BSD to Leapfrog Linux? 283
photozz writes "New from ZDNet about the coming of OSX and how some people see this as the rise of BSD, perhaps passing up Linux in numbers of users. " I'm still excited about OSX. I still am considering buying a mac to play with OSX... I mean, I can always install LinuxPPC if OSX sucks goat.
Re:SICK OF IT! Giving up moderator points to say i (Score:2)
my one gripe with bash (Score:2)
bash holds your command history in memory and doesn't write it to a file until you logout.
ksh (the *real* ksh, not pdksh) writes every command to a file as you run it.
Why is this important? On the machines I administer (about 50 RS/6000s and 7 Sun boxen), I constantly find myself typing a complex command at the prompt, only to realize after I run it that I forgot to su first. With bash, this means I have to retype the whole command, or cut-n-paste from X. With ksh, after I su, I just type "ESC K K", and I've got the command back.
Just to put in my $.02 for "favorite flavor of Unix": (1) Irix 6.x, (2) Debian GNU/Linux. The BSDs are nice, but I prefer apt-get to the ports tree. Least favorite: SCO (*shudder*).
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Re:A New Kind of Troll (Score:2)
I think there ought to be a new category of "moderator baiting" for which one can be moderated down.
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How to pronounce "X" in "MacOS X" (Score:2)
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More power to them... (Score:2)
I'm likely to stay with Linux, but I think it would be great if BSD took over a significant market share.
A lot depends on the Apple API and whether or not a desktop application written for MacOSX can be easily supported under the various BSDs. If yes, then BSD could easily take on Windows in the desktop market. Apple could position themselves as the vendor of "premium" BSD desktops specializing in publishing and media.
Unfortunately, I don't think Apple is far-sighted enough to allow this. They'll keep their API's private and try to grow their little piece of the market without giving up control. By the time they realize how foolish this is it'll be too late.
Probably Better Ways to Play With BSD (Score:2)
I'm afraid I just don't see why there is such a flurry of discussion to the effect that OS-X will somehow "vitalize" the usage and understanding of the BSDs. From what I hear, MacOS-X represents a "pretty light" variation on BSD, combined with a horde of MacOS-oriented graphical tools.
As such, it decidedly won't come with the hordes of CLI and console tools you'd expect to see in the typical NetBSD [netbsd.org] / FreeBSD [freebsd.org]/ OpenBSD [openbsd.org] installation.
I would think it a whole lot more economical, and likely more of a "Unix-oriented" learning experience, to head to CheapBytes [cheapbytes.com] and order CD sets for all three of the "free" BSD variations for IA-32, perhaps along with some of the O'Reilly [oreilly.com] BSD documentation. That'll cost a whole lot less than a G3 PowerMac, nay, that, including a wall-full of documentation, might well cost less than merely getting the MacOS-X license.
Re:System requirements... (Score:2)
You cannot currently tell OS X to use a separate partition for swap - so it swaps on it's main partition, and when you start running short of memory, (and when your disk has less than a few hundred meg of contiguous disk space) it runs horribly slow.
I hope that's fixed in the final release. I have 196 megs of RAM, and I run OS X on my 300 MHz beige G3 on a 2 gig disk. First week was fun. But it's gotten very slow. I will NOT buy Norton 6. There HAS to be another solution.
Re:This is a battle that should not exist (Score:2)
ps is definately the most remarkable (and annoying) difference. gawd Solaris' ps sucks.
Re:This is a battle that should not exist (Score:2)
Re:FreeBSD/Linux on Mac platform (Score:2)
One of the biggest complaints I've seen on all the Mac OS X dev discussions is that old-time Mac admins are having a HELL of a time adjusting to a multi-user OS. It is a MAJOR paradigm shift. From going to an OS where you are essentially root all the time, to going to an OS where you have to su, understand chmod, figure out why the OS won't let you empty the trash (even as root), etc. Lots of complaints. Personally, I think these differences will kill Mac OS X as a consumer OS. They did a decent job of hiding it, but nowhere near enough. Apple needs to realize that OS X is a GREAT power-user OS, but it SUCKS as a home/desktop OS, because my mother-in-law will never understand having to login. Apple has a LONG way to go before they can use the base OS X to reach that market. I'm not bitching about it, I LOVE OS X, it's great, I finally have a stable OS on my PPC-based machine, that lets me use all my old software. But it's non-trivial for non-technical people. You don't ask someone to pay $1200 for a machine, then expect them to jump through hoops to run it. Not in the mass market.
Re:SICK OF IT! Giving up moderator points to say i (Score:2)
it's "News for Nerds". Not Linux News. What percentage of articles are even about Linux? The polls say that Linux is the most popular OS of
Re:SICK OF IT! Giving up moderator points to say i (Score:2)
I'm sorry I unintentionally implied that ALL Win users were too stupid to use Linux. that wasn't my intention, I was making a demographic observation - that is MOST Win users. And by "technical fortitude" I don't mean ONLY smarts, I mean, ability to reconcile the problems they may encounter in their work environments (for instance, I CAN'T use Linux at work, because it's not a supported-by-IT platform for one, and two- many of the apps I need to use don't have clients on Linux (problem-tracking database, Outlook calendar for meetings, etc. ad nauseum).
But if I could, I would (or actually, I would probably use BSD). Because NT *does* crash and do weird things on me all the frickin time. It does get tiresome after 8 years.
Re:SICK OF IT! Giving up moderator points to say i (Score:2)
Personally, I don't even run or like Linux, but I am interested in many of the topics Linux people find interesting, because they pertain to:
Unix
Computer Industry/Technology
Internet
and the ramifications of the ongoing computer revolution, whether they're business, social, political, or trivial. It's all neat stuff, stuff that matters. To all of us. Not just Linux-heads.
Thoughts from one LinuxPPC guy. (Score:2)
My thoughts:
1. OS X will only run on Apple PMAC hardware.
2. Linux can run on devices as small as a cell phone or PDA, or be as transparent as it is in the TiVo [tivo.com], a PowerPC Linux-based appliance.
3. The number of users of all these various devices (cell phones, PDAs, TiVos, etc.) may be hard to count, it may eventually outnumber the number of PMacs.
OS X may outnumber us for a while. But then again, it's not something I'm worried about. So what if it does? That means the PowerPC will get more attention, and everything from BSD to Linux should benefit from that.
A side note: I have played with OS X beta, and was surprised at how slow it was, even on a G4. I figure you can credit the Mach microkernel for that.
BTW, we're giving CmdrTaco the "Comment of the Year" award.
Haaz: Co-founder, LinuxPPC Inc., making Linux for PowerPC since 1996.
Re:BSD has already surpassed Linux... (Score:2)
That's a LOT of stuff to be bringing.
Re: Pushing another... - get the OS to non-geeks! (Score:2)
You've a misimpression. Apple is first & foremost a desktop company.
