Leopard to Include Virtualization Software?

[Bonte]

The PC market has reached maturity, if apple is to grow it has to take customers away from M$. In order to take customers from M$ it needs to destroy the reason people won't switch. All this discussion about virtualization isn't the answer, people don't want to bounce around between different OS to use application A and then back to use application B.

Being able to bounce between Win and osX is good enough for most users, one OS will be used extensively and the other just when needed. osX for work and Win for play or Win for work and osX for iTunes, it doesn't really matter. I do know that being able to run Windows natively (ea NOT an unsupported hack) would spur sales of the Mac maybe tenfold of the current 3% market-share. Its really hard for a stock happy company to not take this opportunity just to please some Mac zealots, in the near future (max 2 yrs) Windows will indeed run natively or at almost native speeds on the Mac platform. Its bound to happen, there is no other option.

 

[Marx55]

Apple, please, just allow Mactel to switch between Mac, Linux and Windows in real time (no reboot) and also allow to share files and folders between them all. Then we will replace all our University computing facilities with such Mactels (now filled with Intel PC boxes).

That would be the ultimate computer. When you boot or reboot it asks which OS you want to run first. Then you can also open the other OSes and switch betwen them seamessly.

Apple will boost market share from 3-4% to about 25-30% worldwide in 3-4 years.

And there is no problem with developers moving to Windows software, since once people know about the fantastic Mac O X they will never want to use Windows except for casual instances.

Remember that the most important part of a Mactel is Mac OS X. But being able to switch to Linux and Intel will give confidence to millions of current Linux and Windows purchases. Eventually they will switch to Mac once they get such triple-OS ultimate machine!

Apple, go for it!!!

 

[barstard]

This would be great for many people, but I still can't see Apple doing this. Though they have surprised me many times before. It would be great for many things to be able to switch between OS's without rebooting. And I'm sure with that solution, the video driver issue wouldn't be an issue!

barstard.

 

[ensee]

If it worked like rosetta and you just put in a disk and it worked then that would be great. I'm not really interested in working in the XP (or Vista) envionment. Rosetta was a step away from Classic, I hope Virtual PC's next step works the same way.

 

[rayz]

Mmmmm

I have to disagree! Mac OSX is by far a superior OS- over 90% of the world uses Windows and that in and of itself is where the problems lie.

I keep reading this, and as a user of both operating systems, I have to wonder where this nonsense comes from. XP is easily just as stable and useable as OSX. OSX just looks much better.

Windows on the other hand has to include legacy code for outdated OSes just in case some huge enterprises need compatability! And it's this legacy code that is the reason MS is so full of Worms and Viruses.

Honestly why can't MS drop the support of Win95, 98 and all before it?? Anybody that is using decade old software needs to get with the times!

Well, if Apple had MS's runaway marketshare, then they'd have the same problem. The advantage in having such a relatively small user base, is that you can break compatibility and it doesn't cause business empires to collapse.!

Apple designed MacOSX from the ground up and at first I was peeved that some of my software wasn't supported or didn't run as fast...BUT today almost 6 years on there is not 1 software title that I miss from OS9 days or that isn't better natively on OSX.

Apple actually bought OSX when they bought next. The UNIX underpinnings are actually BSD. Apple's input

MS NEED to do the same- re-write the OS from the ground up and kill support for legacy systems.

Indeed.

 

[rayz]

What?

My vote is for the former--in all the instances Apple has been declared close to death over the years, something has brought them back. Even if Mr. Jobs is not long for his current position, I simply cannot fathom Apple ceasing to fight the good fight, something that OS X has done since its conception.

Oh good grief ....

Remember all those years ago when Jobs turned up on stage and announced that Microsoft had bought a wodge of non-voting shares in Apple. Jobs said then that the battle was over. There is no good fight. Jobs is just running a business as best he can

I honestly cannot imagine my life without it. I have never felt that way about any other inanimate object.

Yes and that is quite sad, but who says the Mac is going anywhere? All we're talking about is running Windows apps.

