 MOSXS version.
  • >Could you point me at a copy of the source code
    > for NeXTSTEP's enhanced objective C compiler >(based on gcc)?

    Sure; look in the gcc distribution. From the "contributors" section to the gcc distribution docs:

    * NeXT, Inc. donated the front end that supports the Objective C language.

  • Mach is basically a very nice, very fast MICROKERNEL. Don't confuse this with /vmlinu{x,z}.

    Also, NeXTStep benefitted tremendously by being written with very object oriented code, and libraries into that code. Some of the MacOS *DESIGN* that lets extensions easily slip into the path of many 'lower level' calls (eg, GUI pop-ups, scanning a disk when it's mounted, etc) were implemented better in NeXT Step. It was noted that Novell was able to port WordPerfect in a ridiculously small amount of time due to the OO structure underlying the OS.

    Linux (and the *BSDs) are not written this way. It's been tough enough to get C++ to work correctly under Unix (hence the birth of EGCS).

    OTOH, Since NeXTStep was guided by Jobs, there were a number of fatal gaffs made:
    It used Objective C when C++ was on it's way to becoming standard; it used a PostScript Interface, when X was becoming a standard; it used "NetInfo" rather than the standard NIS (it could be an NIS client, but that wasted the beautiful interface that NI had).

    All of these were arguably 'better' but the bottom line was that in my work env of 15 different Unix architectures, I could do everything one way for ALL of those others, but the NeXT's needed special treatment. (The easiest way to piss off NeXT marketing folks was to compare the Display PS to Sunview and ask how to run some GUI program on another display.)

    So let us celebrate that the remarkably consistant MacOS interface which was obviously designed rather than hacked together in reaction to market pressures (ala Windows) finally has a decent kernel underneath it. I will be delighted:

    if I can telnet to the Mac to fix problems

    if I can keep one up for more than a week while doing hard stuff on it

    if it finally has preemtive multitasking

    if it finally has protected memory

    if user-level programs cannot affect priviledged areas and viruses become moot

    If it works well with the well documented 44BSD programming interface, then perhaps the Linux side of the world might start writing code that's a tad more Unix portable that it is now (/usr/include/linux/?!).

  • doesn't anyone remember that *apple* and osf ported mach to powermacs and linux to mach?
  • apple should sell redhat? redhat has never been interested in a ppc port. all the *.ppc.rpm's are created by [mk]linux[ppc] developers. debian, in contrast, is making a ppc port of it's .deb's.
  • That's good by me, as for Mac OS X, well, let them do what they want to do. I'd like to try it out, though I don't have the cash nor the computer to do so. For the moment, I will stick with my Linux on AMD.
  • the intent is to for people to "pay" for it by contributing to it in some way, shape, or form.
    Whether that be by actively developing Linux, by developing software for Linux, by supporting people that develop for Linux, or by submitting a bug report whenever something goes wrong, the idea is that you contribute something.
  • the point is:
    you can still make money selling open source software.

    remember, open source source software does not necessarily mean free software.
  • just because a company makes a program open source does not mean that they have to give the program away for free. it just means that they are distributing the source code with the program.
  • Apple won't move to a Linux Kernel because they already have a kernel (Mach) that is both very fast and very mature. Mach is the basis of BSD, NextStep, and now MacOS X Server. It's not going anywhere.
    Linux is good, obviously, but Apple will still have to bring it into it's own mold... making it closed, and who knows whether they'd release the changes they made. That would make the Linux community pissed-off... so why bother.

    Apple already has Linux running on Mach (MkLinux) and if they continue to upgrade and improve Mach than perhaps they'll pass those improvements onto Linux... god forbid if MkLinux turns out to be better than LinuxPPC :)

  • People wake up!!! MS is huge based on the applications they sell. NOT windows. Windows makes them on every desktop, so everyone thinks MS and buys the applications. For the most part, the OS is a losing proposition.

    Apple does not make software!!!
    Yes, appleworks, but that is not their market, and never has been. The only real software they sell is the OS, and there is no way for that to be a big enough money maker to forgo the hardware sales.

  • Shipping something that could even remotely ever run on something that isn't 100% Apple threatens their agenda.

    Yeah! when will they finally make Quicktime/Filemaker pro/ webobjects/ available for other platforms....

    Oh yeah, they are.

  • Many of my Mac-addict friends agree that Apple would have done much better by releasing MacOS on x86 back in the Windows 1.0/2.0 days. The software was vastly superior to the early Windows stuff, and they could have taken advantage of the more common hardware to make a killing.

    Well, maybe...

    So Apple sells a bunch of OS, so what. It is not all that lucrative. MS follows up with various applications that make them the real money. Plus, part of the problem MS is having is dealing with so many different hardware combinations. That is why they finally gave hardware restrictions for NT. If Apple had gone x86, they would get to deal with the extra garbage also.