Apple is really first & foremost, secondmost, and thirdmost a desktop company. With Mac OS X they finally have a viable server offering but that clearly has not been their focus. Indeed I can't for the life of me figure out where you got your misimpression. They did initially ship an OS X server but that's been dormnant & waiting to be supplanted by the upcoming full release of OS X. I bet they're hoping to move into the server space but clearly that's not their first target.
Apple's competition is consumer WinX and to a much (much) lessor extent consumer Linux et al. That's why everyone compares them. Server space tomorrow, but it's desktop today.
Re:FreeBSD and Linux (Score:2)
I don't understand the exact nature of the problem, but that's what I've gathered from various postings on web sites and Usenet.
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Re:You will end up running LinuxPPC (Score:2)
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Cost of unixware. (Score:2)
I guess if your soul isn't worth much to you, then yes it won't cost you anything.
(... spent the worst 6 months of my life doing phone tech support for SCO and Novell UnixWare
Re:What OS X is.... (Score:2)
Am I ignorant? Or was this person way off base? Ever heard of this before?
Quidquid latine dictum sit, altum viditur.
ppcLinux is not as bad as everyone seems to think. (Score:2)
pppLinux (debian-woody in my case) is very stable, runs X perfectly, and is fast. Almost every app I throw at it, runs on it. Gnumeric, Abiword, Evolution, etc. they all run fine. I can run MacOS under linux with the gpl'ed Mac On Linux, in the x86 world only vmware and plex86 have this capability. Vmware costs $$ and plex86 is not properly evolved yet.
PowerPC also has some other platforms you might not think about supporting too, how about AmigaOS? Darwin? BeOS? I'm sure the *BSD have support as well. I bought my PowerBook because I wanted a laptop without the Microsoft tax. I have never been more pleased by a purchase, although I did have an apple tax
My personal opinion is that if you are looking for a great system, with lots of stability, Risc architecture, and scability PowerPC is a great option. I definately recommended as a laptop, though desktops are good too. Having an x86 box around is of course never a bad idea, at least until more ppc users emerge. Case in point: currently
NOTE: i have heard a lot of people say "get tuxtops then" or such. I have not found any x86 laptops as nice as the apple powerbooks, none of the x86 boxen from such companies have hardware supported nearly as well as the powerbooks. Don't have to worry about WinModems on Macs.
Oh yeah, my powerbook looks stylish as well (especially the Debian bumper sticker on it)
Both Linux and FreeBSD are beautiful systems (Score:2)
Linux and *BSD are both descendents of UNIX, with vastly more similarities than differences. Both are beautiful systems in their own right, borrow from one another when appropriate, and have many of the same strengths and flaws.
Licensing flame fests aside (I was recently harangued by a BSD License bigot for releasing my -- unfinished, rough first draft -- Novel [openflick.org] under the GPL-like Free Media License [openflick.org] rather than a BSD style License) and OS religious bigotry aside, I work with both Linux and FreeBSD and, quite frankly, wouldn't want to be without either of them.
There is no one right way to anything, unless you subscribe to the Microsoft philosophy (one world, one internet, one OS, akin to Hitler's "ein Volk, ein Reich..." crap). None of us would want a steady diet of steak, without the occasional salad, potato, or glass of Merlot
Re:This is a battle that should not exist (Score:2)
I would love to have an out-of-the-box installation of Solaris x86 that included KDE, mutt, GNU Utils, and so on. The big reason there isn't such a thing is not licencing, it's the fact that UNIX vendors (and maybe include BSD in there because of the old school aesthetic) have been rather bullheaded about making a nice, rich user environment, and instead have been stuck in a 1988-style time bubble, and are moving so many headless server that it's a low priority.
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System requirements... (Score:2)
I ran OSX with 64 meg on my G3 for a while,
and the only thing that was really painfully slow was Classic. All the new stuff ran fine.
Besides, 128Mb isn't all that 'high end' any more...
A 128Mb PC(100|133) DIMM is going for ~$60 nowadays, and many consumer-level machines are shipping with that much anyway.
As for disk requirements, I don't remember what the base
install took exactly, but I don't think it was 1.5Gb.
Prolly more like 700Mb to 1G, if that.
And, like memory, disk is cheap. IIRC, 10Gb drives go for significantly under $100 now.
--K
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Re:BSD..... (Score:2)
Which BSD were you trying to install? FreeBSD installs perfectly for me. I can't say I've tried NetBSD recently. OpenBSD also installs for me without a problem. Now Debian on the other hand, I've never gotten a proper install!
Seriously, the FreeBSD install program is intuitive. You can have it autoconfigure your partitions for you, and it gives you the option to select many different types of default installations, or you can do a custom. And once you've got it installed, configuring your system is just a matter of editing you config files in
I've just set one up to be my IP Masq / Firewall and it works wonderfully. I will admit there is a learning curve involved, even coming from Linux. But if you just read the man pages and check out the handbook on the FreeBSD website, you'll find that everything is straightfoward.
eh (Score:2)
I prefer BSD over Linux.
OK, I can hear you all yelling at me now. Yes, I prefer BSD. I don't know why, but I do. I run OpenBSD as a desktop. I have found that the biggest issue I have with it is the ports tree - it just isn't big enough. No XMMS, no mozilla (C++ linker issue there), no Gnome. These are purely aesthetic things, though, and these ARE available on FreeBSD - but I'd never change from OpenBSD.
However, the biggest issue I have with BSD is this - there needs to be more user groups. I see Linux user groups and Linux shows everywhere, I see a BSD group maybe a few states away. I see BSD shows on the opposite coast of the US. I think that it needs to get *out there* more, and I think that Mac OS X will help get it more recognition, and I think that perhaps soon I will see more BSD shows and more BSD groups around.
Now, you may not agree with me - fine, think what you want.
Another issue I have is documentation. I would love for there to be more HOWTOs for BSD. I see lots of documentation on compiling kernels, but there is no user friendly way of doing it (such as make xconfig) (on another note - I enjoyed being able to download a tarball of the kernel source instead of using CVS). Also, I would like to be able to look at a HOWTO specific for the subject of installing a CDRW or getting other hardware to work - with compatibility lists on each thing.
I like BSD a lot on all other counts, though. Things will get better, its not a dead OS (which is what I thought when I first installed it, like it was just an old OS that some hobbyists kept going). It is probably at the same stage Linux was at when I first started using it (when redhat 5.0 was released). I expect to see a lot from it soon.
If you think you know what the hell is going on you're probably full of shit. -- Robert Anton Wilson
Non-OSX BSD For Mac? NetBSD (Score:2)
the fully righteous NetBSD [netbsd.org] will run on most macs, and will give you a better experience in most cases than even LinuxPPC, simply because of the parity between the releases / ports. netbsd/macPPC already runs on the G4 cube (as of the beta of 1.5) and just about everything back to the first PCI powermacs. silly nubus architecture...
i even have netbsd/mac68k (formerly macBSD) running on an LCii, which has given the little bugger a whole new lease on life.
