Poll: Would you Switch to Mac OS X if you could run it on PC hardware?

[onelin]

Don't waste your time sending the results to Apple. In short, yes, it would be very cool to have OS X. In long? It would never, EVER, happen.

Apple makes all of their money on hardware.

Apple has a policy of not supporting any hardware more than 6 months old. OS X doesn't even support floppy drives if installed on older machines (G3). Now way in hell would it ever support the wide variety of PC hardware.

It's the sad truth is all.

 

[Barnaby W. Füi]

Yeah, apple makes money on hardware, not software. People also seem to have this silly idea that apple is desperate to gain marketshare from MS, which just isn't true. It's called a niche market, they fill it well, and they make money doing it. Don't expect x86 OSX to happen.

 

[n0cmonkey]

Originally posted by: Monoman

Originally posted by: n0cmonkey
And I am right. As usual (any more substantial proof against my points here is definitely welcome and appreciated)

we are basically saying the same thing. my wording came a little lose from the :beer: but none the less, Darwin is a composite of MACH 3.0 and FreeBSD kernels.

glad your not a sore loser

Mitch

Like I said, other than the usual mingling of open source technologies, it is a MACH kernel, NOT a MACH + FreeBSD kernel. It is not a composite.

No need for me to be a "loser" at all in this. mach_kernel is not MACH and FreeBSD, it is MACH.

 

[drag]

Originally posted by: Monoman

Originally posted by: PorBleemo

Originally posted by: GonzoDaGr8

I love the Windows Registry!

God I hope you are just joking Porbleemo..

I know it can be a pain but all the options that you can tweak and possibly send your computer sky high is fun. -Por

you mean straight to the crapper right

Hehe.

The registry sucks. Plain and simple. Rated time and time again (by some people, probably mostly Unix people) as one of the worst OS design choices in history.

Windows, has the registry. Linux/Unix/BSD has the /etc/ directory and .filename files in the home directory. Much better and plenty times more tweakable, plus you don't have to worry about beaking your computer if you make a mistake. Anything you do is fixable, especially if you make config.bkup files before you edit them!


And as far as OS X on x86:

1. Not going to happen, at least not in the forseeable future. Like many people said before, Apple makes money on Apple computers, not Apple software.

2. Would be nice. Plenty of people would drop Windows like a bad habit, but not enough to keep Apple solvent.

3. Personally I'd rather much have Linux on a dual-cpu G5 computer (which is possible), then OS X on a x86 computer. PowerPC's rock. (and their is more to a great computer then just CPU power, but a dual-cpu opteron Linux box is looking pretty sexy to me, too)


OS X uses a Mach kernel. It's a microkernel design, like the NT kernel used in Microsoft OS's. The underlyning OS is based on *BSD. It's built using GNU GCC compiler and other tools that commonly gets lumped together with the Linux kernel and called the Linux OS.

It also has plenty of propriatory software. Apple and Steve Jobs never gave up on the NextStep unix-based operating system. Over and over agian they wanted to release a easy-to-use Unix operating system, but never were realy able to pull it off untill they decided it was OK to use open source software. Then they combined everything they had up until that point and created OS X.

The decision to use the Mach kernel over a BSD kernel or even a Linux kernel, is viewed by some people to be a mistake. I suppose using a Linux kernel would of been a bigger one, but a *BSD would be nice.

The thing is that a microkernel design is inherently slower (and ironicly much larger memory footprint) then a Monolythic style kernel like Linux. Plus the Mach kernel that specificly choose to use was already considured kinda obsolete a long time ago.

The good thing about microkernels is that they solve lots of the problems with designing drivers and can make it easier for the end user to deal with, which is probably why it was choosen. Also therotically it's easier to make them more stable and secure because you can isolate problems in the kernel thru designing things well.

 

[smp]

I love OSX.
It's never gonna be on x86, I don't care.
Somehow, it only seems right for it to work on nice apple machines. I'm just too poor for those.
Oh well, I use it at work.

