OS X on PC's

[BLAblablah]

Seen this? Story HERE

Barry

[blue2blue]

Now, this is sorely testing my anti-piracy scruples.

 

It would only be for testing purposes, donchya kow? Educational purposes. I certainly wouldn't be making any money with it.

 

But itwould be, you know, wrong.

 

[sigh.]

[aeon]

http://www.uneasysilence.com/os-x-proven-hacked-and-running-on-an-ordinary-pc/

 

 

cheers,

Ian

[Anderton]

I have a really interesting idea...run os x on hardware made by Apple! That way you'll get the best integration

 

I'm against piracy, although I can't help but admire the kind of brain that's clever enough to hack OS X so it will run on a PC. But I doubt that most applications will work with it, especially if it has to do I/O intensive work. It's a curiosity, yes, and shows that you can run OS X on a PC. So what? I'd feel uneasy running OS X on a platform with so many variables...I'm always amazed Windows copes as well as it does.

[Duck King]

Originally posted by Anderton I have a really interesting idea...run os x on hardware made by Apple! That way you'll get the best integration I'm against piracy, although I can't help but admire the kind of brain that's clever enough to hack OS X so it will run on a PC. But I doubt that most applications will work with it, especially if it has to do I/O intensive work. It's a curiosity, yes, and shows that you can run OS X on a PC. So what? I'd feel uneasy running OS X on a platform with so many variables...I'm always amazed Windows copes as well as it does.

 

What does Apple make? iPods?

[BLAblablah]

I have no desire to try this...I certainly don't advocate piracy, and I have enough trouble keeping an OS running on it's intended platform. But I did find it interesting (if not amazing), considering all of the Mac/Intel discussion. And yes, I wish I was that smart:)

Barry

[thankyou]

A couple of days ago, I had a Micro$oft moment. You see, five years ago I bought my first Mac because our gamer son had tried to hot rod the family Dell, which ended up in seizures. We couldn't obtain an original Win95 disc to revive it. So, I bought an original iMac. I just bought a new 17" iMac a few months ago and things have been great until my best friend tried to send me an attachment to one of his emails.

 

When I clicked the attachment, following the virus scan, I got a Micro$oft dialogue box telling me my "test drive" of Office was over. The options were "Learn More" and "Cancel". "Learn More" took you to a Micro$oft sales page. GRRRRRRRRRRRR.

 

They sure won me over.

 

I didn't realize that after a test drive, upon returning to the dealership, your present car would not run, forcing you to buy the car you tested or take a taxi home.

 

tHANKyou

[wooden]

Well i hope apple release some day their OS for PC's, windows really sucks in performance and in price compared to it.

[BLAblablah]

Originally posted by wooden Well i hope apple release some day their OS for PC's, windows really sucks in performance and in price compared to it.

 

But that could put Micro$oft out of biz....

Barry

[Duck King]

 

Originally posted by BLAblablah I have no desire to try this...I certainly don't advocate piracy, and I have enough trouble keeping an OS running on it's intended platform. But I did find it interesting (if not amazing), considering all of the Mac/Intel discussion. And yes, I wish I was that smart:) Barry

 

 

 

That version was intended to run on that hardware minus a chip that was intended to stop it. It really isn't piracy in any real sense of the word at this point.

[blue2blue]

You need a pirated copy of OS X .86 to run the hack.

 

 

Interestingly, according to the Wired article, the hack runs faster on Intel chips.

 

 

With regard to OS X, itself. If you like the GUI, great.

 

But a lot of people have some misapprehensions about some important aspects of its engineering.

 

The Mach 3 kernel at the core of the OS is a microkernel architecture, designed for multiple, simultaneous process communications. But the open source Darwin layer that runs on top of it is an 'old-fashioned' monolithic architecture, which forces communications to the Mach 3 kernel to queue up for serial access.

