Mac Mini or Linux/small pc for software development?

[drag]

What I am looking forward to personally is the new extensions to x86 to make it easier to virtualize machines. That way I can be a happy Xen camper.

Right now I am using Xen 2.x for my Debian server.. I'll probably try to upgrade it to Xen 3.0 tonight sometimes. Very nice.

If apple was smart.. which I don't think that they will be.. they would add native support for Xen into their OS so that advanced users can boot up multiple copies of OS X, Linux, or Windows on a single machine at the same time.

Right now since Xen is para-virtualization OS kernels need to be ported to it to run on it.. it's much faster then Vmware and you can run multiple copies, but with the virtualization extensions that AMD and Intel are going to release with their next generation cpus you should be able to run OSes that haven't been ported.

 

[n0cmonkey]

Originally posted by: drag
What I am looking forward to personally is the new extensions to x86 to make it easier to virtualize machines. That way I can be a happy Xen camper.

Right now I am using Xen 2.x for my Debian server.. I'll probably try to upgrade it to Xen 3.0 tonight sometimes. Very nice.

If apple was smart.. which I don't think that they will be.. they would add native support for Xen into their OS so that advanced users can boot up multiple copies of OS X, Linux, or Windows on a single machine at the same time.

Right now since Xen is para-virtualization OS kernels need to be ported to it to run on it.. it's much faster then Vmware and you can run multiple copies, but with the virtualization extensions that AMD and Intel are going to release with their next generation cpus you should be able to run OSes that haven't been ported.

I don't see much of a reason for Apple to release stuff like that, especially since the hardware virtualization isn't out yet.

 

[Malak]

Originally posted by: drag

Originally posted by: Malak
I don't understand, why do you need nix for programming? Why not just use what you got, or even use that money to upgrade it to run faster?

Because he is a web developers and Linux/BSD servers is what he programs for. Unix is pretty much the default system for web servers. He wants to have a box around that he can test his websites out on.

I guess I have no idea why you'd need an actual nix box to test a website... And I've never used a nix-based webhost so again, I have no clue what you are talking about. The only thing I did that windows didn't support I could find a workaround to test it anyway. Windows server did support it so I knew it'd work.

 

[drag]

I don't see much of a reason for Apple to release stuff like that, especially since the hardware virtualization isn't out yet.

Well I don't expect them to do it now.

But I think it would be a very good move for them to do that with the Intel-based Macs.

It increases the flexibility of the OS considurably. One of the major things that people are going to find with the Intel Macs is that, especially in the beginning, your going to have very little in the way of third party apps. There is zero ABI capability with all existing OS X applications unless you get new versions that have been ported and tested to run on the x86 Apple hardware. (yes I know about 'fat' binaries)

So for the technical user or a person wanting to use OS X in a professional enviroment it's going to be difficult to justify spending more money on Apple hardware just to run OS X were you can get generic Dell hardware that is the same and run Windows and end up with a much higher amount of programs.

If you can make dual booting with Windows XP so laughably easy that you can either run all your desktop apps via rdesktop without needing a second machine or just dual boot to get hardware acceleration then I think that will make it very much easier for Apple to transition to the PC market were you don't have this myth of inherent 'Apple hardware superiority' to justify higher prices for the Apple branding.

To the end user it would be somewhat functionally similar to 'Classic Mode'. You'd hit a button and up boots XP Pro, it pulls up the rdesktop window and you can run and install your Windows apps in 'Window mode'. If Apple then can license NTFS support from Windows, which I expect they could, (after all if Linux distros like Linspire or TurboLinux can license wmv codecs from Microsoft..) then that would make it easier.

Also newer versions of windows remote desktop even supports drag and drop between the native desktop and the remote desktop window making it that much a tighter integration.

So I figure Apple would be foolish not to take advantage of this.

 

[drag]

Originally posted by: Malak

Originally posted by: drag

Originally posted by: Malak
I don't understand, why do you need nix for programming? Why not just use what you got, or even use that money to upgrade it to run faster?

Because he is a web developers and Linux/BSD servers is what he programs for. Unix is pretty much the default system for web servers. He wants to have a box around that he can test his websites out on.

I guess I have no idea why you'd need an actual nix box to test a website... And I've never used a nix-based webhost so again, I have no clue what you are talking about. The only thing I did that windows didn't support I could find a workaround to test it anyway. Windows server did support it so I knew it'd work.

Saying that you never needed a *nix box for webserving is like saying I never needed Windows to be a gamer.

Both statements are completely true, but we are both in the minority.

 

[Malak]

Originally posted by: drag

Originally posted by: Malak

Originally posted by: drag

Originally posted by: Malak
I don't understand, why do you need nix for programming? Why not just use what you got, or even use that money to upgrade it to run faster?

Because he is a web developers and Linux/BSD servers is what he programs for. Unix is pretty much the default system for web servers. He wants to have a box around that he can test his websites out on.

I guess I have no idea why you'd need an actual nix box to test a website... And I've never used a nix-based webhost so again, I have no clue what you are talking about. The only thing I did that windows didn't support I could find a workaround to test it anyway. Windows server did support it so I knew it'd work.

Saying that you never needed a *nix box for webserving is like saying I never needed Windows to be a gamer.

Both statements are completely true, but we are both in the minority.

But why would you need a nix system to test your website?

 

[drag]

Originally posted by: Malak

Originally posted by: drag

Originally posted by: Malak

Originally posted by: drag

Originally posted by: Malak
I don't understand, why do you need nix for programming? Why not just use what you got, or even use that money to upgrade it to run faster?

Because he is a web developers and Linux/BSD servers is what he programs for. Unix is pretty much the default system for web servers. He wants to have a box around that he can test his websites out on.