 

[LiLithTecH]

Originally posted by: BingBongWongFooey
Yeah, apple makes money on hardware, not software. People also seem to have this silly idea that apple is desperate to gain marketshare from MS, which just isn't true. It's called a niche market, they fill it well, and they make money doing it. Don't expect x86 OSX to happen.

Apple's largest market share is (starving) Graphic Artists, Service Bureau's, and Printshops (know some still using MAC II's).
It's know wonder it is nothing larger than a niche market.

If MAC OS X were ever ported to the Intel architecture it probably would run no better than Windows.
Motorola Rulez!

 

[n0cmonkey]

Originally posted by: LiLithTecH

Originally posted by: BingBongWongFooey
Yeah, apple makes money on hardware, not software. People also seem to have this silly idea that apple is desperate to gain marketshare from MS, which just isn't true. It's called a niche market, they fill it well, and they make money doing it. Don't expect x86 OSX to happen.

Apple's largest market share is (starving) Graphic Artists, Service Bureau's, and Printshops (know some still using MAC II's).
It's know wonder it is nothing larger than a niche market.

If MAC OS X were ever ported to the Intel architecture it probably would run no better than Windows.
Motorola Rulez!

Motorola sucks. It has sucked for quite a while.

 

[addragyn]

Apple is not going to release their OS to x86 w/o a shitload of work, change of business plans or they start selling x86 machines. I don't see any of that happening, especially now that the future of PPC looks better than ever. Right now Apple is a hardware company. Instead of saying their hardware is overpriced think a little bigger and the question becomes - what is the total package worth?

If you want to "defect from MS" there's BeOS, Linux, Sun and other. The thing is most of the defectors are a bunch of noise making do nothings. Take this Tom's HW article and just replace Dell with MS. There are alternatives but most of the noisemakers think plugging a bunch of parts together and working a Windows installer is an accomplishment. That's just simple, almost mindless manual labor and in this country even 100 hoiurs of that will net you enough to buy an iBook. There are alternatives out there, you just have to use your head or your wallet. It's as they say down there, "Big hat, no cattle".

---

You can install Darwin on PPC and x86. It's a free download from Apple. The source is also available.

The very nice QuickTime Streaming Server is also available from Apple in an open source version. It's called the Darwin Streaming Server and is available for OS X, Solaris, Linux & Windows.

If you're bitching about Apple software being closed tigher than a clam you just have bad Google-Fu.

---

n0cmonkey is correct about Mach & BSD.

 

[Nothinman]

Instead of saying their hardware is overpriced think a little bigger and the question becomes - what is the total package worth?

The total package? All you get is a PPC based PC, all of their parts are generic run of the mill things. The only thing Apple adds to it is OpenFirmware that you have to fight to get into and an OS that runs on nothing else.

 

[Barnaby W. Füi]

Originally posted by: LiLithTecH

Originally posted by: BingBongWongFooey
Yeah, apple makes money on hardware, not software. People also seem to have this silly idea that apple is desperate to gain marketshare from MS, which just isn't true. It's called a niche market, they fill it well, and they make money doing it. Don't expect x86 OSX to happen.

Apple's largest market share is (starving) Graphic Artists, Service Bureau's, and Printshops (know some still using MAC II's).
It's know wonder it is nothing larger than a niche market.

If MAC OS X were ever ported to the Intel architecture it probably would run no better than Windows.
Motorola Rulez!

Musicians, schools, other things too. Nothing wrong with filling a niche; I don't know why people act like it's a bad thing.

 

[Barnaby W. Füi]

Originally posted by: Nothinman

Instead of saying their hardware is overpriced think a little bigger and the question becomes - what is the total package worth?

The total package? All you get is a PPC based PC, all of their parts are generic run of the mill things. The only thing Apple adds to it is OpenFirmware that you have to fight to get into and an OS that runs on nothing else.

You get a PPC based PC that's guaranteed to work well out of the box, and all of the software written by apple (people love itunes, safari, etc etc).

Oh, and the cases are hardly run of the mill.

 

[Nothinman]

Work well apparently doesn't include any burn in testing, friend of mine had a drive die on his G4 in the first week.