Re:This is a battle that should not exist (Score:2)
Um, Apple?
Isn't Mac OS X the reason for this discussion?
-jon
Re: Pushing another... - get the OS to non-geeks! (Score:2)
I hate to say it, but are you on drugs?
With all this effort on Aqua and Quartz and other interface nicities, how could anyone in their right mind think that OS X is targeted at servers?
What warrents the excitement? That's all I want to know. :^)
The excitement is that OS X is going to be the first Unix that usable by Grandma.
-jon
Mac OS "ten", not Mac OS "ex" (Score:2)
Mac OS XI? (Score:2)
Re:This is a battle that should not exist (Score:2)
For example, you can get closed-source drivers from NVidia, Sigma Designs, Aureal, and dozens of other companies for Linux... but not BSD. You can get Oracle and Wordperfect for Linux, but not BSD.
Where is the industry interest in the BSD license?
Torrey Hoffman (Azog)
Re:Probably Better Ways to Play With BSD (Score:2)
In fact it *DOES*. This comment cannot be made unless you have seen it for yourself.
The standard Unix toolset is there-grep, awk, sed, head, tail, etc..everything you expect to find in Unix, many of them GNU versions. It comes with Perl, BIND, Apache, all installed as well. Network services are also present via inetd. SSH (and sshd) is also installed. Open a terminal window and you would think you were on any standard Unix box.
I'd list more but the iBook is off, downstairs, and not set to boot to OS X.
And please don't buy from anywhere that does not donate all or part of their sales to the various Projects. Do FTP installs or (if you must) burn ISOs and donate a few dollars yourself. If you have to buy a CD, do so from freebsdmall.com (Now run by BSDi), where all CD sales go to the FreeBSD Project. This (donating, not freebsdmall.com) goes for any of the BSDs and Linux distros (Debian specifically comes to mind) also.
Re:Question about Xfree and Gnome for BSD/Darwin (Score:2)
At GNU-Darwin, we are busily porting GNOME to Darwin X11. There are currently some problems with gnomelibs. You can check the progress here.
https://sourceforge.net/projects/gnu-darwin/
proclus
Scalable interface (Score:2)
Not unless you're installing Unix software, which I doubt Mac admins are doing. And if they are, there's nothing Apple can do to shield them from that. Your mother certainly shouldn't be installing MySQL.
figure out why the OS won't let you empty the trash (even as root)
No idea what this means.
Personally, I think these differences will kill Mac OS X as a consumer OS. They did a decent job of hiding it, but nowhere near enough.
Since we're still in beta, I think you're speaking a bit prematurely. Or perhaps you meant "as it stands now."
Apple needs to realize that OS X is a GREAT power-user OS, but it SUCKS as a home/desktop OS, because my mother-in-law will never understand having to login.
Fine, she doesn't have to. She can have it startup without asking for a login.
- Scott
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Scott Stevenson
Ask and you shall receive... (Score:2)
No "perhaps" about it. All of the companies you list are Carbonizing their apps (or possibly rewriting them in Cocoa). Though I've never heard of Kinetix. Perhaps you mean Connectix?
I lamented the lack of games
Also, there are substanially more new games coming out for the Mac now than there were just a few years ago. I think you'd be suprised.
and I had to use substandard office applications
I think this issue has completely whithered away with the release of Mac Office 2001. It's getting rave reviews.
- Scott
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Scott Stevenson
Yes, but.... (Score:2)
Re:This is a battle that should not exist (Score:2)
I'm not so sure. The GPL is a good choice for a business who wants its app to become the standard (so being Free and Open-Source is good), but doesn't want other businesses to be able to make derivative apps and not share the enhancements (so being copylefted is neccessary).
Re:Yes, but.... (Score:2)
Where does that figure come from at all? The number of Macs that have been sold recently? How do you know that 40 million Macs are "in use"?
Re:This is a battle that should not exist (Score:2)
A Slashdot headline of "BSD to Leapfrog Linux?" which pointed to an article on that subject. I didn't mean "a battle in the discussion threads."
Re:This is a battle that should not exist (Score:2)
Linux/XFree86 has established a near invincible lead in this area for the x86 architecture. I can't help thinking that UNIX on the PPC is always bound to be a niche phenonmenon. Now if OS/X were to be ported to FreeBSD/x86...
Re:This is a battle that should not exist (Score:2)
Re:BSD and general UNIX differences (Score:2)
Re:SICK OF IT! Giving up moderator points to say i (Score:2)
"but there are a LOT of W9x users who simply just hate Microsoft, but don't have the technical fortitude to venture into Linux (or *BSD)."
I prefer Windows NT 4.0 to Linux. I really do. Neither of them crash on me, and NT has more apps and a much faster desktop. It has better OpenGL and multimedia support. It takes less RAM than my Slackware/KDE/GNOME combo, and if I didn't need some of the *NIX tools, I would not have Linux on my system. After finagling a lot with it, I am technically competent enough to use and admin it, but I don't really like too. That's a personal desicion, but I really hate it when everyone assumes that people only use Windows because they aren't smart enough to use *NIX.
Re:linux-focused? (Score:2)
It won't gain BSD *ANY* market share (Score:2)
A) Ports won't use the BSD API, they will use the MacOS API.
B) New apps won't use the BSD API, they will use the OO API.
C) Cross platform apps will write for the BSD API, and then port it only to Linux.
D) OS X is NOT open source. Any GUI app (ie all Mac apps) immediatly becomes tied to the closed-source sections of the OS.
MacOS X is BSD in name and core only. Everything exposed to the user is unique, and 90% of developers will never get to the BSD layer. As such, BSD won't become any more popular. Take a look at the Linux market. Porting between Linux and BSD essentially takes a recompile and maybe some tweeks, and despite the booming closed-source Linux app market, BSD is getting *NO* extra, native software. Don't get me wrong, I like BSD (FreeBSD) but I really think BSD users are getting their hopes up for what will essentially be another prioriatory OS from Apple.
Re:BSD and general UNIX differences (Score:2)
>>>>>>>>>>>>>
I HAVE benchmarked them. Bonnie, iozone, postmark, be-fan-mark (random file ops;), all say ReiserFS is faster than ext (at the default blocksize at least.)
Re:This is a battle that should not exist (Score:2)
Huh?
Why benifits does the GPL have over the BSD license for companies?
Re:BSD and general UNIX differences (Score:2)
Re:This is a battle that should not exist (Score:2)
Re:SICK OF IT! Giving up moderator points to say i (Score:2)
Re:Much of a sameness. (Score:2)
It does not come with FreeBSD by default, but there is a port of it:
Re:This is a battle that should not exist (Score:2)
BSDi [bsdi.com]
Intel InBusiness Storage Station [intel.com]
Whistle [whistle.com] They even mention contributing back code on the job listing link.
