First Intel Macs on track for January - Page 8

Hi All;

I've let this interesting thread slip for a few days. In any event a few comments from a long time Linux user.

First I've played around with WINE on Linux a few years ago so the comments might not be valid anymore. The thing is that WINE just wasn't all that great, especially if you where likely to run applications that where out of the ordinary. Honestly out of the ordinary is likely what you would want WINE for as today Linux has all mainstream application requirements covered.

That is a key realization for WINE; that is native solutions work much better. Along with that is that if you absolutely do need a mainstream MS application (to run under Linux) it is likely not to be compatible with WINE. In effect WINE supports applications best that you are least likely to need.

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Frankly what I really see being a big win for alternative platforms such as Linux and OS/X is MONO. This is in effect .NET implemented on Linux and OS/X. From the bit of experimenting I've done so far I'd have to say that MS has done all of us a big favor. The only alternative is JAVA and frankly I see .NET as the better of the two. Further there is a published industry standard for .NET that is of reasonable size. Mono is where the future of cross platform application usage is in my mind.

Now we have the question of how the market place is going to accept .NET and things like Mono. Sure the adoption rate is slow but I think we will see a bit of snowballing here.

Dave

Last I knew (in OS/X land) a 64 bit chip was required for any application that accessed or could make use of more that 2 gigs of RAM. This applies to both 32 bit and 64 bit applications. 64 bit OS/X in effect doubled the amount of RAM available to 32 bit applications, nearly so anyways.

Your understanding about OS/X is correct for the most part. The little item above though can be very important for many of the applications that you mention. On 64 bit i86 though there are more considerations one important one being the extended register set which can have a significant impact on some usages Apple targets.

As to desktop hardware anything that is not 64 bit capable next year will be dead in the water as far as I'm concerned. There may be very good reasons to continue to use 32 bit hardware in the portable lines, but I see such an implementation in an iMac as pure crazzyness. As youstate many won't know but on the other hand many of the some sort of people will read reviews and trust other opinions. If someone asked me I would steer them away from any 32 bit desktop machine if the expectation was to keep it for awhile. This is especially the case for Intel based hardware.

Frankly I have this feeling that Apple and us here on the board will not have to wait long for 64 bit solutions.

Dave

Well the iMac is already 64 bit and I don't see people calling that silly.

In any event there seems to be a disconnect here with respect to the idea that we are talking about future machines. Like it or not very soon any i86 based desktop will be 64 bit. There won't be a mainstream solution that isn't 64 bit.

The other consideration is that 64 bit i86 is in a much better position technically to compete (perform) against todays PPC hardware. The extended architecture is an impressive improvement that i86 has needed for years.

As to memory do realize that new hardware is being designed with the latest technology available (hopefully ), so what goes into one slot will be differrent than what is available today. Density wise it should not be a problem to get to 2 to 4 gig. Further; like I mentioned else where, one only needs to get past 2 gig to make 64 bit usefull in todays environment.

64 bit has nothing to do with bragging, it has real technical merits on Apple's current 64 bit systems and is a significant advantage on todays Intel systems. Either way you cut it 64 bit does have something to offer the user. That doesn't even take into accout power users.

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All that being said I think the truely big thing on the horizon is multi core technology. It is comeing at just the right time where both applications and OS'es can take good advantage of it. Even here though you do put pressure on RAM, so Dual Core and more is just more pressure to pull 64 bit into the mainstream.

Thanks
dave

This is not CPU bound. The system controllers in pre G5 systems can't access more than 2 GB RAM.

It may not be precisely CPU bound as a 32 bit CPU in this case can address 4 gigs of memory, but it is an issue related to how Apple mapped the memory in their 32 bit systems. The reality is that the G4, in some variants, can support extended addressing but Apple never attempted to use that feature. So as a specific implementation the 32 bit Macs limit application addressing to 2 gigs.

The nice thing about the 64 bit Macs is that they eliminated that restriction for many applications. While not quite double, addressable memory may be of little use for some applications but is a big win for other 32 bit applications.

