Mac OS X 10.3 Panther Details

[ColoJohnBoy]

Originally posted by reyesmac
If they are only saying it will be much faster on the G5 and quartz extreme machines, then that would stink.

Just so you know, the 'G5' processor is a theory right now; a logical next step in the processor progression, but there's noting saying that Apple's next processor will be a G5, or even produced by Motorola.

One thing I've been wondering - Has Apple thought of reducing the dock down to a single icon on the desktop? One Click and it would open? Just a thought, I'm not sure if it's even feasible.

 

[MacBandit]

Originally posted by ColoJohnBoy
One thing I've been wondering - Has Apple thought of reducing the dock down to a single icon on the desktop? One Click and it would open? Just a thought, I'm not sure if it's even feasible.

Why? Just turn on hiding and you have no icon and no click to open it.

 

[jelloshotsrule]

Originally posted by backdraft
I really like how Apple is combining the best of both worlds Unix and Beos. OS X is going to be one hell of an OS. The only thing that it needs is work on the GUI here's some ideas: http://www.geocities.com/juan_m007

just a heads up... you have exceeded bandwidth allocation.... i got shot down trying to view your page

 

[ColoJohnBoy]

Re: weird!

Originally posted by Longey Nowze
weird... so you didn't notice any difference? what system are you using?? 10.2 is a lot faster than 10.1 on my 400MHz pismo!

You know, I didn't notice a difference either. I installed it on my 800 MHz TiBook, and didn't notice any difference at all until I upped my RAM from 512 MB to 1 GB.

 

[nighthawk]

Originally posted by Rincewind42
1. MacOS 10.3 doesn't have to be 64-bit to run on a 970
2. MacOS 10.3 probably won't be 64-bit .
3. You won't see confirmation of this until at least WWDC, and those who are in the know will be under NDA so they won't be able to tell you anyway.

MacOS X 10.3 will be a big deal regardless of 64-bit-ness, don't buy into the 64-bit crazyness. all you get from a 64-bit processor is a larger memory space and a larger fast integer!

OSX 10.3 doesn't need to be 64bit, but it should be 64bit aware -- so that it could (if running on a 970) have extended memory and natively work with 64bit INTEGERS.

But there are more important issues that Apple will be dealing with to be able to get the 970 to work well... including updating the gcc/PB suite to be able to support the new and faster features of the 970. I am not just talking about the 64bitness either, but instead, taking care of those 3 vector instructions that are missing (are they redundant?) and allowing the compiler to take advantage of the 8-way superscaler design. This leads to the question of whether or not we are going to need "FAT/UNIVERSAL" code again like between the 680x0 and PowerPC -- if so, it shouldn't bloat the code TOO much... maybe only 10% like the AMD 64bit chip.

Like most people have posted in other threads, the need for 64bit applications is not that high yet (chicken and egg theory), but who knows... maybe Apple is waiting to release their FinalCut4 Pro software until the 970 is released because of the 64bit advantages?

Sherlock (and "Find" in 10.2), both use a databasing system... that is what makes it so much faster than the PC to find files. I know that the metadata that is being discussed here is an OS/FS feature and not an application feature like Sherlock, but my point is that part of the work is already there... if Find/Sherlock was integrated into the core OS kernel, than it should be available to all applications.

As far as additional features I would like to see in 10.3...

1. More preferences over system-wide key commands. Like the Option-Apple-D for the dock (I hate that!) and Apple-Spacebar for switching the keyboard language. Being a graphic designer, both of those key commands interfer with Adobe/Quark.

2. Smart-Threading... some sort of "automatic" sharing of tasks between the processors and support for the 8-way superscaler design of the 970. Some sort of quasi-threading that is NOT code specific, but would have SOME increase in performance for Dual-processor systems. This would be important for the XGrid - shared computing as well.

3. iLife included -- not that great of a feature, but it would be nice... including the new Safari (although that is a given, right?)