Yahoo [yahoo.com]
I believe BSDi, Whistle and Yahoo have all contributed code and fixes back to FreeBSD. I have no idea if Intel does or not.
Re:I'll believe it when I see it... (Score:2)
_____________
Bob's a known troll. (Score:2)
If Bob had proof, he'd mention the parts of Free/Net/Open BSD that have this problem. The source code is out there for ALL to see. Wouldn't take much to prove what he is saying.
Yet we'll never see proof....because Bob is a troll.
Bob posts start at 0.
looking forward to Mac OS X (Score:2)
I've played with MacOS X, and I'm very impressed. Here is a GUI that looks and feels amazing, and the underlying technology (Quartz) is a decade ahead of X11.
I plan to get a MacOS X machine running after the official release. That means I'll have 2 BSD machines to the one Linux machine.
But most of the Mac users I know are going to be rather slow to upgrade to Mac OS X. It's going to be several years before Mac OS X is running on the majority of the Mac installed base. And I doubt that your average Linux kiddie is going to fork out for an iMac or a Cube and then manually port his 200 favourite Linux utilities to MacOS X. So BSD isn't going to leapfrog Linux any time next year because of Mac OS X.
Re:I'll believe it when I see it... (Score:2)
Don't forget that most "Linux machines" are also Windows machines. Linux on the desktop (as opposed to the server) is usually dual boot x86. This will skew your platform results in various predictable ways.
For my organization's web site, we get roughly 90% Windows, 8% Mac, 1% Unix (with all major spiders & bots excluded). Also quite predictable, due to differences in content.
Re:BSD and general UNIX differences (Score:2)
FFS is basically a log-structured file system (like ReiserFS) that also uses soft updates. This is a way that the file system can determine if the files are intact or not at every point in time.
For the development TUX2 (which I've read more about), the file system writes a tree of inodes to disk. They are organized, and have a sort of 'completeness' bit. The last thing in the tree written is the completeness bit, which then allows the file system to be updated atomically without a journal. Basically, you write a bunch of files to disk, which are recognizable as being grouped. Then, the last thing you do is write a bit on disk that allows you to see that the group has been written intact. So in a recovery, you merely check groups one by one to verify their completeness bits are written. In more advanced schemes the file system can also tell you which of several groups are potentially not intact to begin with. Recovery from crashes are as fast or faster than journalled file system crashes. But file systems still need fscks. You cannot guarantee the integrity of data simply because the file system didn't crash.
I've seen numerous tests of FFS in massive compiles in which the compilation is just allowed to end when the power goes off. FFS does extremely well.
However, for the name server, an administrator wants uniformity. I recently had a situation where one group had name servers on Bind 4 OpenBSD, and everyone else was on Bind 8
Compiling BIND 8 is not exactly rocket science. It is what I do for my name servers anyway. But stop hyping on name servers - they are a little task suitable to a 386 in a closet running linux kernel 2.0. Setting them up on a large number of computers in a small area is just opening potential doors. Named is the number one mechanism of computer breakins in the last 5 years.
You will also note that Red Hat installs Bind 8 as a caching server only, and I've seen networks with hundreds of UNIX workstations, all running such caching servers - named can be considered client software, although I understand that nscd can now serve a similar purpose.
I find this to be quite silly. A reasonable named can serve a few hundred very active computers without issue. Matter of fact, our UCSF campus uses two on the entire campus serving tens of thousands of machines. Redhat has no business setting up named by default in any capacity - they caused hundreds if not thousands of break-ins by doing this in Redhat 5.x releases. If you want named to run, you ought to be able to figure it out. Named is not a garden variety server task. Any server task should be considered seriously as a potential breakin mechanism. If it is not really necessary, it should be closed.
Unless, of course, you relish reinstalling the OS.
As far as mature memory management goes (if I understand your point correctly), I think an administrator will try to avoid swap/paging on a mission-critical system. And how many high-capacity, heavy-load system run with a single processor?
This is much more pervasive. A single large compile will push almost any machine to the limits of its memory management. You ought to be able to retain use of the mouse at the same time you compile. This is MUCH more robust on the BSDs. This is something I would notice on any machine I use on my desktop - and I am a very conservative users of resources.
Things have got to scale. Right now, both Linux and BSD fall short on this point. I look forward to the day when this is no longer the case.
Linux outscales almost all commercial Unices using the 2.4 kernels with respect to load scaling and maximal TCP/IP throughput. That was entirely the point of the development series. So it is coming.
Re:BSD and general UNIX differences (Score:2)
This is sort of a loaded statement, as it depends on the nature of the data. In particular, if the blocksize is small or comparable to the average file sizes, then it is pretty much a wash. In cases with lots of files smaller than the ext2 blocksize, Reiserfs will have an edge.
and FreeBSD's FS is inbetween ext2 and ReiserFS in speed. I don't know why people say journeling FSs are slow
Maybe they benchmarked them ?? Seriously, FFS is a really solid file system, different from ext2 or ReiserfFS.
the issue with journalling is that you need to keep your journal synchronous on disk. This creates a bit of inflexibility in the VFS used by the kernel. Soft updates allow a lot more flexibility, as does tux2, another soft update system using atomic updates of phase trees. The issue is whether restructuring the file system to allow atomic updates causes you more speed loss than adding a journal. Generally journalling will lose, although ReiserFS has other reasons that make it fast. Those will largely be copied into soft updates FSs like Tux2, and you will be able to choose a faster soft update file system or a slower journalled system.
Re:OS X Server... (Score:2)
And to get a compiler for Rhapsody you don't have to pay anything! MacOS X Server comes with a complete development environment (on the WebObjects CD). For MacOS X (workstation) you have to download the development software seperately, but it is still free.
The next incarnation of MacOS X Server will in practice be MacOS X (workstation) bundled with server components.
Re:Sick of BSD vs Linux stories.... (Score:2)
I'd assume he didn't want to say Intel as processor company of choice, because he prefers AMD. It was a attack on both PowerPC and Intel processors.
I guess he wants an x86 box with an AMD processor that runs a few Linux distros....
Re:You will end up running LinuxPPC (Score:2)
My Mac 512 got upgraded to a 512E and then a Mac Plus towards the end of the Plus' product life. (when the price went down.) My IIcx later became a IIci. I seriously thought of getting the IIci to Quadra 700 upgrade, but never brought it to that point. Just this year I changed the LaserWriter IINT I rescued from a dumpster into a IIf.
It was soon after that point where the upgradable models became fewer. By now, they've stopped completely. But this is a fairly recent development, not how it "has always been".