While I can't disagree with your statement as it is accurate, I do have trouble with others who imply that 64 bit hardware did nothing for users of Apples G5 based machines. It can benefit users of memory demanding apps or users of multiple apps.

Thanks
dave

i agree that multicore is a more important deal in the business/consumer mainstream/performance/enthusiast space. full 64bitness is a gradual transition that will fully take root in 2007, and most people would be like, what's the big deal??

multicore will make its mark in 2006 - Yonah dualcore, AthlonX2s becoming much more affordable hopefully!

with the quad powermac in terms of mainstream/performance pro computing, apple is one of the frontrunners in terms of both multicore AND 64bit performance.

remember that winXP64 works to some degree but really not great application support for it, and the game titles released for amd64/ intel em64t are really quite pathetic.

for windows mainstream/performance users, dualcore is the most important development ~ antiviral in background, downloading bittorrent/pr0n/ sysadmin updates etc, then foreground playing games or spreadsheets or word, web browsing etc. really, i find it handy to just keep bittorrents going while playing UT2004 or Quake4 or NFSmostwanted every now and then.

for me, definitely a reasonably priced athlonX2 with 1mb cache per core would be wayy more important than any 64bit deal.. (the bonus is all athlons are 64bit processors already! it's just the crappy win OS )

i won't comment on linux at this stage 'coz not in the scene recently... suffice to say that *in my experience* 64bit linux has some challenges, there's quite a bit of rebuilding that needs to be done toget things up and running.

You've missed a lot of development, that's for sure. Many major apps do run under WINE and Crossover. Office being one of the most important. Photoshop is one that runs that is also of interest here.

Crossover and Darwine will simply give more alternatives to the Mac user. Some alternatives will be better than others for some people. The fact that they will be available at all is important.

.net hasn't done nearly as well as MS has hoped. It isn't ubiquitous. Java has more development at this time.

Yea, because Office and Photoshop aren't available on Mac OS X

Um, because they're available on OS X, doesn't mean that WINE doesn't support them. FYI, WINE is meant to run Office and Photoshop in Linux, something different from OS X, and thus it is a big deal for Linux users.

Because your elitist ass has Photoshop and Office doesn't mean WINE is useless.

This isn't a linux forum and thus, as you put it, "of interest here."

Windows productivity apps in WINE in general are going to suck for Mac users regardless of 'compatibility' anyway. They will still behave like Windows apps.

The only major interest in WINE in OS X (and Linux for that matter) has always been games. Fortunately the crappy Windows HI usually isn't a problem there.

You're not one to decide what is of interest here.


Your point?


Um, dude, when you need to run a program, you really don't care about the UI. When you have time to waste trying to run games through an emulator, you don't care about UI.

Therefore, all your arguments are pointless.

Anyone who needs to run Photoshop or Office already does, assuming "need" is on the same basis as needing to run a specific OS, or needing a specific model car to tool around with.

Let me rephrase that. Anyone who really wants to run Photoshop or Office already does, and those who want to take advantage of a better OS may as well take advantage of the native apps with the better interface.

BTW WINE is not an emulator

AmiMax. Apart from hosting the roms the main reason was to provide floppy drive compatibility. If you didn't want floppy compatibility then running ShapeShifter and some ROM images was a much cheaper and much better way of getting Mac compatibility. Arguably, at the time, the Amiga even running Shapeshifter was a better Mac than a real Mac as you could run multiple Macs on the one Amiga and I had a lot more stability and speed out of Shapeshifter than I had out of my SE/30 at the time.

On the Intel Macs it's a whole different ballgame as Intel's built in DRM will most likely be used to prevent it from running on hardware other than official Apple hardware. That will be almost impossible to crack.

It'll be interesting to see if the DRM gets used by 3rd party developers also to use for their own software protection. Almost everyone I know uses some software they've 'acquired' even if it's just to see if they like it before they buy it. If that's totally ruled out on future Macs and Windows then I can see some people not wanting to upgrade to new Macs or Windows and the open source software movement will continue to grow.

DRM = Digital rights management. Let's be careful with our terminology here. It's more like a dongle than DRM.

