OS X x86 FAQ

[Nermal]

Can you give me a page number for that? I've heard it a couple of times but can't find it in the book.

 

[Abstract]

I've done a bit of poking around in Xcode 2.1, and it appears that when you first install an app (using /Applications/Utilities/Installer), it'll 'rip out' the other architecture. So you may not be able to simply copy from one system to the other. However, I only had a quick peek so I might be completely wrong about this.



The 'Power' in Power Mac and PowerBook do not mean 'PowerPC'. The first PowerBooks were 68K. So I think the Power name will stay

That's good, I think. However, people will find a way around this easily. THis is one of the things Apple must be very worried about. They need to figure out a way to make everything.....including OSX and all their software......incompatible with everybody elses machines. I don't think they'll be able to do it unless they do it through hardware, and even then, I think it may be possible to get around it.

QUESTION: Will new Macs come with logic boards, or are we going to call them "motherboards??"

 

[admanimal]

Can you give me a page number for that? I've heard it a couple of times but can't find it in the book.

page 47

 

[admanimal]

They need to figure out a way to make everything.....including OSX and all their software......incompatible with everybody elses machines.

Well if OS X is incompatible....that pretty much makes everything else incompatible automagically. Even with standard Intel CPUs, Macs can still have a variety of proprietary chips that the OS requires to run properly. For example, Apple has proprietary power management functionality built into its motherboards which provides Sleep functionality for the OS.

 

[mvc]

I've noticed a lot of fears from long-time Mac users over the Intel announcement. I thought it would be helpful to inform people about it.

So, let's stick all the info we know about it here. Add to it freely when you find something out!...

Great work slb, please keep this thread fresh for everyone's sake (Make sure you do lots of summaries and updates to your top post so its all in one easy to find place without reading 200 posts)

That way we'll keep the FUD at bay!!!

 

[Nermal]

page 47

Thanks. Wow, a great big heading and I still didn't see it!

 

[Uma888]

Some one sticky this, its very encouraging (even for switchers like me )

 

[Nermal]

That's a good idea, done

 

[bentley]

will it make Windows > Mac ports easier?

will it increase speeds for gamers?

 

[thequicksilver]

Will I be able to run Mac OS X on my Dell?

No.

"We will not allow running Mac OS X on anything other than an Apple Mac." - Phil Schiller

Will I be able to run Windows/Linux/other x86 OS on my Intel Mac?

Yes. Most likely, but Apple won't support it.

"That doesn't preclude someone from running it on a Mac. They probably will," he said. "We won't do anything to preclude that." - Phil Schiller, when asked about the possibility of running Windows on Macs.

Source: CNET

I might be the only one to think this, but this is utterly brilliant. To think that I could have a Mac Pentium M notebook that I could dual boot between Windows and OS X with no speed hit is absolutely huge. Best of both worlds.

This could be enough to tip people over the edge.

Methinks I'll be getting one of the first Intel based iBooks for this alone.

 

[ethernet76]

Does anyone know what the intel developer boxes will be?

Because I swear to god if I have to see a POST screen I'm going to keep my little powerbook forever.

 

[Baron58]

I've never looked at NeXTStep fat binaries, but I'll bet they are even seperate files within the bundle.

They are. In fact, they are known as 'TriFat', or 'QuadFat', meaning that there could be 3 or 4 different executables inside the whatever.app/Contents/ folder of the bundle: Motorola 680x0, Intel i38x, DEC Alpha, and.... I forget what the other supported processor was... MIPS?

 

[Mitthrawnuruodo]

will it make Windows > Mac ports easier?

Not, really as the APIs are still different. But on the upside, WINE will probably let you run Windows programs at near native speed, so the need for porting...

will it increase speeds for gamers?

Ah, that's more of a Direct X vs OpenGL problem, not processor. And this why the WINE approach will not work for games...

 

[Baron58]

Does anyone know what the intel developer boxes will be?

Because I swear to god if I have to see a POST screen I'm going to keep my little powerbook forever.

You mean like if you did "setenv boot-args='-verbose'" in open firmware on your little powerbook?

Chill. Most Intel-type boards now support a completely silent POST (no display) or allow you to display a bitmap (like the grey Apple logo) at power-on unless you hit DEL or F2 to get the POST information.

 

[Baron58]

I haven't heard anything about that from those who were at the WWDC, so presumably nothing else about Macs will change other than the fact they'll be using Intel chips. There's no reason I know of for Apple to move from OpenFirmware.

Macs won't be becoming PCs. All that's changing is the little chip doing the math. Everything else is still good old Mac.

According to the PDF that's available from apple, Intel-based Macs will NOT use OpenFirmware. They are effectively standard Intel boards, including BIOS.

 

[Baron58]

Windows friends are still shocked when I control the brightness of my screen with my keyboard and eject CDs at the press of a key.

And Mac people are shocked when they see these exact things working just fine on a Sony VIAO. It's not just an Apple thing. It's the choice of the manufacturer to do it well (e.g. IBM/Lenovo ThinkPads, or some features (but not quality) on Sonys) or to do it sloppily (e.g. most Dells and all Gateways).

Sony builds notebooks with cool features. People chose to buy them over others because they want the features, but their quality sucks. IBM/Lenovo builds notebooks with great quality, but less of the cutting-edge features. people buy them because they want the quality. Apple will build Intel-based notebooks that perform well, have great quality and have great features. Having 'Intel Inside' will broaden their appeal over the proprietaryness that they currently are stuck with.