 

That's not that as much of a problem in a lot of standalone workstation use -- but when it comes to high load, multiprocess applications (such as network serving), OS X (or OS X Serve) can be as much as 10 times slower than linux running on similar hardware! (You can read a very detailed set of tests, comparision, and a number of analyses of chip and OS design here: http://www.anandtech.com/mac/showdoc.aspx?i=2436&p=6 [server issues] and here: http://www.anandtech.com/mac/showdoc.aspx?i=2436 [beginning of article] )

[phaeton]

Yeah. IMHO OSX is ugly, not just asthetically, but also for the reasons theblue1 touched on.

 

No thanks.

[blue2blue]

Well, just to make it clear, I think there are some ugly aspects to Windows, as well. It's just that sometimes it looks like some folks have bought into this notion that OS X is a marvel of engineering from top to bottom.

 

But, like so much else in life, there are thorns among the roses. Many folks really, reallly like the GUI (as do the folks who wrote the Anandtech artcile I cited above) and that alone is probably enough for a lot of folks to justify the decision for a Mac, right there.

 

There is no one solution that fits everyone.

[Duck King]

 

Originally posted by blue2blue You need a pirated copy of OS X .86 to run the hack. Interestingly, according to the Wired article, the hack runs faster on Intel chips. With regard to OS X, itself. If you like the GUI, great. But a lot of people have some misapprehensions about some important aspects of its engineering. The Mach 3 kernel at the core of the OS is a microkernel architecture, designed for multiple, simultaneous process communications. But the open source Darwin layer that runs on top of it is an 'old-fashioned' monolithic architecture, which forces communications to the Mach 3 kernel to queue up for serial access. That's not that as much of a problem in a lot of standalone workstation use -- but when it comes to high load, multiprocess applications (such as network serving), OS X (or OS X Serve) can be as much as 10 times slower than linux running on similar hardware! (You can read a very detailed set of tests, comparision, and a number of analyses of chip and OS design here: http://www.anandtech.com/mac/showdoc.aspx?i=2436&p=6 [server issues] and here: http://www.anandtech.com/mac/showdoc.aspx?i=2436 [beginning of article] )

 

 

That's because Mac OSs are built to not crash instead of be fast. Some of that is because of the chips they have been using, part is because of the attitude of the designers. I found the combination of OSX and a G4 to be hopelessly slow, but I would like to know what it's like to run OSX on a real computer. A little competition for Microsoft woulod do us all some good.

[blue2blue]

Competition is good, for sure.

 

Some Mac watchers have even suggested that this was, if not intentional, at least not unexpected, and that it may be used as a point of leverage to persuade a reluctant Apple Board of Directors (not to mention stockholders) that an off-the-shelf version of OS X is inevitable, unless the company wants to see a huge pirate OS x.86 scene.

 

(Now, it seems like one of the stipulations on Microsoft's $500 billion loan to Apple back in those dark days before the release of OS X was that Apple would no longer license clones or sell their OS off the shelf. But, as I understand it, that money has been long-since paid back. So my top-of-head thinking here is that that agreement is history.)

[phaeton]

Well, just to make it clear, I think there are some ugly aspects to Windows, as well. It's just that sometimes it looks like some folks have bought into this notion that OS X is a marvel of engineering from top to bottom.

 

Definately. Most people only see the slick n pretty interface of OSX and from there things (mostly) look fine and dandy. There are a lot of ugly hacks underneath all that, like the one you mentioned, and the whole translation layer between the actual OS and userspace. Then there's the memory management|dynamic/static library issue and all the inconsistencies about case-sensitive and case-insensitive, long filenames and such. On top of all that, a great deal of these 'innovations' they have have been lifted wholesale from a number of sources, namely the Darwin project the FreeBSD team, and the KDE project, and Apple has given very little in return, and in some cases has been pretty snide about it too.

 

In addition to that I've seen OSX brought down by some pretty trivial stuff. Or at least stuff that wouldn't take down "A Robust UNIX-Based OS" like they purport. I was really astonished.

 

There are some things that OSX as a whole does quite well, but then there are a LOT of things that I'm kind of unimpressed with. No OS is perfect, but I also see a lot of this mentality where "Apple's OS is a marvel of engineering and is perfect in every way", particularly by folks that quietly ignore some things that are pretty obvious.