Linux to BSD (Score:2)
Re: SICK OF IT! (Score:2)
I could turn around and point out that in your kind, gentle, emotionally controlled manner you're being quite condescending. Not to mention wearing your heart on your sleeve with the suicide comment. As much as mastery over one's emotions is part of maturing, so is a certain amount of reserve. Approaching strangers with your personal problems (or triumphs, for that matter) is...tacky in my mind. Judging other people based on one post is also fairly shortsighted--my physical and mental health are very good in fact! The blinders people often wear just annoy me sometimes.
As for the HP-UX/AIX ==> Guru, that's not quite what I intended, although I see how it came across as that. What I meant was that (any single platform) =X=> Guru, and also that it's pointless (and socially harmful) to be a zealot when you only know one thing.
As for considering myself a guru, all I can say is HAH! I might achieve that status in my own mind the day I die, but not before. In the meantime, I'll keep working on it.
Re:Yes, but.... (Score:2)
Apple's biggest problem is a large number of their sales are to replace old, junk Macs. And the iMac -- a huge chunk of recent sales, is a dog with OSX on it. The reality is that it's going to take longer than Apple wants for OSX to matter.
Also, tons of schools are now switching to PCs. Dell is doing a booming business, and sells far more PCs to education than Apple at this point. What the kids use at school is still a large factor in what gets bought for home. And outside of publishing, Apple's presence in corporate is laughable.
Re: Response to Taco: Try Debian (Score:2)
I have it installed on 2 ancient 68k macs, and my roomate runs Debian on a PPC as his main (bedroom) machine. The only time problems arise is when things like NES emulators make use of assembly code and can't run on the PPC processor, but other than that Debian has been completely usable and stable.
My only advice would be to "apt-get install aptitude" as soon as you have the basic installation finished, and never mention the word "dselect" again...aptitude is my preferred package selection GUI, but opinions (naturally) differ.
Sotto la panca, la capra crepa
SunOs-->Solaris, "Slowlaris" (Score:2)
One of the Unix grognards at a previous job (you know the type: bearded, glasses, suspenders, covered in moss and cat5) said that the "Slowlaris" thing arose from the switch-over from SunOS to Solaris in that Solaris 2.0->2.(3?4?) had a lot of legacy stuff from SunOS (i.e. BSD utils running against compatibility libs) lurking within the sysV exterior. I have no idea if he's right (I was, what, 12 when that happened?), but on the face of it it sounds logical.
--
Buy a Mac... (Score:2)
The newer iMacs work well (iMac DV or above - $999 most places), but you will need an extra 128Mb stick of PC 100 memory - and maybe more. I'd say 192k is minimum since there are few OSX native apps yet, so a lot of things start up classic and slow down OSX.
You can get to the console, and OSXnews and the darwin sites have all the tips to get things going. There are a number of differences - you need to use NetInfo which configures in the Mac environment. And the GUI is innovative - not just the annoying eye-candy (Windows has the wait for the popup to fade out, OSX has a very quick, I'm minimizing to this position on the dock).
You need to get the public beta (or better yet, join the developer's program - some of the things you will want are on the devtools disk) - Darwin is free, but the beta is a nominal charge.
And you can run Xdarwin if you grow tired of OSX or nostalgic for plain X.
netatalk lets me mount my Linux system on my Mac, OSX/Darwin has NFS. Linux afpfs is one of those abandoned things and hasn't been updated to the 2.4 kernel (I did a little work and it could recognize my mac from linux but it wouldn't get the dirents/inodes right).
And I can use my iMac as my non hacked computer (ok, I've opened it up and it is running an ATAPI DVD hanging outside instead of the stock CD-ROM - I needed it until I got a firewire-scsi converter, but I do most of my surfing on the iMac, and even use it to log in to my Linux box to check email).
Re:What OS X is.... (Score:2)
Apple just promised to release a ObjC EOF for Mac OS X after consumer releases (Which don't means anything, as apple promises have about no incidence on reality)
But, in the big picture, yes, Mac OS X == NeXTstep 6 (which much more bugs...)
Cheers,
--fred
Re:Maybe I'm being simple, (Score:2)
The 'stack frame buffer' idea is just neat. Too bad there as soo much humorless moderators out there...
Cheers,
--fred
Re:hmm.. (Score:2)
Ummm, does that mean I'm not posting this using Konqueror under KDE on a FreeBSD box? You are right on one point, there are a LOT more Linux users out there than BSD. Even still, FreeBSD is a fine desktop platform.
Mind you, I only got going on this here Unix thing about a year ago starting life out with RedHat. From that experience I was convinced that everything I heard about Unix being hard to understand was true. Oh sure, the RH installer went in like a dream and took me right into Gnome when it was done. After that, I couldn't have felt more lost.
Following a HD crash, I decided to try out FreeBSD instead. Initially it didn't provide the same kind of hand holding that RH did, but in more ways than I can count this was a good thing. It had a file structure that seemed to make a lot more sense. My jaw dropped through the floor at the ease of the port and package systems versus those damned RPM can't find dependancy files.
I still don't fully get how Linux got so far ahead in the media game from the BSD's. I've read a number of opinion pieces on this from a number of folks far more knowledgable than myself, and I still don't get it. It's just tough for me to get why you'd go back to Linux after trying FreeBSD out.
Normally I hate Apple stuff, but it'd still be cool to see FreeBSD get pushed forward even further because of it.
Re:linux-focused? (Score:2)
No no, not everytime. Just once should pretty much do it.
Oh for crying out loud, I'm joking already!! Geeesh. Here's to a nice long life to Linus and his family.
FreeBSD/Linux on Mac platform (Score:2)
My guess is that although Apple has Aqua running on BSD kernel, Linux users will have no real difficulty either porting Aqua to Linux or just making Quazi-Aqua on Linux.
It will take some time to educate all those cocky (IMO) mac-admins to use the REAL system such as FreeBSD. I do not think that Apple can get away with simply building a gui around "hands-on" system administration. Thus - it will be necessary to educate users a little bit to go over to "Anti-Mac User Interface".
But here is a chance for Linux - it can be more agile to offer new things (although sometimes not particularly stable). And I know plenty of Mac users who have already tried ppclinux.
Time will show what's best, anyway.
A New Kind of Troll (Score:2)
Go figure.
FreeBSD and Linux (Score:3)
Normally I'm an advocate of "It's not 'FreeBSD vs Linux', it's 'FreeBSD and Linux' -- different tools with different strengths, use the right tool for the job", but frankly sometimes when I'm trying to use FreeBSD as the right tool for the right job I find myself wishing I could do it with Linux instead.
Linux is the de facto superior workstation OS (easier to work with, more features, more apps (not all of which run under FreeBSD's linux support)), but FreeBSD is the de facto superior server OS (stability, stability, stability).
