Mac OS X 10.4 Info?

[Krizoitz]

4. Mac OS X wouldn't exist if Linux was never born. When Steve Jobs broke away from Apple, back in the day, he got in a Linux group called NeXtStep. After a while Apple eventually bought their operating system. They slapped a pretty GUI on and modified a few things, and thus Mac OS X was born.

I love it when people try and speak with authority about something they know nothing about and are absolutely WRONG about.

Steve Jobs left Apple and founded NeXT. They built the NeXTStep OS to run on their own proprietary hardware. NeXTSTEP was based on UNIX not Linux. Linux != UNIX. They are like cousins maybe. Anyhow he didn't JOIN a group he started it. Eventually NeXTSTEP became OPENSTEP and ran on non-NeXT hardware. When Apple bought NeXT they used their expertise with a UNIX core operating system to help craft MacOS X. If Linux never existed NeXT would still have had a UNIX based NeXTSTEP.

 

[osakans]

I love it when people try and speak with authority about something they know nothing about and are absolutely WRONG about.

Steve Jobs left Apple and founded NeXT. They built the NeXTStep OS to run on their own proprietary hardware. NeXTSTEP was based on UNIX not Linux. Linux != UNIX. They are like cousins maybe. Anyhow he didn't JOIN a group he started it. Eventually NeXTSTEP became OPENSTEP and ran on non-NeXT hardware. When Apple bought NeXT they used their expertise with a UNIX core operating system to help craft MacOS X. If Linux never existed NeXT would still have had a UNIX based NeXTSTEP.

Not to be pedantic, but NeXTSTEP was, in fact, based on Mach, with some BSD components mixed in. You could say that NeXTSTEP and UNIX are like cousins maybe. The operating system kernel (its core) was Mach. I know this because my college got one of the first shipments of NeXT Cubes (the serial numbers on them were in the double digits) and it was drilled home to us that these were not UNIX machines, but Mach-based machines.

Your fundamental conclusion is, however, correct -- if Linux never existed NeXT would still have had NeXTSTEP.

 

[GregA]

I love it when people try and speak with authority about something they know nothing about and are absolutely WRONG about.

Steve Jobs left Apple and founded NeXT. They built the NeXTStep OS to run on their own proprietary hardware. NeXTSTEP was based on UNIX not Linux. Linux != UNIX. They are like cousins maybe. Anyhow he didn't JOIN a group he started it. Eventually NeXTSTEP became OPENSTEP and ran on non-NeXT hardware. When Apple bought NeXT they used their expertise with a UNIX core operating system to help craft MacOS X. If Linux never existed NeXT would still have had a UNIX based NeXTSTEP.

Yeah, Linux wasn't an issue when NeXT formed.

Unix history is much more complicated than Linux. Even the basics!
Linux has a Linux microkernel with GNU OS,
NeXT had a Mach microkernel with the open source BSD OS,
The open source BSDs (Free/Net/OpenBSD) were developed separate to Berkeley's BSD,
Berkeley's BSD branched off from the SVR releases at some stage.
The SVR releases were used by SCO, Interactive (later Sun), and others
and somewhere in the mix is AIX, HP etc. etc.
(also somewhere is SCO Xenix, and Microsoft's Xenix used before NT...)

If Steve Jobs had founded NeXT 5 years later he may well have used Linux. As it stands, even now, the OpenStep APIs run on Linux ("GNUstep"), the NeXT/Sun versions ("OpenStep") ran on BSD, HP/UX, Solaris, Windows 95, and Windows NT/2000, and the Apple version ("Cocoa") runs on MacOS X.

It's got to be my biggest wish for Apple that they release an updated Cocoa for Linux & Windows XP. Let developers develop using Xcode, and compile for Mac, Linux, & Windows. What a great way to encourage development using Cocoa (and hence Mac OS X)!!!

Apple's original plan back before MacOS X was released was also to have OpenStep (then "YellowBox", now "Cocoa") released on Windows (the earlier version already ran), but it hit a snag which people thought was Adobe wanting US$10 for every Windows release (for their Display PostScript). Apple removed DPS and used PDF instead - but no final Windows release ever happened (though Apple's WebObjects still uses Openstep on Windows 2000sp3 and Solaris 8). Pity!

 

[Mac Dummy]

The timing sounds correct. I was expecting Steve to announce 10.4 at WWDC and then released by the end of the year. Essentially keeping with the same timing. That was a very interesting comment that they might just skip to 10.5, because it's scheduled to be a radical change. Maybe that would explain the code name change from Ocelot.

Why totally upgrade Mac OS so soon when "Panther" has only been out since October 2003? Doesn't make sense to me. Unless of course Apple is trying to do what Microsoft did with Windows Me.

 

[gopher]

Why totally upgrade Mac OS so soon when "Panther" has only been out since October 2003? Doesn't make sense to me. Unless of course Apple is trying to do what Microsoft did with Windows Me.

10.3 is a great operating system. Definitely nothing like ME. However, if you don't have need for its features, there isn't much sense in upgrading. As for Tiger, it may not be out until January. I'm testing the spoken user interface, and it is nowhere near the completeness they would want.

