Just wondering if drivers for things likes printers and scanners will need to have Intel Mac versions or whether existing drivers can be used as normal?
Just wondering if drivers for things likes printers and scanners will need to have Intel Mac versions or whether existing drivers can be used as normal?
New drivers required because Intel CPU's don't speak PPC machine language. If the driver is implemented as a kext, then it will need to be rewritten somewhat. If it works a bit more abstractly then a recompile should do most of the job. This is one of the long poles in Apples tent before they are ready to ship Intel based hardware.
They could port Linux x86 GIMP drivers and use them as they are pretty solid drivers.
Drivers are quite OS & hardware specific simultaneously. They don't port anywhere as easily as applications can. And even that porting isn't always trivial. Most Linux drivers are of little use to OS X on Intel beyond the basic experience of writing a driver in the first place.
If GIMP drivers exist, and are supplied by Apple with every release of OS X within the PPC architecture, I don't see why they wouldn't be supplied with OS X Intel, especially as a temporary measure 'till manufacturers release x86 drivers for OS X.
Drivers are quite OS & hardware specific simultaneously. They don't port anywhere as easily as applications can. And even that porting isn't always trivial. Most Linux drivers are of little use to OS X on Intel beyond the basic experience of writing a driver in the first place.
Dear god; MacOS X already USES GIMP-Print; all GIMP print is, is a set of PPD files that translate the data into something the printer can understand; oh, and in the case of x86, its a recompile; nothing more - they've been recompiling as part of the standard MacOS X x86 compile.
As for the original poster; there are very divers one would have to worry about, stuff that ships with Macs will be supported, and I'd say that given the nature of the move, we should start seeing more hardware being made available - finally, PowerMacs that can be upgraded to the latest revision of Radeon or GeForce without needing to wait for the Mac flash file to get it working on a OpenBoot machine.
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Originally posted by ic1male
Hi,
Just wondering if drivers for things likes printers and scanners will need to have Intel Mac versions or whether existing drivers can be used as normal?
New drivers required because Intel CPU's don't speak PPC machine language. If the driver is implemented as a kext, then it will need to be rewritten somewhat. If it works a bit more abstractly then a recompile should do most of the job. This is one of the long poles in Apples tent before they are ready to ship Intel based hardware.
Oh dear. I can see all my Canon hardware being replaced again.
Originally posted by Gene Clean
They could port Linux x86 GIMP drivers and use them as they are pretty solid drivers.
Drivers are quite OS & hardware specific simultaneously. They don't port anywhere as easily as applications can. And even that porting isn't always trivial. Most Linux drivers are of little use to OS X on Intel beyond the basic experience of writing a driver in the first place.
equivalent to the total lack of driver support in 10.0
it will take months.
on the other hand, what could emerge (and what didnt emerge at 10.1 and beyond) is a printer maker taking the lead to capture share with mac users.
it wont be HP. brain dead.
it wont be lexmark. mac what?
it could be canon. lets hope.
forgot about twain and AIO machines having any drivers for months.
yes, total replacement of all hardware is very likely.
and if someone else mentions gimp or cups again i will puke.
basic, and slow.
not purpose built.
worse than mac drivers built for mac machines just to say there is a mac driver but really doesnt have full features.
canon: please hear us.
Originally posted by Hiro
Drivers are quite OS & hardware specific simultaneously. They don't port anywhere as easily as applications can. And even that porting isn't always trivial. Most Linux drivers are of little use to OS X on Intel beyond the basic experience of writing a driver in the first place.
Dear god; MacOS X already USES GIMP-Print; all GIMP print is, is a set of PPD files that translate the data into something the printer can understand; oh, and in the case of x86, its a recompile; nothing more - they've been recompiling as part of the standard MacOS X x86 compile.
As for the original poster; there are very divers one would have to worry about, stuff that ships with Macs will be supported, and I'd say that given the nature of the move, we should start seeing more hardware being made available - finally, PowerMacs that can be upgraded to the latest revision of Radeon or GeForce without needing to wait for the Mac flash file to get it working on a OpenBoot machine.