One of the things included in XCode 2.2 is a new binary header which makes sure the TPM stuff is in place. That aids Apple more than it does 3rd parties, but I thought I'd mention it.

When you need to run a program, that's presumably the case because you don't have alternatives. In that case, you will care and agonize even more about bad UI, since you will have to deal with it.

even office 2004 word full mac os X version has a horrible ui though, and the fading out formatting panel is just plain stuuupid. and applying styles and stuff, frackin' nightmare. had to help my uncle and aunt yesterday that just switched. word for mac is horrible. i hope apple really makes some good strides with Pages, Cell, Keynote is really looking tight, so hopefully iWork 2006 will put the nails in the coffin of the 10 year travesty that is microsucks orifice

Word for Mac has always been pretty bad. Pity that Wordperfect was never updated.

At least the input controls became more Mac-like in Office 2001. More than, say, Firefox \

Anyway, the problem isn't the fact that other Office-like products aren't available. The problem has always been agencies (particularly government ones) which require usage of Office file formats.

well, you know, that's why i strongly feel that apple developing its own software is a crucial step in the conversion of the heathens. iTunes is a clear testament to that. i strongly suspect iSteve wants microsoft to complete the macintel transition, then he'll turn around and say, okay, fuck this shit, here's iWork '06, let's not ever ever ever have to worry about office again (except for ensuring compatibility between office windows document format and Pages/Cell/Keynote). adobe/macromedia is alright, i'd say apple needs to really nail iWork '06 and iWork '07.

edit: imagine if apple released iWork '06 and '07 for windows that was highly office windows document format compatible..!! that would be the foot in the door for apple in the enterprise desktop market !!

I suppose you can say DRM is the other half to the Intel LaGrande 'dongle' but as a whole I'd still call it DRM. Intel's LaGrande secure platform creates a secure code area within the CPU which can't be meddled with or even looked at by other applications. It's quite a few steps further on than the cert based Trusted Policy stuff Apple has already.

It's great for doing things like keeping prying eyes out of crypto software whilst it's running making cracking near impossible or just for providing secure transaction areas that can't be snooped on by spyware. Calling it a dongle does it a disservice.

I'd imagine all Apple need do to stop OSX running on non-Apple kit is to have a boot rom (using Intel's EFI) that loads into secured RAM and then checks for a key in your software, music or video. I'll have to check out XCode 2.2 to see if they've added stuff there over the old TP code but I imagine it'd be news if they'd let slip they were using LaGrande.

Of course all Apple need do is change the protection whenever it's cracked. iTunes has been cracked a few times but IIRC the last attempt hasn't yet. Pirates cracking releases would have to re-crack each version and I'm sure Apple could make it quite difficult. Certainly more difficult than a normal person is prepared to put up with.

I think Microsoft's hands are being forced there now anyway what with various US states and most of the EU mandating open document formats so that files aren't locked to specific vendors or even versions of software.

I'd hope however that Apple sees that as an opportunity to also support open document formats. Pages and Keynote use XML underneath the covers but it's not in say Office or OpenOffice.org XML format.

IME, Pages is pretty good at opening most Word documents but writing back isn't so hot. And apart from the speed and the weird page/section mash-up I quite like Pages. More so than Word anyway.

You can care all you want - but if you don't have alternatives, you're stuck with it. You may not like AutoCad's interface, but your work requires it, so you'll have to use it anyway.

That's what WINE is for. To use the odd program that doesn't run on your platform of choice. Whining about 'bad' Windows UI is just childish. VirtualPC doesn't provide Mac-like UI either, but a lot of people use it.

[QUOTE]Originally posted by Gene Clean
You can care all you want - but if you don't have alternatives, you're stuck with it. You may not like AutoCad's interface, but your work requires it, so you'll have to use it anyway.[/URL]

I realize that. That doesn't change the fact that people are hating that situation.


And I doubt there's anyone who *likes* relying on Wine. (Then again, when you use Linux on a desktop, you usually have slightly masochistic tendencies anyway.)

Could very well be the case. In a sense though that is part of the point, once a platform supports alternative applications (to replace MS ones) things like WINE end up of little use. The less mainstream applications end up being needed on the machine, yet due to being less mainstream actual support under WINE is often an unknown.

