Snow Leopard's Grand Central and OpenCL Details?

[JensenJJ]

I think you missed the point of my post. Operating system or kernel, whatever,

Well there is a big diffrence.

it was running in a barebones scheme. It was to demonstrate that windows is lean and efficient at the core. And bloat people speak of is actually just carrying drivers for everything under the sun and the ability to run legacy programs. MinWin was never intended to be the kernel of Windows 7 or other operating system, it was simply a demonstration.

Well if you knew that, why did you say it.
What is the point of saying. "Look we can build a kernel that can run on this hardware and do this.
We wont use it for anything else then to show that we can, so they wont say that we can't make a better kernel....... And then still use the old kernel.
Or Ford will show off a car that can drive 50miles on 1 gallon.
But not going to sell it or use the technology, for it was only for show.

If you want to show off what you can. Then do it by making something real, that can and will be used.

And wow! If DSL can support most of my hardware, then Microsoft and Apple must be doing something wrong! Geez, multi-gigabyte operating systems condensed down to 50 megabytes!

Well try to install it.
I installed it on a USB drive to boot on.
Last release is over a year old :-(
but was amased that it only had problem whit my wireless logitech mouse.

And yes it has not all the programs that ships whit OSX, and it do not have the coolest GUI, but it's there and it works.

But look at the iPhone my wild quess is that it do not take up "Multe-gigabyte's" but it's still a funktional OS but it can not do all that the OSX on ie. a iMac can do

 

[akac]

The big disappointment to me is that Apple are announcing 'iCal Server 2' as a 10.6 Snow Leopard feature in OS X Server. I guess this means that we'll have to wait "about a year" before iCal Server is even remotely viable to use, because it's pretty freakin' useless as it exists today in 10.5 Leopard.

I was hoping for a point-level release fixing some of the more egregious problems with iCal Server, but I guess that's off the table now.

As good as OS X is on the desktop, it's a pretty miserable experience on the server.

iCal Server is open source from Apple so you can always grab the latest source and run it on your Leopard Server.

 

[jimdkc]

Not only will Snow Leopard not run on PPC machines... but I imagine you can kiss Rosetta goodbye, too!

It makes no sense to cut off PPC hardware and continue to support PPC software!

 

[dharknes]

Multithreading is when two parts of your program run at the same time. Grand Central doesn't sound like multithreading, it sounds like instead of processes or threads being the thing you schedule on a processor, you instead schedule some kind of work unit.

Its a bit of both. The idea is to abstract the whole thread creation process so its easier for software to take advantage of whatever the user has. This also allows the OS to maximize the number thread/processes. If you only have 4 core creating 8 threads generally has a bad idea.

That in itself wouldn't allow for more parallelism, but would mean you could ensure that processors can be "filled up" regardless of the relative granularities of your tasks or threads.

 

[gnasher729]

Not only will Snow Leopard not run on PPC machines... but I imagine you can kiss Rosetta goodbye, too!

It makes no sense to cut off PPC hardware and continue to support PPC software!

Making PowerPC Macs obsolete means good chances for a lawsuit against Apple. Removing Rosetta means that a very, very expensive lawsuit is inevitable. I would consider that to be sabotage, and so would many people and companies.

If I found that Rosetta is gone after installing 10.6, I can guarantee that I would ask a British small claims court to make Apple give me a refund for several PowerPC applications that I am running, and that would cost Apple a lot more than the purchase price of Snow Leopard. I would also guarantee that I would publish detailed instructions how to approach the small claims court here, and that many people would use these instructions.

 

[Mal]

Making PowerPC Macs obsolete means good chances for a lawsuit against Apple. Removing Rosetta means that a very, very expensive lawsuit is inevitable. I would consider that to be sabotage, and so would many people and companies.

If I found that Rosetta is gone after installing 10.6, I can guarantee that I would ask a British small claims court to make Apple give me a refund for several PowerPC applications that I am running, and that would cost Apple a lot more than the purchase price of Snow Leopard. I would also guarantee that I would publish detailed instructions how to approach the small claims court here, and that many people would use these instructions.

