I've always wondered this... (Stupid Question)

[coopdog]

I bought a PC about 6 months ago because they were about half the price as a comp. mac. And they are much better in the feild of gaming. Well Why can't I put OS X on a PC or XP on a mac?

I heard there were ways to run OS x in linux or something would that work?


And about all this talk about some worm could be made for os x. Isn't there no known virus for UNIX? I was allways under the impression that there could never be a virus made for os x because it was based on unix.

 

[G5orbust]

well, you can run Darwin on any computer. But it wont be the same as OSX, not even remotely.

XP and OSX dont run on macs and x86, respectively, because the chips are designed to run a whole bunch of complex computations specific to operating systems of each system. If the chip is run with the wrong operating system, it cannot execute the cude at all. The CPU cannot process the information, the boot sector check at the beginning cannot pass because the BIOS settings do not coorispond with the boot sector protocol.

 

[redAPPLE]

i guess there is no virus or rarely a virus for mac and *nix, because the virii makers are not as frustrated with these software as with window$.

i think if m$ were cool, they won't get much virii attacks.

well, macs got game, too right?

 

[MacManDan]

Originally posted by redAPPLE
i guess there is no virus or rarely a virus for mac and *nix, because the virii makers are not as frustrated with these software as with window$.

i think if m$ were cool, they won't get much virii attacks.

well, macs got game, too right?

I think more often they want to make viruses that are going to hit a higher percentage of people. Since Windows is on something in the area of 96% of the computers out there, there's a much bigger base for them to try to attack than us Mac'ers. But sure .. hey .. I wouldn't be surprised if some of the "best" viruses were written just because someone really didn't like Windows/MS...

 

[xpormac]

Its too bad you can't put OS X on intel/amd machines, I know they would probubly make a hell of a lot more money if this was possible.

 

[MacsRgr8]

Originally posted by xpormac
Its too bad you can't put OS X on intel/amd machines, I know they would probubly make a hell of a lot more money if this was possible.

OMG, please don't start that discussion again...

 

[xpormac]

Originally posted by MacsRgr8
OMG, please don't start that discussion again...

hehe, bet it comes up a lot around here.

 

[4409723]

Originally posted by xpormac
hehe, bet it comes up a lot around here.

It does very often, Apple supposedly has a secret build of OS X, Marklar, that runs on x86 architecture. Apple makes most of their money on hardware, so they want to keep it that way, people buying Macs with the OS bundled.

EDIT: WOW 1002 posts...

 

[crenz]

Viruses on Windows

Seems that people like to conveniently ignore that Windows offers a nice infrastructure to viruses. Apple's Mail won't execute attachments just like that, for example.

Mac OS X is not invulnerable, of course -- running software like Samba or Apache you have to be careful. And most people probably give their main user admin rights, so a trojan horse could do quite some damage. However, it's nowhere near the glaring security issues of MS Windows.

 

[mactastic]

Originally posted by MacManDan
I think more often they want to make viruses that are going to hit a higher percentage of people. Since Windows is on something in the area of 96% of the computers out there, there's a much bigger base for them to try to attack than us Mac'ers. But sure .. hey .. I wouldn't be surprised if some of the "best" viruses were written just because someone really didn't like Windows/MS...

I think people who write viruses know that *NIX users are probably more savvy, have protections in place, security patches installed, etc. Because you could really do some damage with *NIX based viruses.

Plus it doesn't hurt that windows runs on sooooo many computers and is considered fairly easy to exploit.

 

[patrick0brien]

Re: Viruses on Windows

Originally posted by crenz
Seems that people like to conveniently ignore that Windows offers a nice infrastructure to viruses. Apple's Mail won't execute attachments just like that, for example.

Mac OS X is not invulnerable, of course -- running software like Samba or Apache you have to be careful. And most people probably give their main user admin rights, so a trojan horse could do quite some damage. However, it's nowhere near the glaring security issues of MS Windows.

-crenz

Agreed. It's more than MS simply presenting a large and hated target. Whereas Apple's apps like Address book and Mail simply consult each other, the very nature of Windows today is 'seamless' interconnectivity between apps - more like everybody has an active hand in everybody else's business. This seemed to be a good idea at the time, but now, after all of this monopolistic protectionism, windows are now controlled at the GUI level by IE, etc. A virus can come it and claim the furniture nicely.

Apple has watched this and learned form MS's mistakes, and keeps the apps in their own sandboxes, only talking to each other from a distance.

