Ibook?

[spincricket]

I'm selling my Asus Z70A. I'm thinking of getting an ibook i dont know whether 12 or 14 inch yet. However i plan to get linux running on it. With that said, i know the ibook runs debian, ubuntu pretty nicely or in any event ill put gentoo on it. Im not a power user , ie, no graphics intensive programs, no hardcore gaming,etc. SO i dont think i want to go for the Macbook Pro. Dont need it. Plus i dont know how linux runs on it. So its betweeb the powerbook and the ibook. Ive heard that the ibook is a bit more sturdy. What do you guys recommend.

its important that i get linux running for open office, and also to get cs 1.6 and steam running under wine or cedega. I know the powerbook / ibook have ATI but the driver issue aint that hard to fix. Im kind of reluctant for airport wireless though. .... ...... ...... ...... ......
Ndiswrapper but they reverse enginered a driver for this broadcom card for linux, so i dont know.

:speechles

*Edit: Wait a minute that powerbook 12" looks pretty obsolete.... Hum, i dont think i want a 17" notebook dangit.

[Ernest_P_Worrel]

Maybe give Yellow Dog Linux a try too, infact you can order your system from them with OSX and yd linux dual booted with the ydl disks and manuals for the exact same price as buying from the mac store: http://www.terrasoftsolutions.com/store/index.php?submit=hardware&submitimg[hardware][apple]=1&PHPSESSID=3cc55d23b492119597b47d46eb2a24a8

Apple always seemed like hardware nazis to me though, since most everythings from them, and because in all the ibooks they come with 4200 rpm drives and u cant upgrade until powerbooks :/.

Plus they charge you $130 for an operating system they didnt make.

[seablade]

In all honesty...

Wait.

I love Apple notebooks, or at least their powerPC notebooks at any rate, but at the moment they will be phased out soon. If you are going to get one no matter what, try out Dapper(Ubuntu) on it and see how it runs as it will support the airport extreme with the reverse engineered driver, at least in some state anyways.

And I wouldnt touch the MacBookPro for my intensive audio/video stuff;) I think I will stick with my powerbook.... Oh wait I already did;)

Seablade

[spincricket]

I like apple notebooks because they are sexy, and rugged. I could be able to wait until august for this. If there is considerable change. I heard there were talks of a black ibook? Is the ibook going to turn into the Macbook and the powerbook into the Macbookpro?

[seablade]

Heh well I would never consider the MacBookPro to be the equivalent of the powerbook as it seems to be based much more towards Buisness users than to Professional users like myself(Meaning Audio/Video/Multimedia Professionals)

Thus I only hope they release a better notebook in the near future, I heard rumors of them holding some conference, I think tommorrow, but now I gotta find those rumors again to confirm.

Seablade

[Kakaze]

Why would you get a Mac just to run Linux?

Especially considering OpenOffice is available for OS X.

Also, on a current PPC iBook—Intel iBooks might be released tomorrow—neither WINE nor Cedega will run as they depend on an x86 processor. WINE does run on Intel Macs and the Cedega people have pledged native Mac support in the future.

[Kakaze]

Heh well I would never consider the MacBookPro to be the equivalent of the powerbook as it seems to be based much more towards Buisness users than to Professional users like myself(Meaning Audio/Video/Multimedia Professionals)

Thus I only hope they release a better notebook in the near future, I heard rumors of them holding some conference, I think tommorrow, but now I gotta find those rumors again to confirm.

Seablade


I don't know where you're getting this as the Intel PowerBooks are marketed in exactly the same way as the PPC ones. The only thing holding most pros back is the fact that a lot of the software isn't native yet.

[Kakaze]

Plus they charge you $130 for an operating system they didnt make.


Apple didn't make OS X? I hope they know that cause if it's news to me it'll definitely be news to them.

[Ernest_P_Worrel]

Mac OS is built off of bsd.

[Kakaze]

And?

[seablade]

Hmm I knew I shouldnt have bothered looking at this...

Why would you get a Mac just to run Linux?

Especially considering OpenOffice is available for OS X.

Also, on a current PPC iBook—Intel iBooks might be released tomorrow—neither WINE nor Cedega will run as they depend on an x86 processor. WINE does run on Intel Macs and the Cedega people have pledged native Mac support in the future.

Get a strong and durable laptop to run your favorite OS. The Mac laptop is STILL seperate from the OS, and many people prefer linux to Mac, myself included though I still run Mac OS on my laptop currently(At least till Dapper comes out and I get to a point I can afford to abck everything up and reinstall)

Mac OS while being a better OS than Windows, IMO still does not give me the flexibility I enjoy with linux. I am fairly sure from past conversations I am not alone in this. Not to mention there are still many programs I enjoy using in Linux that arent out on Mac.