 

[fixyourthinking]

More like the Nintendo Revolution

I personally think this has nothing to do with Windows ... it has more to do with emulation of things like MAME or RockNES ... like Nintendo is doing with their next gen console.

I think Apple might move into a similar space with Macs ... including hundreds ... if not thousands of games on all shipping Macs ... and just allow downloads through iTunes for premium games.

Nintendo has announced that their next gen console will include ALL NES SNES and N64 games built right into the console itself. (And yesterday said Turbografix 16 and Sega Genesis will also be included)

 

[Norse Son]

Why add extra burden of Winblows - just run the apps

Been a few weeks since I posted - busy with work - and my new 20" iMac Core Duo!!! (sure is a change from my Pismo 400MHz G3). And I'm not going to take the time to troll through the previous 200+ comments on this subject - I think they're saying about the same thing.

Who knows, maybe my post sounds like 30 others...

But why add the baggage of Microsoft's crappy, buggy, overburdensome, legacy-bloated and supremely-late OS to the Mac? What we need is virtualisation software that allows us to run the apps - we don't need the OS.

Yeah, sure, if the Mac could run Windows apps, then "nobody would develop Mac software blah-blah-blah..." However, if the MacOS continued to add useful features - that Microsoft couldn't match until WinXP SP15 (released sometime in 2017) - then developers would still need to write apps specifically for the Mac in order to take advantage of those OS features.

The only upside I see to virtualisation software is being able to run some of those Windows games we'll (likely) never see on the Mac. That, and maybe being able to have greater options for keyboards, mice, joysticks & gamepads - just bought a Logitech Extreme 3D Pro joystick, that is "Mac compatible", but the game-specific joystick profiles don't work on a Mac...

 

[AidenShaw]

Probe deeper, Grasshopper

This is not true with Intel's (and other's) hardware virtualization.

All OS's can run simultaneously and have separate banks of registers so privileged instructions MAY be executed in ring 0 by ALL operations systems.

Yes, but when a VM (non-root mode Virtual Machine) executes some of those instructions, it causes a "VM exit" trap so that instead of executing the instruction - the VMM (root mode VIrtual Machine Monitor) is able to emulate the instruction and change the state of the emulated VM - not the whole processor.

Another way to look at it is that VT adds a new "ring -1" that's more privileged than ring 0. An emulated machine is allowed to execute all instructions in ring 0, but some of those instructions don't actually work - they cause the VM to trap (exit) to the VMM running in ring -1. The VMM then emulates the instruction.

The following quote from Intel Virtualization Technology, Computer - published by the IEEE Computer Society, Volume 38, Issue 5, May 2005. Pages 48–56 explains it in more detail:

VT-x defines two new transitions: a transition from VMX root operation to VMX non-root operation — that is, from VMM to guest — called a VM entry, and a transition from VMX non-root operation to VMX root operation — that is, from guest to VMM - called a VM exit.

The virtual-machine control structure (VMCS) is a new data structure that manages VM entries and VM exits and processor behavior in VMX nonroot operations. The VMCS is logically divided into sections, two of which are the guest-state area and the host-state area.

These areas contain fields corresponding to different components of processor state. VM entries load processor state from the guest-state area. VM exits save processor state to the guest-state area and then load processor state from the host-state area.

Processor behavior changes substantially in VMX non-root operation. Most importantly, many instructions and events cause VM exits. Some instructions cannot be executed in VMX non-root operation because they cause VM exits unconditionally; these include CPUID, MOV from CR3, RDMSR, and WRMSR. Other instructions, interrupts, and exceptions can be configured to cause VM exits conditionally, using VM-execution control fields in the VMCS.​

So, as I said, VT does not eliminate the need to emulate certain instructions - it simply makes it much easier and faster to do so.

 

[AidenShaw]

it's an artificial block

Virtualization would an awesome addition to Mac OS X. It would make Apple hardware the number one computer to buy, hands down. Why buy a Wintel when you can get a Mactel that runs EVERYTHING?

This argument disappears as soon as OSX is cracked to run on generic PCs.