 

[idea_hamster]

Re: I've always wondered this... (Stupid Question)

Originally posted by coopdog
Isn't there no known virus for UNIX? I was allways under the impression that there could never be a virus made for os x because it was based on unix.

It's my understanding that writing a virus for *nix isn't theoretically impossible, but virus authors have a few major obstacles in their way:

*nix has been around a long time as an open-source system, so lots and lots of top-level programers have looked at it pretty closely. With so many sets of eyes doing the proof-reading, the number of exploitable flaws is low. (The exception here is the recent MSBlaster worm -- it's buffer overflow trick turned out to be a potential flaw in *nix systems too (or at least in Darwin). While MSBlaster was written for Windows, it could have been written for *nix, too. That was the subject of the fp_realpath() security update for OS X.)

*nix is used by companies that have lots to protect and lots of money to throw at protection. If you can program well enough in *nix to write a virus, you can make a very nice living working on the good side as a system security analyst or consultant. This is one area where the good guys pay better.

A correlary to the first two points is that there are much more powerful security tools for *nix systems. If you recall the much-feared release of the program "Satan" back in the late 90's, that was a program written to detect hackable flaws in Unix systems. Adminstrators were terrified that hackers would download it to find the flaws. but the author's point was that the admins. should do the work first. And that's exactly what happened.

Ultimately, what we see with MicroSoft is that the vulnerability of their OS is a symptom of their closed-shop system. If you're not going to let anyone proof-read your work, you had better not make any typos. Unfortunately, MS seems to make lots.

 

[NavyIntel007]

I swear to god, if I read another "when is OS X going to be ported to x86" posts I'm going to spit!!!

Buy a mac and SHUT UP!!

 

[Squire]

Re: Re: Viruses on Windows

Originally posted by patrick0brien
A virus can come it and claim the furniture nicely.

Apple has watched this and learned from MS's mistakes, and keeps the apps in their own sandboxes, only talking to each other from a distance.

I'm trying to think of a smart follow-up to this but it's getting late. (I have images of iTunes stealing a Tonka truck from Mail.)

Luckily for me, Apple isn't affected by most viruses. I read about the most recent one here in a thread then checked my email to find exactly what the writer had described.

Squire

 

[TEG]

The other reason that viruses are made primarily for Windows, it the virus writers use a "standard OS" (Because in fact Windows is a de-facto standard) like MacOS or "nix, and don't want to effect thier own computers, or their friends. However, I am seeing more and more reports of viruses for Linux, so personally I thing Linux people are being seen more as sheep by the virus writers. Not freethinking, smart, knowledgable, and non-forgiving people like those that run Hard Core UNIX/BSD dervatives. (Like OSX, AIX, Solaris, etc).

TEG

PS. SCO= Supreme Crack Order

 

[SiliconAddict]

Re: Viruses on Windows

Originally posted by crenz
Seems that people like to conveniently ignore that Windows offers a nice infrastructure to viruses. Apple's Mail won't execute attachments just like that, for example.

Whatever. Lookout hasn't auto launched attachments since Office 97. Introduced in 2000 after SP2 you need to open the actual attachment to run it. Here is the gotcha though. The HTML rendering engine for Lookout is based on Internet Exploder and we all know how secure IE is

I've used Lookout 97, 98, 2000, and XP and I've never gotten a virus. 99.9997% of the time virus propagation through Lookout is done because someone runs an EXE without thinking. Now since a virus is nothing more then a program can someone tell me if someone writes a program to delete all system files on a Mac and a user actually runs it from on the Mac would this not f-up a system? A program is a program is a program. If someone runs a program on the desktop that program has free range to f-up the system. What makes these windows "programs" special is the unbelievable ease at which you can scrip EVERYTHING in windows. So while running a program in Windows and OS X might be the same. The difference is the ease of further virus propagation on windows. (Thank you VB script. ) I no next to, check that I know NOTHING about applescript so I don’t know how much free reign you have with that but I have to imagine there is a sandbox keeping program from reading your contacts list and creating new e-mails from that and sending them out to all your contacts. Even if you do have this Sandbox around your e-mail system a virus has the ability to bring its own tools with it.