And no the cases aren't run of the mill, they're designed to make it difficult to add more hardware.

 

[Barnaby W. Füi]

Originally posted by: Nothinman
Work well apparently doesn't include any burn in testing, friend of mine had a drive die on his G4 in the first week.

Work well doesn't mean that nothing ever fails, it means that when you're using the thing day to day, and nothing catastrophic has happened, it works well.

And no the cases aren't run of the mill, they're designed to make it difficult to add more hardware.

Which is something most mac users don't really care about. Apple isn't trying to sell computers to anandtech readers, they're trying to sell them to the kinds of people mentioned previously in this thread.

 

[n0cmonkey]

Originally posted by: Nothinman

Instead of saying their hardware is overpriced think a little bigger and the question becomes - what is the total package worth?

The total package? All you get is a PPC based PC, all of their parts are generic run of the mill things. The only thing Apple adds to it is OpenFirmware that you have to fight to get into and an OS that runs on nothing else.

And software. Apple includes a bunch of software. It may not meet your needs, but it works quite well for some people.

 

[drag]

Apple computers are pretty good.

The hardware this is included is the same stuff you can get for PC's, but it's among the better.

Compare the quality of parts and build between your average Dell and your average Apple computer, you'd see that Apple does a extremely well in a comparision. Their computers are generally finely engineered and designed to run for a long time. They pay attention to things like wire routing and airflow that you just aren't going to see in a PC. Open up the insides of a Powermac G4 or a G5 you'll see. It's funny when you try to find were they put those IDE ribbons.

The only things that come close to the general overall quality of the computers is the higher end workstation-class Dell computers were the targeted customer has a fairly good chance to have the ability to tell crap from what is good. You pay for the quality and testing in those, too.

The one good thing that Apple has going for them is that you get the newest stuff. When other companies are saying "just in a few months and we will have so-and-so technology aviable" you can go buy the same thing in a Apple right now.

Like when people first got into buying sound blaster cards for their PC, Macs had them. In even some of the earliest PowerMac G4's you had on-board Gigabyte Ethernet standard. USB, Firewire, and now the faster new versions of both devices come standard on even low-end new Ibooks. 64bit is just another example of were they are first. 64bit PCI ports. Newer wireless and bluetooth stuff, too.

Most of what people use in PC's, were aviable on Mac's first. That's one of the reasons that Macs tend to have very long usefull lifetimes, because even though most people wouldn't of used stuff like gigabyte ethernet 2-3 years ago, there will be plenty of g4's plugged in on those for a good while. Plugging away with stuff like photoshop and quark express long after you and me toss our PC's and get new ones.

 

[bluemax]

The software I want to run is all Win-soft. If I could use an elegant, stable, fast OS that could run those progs, I'd consider switching.

All a pipe dream though.... Linux may be cool, but all my essential software is for Windows and there's no Linux version. So I'll stay a Windows Man a while longer.

 

[Nothinman]

Linux may be cool, but all my essential software is for Windows and there's no Linux version. So I'll stay a Windows Man a while longer.

Unless the essential software is games, chances are you can find an alternative if you actually look.

 

[dawks]

I think Apple could transition more to a software company slowly. Its what they seem to be doing right now with point releases every year costing $129. If they released that on x86, it could become a big source of income for them IMO.

Remember that Microsoft is a software company. Just about every branch of their company (Xbox, MSN...) is loosing money. Only the Office and Windows divisions profit. Apple just needs to increase their market share, and gain developer support.

Stop being so anal about the kernel origins. Its a BSD based system, which is based off of UNIX not? Linux is also based off of UNIX. We don't need to be so damn specific for this particular topic IMO

 

[TiziteLayinLow]

I know alot of people who would be better off running OS X than windows, too many options just makes for more headache to the people fixing them. If the government mandated people learn windows then maybe we would be talking about something else. but thatll never happen.. my 2 cents.

