The Next Mode for OS X?
To me, Classic Mode is an amazing application that make the transition from Mac OS 9 to Mac OS X easy. We do not need all new applications immediately. However, since new applications are being developed for OS X and some for OS X only, the need for Classic will eventually fade away and it probably does not warrant continued improving. Apple can apply their software engineers elsewhere. How about . . .
Linux Mode? Linux is not going away, and from what I read it is growing. Linux and OS X are both forms of Unix, and are much more alike than Mac OS 9 and Mac OS X. It should be easier to produce a Linux Mode as a permanent feature of OS X, allowing it to run Linux applications. Maybe this has already been suggested and I missed it. It has some real marketing advantages I would think. People need not choose between OS X and Linux. With OS X they would get both, almost. Obviously the underpinnings are different, but not too different. Since Linux is open source, Apple should have no copyright problems.
What does everyone think? Is it worthwhile? Maybe it is already being planned? I realize someone could simply install PPC Linux on their Mac, but that's like the situation where we had to restart the Mac in OS 9 for things that did not work in Classic. It was a pain. Having a Linux Mode would make it easy.
Linux Mode? Linux is not going away, and from what I read it is growing. Linux and OS X are both forms of Unix, and are much more alike than Mac OS 9 and Mac OS X. It should be easier to produce a Linux Mode as a permanent feature of OS X, allowing it to run Linux applications. Maybe this has already been suggested and I missed it. It has some real marketing advantages I would think. People need not choose between OS X and Linux. With OS X they would get both, almost. Obviously the underpinnings are different, but not too different. Since Linux is open source, Apple should have no copyright problems.
What does everyone think? Is it worthwhile? Maybe it is already being planned? I realize someone could simply install PPC Linux on their Mac, but that's like the situation where we had to restart the Mac in OS 9 for things that did not work in Classic. It was a pain. Having a Linux Mode would make it easy.
Comments
So unless that "Linux Mode" included x86 emulation, it wouldn't really help much. I'm certain that far more apps exist for Mac OS X than for Linux/ppc.
Originally posted by snoopy
Linux Mode? Linux is not going away, and from what I read it is growing. Linux and OS X are both forms of Unix, and are much more alike than Mac OS 9 and Mac OS X. It should be easier to produce a Linux Mode as a permanent feature of OS X, allowing it to run Linux applications.
I just do not see the need for this. There are not many Linux apps that are sorely missing on OS X, since productivity applications typically come from windows or MacOS, not Linux.
Apple has made steps in a similar but more clever direction, though. They have integrated X11 (with Panther) and have some Unix-APIs in place - so Linux-developers only need to link against the respective libs in MacOS X to create a first working build.
Some refinement is still required, but they can really adopt their applications to MacOS X (unlike "old world" Mac programmers who cannot break out of the Classic mode unless they carbonize their stuff).
Jeff
Originally posted by jwthomp
Interestingly, Panther is shipping with an application Apple is calling "Ports Manager". This will you manage and install Unix software that has been ported to Darwin. Basically like a graphical fink. Unfortunately, it crash on my system.
Jeff
That's a DarwinPorts frontend.
theres no "linux mode"
all bsd does is support the elf format & load the linux
binary
os x cant do that if the binary is a x86 target
it can support a ppc targeted linux binary
besides most unix apps are a simple recompile away
Originally posted by Chucker
That's a DarwinPorts frontend.
Thanks Chucker. I hadn't ever used it before and had solely relied on fink. I'll take a deeper look into it now.
Jeff
Maybe I can be educated some more. I hear that Linux has at least a couple GUIs, and I had the impression that the GUI takes a good deal of effort to convert to OS X. Can the code for these be easily converted to Cocoa? Is the porting to OS X really that simple? From what has been said, I suspect the answer must be yes.
Originally posted by snoopy
Maybe I can be educated some more. I hear that Linux has at least a couple GUIs, .
http://www.kde.org
maybe it'll be old school support
Amiga mode
Altair mode
Babbage Engine mode
now that would be interesting. there's even a Babbage Printer for support.
Okay, everyone is saying we do not need a Linux Mode. Then please tell me the procedure a Mac user would need to go through to get KOffice running on his or her Mac, if the developers do not make an OS X version. I've heard that KOffice is very good, by the way, so this is a real world example. The way Linux is growing, such examples are just going to multiply.