4. Better IP tools, for tracking what your computer is sending/receiving. Possiblely Apple supported integrated virus scan software and better utilities for HFS+ repairs... let Apple take that over instead of Norton.

5. RAD for Java -- SOHO version of WebObjects integrated in Developer Tools.

 

[MacBandit]

Re: Re: weird!

Originally posted by ColoJohnBoy
You know, I didn't notice a difference either. I installed it on my 800 MHz TiBook, and didn't notice any difference at all until I upped my RAM from 512 MB to 1 GB.

Did you do a fresh install of 10.2 or an update?

 

[serpicolugnut]

Huh?

MacBidouille? I'd love to know how a french based Mac rumors site get's it's info...

The answer is easy. Speculation....

It doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out some of the basics that will be added to 10.3. Look at these speculations...

1-New journaling filesystem. Of course! They already partially implemented it. It will be fully implemented in the next release.

2-New Mail build... It's already been seen outside Apple...

3-New iChat build. Rumored to have videoconferencing capabilities.

4-New builds of Address Book and iCal with further integration.

5-Finder improvements.

6-New iTunes with Apple Music Service integration.

7-Speed enhancements throughout

I would say that all of these are fairly certain...

 

[beatle888]

Re: Re: Translation

Originally posted by faisal
How exciting! Let's see, the performance boost between 10.1 and 10.2 was... hrm... nothing I could discern. Unless you cound Quartz Extreme, which entailed buying new hardware and isn't particularly useful anyway.

WHAT oh man. you should try to add statements like "in my opinion" to posts like that. its absolutely false. unless you dont care about being factual.

have you ever used photoshop? screen redraw in photoshop is increased DRAMATICALY with quartz extreme. before when you bought a 3D graphics card, it woudnt even help photoshop at all (from my experience). but now with quartz extreme...i can scroll around large photoshop files with ease.

jeeesh....apple software developers must cringe when/if they read posts like that.

 

[Doctor Q]

Originally posted by chewbaccapits
So///let's say this is true....Would this be worth 129 dollars?

Didn't Apple claim that Jaguar (er, excuse me, "Jagwire") had 129 features for its $129 cost? I'll gladly pay a dollar for a new filesystem, so the question is whether they want a dollar each for 128 other features, and which of those features are important to each of us.

 

[Wonder Boy]

i have no complaints with 10.2 except when i tap into the network places, the whole thing closes after i pick a computer. i hope 10.3 adresses this by allowing the network (eek) neighborhood to stay open just like in OS 9.

 

[Rincewind42]

Originally posted by nighthawk
OSX 10.3 doesn't need to be 64bit, but it should be 64bit aware -- so that it could (if running on a 970) have extended memory and natively work with 64bit INTEGERS.

This is essentially the requirements of being 64-bit, being 64-bit aware. Basically, if the OS doesn't startup with the processor running in 64-bit mode, then you won't be able to safely use extended memory space and native 64-bit integers.

But there are more important issues that Apple will be dealing with to be able to get the 970 to work well... including updating the gcc/PB suite to be able to support the new and faster features of the 970. I am not just talking about the 64bitness either, but instead, taking care of those 3 vector instructions that are missing (are they redundant?) and allowing the compiler to take advantage of the 8-way superscaler design. This leads to the question of whether or not we are going to need "FAT/UNIVERSAL" code again like between the 680x0 and PowerPC -- if so, it shouldn't bloat the code TOO much... maybe only 10% like the AMD 64bit chip.

Assuming that 10.3 is a 32-bit operating system they don't absoutely need to update gcc/PB to handle the 970. And I don't know what 3 vector instructions you are talking about, the 970 implements all 162 Altivec instructions that the G4/74xx does. Taking advantage of the 8-way superscaler design is an optimization, that while nice, might also slow down code on older (and thus slower) processors. And finally, MacOS X already has the architecture in place to allow for code that wants to run in a 64-bit environment to be identified. The PowerPC 970 is not so different from other PowerPC chips that we would need any kind of 'bridge' to run 32-bit applications on it, but only a flag to the OS that the application wants to run in a 64-bit environment. And finally, the PowerPC instruction set was defined with 64-bit processing in mind from the beginning, and thus there will be zero code bloat .