Almost any recent WinTel could also run OSX - except for the fact that Apple's business practices try to prevent that from happening. Some people might resent that heavy-handedness.

 

[guez]

What if Apple were to win the platform wars...

... by becoming a Wintel company? Oh the irony.

 

[guez]

I find this very convincing...

Anyone care to rebut

The history of personal computers is short, but it can teach us this: If you make a computer that runs the applications of a far more popular computer, people will stop making software for your computer.

 

[kingtj]

A rebuttal?

I'm thinking about this one, and my conclusion is - it's a difficult point to argue with because it hasn't really happened very often. I'm not sure there's a "lesson" to be learned from it at all - because the history is too lacking.

The history of the personal computer is mainly a laundry list of proprietary systems developed by competitors, coupled with the occasional attempt at cloning a popular machine but undercutting its cost. In the early days, you saw a lot of different systems that all ran variants of the CP/M operating system, but they all seemed to be on fairly equal footing. (EG. The Osborne 1 coming along didn't directly kill off any Kaypro machines that ran CP/M before it.)

When MS-DOS started taking hold, it eventually put the nails in the coffins of all the proprietary stuff (Atari, Commodore, T.I., Sinclair, Tandy Radio-Shack, etc.) - and not because it ran ANY of the competitor's apps. Only because it ran apps that were *universally compatible*.



Originally Posted by lectro33
The history of personal computers is short, but it can teach us this: If you make a computer that runs the applications of a far more popular computer, people will stop making software for your computer.

Anyone care to rebut

 

[AidenShaw]

When MS-DOS started taking hold, it eventually put the nails in the coffins of all the proprietary stuff (Atari, Commodore, T.I., Sinclair, Tandy Radio-Shack, etc.) - and not because it ran ANY of the competitor's apps. Only because it ran apps that were *universally compatible*.

So, you agree that if Apples can run Windows apps, Apple's proprietary stuff will be killed by the universally compatible Windows apps?

 

[opq]

Virtualization would be like the old MacOnLinux project. Since the program only ran on PPC Linux boxes, it didn't emulate. Result was an almost just as fast environment. Apple can do the same.

 

[DOUGHNUT]

countering the argument that allowing windows programs to run on Macs will kill Mac software development:

allowing Windows programs to run on Macs will drastically increase Apple's marketshare. More people will run Mac OS X, so that will encourage Mac software development. Maybe Apple should implement a software development incentives program of some sorts to attract developers.

 

[kahos]

Apple will boost market share from 3-4% to about 25-30% worldwide in 3-4 years.

I dont think apple can increase their marketshare sevenfold because they have the abbility to switch back and forth from osx to windows. There's still the price factor that will turn most people away from apple's computers. For example, A 17" imac is still 40% more expensive then the average wintel pc bundle with a 19 inch lcd.

 

[Tacitus]

You have hit the nail on the head my friend!


Is everyone here so blind as to not see what is coming?

.............
I believe that avatarlgs3 is close to what will happen. Apple will develop their next GUI on top of windows. Microsofts forthcoming "windows presentation foundation" will give Apple all sorts of goodies to play with to develop the "GUI of the future."

...

Actually I think it's the other way round. It's all about 'embrace and extend'. At present Darwin is 'open source' (OK I know it's not GPLd) so what is to stop Gates putting a Vista GUI on top? 'Borrow' a bit more from Apple so you end up with Gates taking over MacOSX using a proprietary GUI. After all it's what Apple is doing. OK you say, but people will still develop for OSX. No they won't. Why should they bother since the look and feel will be near enough the same. Once they look the same so far as Joe sixpack is concerned, they are the same.

Effectively Gates achieves 99% monopoly - forget about Linux it won't happen, at least in my lifetime. The only way Linux will get a foothold is if the developing countries - India, China, Latin America - get into it. There's more of them than there are of us, but it will take years.

 

[inkswamp]

Fool me once

Seems some form of this rumor comes up prior to each OS X release. What happened to those rumors that Tiger would run Linux binaries? Weren't there vague rumblings about Panther being able to run Windows apps?