On what grounds? Apple isn't forcing you to use 10.6, nor invalidating your machines by releasing it? Get over your complex of feeling that companies owe you everything you could ever want, and start looking at this realistically. Supporting PPC machines is not necessary, nor would it cost anyone anything for them not to support it.

jW

 

[akira2501]

I'm definitely excited about this. My half year old MacBook Pro is constantly buggy - whether it's that annoying graphics glitch, or staring at a beach ball for minutes, or random system freeze ups that end up requiring a hard shut down. I'm ready for some of that stability and reliability that Apple is supposed to be known for.

prob that istat pro. its a killer

 

[mithrilfox]

Wow, actually can't wait for Snow Leopard. Glad that SOMEONE is looking to build a solid, fast foundation for future development rather than adding shiny fluff.

You couldn't be more right... seriously. I'm tired of the race to have the glossiest, most see-through OS around. What is with developers, have they gotten obsessed with a cheesy outward appearance to disguise the lack of success under the hood?

People were able to follow and bow down to the all-mighty MGHz back in the day, so it's clear that the general public can understand the concept of speed and maximizing every bit of processor power. We should go back to those days, albeit a little more informed this time.

The trend for an OS to get larger and larger while adding more and more flashiness is just not cutting it for me. Leopard was a let down in many ways, though some of the speed increases were appreciated. This could be where Mac OS X excels even more. Not only does it have an awesome interface, but it has awesome speed. That would be the best.

 

[PurrBall]

On what grounds? Apple isn't forcing you to use 10.6, nor invalidating your machines by releasing it? Get over your complex of feeling that companies owe you everything you could ever want, and start looking at this realistically. Supporting PPC machines is not necessary, nor would it cost anyone anything for them not to support it.

jW

Our PPCs can run Leopard just fine, therefore they can run Snow Leopard. It would be a ****** move for them to drop support for PPC for no real reason. You would be pissed if you had a capable PPC. Heck, I was pissed when Leopard dropped my 800MHz G4, yet it still runs just as good as Tiger.

 

[mixel]

On what grounds? Apple isn't forcing you to use 10.6, nor invalidating your machines by releasing it? Get over your complex of feeling that companies owe you everything you could ever want, and start looking at this realistically. Supporting PPC machines is not necessary, nor would it cost anyone anything for them not to support it.

He was talking about Rosetta - Removing Rosetta would be a step too far. There's no reason for them to do that. It works. All it has to do is stay the same as it is now and it should continue working. If they strip it from the system it'll screw up a lot of Intel Mac customers workflows. It's not bloat - it's not getting in the way of anything else.

Why would they ditch such an excellent and useful technology that's complete and makes a lot of people's lives easier? It's 100% transparent to the user - sometimes I've had to use PPC apps, and you wouldn't know they *are* ppc apps. It's nothing like Classic where they had a real, good reason to want to phase the old-world interface out to avoid confusion.

I can see an argument for dropping PPC hardware support.. But Making the intel ones LESS compatible with the legacy ones seems crazy. Not everything can stay in constant development, too much would break.

 

[egor]

He was talking about Rosetta - Removing Rosetta would be a step too far.

He was talking about the legality and being able to claim compensation. Not only has he not supplied the section but there is also zero precedent and no logical or even moral reasoning.

 

[Muncher]

He was talking about Rosetta - Removing Rosetta would be a step too far. There's no reason for them to do that. It works. All it has to do is stay the same as it is now and it should continue working. If they strip it from the system it'll screw up a lot of Intel Mac customers workflows. It's not bloat - it's not getting in the way of anything else.

Why would they ditch such an excellent and useful technology that's complete and makes a lot of people's lives easier? It's 100% transparent to the user - sometimes I've had to use PPC apps, and you wouldn't know they *are* ppc apps. It's nothing like Classic where they had a real, good reason to want to phase the old-world interface out to avoid confusion.

I can see an argument for dropping PPC hardware support.. But Making the intel ones LESS compatible with the legacy ones seems crazy. Not everything can stay in constant development, too much would break.

I agree, it is kind of crazy, but apple will then tell us just not to upgrade if we need the PPC support; they're trying to optimize their operating system as much as possible, and it wouldn't surprise me if they did exactly this.