As far as additional features I would like to see in 10.3...

1. More preferences over system-wide key commands. Like the Option-Apple-D for the dock (I hate that!) and Apple-Spacebar for switching the keyboard language. Being a graphic designer, both of those key commands interfer with Adobe/Quark.

I can understand about the Cmd-Opt-D and other Apple menu short cuts, but if one of your programs is using the Cmd-Space shortcut, it is in error. Apple has had that shortcut reserved since at least Mac OS 7.5, and I think since System 7. Many people in the internaltional community using Macs depend on it.

2. Smart-Threading... some sort of "automatic" sharing of tasks between the processors and support for the 8-way superscaler design of the 970. Some sort of quasi-threading that is NOT code specific, but would have SOME increase in performance for Dual-processor systems. This would be important for the XGrid - shared computing as well.

Unfortunately it is impossible to thread an operation that isn't explictly threaded. The moment you allow code that ran on one processor to run on two you discover that there are many odd interactions that you never imagined would occur. Thus if you want to take advantage of dual processors, you must thread your application.

That said, the point is almost moot. For one, MacOS X automatically assigns processors to threads, thus if you have a dual processor system you can literally run two programs at the same time (if you only have one processor it just looks like they do). As such, you automaticallly get a performance increase on a DP system vs a SP system, by nature of the program that is doing brute work can run that work entirely on one processor (more or less) while the rest of the OS and running apps take the other processor. What is unfortunate is that this situation doesn't typically lead to dramatic performance increases .

I could go on for quite a while about the threading system of MacOS X, but that would probably bore most of you to death =).

3. iLife included -- not that great of a feature, but it would be nice... including the new Safari (although that is a given, right?)

Apple has traditionally included the iApps with OS updates, and will likely do so again with 10.3. The only reason that iLife costs $49 at the store is because iDVD takes up an entire CD in itself. And anyway, you can already download the rest of the iApps from Apple's website =).

 

[bousozoku]

Re: Bring it on!

Originally posted by Foocha
I wonder whether a new file system will simplify or complicate. We already have plenty of metadata going around in OS X - file type, creator code, resource fork, file extension... Trouble is that whilst Apple whats to drop some, like the resource fork, application developers are unwilling to give it up.

A new file system may represent a next generation alternative to the old-Mac conventions like resource forks and creator codes which will finally encourage developers to give the old standards up, however, for a long time we'll just have even more confusion!

I wonder if they'll be able to get Classic to run on the new FS?!

With the lack of Mac OS 9.x, there's no reason to hang on to resource forks. Everything can be stored in Nibs instead. If XFS follows BFS, everything will be available that a Mac OS X Carbon, Cocoa, Java, or scripting application could want.

A Virtual File System should allow applications to see what they want to see by allowing them to access child file systems through a standardised Application Programming Interface.

I'm sure that HFS+ will be there for the next couple of years to keep the Classic environment alive but don't expect that to live forever. Perhaps, the Mac-on-Linux application can be ported to serve until Quark can finish XPress.

 

[wescbrown]

Re: Re: Translation

Originally posted by faisal
How exciting! Let's see, the performance boost between 10.1 and 10.2 was... hrm... nothing I could discern. Unless you cound Quartz Extreme, which entailed buying new hardware and isn't particularly useful anyway. I can't wait! Except I'll have to wait, just like I do today. Wait for apps to load. Wait for anything to run. Wait for Avi to read the white book. At least OS X finally feels faster than NeXTStEP [sic] on a 25 Mhz '040 with 8 megs of RAM mounting virtually everything over AFS (once we got it working, feh).

when I upgraded to 10.2 from 10.1 i found my system slowed down tremendously. I figured I'd do a clean install and get rid of classic, as i don't use it. the clean install of 10.2 was tremendously faster than the upgrade and faster than 10.1 - may be something to consider trying

 

[boobers]

Re: Re: Re: Translation

Originally posted by wescbrown
when I upgraded to 10.2 from 10.1 i found my system slowed down tremendously. I figured I'd do a clean install and get rid of classic, as i don't use it. the clean install of 10.2 was tremendously faster than the upgrade and faster than 10.1 - may be something to consider trying

Yup same here.