 

[Nothinman]

Stop being so anal about the kernel origins. Its a BSD based system, which is based off of UNIX not? Linux is also based off of UNIX. We don't need to be so damn specific for this particular topic IMO

But it matters, especially now with the SCO/LInux thing going on. OS X is not BSD, it's Mach with FreeBSD userland and Linux is not based off UNIX it's a unix work-alike.

 

[n0cmonkey]

Originally posted by: DaZ
I think Apple could transition more to a software company slowly. Its what they seem to be doing right now with point releases every year costing $129. If they released that on x86, it could become a big source of income for them IMO.

Not entirely true. I could have gotten 10.1 for free. I could have gotten it for $20. But I'm impatient (and had plenty of money at the time ). Windows XP is NT 5.1 (2k is NT 5), and I don't think you can get a full retail version of that for $129, let alone 5 licenses for $199.

Remember that Microsoft is a software company. Just about every branch of their company (Xbox, MSN...) is loosing money. Only the Office and Windows divisions profit. Apple just needs to increase their market share, and gain developer support.

They have increased their market share. They've opened up new areas. I bought an iBook because I was interrested in OS X. Apple is branching out by offering services. Interresting way to do things, and I'm not sure I agree, but that seems to be the plan.

Stop being so anal about the kernel origins. Its a BSD based system, which is based off of UNIX not? Linux is also based off of UNIX. We don't need to be so damn specific for this particular topic IMO

Tell a zealotrous Muslim to shut up about his religion. Tell a Jesus freak that you don't care. It's all the same. Religion of the pseudo intellectual socially inept geek.

 

[n0cmonkey]

Originally posted by: Nothinman

Stop being so anal about the kernel origins. Its a BSD based system, which is based off of UNIX not? Linux is also based off of UNIX. We don't need to be so damn specific for this particular topic IMO

But it matters, especially now with the SCO/LInux thing going on. OS X is not BSD, it's Mach with FreeBSD userland and Linux is not based off UNIX it's a unix work-alike.

Based off of Minix (not in the same sense that FreeBSD is based off of Unix). Damn this topic can get complicated if we let it... What is Unix? I wonder if that will be a philosophy question sometime in the future.

 

[bluemax]

Originally posted by: Nothinman

Linux may be cool, but all my essential software is for Windows and there's no Linux version. So I'll stay a Windows Man a while longer.

Unless the essential software is games, chances are you can find an alternative if you actually look.

You find me some PROFESSIONAL music/audio packages that can use VST instruments and I'll convert.

No, we're not talking little audio clean-ups or MP3-rippers here.... PRO AUDIO. To the best of my knowledge, it's PC and MAC only... I've yet to find a serious linux audio prog. There's some decent little ones, but no comparison to Cubase VST....

 

[n0cmonkey]

Originally posted by: bluemax

Originally posted by: Nothinman

Linux may be cool, but all my essential software is for Windows and there's no Linux version. So I'll stay a Windows Man a while longer.

Unless the essential software is games, chances are you can find an alternative if you actually look.

You find me some PROFESSIONAL music/audio packages that can use VST instruments and I'll convert.

No, we're not talking little audio clean-ups or MP3-rippers here.... PRO AUDIO. To the best of my knowledge, it's PC and MAC only... I've yet to find a serious linux audio prog. There's some decent little ones, but no comparison to Cubase VST....

Mac. Not MAC. As long as I am debating silly things like the origins of OS X, I might as well point out that most of the people that have posted here (if not every one of us) uses a MAC.

 

[Barnaby W. Füi]

Originally posted by: bluemax

Originally posted by: Nothinman

Linux may be cool, but all my essential software is for Windows and there's no Linux version. So I'll stay a Windows Man a while longer.

Unless the essential software is games, chances are you can find an alternative if you actually look.

You find me some PROFESSIONAL music/audio packages that can use VST instruments and I'll convert.

No, we're not talking little audio clean-ups or MP3-rippers here.... PRO AUDIO. To the best of my knowledge, it's PC and MAC only... I've yet to find a serious linux audio prog. There's some decent little ones, but no comparison to Cubase VST....

Pretty much. Pro audio software on windows / mac vs. linux is like comparing a $5000 gaming computer to a super nintendo.