[Cialug] Apple and Intel

Theron Conrey theron at conrey.org
Wed Jun 8 10:45:48 CDT 2005


"Beside, a proprietary OS that can give me a real terminal window can't 
be all that bad, can it?"

Yes.  Yes it can.

Theron


Tony Bibbs wrote:

> I disagree.  I'm still longing for an OS that has then flexibility of 
> linux with the sort of driver support found in windows..  OSX is 
> quickly becoming the middle ground.
>
> I'm guessing quite a few on this list would agree given all the Mac 
> laptops I saw at the last (and only) LUG meeting I attended this year.
>
> Beside, a proprietary OS that can give me a real terminal window can't 
> be all that bad, can it?
>
> --Tony
>
> Theron Conrey wrote:
>
>>  From a hardware perspective it's pretty interesting stuff but,
>> no matter what happens the situation remains the same.
>> OSX still isn't free, so the impact (hoepfully) will be minimal at best.
>>
>> Theron
>>
>>
>>
>> D. Joe Anderson wrote:
>>
>>> On Tue, Jun 07, 2005 at 10:35:02PM -0500, Bryan Baker wrote:
>>>  
>>>
>>>> On Jun 7, 2005, at 10:29 PM, Nathan C. Smith wrote:
>>>>   
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>  
>>>
>>>>> So here's a stupid question - what kind of thing will keep me
>>>>>     from buying Mac OS and slapping it on any Intel box?  I
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>  
>>>>
>>>>> thought all the stuff that used to be in ROM no longer was. What 
>>>>> will distinguish an Apple from any other machine?
>>>>>     
>>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>  
>>>
>>>> I'm betting they will have a hand at least in the mobo design, 
>>>> they  do a bunch of their own ASICs, etc. and they have been using  
>>>> OpenFirmware - not BIOS, but that may change now, but I bet 
>>>> there'll  be other diff's - that said I give it a couple weeks 
>>>> before someone  comes out w/ a hack, but you can bet it won't get 
>>>> support.
>>>>   
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> That, and what this guy said (after you skip down past all the
>>> license flamewar cruft) in
>>>
>>> http://zgp.org/pipermail/linux-elitists/2005-June/011207.html
>>>
>>>    Mac OS X's demographic is precisely the opposite of those
>>>    with enough technical skill to hack and/or patch enough of
>>>    their operating system to make it run on non-Apple hardware.    
>>> Even if someone managed to make that work, and found a way
>>>    to hack in driver support, either through some Rube Goldberg
>>>    linux-driver-wrapper horseshit or other, it wouldn't be
>>>    terribly useful to terribly many people who leave their
>>>    basement on a regular basis.
>>>
>>> The "not [...] terribly many people" who would be interested in
>>> doing this are pretty much the Mac fans who inhabit Linux and
>>> other free OS mailing lists like this one--a minority of a
>>> minority.  Heck, I figure I probably know the majority of these
>>> people who live in Iowa ;-)
>>>
>>> ie, not enough to affect their market significantly.
>>>
>>> outside of this, the Mac customers are either going to be the
>>> ricer-wannabees who might think the hack is cool, but who don't
>>> have the time/skill/whatever to actually apply it, and the
>>> people like the ones Valentine mentions above, who want their
>>> sealed-box to Just Work, they don't care how, and you can't make
>>> them care.  The main thing is that someone who does care, and who 
>>> does have
>>> the skill to apply the hacks isn't going to be able to hang out
>>> a shingle and go into business selling beige boxes that have
>>> been Macified.  The Clone Wars have already been fought, we know
>>> how that turned out, and that was before the DMCA.
>>>
>>>  
>>>
>>
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