I actually stand in awe of the W32.Sobig.F@mm worm that has recently shown up.. It really is a work of art. Here’s how it works. First and foremost it brings its own SMTP engine with it allowing your system to act as a mail server in a way. Secondly it reads from your address book and, this is beautiful, from any dbx, eml, hlp, htm, html, mht, wab, or txt file that resides on your system (Yep folks it can read html so if you have a cached web page with an e-mail address think web admins address it can send itself to that person.) and picks a user from random to spoof a user name. So even though its coming from johndoe@comcast.net the e-mail and its attachments are being forged with janedoe@hotmail.com this keeps the person who receives this e-mail from contacting the actual infected party and causes havoc by sending an e-mail to janedoe saying her system is infected when it really isn’t. This caused some panics here in my company because we were scrambling to figure out why some of our users were getting e-mails from people they don’t even know stating they have an infected system. Next this worm is also locally network aware and can use the RPC vulnerability found. This means its actively looks for other systems on your network to infect and since this RPC vulnerability requires no skills at all to exploit once it finds an open system its got ya.
What’s really cool is that the worm self terminates on Sept 10th. Basically this worm will be extinct after the 10th because the virus writer wasn’t looking to take down the net. Just level a gun at the head of MS saying fix these damn problem.
Seriously this is a beautiful virus in a sort of twisted way
Anyways back on topic. I actually I fear for Mac users. If such a virus like this ever does appear it’s going to infect 90% of all Macs within a matter of hours. The reason? Mac users have been lulled into a false sense of security about how viruses don’t mess with the Mac which leads to clicking and running attachments without question.
Many windows users had to learn the hard way.

 

[Independence]

Originally posted by NavyIntel007
I swear to god, if I read another "when is OS X going to be ported to x86" posts I'm going to spit!!!

Buy a mac and SHUT UP!!

wow, you are certainly one of the nicest people i have met on a forum.

grow up. although the question as to whether or not OS X will be ported to x86 may be repeated a little too much, it's a valid question anyway. there's no need to attack a user for asking a question, especially if he/she has never seen it asked at this forum.

 

[idea_hamster]

Re: Re: Viruses on Windows

Originally posted by SiliconAddict
A program is a program is a program.

Very true -- and if Mac users do, in fact, feel overly secure, they may self-infect by recklessly running stuff they get in e-mail.

But the ability for a remote user to gain access to your machine and convince it to run a remote program like MSBlaster/LuvSan is a much greater security risk -- and one that I suspect OS X's *nix base greatly reduces.

 

[Gymnut]

Reason being is that Apple is so quick to release security patches and with software update already set by factory standards, even the person with absolutely no Mac know-how can be reminded and download the recent patch. XP on the other hand has its version of software update turned off right out of the box. Duh.

 

[twentyeight7]

if windows can be run in osx in an emu why cant it be done the other way around .....just emulate mac hardware and tell the win hardware what to do

 

[rendezvouscp]

Re:emulating mac os on windows

I would think this is possible, but would be way too slow, and not enough gain on the user. Most apps for Mac OS users have an equivalent somewhere else, but whether or not it is a good equivalent... But whether or not it is possible, probably.

 

[SiliconAddict]

Originally posted by Independence
wow, you are certainly one of the nicest people i have met on a forum.

grow up. although the question as to whether or not OS X will be ported to x86 may be repeated a little too much, it's a valid question anyway. there's no need to attack a user for asking a question, especially if he/she has never seen it asked at this forum.

Indeed. Grow up. Only Mac zealots would throw a temper tantrum over this. Running OSX on i386 is and would always be a double-edged sword for Apple. It has its pros and quite a few cons. The ONLY way I see Apple moving to i386 is if market share dropped to less then 1% or if the hardware by its manufactures degraded into total *** like what has been happening at Motorola. If IMB hadn’t been around to save their goose it wouldn’t have been cooked. It would have been charcoal briquette. Right now from the hardware desktop standpoint Apple is sitting pretty. Laptops are another matter and are being actively talked about in plenty of other threads.

I have to imagine the main reason that topic gets brought up all the time is that juicy 95% market share hanging off of the i386 architecture. I don't care what any Mac user says to the contrary. People want their platform to be a dominant player and, niche market aside, 2% is barely surviving. Five things would happen the day OS X was released for the i386 platform.
1. Bill Gates would do a murder suicide by killing Ballmer and then hang himself.
2. Software sales for OS X would go through the roof.
3. OS X for i386 would become the most downloaded thing ever off of Kazaa.
4. Tech support calls to Apple would go up 3000% (Bitch all you want about windows. It KNOWS from experience how to support a wide variety of hardware. Apple does not. Which isn’t totally a bad thing.)
5. Windows lacky sites like ZDNET would bitch about how it sucks and talkback would decay into a thermonuclear blast of flamage between windows users, Mac users and the Linux people kicking both in the chines yelling that they are the best.

