> My take on OSX is that technologically, it's wrongheaded. The
>display system beats everything that other unices have; but they put in on
>top of their own bastardized *NIX, for the sake of backwards compatibility
>with old Mac apps. it would be a lot better if the display system were
>ported to *BSD and linux, and generalized to allow different window
>managers, etc.
> from a marketing standpoint tho; it's a great idea. it has the
>backwards compatibility, so everyone's old favorite office applications
will
>still run (and the updated versions will run natively); but it has
forwards
>compatibility with the freenixes, for when we take over the world. :)
> once companies port their applications to run natively on OSX (and
>who doubts that Adobe will make Photoshop run on OSX?); it's not that far
>from there to the freenixes.
Just a couple of quick questions/ideas...
I thought that OS X was mach kernel based, making it a lightweight
derivative of a BSD kernel, is that right?
It *should* run a number of things unix-y, but not exactly as expected if
you are rolling your own (compiling), correct? There are a lot of apps out
for it, but they are at different points in the porting process Apple has
put together. There appear to be three levels of OS X compliance, if I
remember there is carbon, a full OS X port of an app., and there is coco,
which is a half and half of come sort, and there is the standard (forgot
the name, but it most likely starts with a "kuh" sound), these are apps
that run in the OS9 instance within a window on your OS X desktop.
I agree with most of what Carl is saying here, except that most of the
people on this list are looking at this as a foray into unix for Apple,
whereas a lot of the Mac Heads I know see this as Apple integrating some
parts of a good operating system (unix, in their minds), into a better OS
(Apple, obviously), to make the ultmiate computer OS (yeah, as much as teh
G4 cube was the ultimate desktop, don't start that)...
Apple has glitz, glamour, and an excellent design team, and their end
focus is the desktop. Who hasn't had a Mac that just froze EVERYTIME you
wanted to put that last filter in? Or when you were just about to download
that wicked new MP3? So, Apple, following a good design concept, asked whay
should they re-invent the wheel? What OS is extremely stable, allows for a
lot of what is said to be lacking in our current OS, and is pretty much
free to develop, aaannndd... we can make mods to it and keep them
proprietary? Why there has GOT to be a unix variant out there that'll do
that... and so, there was.
I agree with what Apple has done, they've made an excellent
system, it is very stable and usable, and pretty as all get out. Aqua (the
display manager for OS X), is gorgeous, I think Apple still has a ways to
go before they get their desktop faithful to the new church on time, but it
is an immensely impressive start. I don't think anyone does things the way
Apple does, and they are amazing at what they do, but I do disagree with
some of the design.
For instance, the networking relies upon Netinfo, this is a strange
thing to me, perhaps someone else knows it, but I am somewhat lost in it's
usability. It's just not for me, it also won't work with NIS, and while I
may think this is actually a *good* thing, it decreases the usability.
Aside from Netinfo and the lack of an X server and the ability to host that
wicked desktop on mt BSD box, it's a great OS, but I think Apple has some
ground to cover before it is seamless to the desktop users. They made the
right choice making it a server offering first, but you know where it's
headed, and if it gets to the desktop in time (some would say time is well
past for Apple), they may have a market revolution going.
Allright, I'll step aside now and take my whipping, thanks for
listening, have a good day,
mbutler