 

[ffakr]

Linux has a Linux microkernel with GNU OS,

Linux doesn't have a Microkernel. Linus doesn't think much of microkernels.. even though he wrote the linux kernel on a system that had a microkernel (MINIX).

Linux has a monolithic kernel. Linux runs a lot of code inside the kernel space and as a result a lot of code runs faster on linux than other microkernel based systems.

Mac OS X, in comparison, uses a microkernel.. the Mach Kernel. Mach, like any real microkernel, does very little in the grand scheme of things. It's basically a 'shim' between the OS and apps and the hardware. It manages thread access to the hardware, it manages memory access.. not much more.
The linux kernel has all kinds of crap running in kernel space.. hardware drivers, file system code..

The upside to big monolithic kernels is the speed advantage. A lot of routines have a lower latency in Linux. The big disadvantage to a monolithic kernel is that all that code running in kernel space is a potential security vulnerability. The argument about which is more insecure.. MS Windows or Linux will rage for years, but if you subscribe to a Linux security list, you'll see a LOT of security warnings and resultant patches. From my experience there are MORE security vulnerabilites in linux than Windows.. the difference is, the linux community patches them faster and people automate more attacks against Windows.

 

[ffakr]

10.3 is a great operating system. Definitely nothing like ME. However, if you don't have need for its features, there isn't much sense in upgrading. As for Tiger, it may not be out until January. I'm testing the spoken user interface, and it is nowhere near the completeness they would want.

Not only does 10.3 have more features than 10.2, but it's also faster.. especially on SMP boxes and older machines. That's probably as good a reason as any to have upgraded.

Tiger is due this fall.. just like 10.3 was released in the fall. Apple has already announced this.
Apple also publicly stated that there will be a longer delay before 10.5 is released. Perhapse a year and a half. Avie Tevanian said they can't sustain a yearly release schedule. It's not hard to see why.. the more polished OS X becomes, the harder it will be to come up with enough changes to justify a full rev of the OS.

 

[weezer160]

multiple docks

somewhere in this forum, or some mac forum, i remember somebody suggesting the idea of multiple docks in tiger. i think it would be a good idea because you can have two kinds (or more) of docks. you can have a dock for your applications and a dock for your folders. of course, you can have the option of having the, what would be called, 'class dock,' the dock we have, where the folders and apps are on the same dock and seperated by that little line. or, you can have you applications dock on the bottom, and your folders dock on the right or left side, or vice verse. of course, some critics might say that having two docks at once might cost you a little space on the screen. but some others, like myself, i'd probably have my applications dock on the right all the time, and then have my folders dock on the left with hiding turned on. that's just myself, but i think it would be a good idea.

 

[gopher]

somewhere in this forum, or some mac forum, i remember somebody suggesting the idea of multiple docks in tiger. i think it would be a good idea because you can have two kinds (or more) of docks. you can have a dock for your applications and a dock for your folders. of course, you can have the option of having the, what would be called, 'class dock,' the dock we have, where the folders and apps are on the same dock and seperated by that little line. or, you can have you applications dock on the bottom, and your folders dock on the right or left side, or vice verse. of course, some critics might say that having two docks at once might cost you a little space on the screen. but some others, like myself, i'd probably have my applications dock on the right all the time, and then have my folders dock on the left with hiding turned on. that's just myself, but i think it would be a good idea.

Dockfun gives you this ability:
http://www.dockfun.com/

 

[weezer160]

Dockfun gives you this ability:
http://www.dockfun.com/

I checked. it seemes like complicated software. i mean, TWO docks, not something that you can just change the icons according to groups - i could do that easily for free. if only i had photoshop, i think i'd show you.

 

[Fukui]

Dockfun gives you this ability:
http://www.dockfun.com/

Can two run at the same time though? I would like that.

 

[StrangeQuark]

I was going through this a couple months ago thinking about the kids who have never used a text only interface who didn't or had to enter a program that they received in the mail (snail mail) into the computer manually because you couldn't send it over the internet and floppies where unheard of and tape drives were uncommon.

Similar feelings here. I am a member of the last generation that will remember not having an internet connection. I clearly remember signing up with our first ISP back in 1996. It was a local provider, and it had such great features as no hourly charges on weekends. All this on a blazing fast Performa 6116CD with a 14.4Kbps modem. Soon, I'll be a part of the last generation of mac users that remembers extension conflicts, and resource forks.

 

[wdlove]

I checked. it seems like complicated software. i mean, TWO docks, not something that you can just change the icons according to groups - i could do that easily for free. if only i had photoshop, i think i'd show you.

So are your saying that you would only recommend this application for a power user? A person that is techie.

 

[jap4n]

those damn mongorians...!

 

[sambo.]

hehehe........

i hope it'll run sweet on my g3/333 pwrbk whenever it gets here.
thanx to banks, my new g5's are on hold so these windon't 98 ****boxes will have to keep plodding along.

but.... when i do get them, at least i'll have skipped all the growing pains since 9.2 (8.6 was bestest of the classix imho). i can think of 1001 ways to use expose now......