And of course intel iBooks werent released, it was the Mac Mini. I dont doubt there will be more laptop selection in the next year, it is a question for the original poster to decide on wether or not they want to wait.


I don't know where you're getting this as the Intel PowerBooks are marketed in exactly the same way as the PPC ones. The only thing holding most pros back is the fact that a lot of the software isn't native yet.

Except there are many features, that I believe you and I have already gone over in the Mac forums that are missing from it, most notably for myself the lack of FW800 and/or SATA. The thing holding most Pros back is not the lack of native support, it is the fact that the upgrade just isnt worth it if they have even a fairly recent G4. After my G4 has run its life, I am not yet sure what I will do, the MacBook is on the list, but not with the enthusiasm I had with the G4, has nothing to do with the processor, I enjoy the thought of running a dual core laptop, but more has to do with the feature set.

I realise Mac is marketing this as what appears to be a 'pro' laptop, but I never trust marketing anyways, and have made the judgement call myself based on what features it has vs what I use on a regular basis, many of which it is missing.

It is much stronger as a buisness laptop performer, in fact I see nothing to set it apart from a buisness laptop as a 'pro' laptop.

Seablade

[seablade]

However Spincrickt Kakaze was right about one thing, Cedega and Wine wont run on the Mac, for that you would have to use a vvirtual machine ala Qemu or Virtual PC and run the Windows OS entierly. Wine doesnt emulate the x86 hardware required. It uses what is already existing.


And?


That means the kernel and some of the userspace was not made by them, but rather they built on top of it. Depending on what you define the OS as, most people would consider this as being built by someone else.

Seablade

[abf]

a downside to linux on MBP is hardware. much of it is just too new, give some distros (*cough* Daper PPC or yellowdog*cough*) to release the next major version.

[Kakaze]

Firewire 800...I have a feeling that if the majority of PowerBook users required FW800 that Apple would've done whatever they could to keep it in the design, as such they dropped it. As far as SATA goes: PowerBooks have never had SATA and they've always been considered pro machines. While it would be nice, the exclusion of SATA at this time does not preclude the classification of the PowerBook into the pro category.

As far as the actual OS itself goes...the original kernel was BSD but over the last 20 years any resemblance OS X has to BSD is purely superficial as NExT and Apple have modified the OS to such an extent that it can no longer be considered BSD but a completely separate and unique entity.


EDIT: Looks like the new PowerBooks do have SATA.

[Ernest_P_Worrel]

As far as the actual OS itself goes...the original kernel was BSD but over the last 20 years any resemblance OS X has to BSD is purely superficial as NExT and Apple have modified the OS to such an extent that it can no longer be considered BSD but a completely separate and unique entity.

Apple themselves still call it bsd and unix: http://www.opendarwin.org/en/about.html

[Kakaze]

Uh, no...OpenDarwin still calls it BSD.

Apple has this to say on the subject: Darwin: Kernel and BSD
Mac OS X Server starts with Darwin, the same open source foundation used in Mac OS X, Apple’s operating system for desktop and mobile computers. Darwin is built around the Mach 3.0 microkernel, which provides features critical to server operations, such as fine-grained multi-threading, symmetric multiprocessing (SMP), protected memory, a unified buffer cache (UBC), 64-bit kernel services and system notifications. Darwin also includes the latest innovations from the open source BSD community, particularly the FreeBSD development community.

While I don't deny that OS X is based on BSD Unix, it is not BSD Unix anymore thanks to 20 years worth of reprogramming. To say that Apple didn't make OS X is ignorant. While the foundation may have been laid by someone else Apple has taken the foundation and added on to it, repaired it, replaced parts of it, and built an entire house over top.

[spincricket]

Kakaze, I'm not getting the ibook just to run linux.I like the ibook vs any other laptop ive seen right now. I need to run linux on it because of open office and to play cs 1.6. I wasnt aware that wine and cedega are x86 dependant. That definately changes things, however, im pretty sure that intel ibooks are set for this spring,so yea,i can wait until august as i said. By then, dapper will be out, and also the reverse engineered driver will be more stable for airport extreme. The wireless card will probably change though right when they switch to intel?

[Kakaze]

WINE already runs on the Intel version of OS X and Cedega is supposed to be ported to OS X. Open Office runs on OS X as well.

As far as I know the wireless cards are still standard Airport cards.

[spincricket]

Ok, so are you saying that wine runs on OSX (intel) without linux. Nice. Then there would be no need for linux, then. However, i would like to continue on linux just to learn more. So if it runs on the intel OSX. Then i can wait, until spring, when the intel ibook is released. Do guys suspect that more than just the Cpu will change? I mean, at least a 5400 rpm Hdd would be nice.

[Kakaze]

Yes, WINE runs without Linux. OS X is Unix based so theoretically all *nix software can run on it.