I like FreeBSD for its stability under load, its
I've been poking around at the various Linux distributions for several years, and none of them that I've tried managed to shore up Linux's shortcomings, either, so I've continued to prefer FreeBSD for heavily-loaded servers, but I still think that The Real Solution is to develop a Linux distribution which makes it as good as / better than FreeBSD for server work. I've been wanting an excuse to work on the kernel anyway, and I might be able to do it on company time if I can pitch it to elbossman right. Look for Annie-Linux (I'm a big Eurythmics fan) in, oh, three or five years.
-- Guges --
The theory of Anti-Slashdot posts (Score:3)
I want to do this because I read some posts (like the parent; nothing personal, you just happened to remind me of this question of mine) that complain about some view of the traditional Slashdot user and I wonder what posts they are talking about. Sure, you see some "linux r00ls" posts, but if you exclude the blatant trolls, I don't remember reading that many. To be fair, I realize that I may have a mental filter when I scan the posts that makes the stupid ones (like what the parent post complains about) recede into the background and the posts that complain about them stick out.
Hopefully that makes sense. I can't tell if our perceptions of Slashdot are colored by preconceived notions of the types of posts we expect to find.
If someone gets bored enough to do this for a psychology/sociology assignment, let me know. :)
Re:This is a battle that should not exist (Score:3)
Perhaps they will grow up. :-)
The interesting thing is that many of these people tend to judge by the looks. This year I had several people who perceived my FreeBSD box running under Windowmaker as a Linux box. Obviously they associated something totally alien with a BSD box and did not really grasp the idea that under UNIX the GUI is portable. For them KDE or GNOME is synonymous for Linux (yes, arghll!)
So both "worlds" have many in common, but also important differences (BSD license vs GPL, rather centralistic development vs loose development..)
My belief is, that the BSD will benefit from the BSD license. It is more free and allows for cooperation with industry. The GPL might have its advantages, but is not really the optimum for world of free and commercial/closed software.
Re:Applications make the OS. (Score:3)
Indeed it can run all of the traditionial Mac OS applications as well as any ported specifically to OS X.
From the user's point of view aside from a somewhat different interface Mac OS X will run all of the same applications it always has. Some things like Control Panels & Extensions may not operate (it *is* a different OS after all) but applications have no problems.
Why is won't work for Apple (Score:3)
Well, that works for Sun. Sun's advantage is it's highly scalable server software. This isn't the same as the desktop market. The kind of person who would buy a high end Sun server wouldn't be able to find the same performance in any current x86-based server. It's not just more, faster chips. There are a number of other reasons too.
However, Apple is in the desktop market. The speed advantage of Apple hardware is a slight thing at best nowdays, while the price is still at a premium. I don't regret my purchase of a PowerMac G4 at the time I made it. It was far better than any x86 machine on the market at the time. Times have changed, but the prices have not. The price ratio is no longer worth paying on the merit of higher performance alone, and recent trends over the past few years should show anyone knowledgeable in computers that the public cares far more about low price than high performance. Witness the explosion of sub-$1000, then sub-$800, then sub-$500 markets.
What are the two reasons to buy from Apple, then? If you're new to computers, fashion is probably a factor. If you're not, then the Mac OS is the more important reason. You make the Mac OS available on cheaper albiet slower and less reliable hardware and most people won't care. They wouldn't pay the premium for Apple hardware, unless they liked the looks. Remember, I'm talking about normal, uninformed people -- not computer geeks like us.
That guts Apple's hardware sales. We saw the exact same thing when Apple allowed clone makers. Questionably superior or inferior hardware, offered for much less than Apple's offerings. Basically, it ate Apple alive. So, what does Apple have left? While dropping hardware would cut their costs, the vast majority of their profits come from their hardware. There are only a few OS-only companies. They usually either:
1) Try to sell their OS at a premium, with limited success (NeXT)
2) Lead some particular profitable niche market (QNX)
3) Supplant their OS research with other products (Apple, Microsoft)
4) Offer support for arcane, user-unfriendly OSes (*cough* Linux distros *cough*)
5) Flounder until they can do one or more of 1-4 or die (Be)
Apple has next to no other real compelling software to sell, like MS, and they no longer dominate any markets that Windows or other can't really compete in. The whole goal of the Mac OS is to make living off of support nigh-impossible, so their choices are to jack up prices -- which will chafe most cheap consumers (who are probably already paying for Windows anyway on x86 hardware) -- or they can take the nosedive to death. It really is that limited.
GPL wouldn't have been a problem (Score:3)
The real reason Apple went with BSD is because Mac OS X is basically an updated version of NeXT's OPENSTEP OS that can run Carbon apps, has a new graphics sub-system, Java, and includes a few new apps like the emulation environment that runs Classic Mac OS programs. NeXTSTEP and OPENSTEP were based on BSD/Mach. All Apple did was update the Mach kernel and update the BSD 4.3 code to BSD 4.4 from some Free distributions.
Using Linux would've involved ripping out the UNIX underpinnings and replacing them for negligible gain. It was a smarter move to stay with what had been proven to work for NeXT. (Though I really, really wish that they'd adopt GNU syntax in the command-line utilities. It's so much better.)
Re:This is a battle that should not exist (Score:3)
By the same token, I'm pretty sure that most people would notice, and probably regret, if they were to be moved, without their consent, from one of these platforms to the other.
Re:Pushing another... - get the OS to non-geeks! (Score:3)
Linux was created by geeks, and despite the immense brainpower of said geeks, it's been difficult to get large numbers of non-geeks to use Linux as their primary home or buisiness desktop computer.
Think about it - how many friends/family do you know who use Linux as their primary desktop machines to use the Internet, file their recepies, write memos, do their taxes, etc.?
Apple is and always has been the most well-known innovator on the consumer computer hardware side of the market. When they lead, others follow. Cast aside arguments about the merits of their technology, but think about how many times their lead has been followed by other OEMs.
Now imagine the leader in consumer computer hardware using a BSD variant as their OS. Now imagine other hardware vendors thinking to themselves - hmm.. we could take a cue here, cast off the M$ shackles, and use a BSD variant on OUR machines.
Until BSD and Linux can get past the stigma of being seen as useful only to geeks, neither OS will take a significant bit out of M$ in the consumer market. Right now the only hardware vendor capable of spearheading that charge is Apple.
Re:FreeBSD and Linux (Score:3)
A Better Article (Score:3)
Maybe I'm being simple, (Score:3)
----
Re:Applications make the OS. (Score:3)
applications in LinuxPPC vs OS X (Score:3)
LinuxPPC has the excellent implementation of Applixware and hopefully that will continue to happen, though of course there is some doubt with the recent decision by Applix [slashdot.org] to focus on server-side instead of the desktop app market. Supposedly StarOffice will be available for LinuxPPC but I don't think that has happened yet.