It amazes me just how far ahead Apple plans; from the early days of OS X, keeping an intel version, to changing the way the OS X kernel scheduler works with threads.

 

[mr.steevo]

NO. Please do some research before posting. Snow Leopard is for INTEL CPU'S ONLY. The way it SHOULD be.

Research? You mean rumors based on rumors?

What a twit...

s.

 

[nsjoker]

Rawr!

All big cats gone? How about "NO" for that?
Lynx, Lion, Bobcat, Cougar, Golden Cat, Mountain Lion, Serval.

Cougars, panthers, pumas, and mountain lions are all the same animal depending on region.

Apple essentially repeated animals for 10.1 (Puma) and 10.3 (Panther)

You all should feel ripped off, I know I do.

 

[Maxime]

What about Smilodon?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smilodon

 

[Mal]

Our PPCs can run Leopard just fine, therefore they can run Snow Leopard. It would be a ****** move for them to drop support for PPC for no real reason. You would be pissed if you had a capable PPC. Heck, I was pissed when Leopard dropped my 800MHz G4, yet it still runs just as good as Tiger.

Really? You know this for a fact? Snow Leopard isn't going to raise the hardware requirements, like, oh, EVERY FRICKIN' OS UPGRADE APPLE HAS EVER RELEASED? Seriously, I wouldn't be pissed if my computer couldn't run the latest upgrade, especially without any new features introduced. I've been through that. They're not dropping support for your computer, btw, you got your one year warranty and you'll get three years if you bought AppleCare. They're just not going to continue developing for it.

jW

 

[Rorikynn]

All big cats gone? How about "NO" for that?
Lynx, Lion, Bobcat, Cougar, Golden Cat, Mountain Lion, Serval.

Sorry, but a Lynx is not even close to be considered a big cat. Neither is a Bobcat or a Serval. A Mountain Lion is just another english name for a Cougar, Puma, or Panther depending on region.

That leaves Lion, Cougar (although apple has already used Puma/Panther), and the (Asian) Golden Cat (can reasonably pass as a 'big' cat).

So, they have 2-3 left. That takes them to 10.9, and the eventually transition to OS 11.

 

[PurrBall]

Really? You know this for a fact? Snow Leopard isn't going to raise the hardware requirements, like, oh, EVERY FRICKIN' OS UPGRADE APPLE HAS EVER RELEASED? Seriously, I wouldn't be pissed if my computer couldn't run the latest upgrade, especially without any new features introduced. I've been through that. They're not dropping support for your computer, btw, you got your one year warranty and you'll get three years if you bought AppleCare. They're just not going to continue developing for it.

jW

This is an optimization release, not a feature release, so I wonder why

 

[gnasher729]

On what grounds? Apple isn't forcing you to use 10.6, nor invalidating your machines by releasing it? Get over your complex of feeling that companies owe you everything you could ever want, and start looking at this realistically. Supporting PPC machines is not necessary, nor would it cost anyone anything for them not to support it.

jW

On what grounds? On grounds of killing Rosetta would be an absolutely boneheaded move and software stops working. Without any need. When you go to a small claims court in the UK, Apple has to spend lots of money to send someone there to contradict what you are saying (in which case it's anyone's guess how the court decides), so that will cost them more than paying me the money that I want. For me, it is free. That is what small claims courts are for.

There are nice stories here about people taking their bank to small claims court, nobody from the bank turns up, bank still refuses to pay, up to the second where the bailiffs appear at a branch of the bank (obviously if you send bailiffs to your local bank, you also call the local press to take pictures).

Not that any of these things will happen, because Apple has no reason to follow whatever juvenile nonsense is produced on MacRumors. On the other hand, Apple having to pay for an upgrade from Office 2004 to Office 2008 would be quite funny.

 

[gnasher729]

He was talking about the legality and being able to claim compensation. Not only has he not supplied the section but there is also zero precedent and no logical or even moral reasoning.