Back to the Apple hardware the problem thus becomes an issue on how are vertical or special putpose applications supported on OS/X. If emulation is an unknown then alternatve technologies become more important.

This is very true. Just because an alternative exists though does not mean that it will become a well accepted solution. Back to the Linux example, native applications are where the focus is. I just don't see WINE as being a big draw, that is something that pull people in and makes them feel warm and fuzzy about Linux. For OS/X I see much the same sort of attitude developing - that is I don't see something like WINE being on a check list that has to be there for purchase apporval.

In fact I see just the opposite happening in the OS/X world where if the only way to deliver a solution is to use something like WINE it will end up being seen as a purchase negative.

.NET is an interesting beast, it certainly has its good points. The big issue with .NET is that it is not wide spread the way SUN made Java available. That doesn't mean that it won't get there just that it doesn't have the mother corporation building and distributing software for every platform on earth.

Instead with .NET we have implementers working on different platforms. Mono from NOVELL beign the one big example. Since that is effort is only a few months away from being finished it will provide a platform that is independent yet compatible with MS offerings. Once we see alternative implementations available we will be able to determine if .NET will be successful. I see open minded developers realizing that there is much in the way of positive ideas with .NET that does make it a nice cross platform way of doing things.

It is interesting that many of the places that haven't adopted .NET these days, haven't adopted JAVA either. I'm not convinced that .NETs slow accptance has anything at all to do with JAVA's small corner of the market. Both platforms seem to have small vocal mind shares yet main stream reluctance towards adoption. One neat thing with Java though is the GCC seris of tools and gjc. Being able to get rid of the JAVA VM if you want to is a very intresting twist to the JAVA story .

Dave

'Relying on WINE' - wtf? WINE is a stop-gap measure; it's not supposed to be your full-time working environment. For graphic work, you have GIMP. For Office work, you have OpenOffice.org. WINE is there to accomodate those that have special needs, not people that need to browse and type a 300 word school paper.

GIMP and OOo are sufficient for that. And if you're a serious Photoshop guy you either buy an x86 PC and install XP, or you buy a Mac. It's as simple as that. But some people use WINE to play games as well, and it works quite good. A lot of games work under Linux, but some don't, so WINE comes to rescue. And it works. Just fine.

And before making out of line comments about Linux and people using it, consider that you boast a signature that contains two apps that are open-source and have a great following in Linux: AdiumX (built on top of libgaim, the core of GAIM) and Mozilla/Firefox.

That's not the point.

People moving over from Windows might have these programs already.Get it?

I never claimed otherwise.


For some playing around, yes. For work? No.


I never claimed otherwise.

I'm not sure if that's true. Windows isn't like Linux, it's pretty similar to OS X. If we have to occasionally run a program under it or Crossover, we don't have to bite our knuckles. As long as I'm not stuck in that enviornment all of the time (or a lot of the time), I'm fine.

What I mean is that there's no point in letting something you don't like get under your skin if you don't have to use it much.

If you hate it, you can always buy the Mac version, or find a Mac program that will subsitute. Most people won't have a problem either way.

And as most people who will run Windows or Crossover on their new Mac will be coming from the Windows world anyway, it shouldn't bother them that much.

So WINE's reliability is not an issue then.




GIMP has some really powerful underlying technologies. It's very advanceg under the hood. Its problems stem from not enough focus on UI and workflow. That's beeing addressed now.

GIMP is very useful. It's certainly not a Photoshop killer, but it doesn't need to be one either. It's not just for play. It's for real, actual work. I know this. I work with it.


Then it's settled.

This conversation has entered the surreal.

Sure. People who own Office and Photoshop are going to use WINE to run their production apps on their Macintels...

NOT!

If you want that kind of frustration, why are you using a Mac to begin with?

I'll echo everything Gene said, plus Chuckler's comments about masochists using desktop Linux. Masochists, and people who like to hack for their own enjoyment. You can pretty much say the same for WINE users (not quite sure which one I am).