There was a reasonable comparison between Mac on Linux under LinuxPPC and the Classic environment under OS X [resexcellence.com] which basically said that OS X does a better job intergrating the earlier OS's (just in a window) but they both are very reasonable.
Pushing another UNIX onto the stack? (Score:3)
I honestly don't understand the hype surrounding MacOS X. So far, the fact that Apple is producing a UNIX seems to be the only lure to people like Slashdotters.
At best, we're being handed another UNIX that could possible have more compatability issues than any other. We already have four ring leaders in free UNIX and UNIX-like operating systems as it is, and they've all been around long enough to be proven perfectly functional in production environments.
I guess what I'm trying to ask is, can someone rationalize the community interest in MacOS X? What does it offer over other UNIX environments, other than yet another OS alternative? Why should I take interest in this? Apple has never offered anything to me personally or professionally. Why should this change just because they're releasing an operating system that beats with the heart of BSD? This seems like nothing more than a toy to keep people with Mac hardware laying around entertained, coupled with a boat-load of hype.
Look at it this way: I want to be interested in MacOS X, but I can't find any reason. Please help! :^)
Relating to the topic of the article, I don't see hype being quite enough to divert people's attention away from existing free UNIX operating systems (and non-free in the case of Solaris, which seems to be most popular down commercial avenues). All hope for MacOS X lies in whether or not it can perform as well or better than other UNIX alternatives when it finally hits x86. Providing adequate support for hardware, both natively and from manufacturers, will also be an important contributing factor. If MacOS X can't do this initially, I doubt people will ever take it seriously. Initial disappointment could have lasting repercussions if it does eventually become a scalabale and stable operating system. Linux and *BSD have more than proven themselves, but MacOS X hasn't been given that opportunity.
To say that 'BSD is likely to rival Linux very soon in total number of users' while MacOS X is still in development seems absurdly silly to me, more so considering that it currently operates only on a statistically unpopular (and thus far workstation-oriented) platform. I feel that Henry Kingman has grossly underestimated the popularity and portability Linux offers, both as an extremely stable serving environment, and as an evolving desktop environment. Not to mention the other (currently available) BSDs.
NickRe:Pushing another UNIX onto the stack? (Score:4)
- Macs are a popular consumer PC. They've been one of the bestselling boxes for the past two years after a long decline.
- Macs are popular in the publishing, design, & graphics professionial communities. They offer features (color matching etc.) that are required to those communities.
- Linux is still not a consumer product. The skills required to install & maintain a Linux box still exceed those of MS WinX or Apple MacOS.
- Linux applications are much more un-integrated then comparable WinX or MacOS applications. It's trivial to cut-'n-paste something between apps on those platforms (esp. in the Mac) without concern - not so on Linux.
- Consumer-oriented applications for the Mac far exceed those for Linux. Ranging from MS Office 2001 to genealogy, personal-finance & cross-stitch applications Macs offer more choices that are more easily availiable/installed then Linux ones.
- Mac OS X is more then "just another Unix" or even "another BSD". It is backwards compatiable with the existing large installed base of Mac applications and has the support of those software developers.
- Mac OS X does offer some features that differ it from other Unixes.
- Mac OS X has the Display PDF system replacing X Window.
- Mac OS X has Apple's new Aqua GUI.
- Mac OS X has a standardized configuration system that is easily the 'friendliest' in the industry.
- Mac OS X is based on the well-proven, widely respected OpenStep technologies.
- Mac OS X's core is the first major consumer OS to be open-sourced (Darwin.)
- And as noted before, Mac OS X has the ability to run existing Mac OS applications.
- Mac OS X is due out in a few weeks from Apple as a shipping product. Many of the same features Mac OS X has are in development on other platforms but few are as advanced as Mac OS X offers and are from a patchwork of vendors.
Nick, you're right, Apple's Mac OS X may offer you nothing personally or professionially. On the other hand a large set of persons (equal to a large percentage of the existing unix userbase) are poised to start using Unix, many of them folks who've never been in this space before. All other apects aside that is very interesting and very relevant.BSD has already surpassed Linux... (Score:4)
Yes, streaming media services may be nice, but I am looking for something that could really cause heightened BSD deployments.
ostiguy, openbsd firewall user
What OS X is.... (Score:4)
MacOSX = Rhapsody 5.7+ Rhapsody = OPENSTEP for Mach (product code name change as of Apple buyout) OPENSTEP for Mach = NeXTSTEP (product name change as of Sun-NeXT co-released OpenStep spec.)
therefore (transitive property)
MacOSX = NeXTSTEP
The series, each of which is comprised of some version of Mach, BSD, Display Postscript, and Objective-C Frameworks:
NeXTSTEP 1.x
-BSD4.4-lite
-Mach 2.5
-DPS
-Objective-C + Appkit Framework
NeXTSTEP 2.x
-BSD4.4-lite
-Mach 2.5 + extensions
-DPS
-Objective-C + Appkit Framework
NeXTSTEP 3.0..3.3
-BSD4.4-lite
-Mach 2.5 + more extensions
-DPS
-Obj-C + Appkit + Foundation Kit (early kit)
OPENSTEP 4.0..4.2
-BSD4.4-lite
-Mach 2.5 + more extensions
-DPS
-Obj-C + New OpenStep frameworks + EOF
Rhapsody 5.x (Early Apple prototype)
-BSD4.4-lite
-Mach 2.5 + blah blah
-DPS
-Obj-C + OpenStep core frameworks (Codenamed Yellowbox) + extensions + EOF
MacOSX Server 1.x (Rhapsody 5.7) same as the above, but stabler.
MacOSX 1.x (Rhapsody 5.x [where x    -BSD4.4-lite
   -Mach 3 + fidly bits
   -DisplayPDF (Quartz)
   -Obj-C + enhanced OpenStep frameworks (Now called Cocoa) + EOF
BSD bits were taken from NetBSD and FreeBSD, with (I thought) some userland from OpenBSD.
EOF = Enterprise Object Framework - an Object-to-Relational Database adapter layer (very very good.)
Re:x86 version required? (Score:4)
I just can't imagine a Mac user:
- Editing and customizing System and app resources.
- Overclocking his Mac.
- Building a cross-platform network.
- Running traceroutes.
- Still remembering the file copy command from CP/M. (PIP, of all things)
- Reading and posting to Slashdot.
Oh, wait. I can imagine. That would be me. (And I know I'm one of many.)Oh well. Nevermind.
--
Re:BSD and general UNIX differences (Score:4)
But has soft updates, which are a substantial improvement over ext2 with respect to recovery from crashes. More seriously, what advantage does journalling have over soft (atomic) updates, and what advantages do soft updates have over journalling ?? I think reasonable arguments can be made that soft updates are faster, and at least as crash tolerant as journalling, and a heck of a lot easier to program and maintain wrt the VFS layer.
only recently migrated to the ELF format
So???
still uses Bind 4 (OpenBSD specifically)
And this one is really relevant for those 0.01% of machines begin used as name servers.