There is a lot of "moral reasoning". The fact is that if I buy a new OS version, and it _intentionally_ breaks my software without any good reason, then I would be annoyed enough to annoy them back. Note that in a UK small claims court things are stacked heavily in my favor. Apple would have to make an appearance in court, which in itself is more costly than what the matter is worth to them. The other problem that Apple would have is that they would have to come up with some very expensive experts if they want to contradict anything I can come up with in a court. Then there would be the small matter of front page news (can you imagine what TheInquirer would make of that)?

 

[mbrizan]

GPU Power

Its a bit of both. The idea is to abstract the whole thread creation process so its easier for software to take advantage of whatever the user has. This also allows the OS to maximize the number thread/processes. If you only have 4 core creating 8 threads generally has a bad idea.

I think most people are missing the point.

They aren't just trying to abstract the thread creation process. They also want to abstract the processing resource. Imagine an 8 core mac pro with multiple graphics cards. Well, now you can use those powerful GPUs as well as the CPUs for processing. That is the real meat an potatoes.

http://www.computerpoweruser.com/editorial/article.asp?article=articles%2Farchive%2Fc0807%2F30c07%2F30c07.asp

Can you imagine that? You can upgrade to a new video card and get real computing power instead of just increased frame-rates. Need even more power? Add some more graphics cards.

Apple is doing something extremely sexy here people.

 

[hayesk]

There is a lot of "moral reasoning". The fact is that if I buy a new OS version, and it _intentionally_ breaks my software without any good reason, then I would be annoyed enough to annoy them back. Note that in a UK small claims court things are stacked heavily in my favor. Apple would have to make an appearance in court, which in itself is more costly than what the matter is worth to them. The other problem that Apple would have is that they would have to come up with some very expensive experts if they want to contradict anything I can come up with in a court. Then there would be the small matter of front page news (can you imagine what TheInquirer would make of that)?

Yeah, good luck with that. The fact is that as long as Apple doesn't lie about it's capabilities, you won't have a leg to stand on, and won't even get a trial.

 

[Mal]

On what grounds? On grounds of killing Rosetta would be an absolutely boneheaded move and software stops working. Without any need.

OK, stop right there.

First off, I wasn't talking about dropping Rosetta. I was talking about dropping PPC support, which I was pretty sure is what you said in the post I was responding to. If not, I apologize. I don't think Rosetta is going away, although the truth is even Rosetta would likely not be missed by most people.

More importantly, though, go back to my original post. Even if they remove Rosetta from 10.6, and drop all support for anything that remotely smells like PPC, it does not affect your current hardware or software in any way, directly or indirectly. Thus, you still have no grounds for complaint nor suit against Apple. I would love to see you try to sue them though. I always need a laugh.

jW

 

[proc]

We seem to have a brught legal talent in this thread

There is a lot of "moral reasoning". The fact is that if I buy a new OS version, and it _intentionally_ breaks my software without any good reason, then I would be annoyed enough to annoy them back. Note that in a UK small claims court things are stacked heavily in my favor. Apple would have to make an appearance in court, which in itself is more costly than what the matter is worth to them. The other problem that Apple would have is that they would have to come up with some very expensive experts if they want to contradict anything I can come up with in a court. Then there would be the small matter of front page news (can you imagine what TheInquirer would make of that)?

I'm really trying to make up whether you really believe these legal claims you are making or you're just trying to impress anyone with a weak legal knowledge. Let me make this clear for you: You have no chance in succesfully suing an OS developer that the next iteration of the OS, which clearly didn't exist when you bought your Mac, doesn't run your favorite softwareapplication.

Offtopic:how do I edit/correct the title/header of a post as I have obviously made a typo?

 

[proc]

There is a lot of "moral reasoning". The fact is that if I buy a new OS version, and it _intentionally_ breaks my software without any good reason, then I would be annoyed enough to annoy them back. Note that in a UK small claims court things are stacked heavily in my favor. Apple would have to make an appearance in court, which in itself is more costly than what the matter is worth to them. The other problem that Apple would have is that they would have to come up with some very expensive experts if they want to contradict anything I can come up with in a court. Then there would be the small matter of front page news (can you imagine what TheInquirer would make of that)?

Please stop pretending to have legal knowledge: you're making ridiculous claims. You may be a good developer but that doesn't make you a legal expert.