All the smartypants come out to post on these 32bit-64bit threads, boobers shuts up and reads...

 

[Rocketman]

Originally posted by reyesmac
If they can pull serious performance increases on the G3 and G4, it will be worth the price they sell it at. If they are only saying it will be much faster on the G5 and quartz extreme machines, then that would stink. Hope they start making black machines now that they will be running Panther.

WWDC 03. Steve Jobs makes appearance with a "black box" minitower. Reminiscent of many PC's. Inside is QUAD 970's and internal RAID. It has dual Ethernet 10k and dual FW 800 and dual FO. It is $5999 enterprise retail.

It is 64 bit. Steve is wearing a WHITE turtleneck. He introduces the CTO of IBM to chat about the new chips. He introduces the CTO of Oracle to query and sort a 1 billion record database.

It then uploads (using rondevoux and all channels simeltaneously) the Digital Theatrical release of Monsters, Inc to a RAID.

Rocketman

Earth to Steve, come in please . . .

 

[GPTurismo]

I would love to have a PPC970 machine with BFS and a 64 bit version of Mac OS X.

I possibly think it would be one cd, and when you install it, it determined how to compile it, either for the 64 bit PPC970 or the 32 Bit G3 and G4, making it either 64 bit and 32 bit.



My only worry is how classic will run under BFS :S Since so many apps rely on HFS/HFS+

 

[yumpin yiminy]

other than speedier more efficient search capabilities, for the user and for various apps, and the embedded metadata are there other benefits from Journalling FS which allow for advancing software for an OS? Or will this just allow for existing software to be improved?
I'm thinking what killer apps could result from this, in general, of course?
And I ask cuz what the mac always needs is more great software

 

[Doctor Q]

Originally posted by GPTurismo
My only worry is how classic will run under BFS :S Since so many apps rely on HFS/HFS+

I expect Apple would have to support the HFS/HFS+ API under classic even if they have to emulate it. Is there any other reasonable choice?

If I'm right, classic apps won't know anything has changed. So your only worry would be whether Apple's implementation/emulation turns out to be foolproof or buggy.

 

[modyouup]

Scot Hacker, cool name.

 

[rDLr]

Re: Re: Re: Translation

Originally posted by MacBandit
Wow, really? You didn't see any performance difference?

My B/W G3 400 without the Quartz Extreme hack went from the speed of a lurching bumbling drunk to that of slow walk. It was a very noticeable 2fold or greater increase in overall system responsiveness and application load times.

There is a Quartz Extreme hack? Are you saying that this hack will enable Quartz Extreme on an unqualified system? I would love to try that out. Do you have any more info?

 

[Pale Fire]

1. MacOS 10.3 doesn't have to be 64-bit to run on a 970
2. MacOS 10.3 probably won't be 64-bit .
3. You won't see confirmation of this until at least WWDC, and those who are in the know will be under NDA so they won't be able to tell you anyway.

I see this a lot, people stating that the 970 could work without a 64-bit OS. However, I believe that is wrong. I remember reading and interview when the 970 was announced that 32-bit instructions were supported by setting a top bit. It was further said that "this way only the operating system needs to be rewritten".

In other words. The 970 needs a 64-bit OS (and drivers?) but it will be able to run both 32 and 64 bit apps.

That's what I read anyway.