 

[SiliconAddict]

Originally posted by Gymnut
Reason being is that Apple is so quick to release security patches and with software update already set by factory standards, even the person with absolutely no Mac know-how can be reminded and download the recent patch. XP on the other hand has its version of software update turned off right out of the box. Duh.

Well that isn't true. I've setup more Dell desktops in this office then I can count and the default image with WinXP Pro comes with Automatic Updates and Background Intelligent Transfer Service (The 2 key services for WinUpdate) turned on.

Of course we don't use XP at all. (Any IT staff that does should be shot.) We use W2K off of a disk image. When I built that image installing SP3 installs Windows update and it too is enabled by default which we promptly disabled.

 

[idea_hamster]

Originally posted by Gymnut
Reason being is that Apple is so quick to release security patches and with software update already set by factory standards, even the person with absolutely no Mac know-how can be reminded and download the recent patch. XP on the other hand has its version of software update turned off right out of the box. Duh.

Right, but the problem with MS patches and updates is that if you install them willy-nilly, they conflict with your settings, your applications and sometimes (I've heard) each other.

When Apple releases an OS X update or patch, I update with confidence. When MS releases a security update, system adminstrators around the world sit back and wait to see if they really need it because they know that installing it could easily mean working through the weekend to get their system running smoothly again.

I know that my TiBook is far from a LAN, but I've never heard the OS X Server crowd complaint about Apple updates.

Maybe someone who is an Apple system administrator could give us some first-hand insight?

Originally posted by twentyeight7
if windows can be run in osx in an emu why cant it be done the other way around .....just emulate mac hardware and tell the win hardware what to do

Not impossible, but I'm not sure it helps to balance the inherently stable thing on top of the inherently unstable thing. Aside from the look of Aqua, what benefit would they get?

 

[NavyIntel007]

Originally posted by SiliconAddict
Indeed. Grow up. Only Mac zealots would throw a temper tantrum over this. Running OSX on i386 is and would always be a double-edged sword for Apple. It has its pros and quite a few cons. The ONLY way I see Apple moving to i386 is if market share dropped to less then 1% or if the hardware by its manufactures degraded into total *** like what has been happening at Motorola. If IMB hadn’t been around to save their goose it wouldn’t have been cooked. It would have been charcoal briquette. Right now from the hardware desktop standpoint Apple is sitting pretty. Laptops are another matter and are being actively talked about in plenty of other threads.

I have to imagine the main reason that topic gets brought up all the time is that juicy 95% market share hanging off of the i386 architecture. I don't care what any Mac user says to the contrary. People want their platform to be a dominant player and, niche market aside, 2% is barely surviving. Five things would happen the day OS X was released for the i386 platform.
1. Bill Gates would do a murder suicide by killing Ballmer and then hang himself.
2. Software sales for OS X would go through the roof.
3. OS X for i386 would become the most downloaded thing ever off of Kazaa.
4. Tech support calls to Apple would go up 3000% (Bitch all you want about windows. It KNOWS from experience how to support a wide variety of hardware. Apple does not. Which isn’t totally a bad thing.)
5. Windows lacky sites like ZDNET would bitch about how it sucks and talkback would decay into a thermonuclear blast of flamage between windows users, Mac users and the Linux people kicking both in the chines yelling that they are the best.

Actually... I'm a former PC owner, who hated Windows and hated linux. You are so wrong on so many levels it's funny. First off you assume that every program written for OS X would automatically work for this x86 OS X. That is absolutely untrue. The only way they would work is through emulation, which would be slow. That means than every developer would have to redo all their programs to support the new platform. Don't you remember all the problems with going from 9 to X? Multiply that by 50.

Second, you automatically assume that everyone is going to jump ship and throw away all their windows software for OS X, which they've never used and buy all new software to support it. WRONG AGAIN! People fear change... they wouldn't understand why Microsoft Office doesn't work on OS X (just like you don't understand that no software you use with your mac will work on x86 OS X).

Third.... Apple is a hardware company. Name me one OS that has successfully ported itself to x86.... oh... you can't can you? Well I can name two that have failed and one that's failing... BeOS, OS/2... and Sun Solaris. Where is BeOS? Owned by Palm... you must be doing bad if Palm can afford to buy you out. OS/2 was just cancelled. And Sun is selling Linux boxes now so Solaris for x86 wasn't the answer there either.

It's not because I'm a zealot or because I'm imature. It's because obviously I have a better view of the industry than you. Porting OS X to anything but PPC would just be stupid business. It would be better to start the Clone wars again than to do that. It's a stupid suggestion, and that's why it makes me mad.