Does BSD have a multi-threaded IP stack? How does BSD perform on Mindcraft? Linux has been playing catch-up in this space for some time, and may have a big lead.
Actually, *BSD does much better with their IP stack than linux 2.2.* and 2.0.*. *BSD also does much better under heavy loads because it has a more mature memory management scheme. Linux is supposed to work on this in the next devel series now that more fine grained SMP locking is present.
But seriously, how much advantage do you reckon a multi-threaded IP stack makes on a single processor machine ??
The free BSDs are a very fine choice for a kernel and base utilities. There are some areas in which linux is better, and others in which the BSDs are better. Generally common server tasks work out better for *BSD than linux, and application availability and marketing are stronger for linux.
Linux's big recent push has largely oriented around big hardware - SMP, multiple NICs,
SICK OF IT! Giving up moderator points to say it.. (Score:4)
worthwhile so far on this article.) I just can't ignore this stupidity any longer.
Here's what I hear most of the time on
"I am a unix guru. I work with Linux linux linux linux linux linux linux (solaris) linux and linux.
I tried to install BSD once, but it didn't work so it sucks. I know, because I am a unix guru."
Most of you haven't even touched Unix as a field--you've played with different distros of a _single_ variant of Unix (which very pedantically isn't even Unix at all), which is about as significant as playing with the different versions of Win95. THERE'S A WHOLE SHITLOAD MORE OUT THERE, and almost NONE of you posters have even seen it, let alone know enough to comment intelligently about it.
Anyone played with HP-UX? How about AIX (eek!)?
Tru64 is kinda different too. Then there's SCO Unix (if you can afford it), IRIX, and so on.
It comes down to this: I'm sick of evangelists who Know the One True Path to Enlightenment, and feel that sullying themselves with broader knowledge (not to mention history) would be Blasphemy. Or maybe they're just scared to find out that Linux (or BSD, or even Solaris or ANY single OS) isn't the perfect, magic, foolproof solution to everything.
Naturally, there _are_ true Unix professionals on
OS X Server... (Score:4)
OS X Workstation will be nice. But it really is a "Mac" approach to BSD. OS X Server on the otherhand, is what most of us think of when we compare NetBSD, FreeBSD, etc. to OS X.
We have an OS X Server (Rhapsody) here, supporting the networked filesystems. At first glance it seems pretty cool. But the SCSI drivcers (for a very popular PCI SCSI card, probably the most popular) are really alpha quality. They don't even support disconnect, which causes a kernel panic when you remove a tape from the tape drive, in use or not. And the only tape backup solution for OS X Server was pulled off of the shelves for legal problems. Even with that removed, under loads the computer randomly crashes, even without third party software (of which there exists little). To get a compiler for Rhapsody, you have to shell out tons for a developer's kit and membership. Linux is soon replacing that OS X Server here.
For Apple to propel OS X (and thus BSD) beyond Linux, they need to devote more attention to OS X Server than they have before. I understand Apple plans to do this when OS X Workstation is released, to make OS X Server more compatable with the workstation product, and therefor more useable. But I don't hold my breath- last I heard they were delaying it. Hopefully Apple will see the potential and avoid ignoring the Server product.
Re:x86 version required? (Score:5)
As to price, OS X should run comfortably on the MSRP US$799 'Indigo' IMacs. While you may not have that cash laying around it's not a bad price for the hardware one gets (15" Sony monitor, PowerPC, fast Ethernet, Modem, etc.)
As to Intel x86 support, no one has yet to describe a viable way for Apple to sell this & not cut their own throat. 1000th repetition: Apple is a hardware company - they make their money on hardware - they couldn't survive as an OS house. OS X may well exist on x86 (& Alpha) but until there's profit in it don't look for it to come out of the labs.
Re:This is a battle that should not exist (Score:5)
- popularity
- availability of a rich suite of apps
- whether the platform is stable (doesn't crash)
- speed/efficiency
- cost
At this point, Linux is way ahead of the other UNIX-like siblings on popularity, and also leads in app availability.I'm an old UNIX and BSD hacker and bigot (since the '70's), and I personally think that BSD is a better, more robust, more secure, slicker software distribution than Linux, but I understand that Linux has the upper hand in the market just because of more effective hype.
It might sound sensible to say "Why can't we all just get along?" or even "Why can't these Linux kids give UNIX/BSD their props?" but that matter is no more objective than OS preference.
Re:This is a battle that should not exist (Score:5)
"UNIXalikes" maybe at the command line they are all similar, but even then there are significant differences by default. I'll just compare Solaris and standard GNU/Linux distros. The shell of choice in solaris is ksh, which behaves differently somewhat from bash, the linux favorite. Also, linux usually ships with GNU fileutils, while solaris does not. Just use ps on both and you'll realize that there are some fundamental differences in the way they interface.
In the GUI front, solaris still sticks by CDE, while Redhat tends to like to use GNOME, and mandrake uses kde.. Also, under solaris you basically get no VCs, which is also quite a large diff.
From the standpoint of development, the systems have really different behaving environments. Just try to use dlopen() under both and you'll see. Also, try to write a multi-threaded X app in Solaris and then port it to linux. Chances are, in linux, you'll get tons of async replies before you add mutexes, semaphores, and special X calls for threading. Solaris X environment is *much* more thread safe than XFree86.
No matter how you look at it, while "UNIXalikes" may be very similar, there are many fundamental differences that distinguish them and cause preferences one way or the other. All in all, things are probably about equal, just some prefer one style over another...
This is a battle that should not exist (Score:5)
The only trouble here is that some people have religiously latched onto Linux and don't want to hear that it is 95% of something called UNIX, which has been around for nearly 30 years. They want Linux to be some kind of l33t inside secret. But in truth BSD and Linux are identical twins with different hobbies. That's not a put down of either system--or any of the other UNIXalikes such as Solaris--just a suggestion that this shouldn't be a feud.
Not a battle, not worth discussion (Score:5)
But that is largely irrelevant. With the introduction of autoconf, the open source components of these technologies will complement each other. Openssh was taken from openbsd to *BSD and linux. GNOME and KDE are largely linux developed, but work fine on *BSD.
The largest linux companies look at big business UNIX and Microsoft as the competition for different markets. *BSD and linux will both continue to grow at the expense of Microsoft and mainframe Unices. The market dynamics may have a few people going from linux to *BSD (and fewer going the other direction), but the changes in user base for linux and *BSD are coming not from each other but from Microsoft and mainframe Unix.
The media loves to play up battles, like KDE/GNOME, Redhat/Mandrake... but the reality is that KDE and GNOME help each other more than they hurt each other through competition. The same is true of Mandrake and Redhat. Any improvements made by open source companies in software lead to strengthening of all open source companies' software.