The iBooks now give you an option to go with a bigger and/or faster hard drive so the Intel ones will almost assuredly offer different sizes/speeds for drives, and since they're moving to SATA the drives will probably start at 5400.

[Ernest_P_Worrel]

They sure did a great job of parting ways with freebsd: "The Apple operating system, Mac OS X, is based on a rock-solid, open source UNIX foundation that integrates features from the state-of-the-art FreeBSD 5."
-http://www.apple.com/science/

20 years huh?

[Kakaze]

Just because it uses parts of FreeBSD 5 doesn't mean it is FreeBSD.

And yes, 20 years. OS X has been in development since 86 originally as NExT then Rhapsody.

[seablade]

Firewire 800...I have a feeling that if the majority of PowerBook users required FW800 that Apple would've done whatever they could to keep it in the design, as such they dropped it. As far as SATA goes: PowerBooks have never had SATA and they've always been considered pro machines. While it would be nice, the exclusion of SATA at this time does not preclude the classification of the PowerBook into the pro category.


Err I suggested SATA as FW800 is used primarily for external storage for the speed and access to those drives/RAID. As I have said you and I have both been through this, In My opinion it is a buisness notebook, not a pro notebook. I say this being a multimedia professional myself.


As far as the actual OS itself goes...the original kernel was BSD but over the last 20 years any resemblance OS X has to BSD is purely superficial as NExT and Apple have modified the OS to such an extent that it can no longer be considered BSD but a completely separate and unique entity.


As has been pointed out, this is COMPELTELY incorrect. MAC OS uses the BSD kernel core. It builds on top of it, it is still a BSD system however.

Seablade

[Kakaze]

Mac OS X use the Mach kernel. The BSD kernel floats on top of the Mach kernel.

Mac OS X has BSD compatibility and BSD features but it cannot be called BSD. Nor can it be said that Apple did not make their OS.

[seablade]

Uh no...

http://developer.apple.com/opensource/faq.html

Have fun reading.

The Mach Kernel has fully implemented parts of the BSD core, it is not floating on top of the Mach core, it could nearly be better described as the BSD core with Mach Extensions really. Mach extensions allow for things like better hyper/multi-threading support I believe than, at least at the time, was availiable on the traditional BSD kernel.

The kernel is primarily BSD Unix type code. What Apple has done is built on top of that with its own UI and libraries. That is what compromises the OS X experience.

The OS itself in its most basic of definitions wouild describe the kernel as that handles the basic input/output and control of the computer. Everything on top of that provides interfaces to those things the kernel handles.

I am not saying that Apple has not put a LOT of development time into its UI and libraries(Cocoa is one example) but that the base of the OS is built on top of the BSD OS which is Open Source. Darwin by itself can be run by itself without the Aqua UI or Cocoa libraries, however all the apps depending on those libs would not run and you would have a BSD system.

Also of note is that Mach itself was initially based off the BSD kernel as well...

http://www.kernelthread.com/mac/osx/arch_xnu.html

Also on that page of note is that even though Mach 3.0 is a microkernel, in the XNU kernel Apple uses it is not implemented as a microkernel, allowing for the inclusion of the BSD source code in the kernel itself instead of in userspace.

Seablade

[Kakaze]

Well, my information was wrong. From what I had been given to understand NeXTStep/OpenStep/Darwin started as BSD but has, over the years, diverged significantly from the original source. I'm partially right: The foundation, Darwin, has been kept compatible with BSD, but Mac OS X itself adds many more layers that are not compatible with BSD.

[seablade]

The Mach Kernel has diverged from BSD, but it was based off of BSD originally probably part of the reason that the BSD kernel was easier to reimplement with it. You are correct though in that Apple has programmed a lot of things to go on top of the kernel, which some would consider part of the OS, Though in truth are closer to part of the OS like IE is part of Windows, or X is part of Linux. They really arent the OS itself, but rather peices on top of the OS in userspace, though fairly well tied together and many programs that claim compatibility would not work without these parts.

I am not sure Cocoa or Aqua are nessecarily not compatible with BSD, I honestly dont know on this, but my suspicion is that if they arent they wouldnt require to much work to port, but rather I believe those are all closed source componets arent they?(Honest question, I dont know the answer right off hand)

Seablade

[Kakaze]

Cocoa is Apple's implementation of Objective C, IIRC, and Mac OS is the only OS that supports it AFAIK.

Aqua is just the GUI and requires Quarts and other proprietary Apple tech to run.

[seablade]

Linux has an implementation of Cocoa, however it doesnt have Apple's primary cocoa lib. See GNUStep.

The thing is I dont know how much of that proprietary technology wouldnt be compatible with BSD as I havent looked for code to see what is in it. Especially if those are the closed source componets it would make sense to me that it might be compatible, but Apple doesnt want them to be able to be compiled so they keep it closed source, which is definitly within their right. Again just musing on my part as I honestly dont know.

Seablade