Sorry, this is one rumor I ain't buying. Beyond the obvious fact that Apple stands to hurt themselves by doing this (that is, developers may find it preferable to discontinue OS X versions of applications if the Windows version runs just fine on Macs) but it also plays into this tired old myth that there are just oodles of great Windows-only apps that we Mac users are dying to have. Well, that isn't true. There isn't a single Windows app out there I have ever used that I felt was indispensible. I have everything I need on my Mac.

And what about viruses and Windows security issues. If Apple does this, don't they have to support that? What a headache.

And games? I doubt any game will run full-speed in any form of virtualization or emulation. And besides, no gamer is going to switch to Macs no matter how many Windows games run on it. Most gamers like to be able to upgrade their hardware and Macs don't cater to that.

I can't think of a single angle where this rumor makes sense, and it's annoying the way some form of it rears its head before every release. I don't need Windows. I don't like Windows. I don't want any of its crappy apps on my Mac.

 

[w_parietti22]

I don't think I would use this feature but I can see how it could be useful. It also might be a major selling point for my dad.

 

[DOUGHNUT]

I don't want any of its crappy apps on my Mac.

that's just ignorance right there. Sure, you may not need any of the Windows only apps, but alot of people do. believe it or not, 90+% vs. 3% marketshare does make a difference

 

[reyesmac]

I think allowing more than one OS on one machine is not something Apple would spend any time considering. It is just too confusing and wont work from a marketing and support standpoint. The support alone on something like this makes officially running two OS's on one Mac impossible.

What they can do is allow PC developers to patch their applications to run on the Macs windows compatibility layer. This will not kill off Mac software developers, it will just make it easier for PC developers to code applications that will run on a mac.

This will also allow Apple to control what these alien PC applications can do on a Mac (no virus-like behavior allowed). This is more in line with how Apple puts its own twist on a concept like running Windows on a Mac.

 

[Photorun]

that's just ignorance right there. Sure, you may not need any of the Windows only apps, but alot of people do. believe it or not, 90+% vs. 3% marketshare does make a difference

No, ignorance is thinking because 90% of the market uses something it's better, the ignorance is in people not realizing there's another option. This comes from M$ brilliantely duping peecee makers with illegal and unethical contractual bindings to windoze during the 90s, super heavy marketing, and taking advantage of the ignorant public when computers were new and shiny... Apple didn't help but overpricing their machines and not marketing their vastly superior OSes all that time, even now they don't, which is frustrating. The majority of the heartland USA buying Chevys even though they're quality sucks as does their resale, the reason isn't because they make good vehicles, people just don't know any better.

 

[AidenShaw]

Apple will shun innovation?

I think allowing more than one OS on one machine is not something Apple would spend any time considering. It is just too confusing and wont work from a marketing and support standpoint. The support alone on something like this makes officially running two OS's on one Mac impossible.

VMware investors didn't think so, and they were quite right. Microsoft thought about it, and bought Virtual PC. Xen is very active in the Linux world - both Red Hat and Suse recently announced that their next enterprise versions will have Xen embedded in the kernel.

Windows systems can run Linux (and Netware...), Linux systems can run Windows (and Netware...).

Virtualization is the biggest OS innovation in recent history (at least in the high volume system market - real mainframes have had various versions of virtualization for decades.) This is a very big party, and one that Apple is very late in attending. If Apple wants to break into the mainstream, they have no choice be to support other operating systems running as guests above OSX - no choice.

The flip side is that VT could also help someone write a VMM that would let OSX run as a GOS on a Windows host. (The TPM and EFI could easily be emulated by the VMM.)

Apple loses the hardware sale *and* the software sale - just pull a copy of OSX off the torrent and run it on Vista.

 

[AidenShaw]

reality check time

Apple didn't help but overpricing their machines and not marketing their vastly superior OSes all that time...

Please, put down the glass of kool-aid.

Go back and compare System 7, OS 8 and OS 9 against the comparable versions of NT 4 and Win2K.

An occasional blue screen vs. constant force quit and reboot? Come on, be honest!