 

That's because Mac OSs are built to not crash instead of be fast.

 

Plenty of OSes outperform OSX in this regard, esp. the ones that OSX is derived from.

[deanmass]

Intel port then flood the market with cheap LEGAL copies.

 

For every OSX WinTel clone that is hacked, there are probably 100's of thousands of hacked copies of XP.

[blue2blue]

MS estimates that roughly one third the copies of Windows are pirated around the world.

 

(Now, of course, those are 'ready-to-go' pirated copies with no further hacking required, in most cases. So there's no intellectual valor on the part of the users. Some or many of whom may actually think they've got legit copies that they bought with their boxes, particularly overseas -- but often, here in the states, as well.)

[Duck King]

Originally posted by phaeton Well, just to make it clear, I think there are some ugly aspects to Windows, as well. It's just that sometimes it looks like some folks have bought into this notion that OS X is a marvel of engineering from top to bottom. Definately. Most people only see the slick n pretty interface of OSX and from there things (mostly) look fine and dandy. There are a lot of ugly hacks underneath all that, like the one you mentioned, and the whole translation layer between the actual OS and userspace. Then there's the memory management|dynamic/static library issue and all the inconsistencies about case-sensitive and case-insensitive, long filenames and such. On top of all that, a great deal of these 'innovations' they have have been lifted wholesale from a number of sources, namely the Darwin project the FreeBSD team, and the KDE project, and Apple has given very little in return, and in some cases has been pretty snide about it too. In addition to that I've seen OSX brought down by some pretty trivial stuff. Or at least stuff that wouldn't take down "A Robust UNIX-Based OS" like they purport. I was really astonished. There are some things that OSX as a whole does quite well, but then there are a LOT of things that I'm kind of unimpressed with. No OS is perfect, but I also see a lot of this mentality where "Apple's OS is a marvel of engineering and is perfect in every way", particularly by folks that quietly ignore some things that are pretty obvious. That's because Mac OSs are built to not crash instead of be fast. Plenty of OSes outperform OSX in this regard, esp. the ones that OSX is derived from.

 

Which one of those can I get my grandma making DVDs on.

[phaeton]

Which one of those can I get my grandma making DVDs on.

 

I guess it depends on your grandma

 

I'm not trying to be a party-pooper and defecate all over Apple. OSX is a great OS, much improved over OS9 or previous. But it's not perfect, and no OS ever will be. It's actually kinda sloppy in a lot of places. Lots of OSes are like that, but some have the slop in less important places and some have the slop where it shouldn't be.

 

My $0.02

 

My other $0.02 has a knee-jerk reaction to the knee-jerk "...my grandma" argument:

 

Computers are complex things. It requires some skill and some time to learn to use them, and trying to oversimplify something for the masses is the wrong approach- it makes the users dependent upon a 'crutch' and also encumbers the computer. Instead, it should cleanly educate the user in small bits as you go. An OS built with a little faith in the user would probably surprise most people regarding their own abilities

[Dylan Walters]

I've been saying it for years that Apple should get out of hardware and into software as their main cash cow. No manufacturing cost (well, media and a box...), internet-based patches, downloads, etc.... Look what iTunes has done for them! I'd shell out $100 to run the Mac OS on a PC just to give M$ a run for their money. Most people could save that in two years by not having to run antivirus apps. It's probably too late now unless Apple can convince all of the major *business* software developers to port their code over to OS X. Note the *business* line in the last sentence.

[blue2blue]

Well, the magazine writers all seem convinced that Apple is brilliant at writing 'lifestyle suites' like iLife that cover most folks' needs. Why not take that to the mass market?

 

The crucial thing, seems to me, if they wanted to create a turnkey lifestyle computer on a massmarket box, would be [we all know the answer to this] -- drivers. If Apple could figure out a way to write generic 'wrappers' for Windows hardware drivers they'd be a long way toward what they'd need to not get smashed in the 'false-expectation aftermarket' of generally available hardware that doesn't have drivers for OS X.86 but does for Windows.