 

[lasuther]

Now Apple just needs to go PCI-Express with the Intels and everything is fine.

I have a question on Graphics card possiblities on a new Macintel. I've heard people complain that current Macs don't have as strong as graphics cards when compared to current PCs. Will a Intel chip allow future Macs to have the same graphics cards as PCs use?

lasuther

 

[Baron58]

I hope someone has answers, or at least theoretical ones.

Yes they do. They're called engineers. People who's job it is to make sure that Apple is successful. They're bright people who know way more than a bunch of hyperventilating pundits on a rumors board.

I thought that the PPC was fantastic for math calculations. What kind of speed decreases are there going to be with the move to x86?

You fell victim to the marketing FUD. There will be speed INCREASES with the move to x86. Also, what makes you so certain that the actual final products won't be Itanium or Xeon processors, not Pentium, which makes them even more than just vanilla x86?

I thought that the PPC was built for multi-processing more than x86, so multiple processors made more of a difference with Macs than PCs. Is it PPC that's better, Mac OS X, or both?

More bogusness. OS X is basically BSD unix. All variants of *nix scale to multiprocessing tremendously better than Windows does. That's all.

This doesn't quite make sense to me. The PPC is known for using less power than its x86 counterparts, so where did Steve get that moving to x86 is going to require less power?

Um, he got it from people who design chips, and who know what they're doing. Where did you 'get' otherwise?

I thought that in the end, the PPC roadmap was better in that the PPC had more room to grow than x86. While not growing as rapidly, it would still surpass x86 when technical limitations were met.

Roadmaps mean nothing if the vendor can't deliver. In the mean time, Intel has really innovated and pushed the technology, where IBM can't even deliver on time.

What is Intel showing Steve that is making him so confident that Intel is the way to go?

If we knew that, we'd be CEO of Apple.

Are we in for another OS switch 5 years from now, and then a chip switch in 10 years as technology changes?

Yeah, maybe. So what?

Are there any insecurities in the x86 chip that aren't in the PPC that will be exploited under Mac OS X?

No. The insecurities lie in the OS, not the processor.

Will Apple be able to prevent people from physically (not just through the EULA) installing Mac OS X on other x86 machines?

Sure. Just check for the hardware serial number, or some specific chip. *Will* they? Who knows.

 

[csubear]

According to the PDF that's available from apple, Intel-based Macs will NOT use OpenFirmware. They are effectively standard Intel boards, including BIOS.

Hm... I hope these new intel macs support everything the onld macs did, such as booting form a firewire drive. ect...

On another note. Say I have Office 2004 (ppc only) or some other app that i purchased, and I upgrade and get an intel mac. How do will deveoplers distribute x86 binaries to existing customers? Will we be forced to re-buy software if we want to run x86 native? Will we be forced to run the app in emulation mode? What if the app is G4-G5 only? I do not want to rebuy ooo.. say WoW, or something like that....

 

[Diatribe]

Are we in for another OS switch 5 years from now, and then a chip switch in 10 years as technology changes?

Watch the keynote. I actually felt a lot better after having watched it. Steve says that the OS is gonna last 20 years, the chips at least 10.

 

[Diatribe]

I have a question on Graphics card possiblities on a new Macintel. I've heard people complain that current Macs don't have as strong as graphics cards when compared to current PCs. Will a Intel chip allow future Macs to have the same graphics cards as PCs use?

lasuther

If they switch to PCI-Express there'll be the possibility to have the newest graphics cards. It would make sense to include it since they probably have to redesign the mobo anyway for the Intel. After all this could lead to faster Macs cpu and graphics card wise.

 

[dirtymatt]

Ah, that's more of a Direct X vs OpenGL problem, not processor. And this why the WINE approach will not work for games...

Actually WINE is very good at emulating games on Linux, I think MS Office and games are their main concerns. Apparently games tend to be easier as WINE just needs to translate the Direct X calls to OpenGL.

 

[Zaha]

On Altivec emulation incapability:

But that would render it almost useless... and defeat the purpose of having it in the first place.
Without this a lot of people won't immediately switch until all their software is ported.

I don't think it would be useless as my current G3 iBook runs almost all Altivec generation software quite well (Panther, iWork...). I doubt there's much code out there that only works on Altivec machines.

 

[JasonElise1983]

Think about it. Intel owns the rights to PCI-express, so why wouldn't Apple get it now? Even before they switch to Intel, having a deal with them should give apple PCI-express now.

Think about the product lines we could have.
PowerMacs Dual processor, Dual Core 64-bit Xeons
iMacs Some variant of the Pentium M
eMacs Some Varienat of the Pentium M or Celoron (maybe a choice?)
Mac Mini same as eMac

PowerBook Pentium M
Maybe even a PowerBook HD(heavy Duty) that had the successor to the P4
iBook Pentium M or Celeorn

xServe Dual Xeon or Dual Itaniums

Apple could effectivley offer many choices now that they have previously not been able to give us. Imaging have two Power Mac models a single and a dual, and you just pick which processors you want when you BTO.

 

[efoto]

According to the PDF that's available from apple, Intel-based Macs will NOT use OpenFirmware. They are effectively standard Intel boards, including BIOS.

Ewwy, not sure I like that idea.

I am hoping that Apple (given their five years working already) already have/know a way to make to generic PC unable to run OSX and therefore keep their OS at least mostly pirate free and keep it great. I think the more likely the OS is to be pirated the quicker development goes down the tubes (due to lower income cause no one is buying) and then we end up with swiss-cheese Windows, which who needs another holy OS?