I guess I have no idea why you'd need an actual nix box to test a website... And I've never used a nix-based webhost so again, I have no clue what you are talking about. The only thing I did that windows didn't support I could find a workaround to test it anyway. Windows server did support it so I knew it'd work.

Saying that you never needed a *nix box for webserving is like saying I never needed Windows to be a gamer.

Both statements are completely true, but we are both in the minority.

But why would you need a nix system to test your website?

Because it makes it easier. You have something sitting in the same room as you that you can run and test your system on without involving any production stuff. That sort of thing.

(I don't think it matters what OS your using on the desktop for what I am talking about)

Apache support for Windows is subpar... If your a perl programmer setting up cygwin and whatnot to get it to work in Windows is difficult. Windows doesn't have decent way to manage dependancies and install software like most Linux distros do.

A inexpensive PC will run you about 300 dollars nowadays. This guy's budget is around 500 dollars. This is more then adiquate for running all sorts of stuff and anything to help productivity for most people is worth the extra expense.

You can get something like a Mini-ITX machine and have a little fanless box about the size of a hardback book and it would be more then powerfull enough to run even complex websites with database servers and all sorts of stuff for testing.

I can definately see were this would be undesirable.. like if you have no desire or it would waste to much time dealing with Linux install issues.. But that sort of thing is much less of a issue then it used to be.

 

[n0cmonkey]

Originally posted by: drag
Well I don't expect them to do it now.

But I think it would be a very good move for them to do that with the Intel-based Macs.

It increases the flexibility of the OS considurably. One of the major things that people are going to find with the Intel Macs is that, especially in the beginning, your going to have very little in the way of third party apps. There is zero ABI capability with all existing OS X applications unless you get new versions that have been ported and tested to run on the x86 Apple hardware. (yes I know about 'fat' binaries)

So for the technical user or a person wanting to use OS X in a professional enviroment it's going to be difficult to justify spending more money on Apple hardware just to run OS X were you can get generic Dell hardware that is the same and run Windows and end up with a much higher amount of programs.

If you can make dual booting with Windows XP so laughably easy that you can either run all your desktop apps via rdesktop without needing a second machine or just dual boot to get hardware acceleration then I think that will make it very much easier for Apple to transition to the PC market were you don't have this myth of inherent 'Apple hardware superiority' to justify higher prices for the Apple branding.

To the end user it would be somewhat functionally similar to 'Classic Mode'. You'd hit a button and up boots XP Pro, it pulls up the rdesktop window and you can run and install your Windows apps in 'Window mode'. If Apple then can license NTFS support from Windows, which I expect they could, (after all if Linux distros like Linspire or TurboLinux can license wmv codecs from Microsoft..) then that would make it easier.

Also newer versions of windows remote desktop even supports drag and drop between the native desktop and the remote desktop window making it that much a tighter integration.

So I figure Apple would be foolish not to take advantage of this.

This doesn't seem to fit in with the "simple and pretty" feel Apple seems to go for. It doesn't provide them any benefits, and can cause stupid users to have issues. :shrug;

Hardware virtualization shouldn't require any OS changes anyhow, so it should be possible. If apple uses the right hardware. 😉

 

[n0cmonkey]

Originally posted by: Malak
But why would you need a nix system to test your website?

You don't. But it makes it a hell of a lot easier. Windows doesn't come with many server based utilities that are kind of important.

 

[drag]

I think with Xen on the 'virtualization enhanced' x86 should be able to use OSes in unmodified form.. Xen 3 is out and Intel and AMD has been working with them to make sure this works.

However I think that it still will work better/faster with some assistance from the OS. Also I don't know about well a non-ported OS will work with being the "ring 0' with having direct access to hardware and such.

As far as the simple in pretty thing.. Nothing about OS X is "simple" OR "pretty" other then the Aqua interface. 😛 They have a lot of complexity and nastiness hiding behing those nice interfaces.. As long as Apple would be able to make it easy to the end user and fairly transparent then I think it would be good to have.


edit:
For instance most Linux distros and OS X (since 10.2.?) has been running the CUPS "common unix printer system". They both use generally the same software but with Linux printers and such are substantionally more difficult to use. Apple's biggest talent is to be able to make complex things easy and relatively fool-proof.

 

[n0cmonkey]

Originally posted by: drag
I think with Xen on the 'virtualization enhanced' x86 should be able to use OSes in unmodified form.. Xen 3 is out and Intel and AMD has been working with them to make sure this works.

However I think that it still will work better/faster with some assistance from the OS. Also I don't know about well a non-ported OS will work with being the "ring 0' with having direct access to hardware and such.

As far as the simple in pretty thing.. Nothing about OS X is "simple" OR "pretty" other then the Aqua interface. 😛 They have a lot of complexity and nastiness hiding behing those nice interfaces.. As long as Apple would be able to make it easy to the end user and fairly transparent then I think it would be good to have.


edit:
For instance most Linux distros and OS X (since 10.2.?) has been running the CUPS "common unix printer system". They both use generally the same software but with Linux printers and such are substantionally more difficult to use. Apple's biggest talent is to be able to make complex things easy and relatively fool-proof.

I just don't see the benefit for Apple. Yes, it would be nice for you and me, but I don't know how many macheads would really care.

I thought the ring 0 stuff didn't matter as much with the hardware virtualization. It's been brought up on OpenBSD lists, and there were thoughts that the rings thing would affect some of the features in OpenBSD. I think it was mentioned that the developers were looking forward to hardware virtualization because of this (and the fact they wouldn't have to do as much work 😉).

 

[shuttleboi]

Bloody hell! Looks like no Intel-based Mac Mini. Oh well, I may just end up getting the PPC Mac Mini for programming, although KDE on Fedora is starting to grow on me......