The only reasons I got involved with WINE were:

a) It's an interesting project.

b) I'd like to play Windows games in WINE. This objective is achievable, although I don't see myself working on it much until I get a Macintel. I started working on OpenGL and D3D support, but I got distracted. Ultimately I would also like to add HID support (to whatever the Win32 equivalent is, which I think is Direct Input or something).

c) Perhaps SCSI/SAM support could be added so I could run Alcohol 120%. Not a high priority.

d) VfW codec support for MPlayer. May not even require WINE actually.

But lets not fool ourselves that WINE can be used by non-machochist/hackers, or that this solution should ever be pursued. I can provide many reasons why it should not.

Groan...

And I'm saying the same thing about WINE or Crossover. Some people will find them useful. I neither expect nor hope that a LOT of people will want to use them.

I'm a firm believer, and have been criticized here over it, that Windows, Linux, WINE, and Crossover, pose a danger to the Mac OS.

Hopefully, they will allow people who have wanted to get a Mac an excuse to do so. Also, hopefully, after having used the Mac, and its programs, they will want to discard their PC versions.

The danger is that they won't, thus not buying Mac apps.

But I'm optimistic.

I think AutoCAD was brought up as an example, however; something you *do* have to use much if you use it professionally, and something where you *won't* have an alternative. Ergo, you will suffer.

Anyways, we're getting way off track here.

I certainly welcome, without a doubt, Darwine becoming mature and usable.

Listen, WINE is just the technology. In order to see what melgross is saying, you need to familiarize with CrossOver Office. It's a GUI front-end to WINE, and it's pretty reliable.

It lets you install and run many important apps that are either Windows only, or you need to test your files on to ensure compatibility. You can install IE 6 on Linux (and as a proxy, when it's released, on OS X) to test your site with IE6. You can install Word:Windows to test your document for compatibility. You can probably install AutoCad and software that's not present in the Mac and you can do so comfortably and for a small price.

You don't need to run an emulator such as VirtualPC and see it eating your CPU cycles and your RAM, you don't need a copy of Windows (apps install in a virtual Windows folder structure created by WINE), and you don't need to suffer performance-wise because you need a Windows-only app. They run at almost native speed. So yes, I welcome CrossOver/WINE on OS X and think it's a good thing.

Someone who needs AutoCad is someone who is doing the kind of work that they shouldn't be doing on a Mac. If they want to work on a Mac then they should be doing something that makes sense for them to buy a Mac for.

There are other CAD programs that are equal to AutoCad. I use them myself. But IF they NEED AutoCad...

What if they want the excellence of Mac OS X but still need to use AutoCAD for work reasons? Dual-boot is (well, will be) an option, sure. But why not use WINE?

The surreal? This was the point to the thread in the beginning. Windows people moving to the Mac.

You say NOT as though you know all of these people.

I recommend that you get to some other sites and read the threads about this issue over there. Try ArsTechnica and Anand, for a start.

What I've been saying is from what PC people over at these, and other sites, are saying about a switch.

Many, if not most, are looking at TRYING a Mac. Not moving to one. Just Trying one.

They are interested because they might be able to dual boot, or run WINE or Crossover.

You dismiss this as though it doesn't exist. Maybe you just don't know that it does.

I've had friends who, for years, kidded me (sometimes, not such kidding) about owning a Mac. Now several are satisfied that THEY might get one, if they can dual boot or run WINE or Crossover.

Don't be so smug about OS X. We think it's better, some of them even think it's better. But they are NOT ready to leave Windows.

They want a taste of the Mac, they don't want a seven course meal.

You obviously don't know anything about Crossover, as you refuse to even discuss it. WINE is a pain. Installing it is a pain. Installing programs to run under it is a pain. But Crossover is not. It is very easy. Anyone can do it. Installing programs under it is also very easy.

Apparently few bothered to go to the link I provided earlier.

Truthfully, I'm not much of a Linux user. I don't know if AutoCad runs under WINE or Crossover.

But I've been told that whatever programs run under them in Linux should run under them (when they are going) in OS X.

Fine, then run Windows in a VM. No need to dual-boot or install X11. Ugh.

If you direct people to use WINE you're just going to frustrate them.