    And don't get me started about how they killed off all the Mac clones...

    C'mon people, lets get it straight. The clones were NOT increasing MacOS market share, all they were doing was taking away from Apple's markethshare. The clones did not have to pay for all of the R&D that they were benefiting from; for Apple to compete on the hardware front, they would have taken a bath on the R&D and development.



  • I am getting tired of seeing all of this OSX is sooooo late. C'mon people, it is what, a couple of months behind initial. Get over it. It is a totally new implementation of the OS, it may take a few weeks longer to get out than originally planned. Yet chicken little is running around "the OS is fallins..."

  • haha. i peed myself.

    ElecMoHwk

  • okay, let's look at this logically.

    1. can apple use Linux in OSX? No. that whole license thing gets in the way. (yay opensource...or whatever.)

    2. would it be timely for apple to use Linux in OSX? No. for one, they'd have to *stop and rewrite* the *entire os*...which would be foolish, because from what little i've seen of the mach microkernel, it's cool enough as it is. (that whole free/openBSD thing...which works for me.) so if apple felt like wasting time and jerking their customers around (something which stopped after Amelio lost his job)...then they could stop working on betas of a perfectly good os and start writing a new one.

    3. does the author know what he's talking about? apparently not. it seems he lacks a clear understanding of the difference between 'rumor' and 'announcement' (the references to IBM's announcements of things they never mentioned publicly), and i doubt that this guy has 'inside sources' at IBM.

    i, personally, see nothing wrong with opensourcing. (incidentally, yes, most of the source from OSX is gonna be on the CD, and they use all sorts of open source in the kernel.) i don't think it should take over the world, though...i mean, do we really want to be commies? ha. well, anyways, that seems to be the take of the author...that, and "linux is good." unfortunatley, he's wrong - mach is good, too, and OSX should stay the way it is.

  • 1. Highlight with left mouse button.
    2. Click middle button (or both if you only have 2) where you want the text to go.

    Helluva lot faster than in Windoze.

    Although for some reason it doesn't work with vi... :-/
  • Mac OS X is already built on top of a BSD kernel.
    Personally... i don't like linux very much, so i'm glad apple is going with BSD.
  • I mean... Really guys... OS X better be a Biiiig improvement over OS 8.5.
    Nice G3 300mhz processor.
    128M's of ram.
    128bit Graphics card.
    And you STILL can't work on something while a
    really big program is starting up?
    And as for this ease of use you all keep talking
    about?
    I for one just don't see it. *shrug*
    Ok.. so I've used M$ crap for years and just switched to Linux a few years ago.
    I'm not a Guru of OS's....Yet I've a piece of junk
    windoze box that I can use 15-25 programs at once on without freezing up... and it's only a 166mx cyrix with 64M's of ram... (course.. it's taken me a good year to get it stable)
    I can't DO that on a new G3??? what's the deal here?

    Anyway... (to get back on topic)
    Apple is not going to use Linux as the base for it's servers... No.. I don't see OS X servers gaining any significant amount of market share. Mac's are graphics machines.. and mostly for non-technical computer users.
    Can they possibly make their UI more obscure? C'mon a FOUR button combination to re-build the desktop? *sheesh*
    (oooh.. we'll just use ctrl-openapple-esc-F1+F25 for THIS command That'll be easy to remember)


    Just ramblin
  • It's progressing faster than you give it credit.
    Who cares wether drag and drop is universally available
    if the dumb OS keeps crashing. Mac OS is just as big of a bloated POS as 95/98/NT are.
    When we want to cater to Mac simpleton's.. we will.
    Until then... we're taking our own sweet time... why would we want you using a stable OS anyway? It would only allow you to post more often. *grin*



    (the most often heard sound in the computer lab is Mac OS 8.5 rebooting)
  • It *is* based on BSD.
    The kernel is a MACH kernel. Mach is based on 4.2BSD and Mach 2.5 is based on 4.3BSD. You need to read and study before you open your mouth.

    Have a nice day!
  • Linux, and all the GNU stuff, is tainted with the GNU public license. That's why. Nobody likes distributing a commercial system as a set of kernel patches. OpenBSD and its derivatives, like Mach, are open source and NOT tainted with the GPL. Hence, commercial products have been, and will continue to be, derived from OpenBSD instead of Linux, like it or not.
  • MacOS X is based on a BSD kernel. Not Linux.
    Gee, ya think there is a reason for this?

    You linux users seem to think your "OS" can take over the world.

    If I could get the media to tell you that the ocean was orange, you'd believe it.
  • Bzzz! Wrong! Before you start mocking me, why don't you check YOUR facts out, buddy.

    I"m sure there are plenty of keen sites on mach out there. Try reading information from a web site without "linux" in the domain name -- You might find some unbiased information.

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