On Tuesday 07 June 2005 15:40, przybyls@engr.arizona.edu wrote:
> I'd like to add something else to this also. Most probably already knew
> this, but I'm just putting it into perspective. Mac OS X = Darwin + Aqua.
> Darwin has already been strongly supported on x86 platform with very
> little security issues. Many use Darwin x86 as their server platform also.
> I believe this switch to Intel is rather triggered by the support of x86
> systems by Darwin. For awhile now x86 has only been supported as a
> reference implementation. I think that it has come along so well that
> Apple is now in the position where their x86 support of Darwin is as good
> as the PPC support. A full-blown Mac OS X for x86 is something the Darwin
> community has been advocating for a long time. I think deep inside they
> all new that it would come at the cost of PPC support.
>
> Anyway, I believe the biggest hurdle would be porting Aqua to x86. A
> proof-of-concept must have been completed before the proposal, so I also
> believe that they'll have it in release-candidate state very easily. OS
> users will probably not see any difference between the OS X they knew
> before and whatever is released on x86.

Fantastic - maybe for Apple, not for me. Then what will separate a "normal" pc 
from an Apple pc? Only the fact DRM will be built in the processor so Apple 
computers won't run any other OS and the other computers won't run OS X? (The 
latter is not an issue for me - I can't stand Aqua and all its bells and 
whistles and how it's hard to make a window fullscreen ;-) ). Then there will 
be absolutely no difference between macs and non-macs... Why should I buy a 
mac (I'm asking this to me, as I bought a PowerBook to use NetBSD on it... 
I'll never have WiFi nor DRI on my stupid geforce - and I'll never use OS X :
( ) ? 

> I am not happy about the move from PPC to x86 either. I believed PPC RISC
> was a remarkable balance of performance and stability. I was especially
> excited at the possibility that Apple might use the new Cell PPC. Instead,
> they are going to Intel and who knows if they'll ever see the dual-core
> Intel.

I totally agree. It's a sad thing, but I hope PPC can still go on... Too many 
good architectures seem to be dying right now... It can't be... Let's hope at 
least someone will release some docs on Cell and the consoles... I'd like to 
have a 2 Tflops NetBSD workstation :)

> Leo Przybylski

david