 

[bousozoku]

Originally posted by yumpin yiminy
other than speedier more efficient search capabilities, for the user and for various apps, and the embedded metadata are there other benefits from Journalling FS which allow for advancing software for an OS? Or will this just allow for existing software to be improved?
I'm thinking what killer apps could result from this, in general, of course?
And I ask cuz what the mac always needs is more great software

A true journaling system would allow rollbacks. You've heard of the software Rewind? It allows you to capture an image of your system and then you may proceed to mess with your system and later, restore it from the image you saved. In a true journaling system, it would do this on the fly. Of course, this takes space and time to keep track of all the changes. You wouldn't want to keep track of anything but user data files and perhaps, preference files.

 

[ColdZero]

Originally posted by bousozoku
A true journaling system would allow rollbacks. You've heard of the software Rewind? It allows you to capture an image of your system and then you may proceed to mess with your system and later, restore it from the image you saved. In a true journaling system, it would do this on the fly. Of course, this takes space and time to keep track of all the changes. You wouldn't want to keep track of anything but user data files and perhaps, preference files.

Acually journaling systems have nothing to do with system rollbacks. They are a way of keeping changes that haven't been applied to the correct position in the hard disk in a seperate area until there is time or resources to apply it.
Say you have some big server and you start making changes to stuff, those changes aren't written back to their original location. Instead the changes are put into a log which the system keeps until it can update the originals. When an update is completed, the changes are written to the disk and the entry is removed from the journal log.
This allows for fast reboots in the case of a system crash. All that is done is that the log is replayed and any changes that haven't been comitted yet are and the disk is back to working order. Keeping a record of every change that happens is not a journaling file system and would require vast amount of space to keep track of all those changes. You can't go "back" in a journaling file system because there is nothing to go back to, when the change is commited, thats it, the entry in the log is removed and thats it. Even if the entry was kept in the log, it would not tell you the old information for rollbacks, only what the new changes were.

 

[nagromme]

labels?

Does this mean we will finally get Labels back in OS X? Sometimes they're vital, and they're always useful. When I hear metadata, I think labels.

 

[Rincewind42]

Originally posted by Pale Fire
I see this a lot, people stating that the 970 could work without a 64-bit OS. However, I believe that is wrong.

In other words. The 970 needs a 64-bit OS (and drivers?) but it will be able to run both 32 and 64 bit apps.

The exact quote is this:

In addition to its support of new 64-bit solutions, the 970 retains full native support for 32-bit applications. This not only protects 32-bit software investments, but provides these 32-bit applications with the same high-performance levels that it extends to 64-bit uses. This native, nonemulated, 32-bit support is not limited to application code, which runs unmodified. 32-bit operating systems with minor updates can also take advantage of the PowerPC 970's outstanding performance.

From here: http://www-3.ibm.com/chips/products/powerpc/newsletter/dec2002/newproductfocus2.html

In addition:

IBM made its way around this problem by adding a 32-bit native mode to the processor that essentially changes the PowerPC 970's instruction registers, allowing it to run as a 32-bit processor. Sandon stressed that this was not any sort of emulation.

"All 32-bit applications can run as is on the 970," Sandon said. "Changes are needed to make a 32-bit OS run on the 970, but the list of changes is small."

Sandon said that IBM has a 64-bit version and a 32-bit version of Linux running on the PowerPC 970 in the lab.

From here:http://maccentral.macworld.com/news/0210/16.ibm.php

There is also the presentation that IBM shows the world when they unvieled the PowerPC 970. You can download it here: http://www.simdtech.org/apps/group_public/download.php/23/IBM_PPC970_MPF2002.pdf

All this and more points to the fact that Apple doesn't have to build MacOS X as a 64-bit platform to use the PowerPC 970. And as such, it tells me that Apple will probably not release 64-bit enhancements for MacOS X until PowerPC 970 based Macintoshes are available to the public. And even if Apple does release 970 based PowerMacs this summer, that is too late for an OS that is supposed to ship by the end of September.

Now, if Apple releases 970 hardware at WWDC and announced that 10.3 won't be available until December, then we might have a different picture, but I find that highly unlikely.