Originally posted by Chucker
Actually, it might not be too long until KOffice is indeed fully ported to OS X.
I'll take that to mean there is no way run Linux applications like KOffice on OS X without porting them to say cocoa applications. So, as long as developers do this with all the Linux applications we want, there will be no need for a Linux Mode in OS X.
Originally posted by snoopy
I'll take that to mean there is no way run Linux applications like KOffice on OS X without porting them to say cocoa applications.
The native windowserver (the thing that draws windows) for Linux is X11. There is a X11 implementation for MacOS X (from Apple) and some X11 support is being rolled into Panther. So, for a first version, Linux developers need not port the user interface to Cocoa, but can require the presence of X11.
There is no way a whole application is "ported to Cocoa" because that would be a complete rewrite. Instead, the "engine part" of the code is left as C or C++ and Cocoa is just used to bolt on a nicer interface.
but, heres the rub: gui apps dont tend to take full advantage of Cocoa. fink compiles and installs them, but doesn't do any hacking on the code. so the programs end up looking like */linux apps (you can really notice it in the buttons and menus they use). they run, and work, just like they do on */linux. converting them to work natively with cocoa is a long and arduous journey. most */linux apps are made with either kde or gnome guis in mind, and since cocoa isn't available for */linux its nearly impossible to make */linux programmers write for it. there is a 'window manager' for x11 called 'windowmaker' or 'wmaker', and it tries to act a lot like nextstep/openstep/gnustep/*step. if more linux programs were written using that it would be easier to convert them to cocoa apps, but its not a popular api. even if they did use it, it can still be difficult to make them work as real cocoa apps, because the maintainers of openstep and gnustep (and possibly other *steps) have added extensions and revisions to the gui which apple doesn't use (or uses, but with a imcompatible implementations).
it is, in theory, possible to write a bridge that converts gnome widgets into cocoa widgets, and kde widgets into cocoa widgets, but in practice making such a bridge is prohibitively difficult. edit: i was just doing a little googling, and maybe its not as difficult as I thought. but it still isn't commonly used.
but right now, we can run *nix apps. if you're squemish about compiling, you can use a system like fink to install binaries.
Originally posted by thuh Freak
i'll try my hand at an explanation at why we dont need a 'linux mode' . . .
Thank you for a very detailed and understandable explanation. So these Unix and Linux applications can be made to run on OS X, and they will behave and look like they do on Linux. It sound like this fills the basic need for a Linux Mode. As long as the typical Linux user is used to doing more technical tasks, there should be no roadblock to switching to OS X. I would imagine one appeal of Linux is availability of free software, and OS X now has that same capability it seems. Possibly, in the future, Apple will make it a little easier to import such software, for those of us with fewer technical skills. I might give it a try sometime anyway.
Something occurred to me reading your post. Maybe Apple should provide a way that Cocoa applications can be converted to Linux with almost no effort. It may encourage Linux developers to build their applications using Cocoa. The great fringe benefit is that they get an OS X port for free. So, even those providing freeware for Linux might make some pocket change selling low cost OS X versions of the same applications. For the Mac users, they can pay a little for the really good version, or import the Linux version for free.
The problem with regular UNIX/Linux is that there really isn'tany conformaty to the programs' GUI. You can use several different sets of widgets when developing you application, even if every one in the end draws in X11.
So.. App1, App2 and App3 might all be successful ports from Linux to OSX (through the fink program) butwhen running though an OSX native X11-server they all may look as different as OS9, Windows andOSX. The only thing in common will be the widgets witch controll the actual window. Buttons, sliders, scroll bars, menus and so forth may all look different. Scroll bars may be on the left side, menus might be put in OSX's mail menu bar, or reside inside the window. Buttons may be Aqua, och some other graphic, dilogs might be OSX, but will in most cases not be.
This is something witch Apple can't do anything about. There is no standard in the UNIX/Linux community, no single force that say that dictate how things will look like and behave like. Every app for them self.
Linux GUI-applications will run, but they will look like crap in most cases. Regular Mac users wont accept that, so there won't be any sucess of any Linux-program if they don't do pretty much a complete rewrite ofthe GUI especially for OSX.
Originally posted by Henriok
...so there won't be any sucess of any Linux-program if they don't do pretty much a complete rewrite ofthe GUI especially for OSX.
Which some of the larger open source apps with osx ports are actually planning on doing. See here, for example.