Torvalds Switches to a Mac 1162
renai42 writes "Linux creator Linus Torvalds said this afternoon that he's now running an Apple Macintosh as his main desktop, mainly for work reasons, although partly simply because he's a self-described "technology whore" and got the machine for free." And yes, he is running Linux on it ;)
Just hardware, no apple OS. (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Just hardware, no apple OS. (Score:4, Insightful)
It's just another linux machine with that horrible X thing on it.
Re:Just hardware, no apple OS. (Score:5, Interesting)
It's just another linux machine with that horrible X thing on it.
Like it or not, but that isn't the case.
Recently, I've been considering buying a new laptop. I last had an iBook G3/500, recently bequethed to my girlfriend, with me using a PDA/handheld as my main computer for the last year or so. So, thinking about getting another full laptop, I've been shopping around. But since I've had my fill of OS X, I was looking at PCs too, since I'd probably be fine on a PC running Windows or Linux. But I keep coming back to the Macs. With the quality of hardware, the size/weight factor it's hard to find a notebook of comparable price, one that isn't a big piece of junk.
Saying that a Mac without OS X isn't a Mac just isn't true. There's more to a Mac than software. Most folks who think so have never used a Mac, not for any long period of time. Similarily, a PC running OS X isn't a Mac. Maybe an x86 machine produced by Apple could make it as one, though.
Re:Just hardware, no apple OS. (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Just hardware, no apple OS. (Score:5, Informative)
last to get ports (Score:5, Informative)
It's cool that you brought up the port issue. I'll expound on my frustration with linux on PPC...
I ran a webserver on PPC linux (SuSE) for a few years. The SuSE folks did a good job porting all the standard linux apps and packages over from x86. But as I sought to customize my server with special CGI packages that did stuff like photo galleries and log analysis, I would run into roadblocks because necessary libs weren't available in PPC rpms. Sure, I could try to compile them myself, but in most attempts at this, I'd run into all kinds of compile errors for which I have no knowledge of how to troubleshoot.
Eventually I scrapped my PPC server and switched to an old dual Celeron x86 box running Mandrake. It was very nice to have everything readily available for my distro.
At the point that this server dies, I intend to replace it with my antiquated B/W G3 450mhz box. I see more development focusing on Mac OS X PPC than linux PPC as I think there is a significantly larger userbase on Mac OS X than linux PPC. So, unlike mr Torvaldis, I'll probably run my system (server) off Mac OS X at that point. My desktop will remain Mac OS X.
Re:last to get ports (Score:4, Informative)
If you don't specifically need Linux kernel, fink might be an easier option. You get access to the same packages as gentoo without, but setup on top of OSX is trivial. You can still run your server without UI if you want. Edit
Re:Just hardware, no apple OS. (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Just hardware, no apple OS. (Score:4, Informative)
And eleven hours is amazing. How do you get that?
That laptop you mentioned is double the cost of an iBook though.
That Sony VGN-T150 is quite a different animal than anything Apple offers. It uses an Ultra Low Voltage Penitum M running at 1.1GHz. That's how it gets 6 to 11 hours of battery life with the extended-life battery.
The closest you could get with an Apple would be the 12-inch Powerbook with a Super Drive at $1700. The Sony runs between $1900 and $2000. But it's only 3.1 lbs compared to the Powerbook's 4.6 lbs and the battery life it gets is quite amazing. (even compared to the Powerbook's "up to 5 hours")
Of course, we're really comparing apples to oranges here (no pun intended) as these are very different machines for different needs.
You're speaking of Apple hardware. (Score:5, Informative)
Linus' claim is correct. A Mac without OS X is not truly a Mac, as it doesn't offer the full Mac experience. However, that doesn't mean that Apple's hardware is run-of-the-mill. It's quite superb, as you've pointed out, and there are other non-mac examples of this (iPods, Airport Base Stations [I think the express is a really cool product], we've even got a few LaserWriters still in use at my work).
I think this is one of the legitimate reasons why you SHOULD run Linux on a Mac. He's fricken Linus, man! It's hard to do what he does (work on Linux) without using Linux. He's made the choice for real, practical reasons. It frustrates me that several in the slashdot crowd want to run Linux on Apple hardware because they think there's some lame/n00b stigma attached to OS X. I've said it plenty of times before, and I'll say it again: OS X run's the majority of unixoid apps just fine. It's the best-fit for Apple hardware; the level of integration between hardware/software is going to be very difficult to reproduce with Linux, especially on a notebook. Don't make the switch unless you have stuff that needs to be done under Linux that simply CAN NOT be done under OS X...
Re:Just hardware, no apple OS. (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Just hardware, no apple OS. (Score:5, Interesting)
Troll-bait aside, as a Mac user running OS X at work and at home, I use X11 all the time. The only problem with OS X's windowing system, Aqua, is that it does not support remote windows. With "that horrible X thing," I can and routinely do open graphical windows spawned by applications on other machines running totally different operating systems. It is the only technology out there that does that that I have ever heard of. Even between macs, try opening iTunes on your home machine from your work machine. X11 is a useful application, not horrible at all.
Re:Just hardware, no apple OS. (Score:4, Insightful)
Which is a shame. Booting into OSX once in a while might give him an additional perspective.
Re:Just hardware, no apple OS. (Score:5, Informative)
He has repeatedly said that he doesn't care about userspace.
He has also said that Mach, which is the microkernel OSX is based on, is a "piece of shit". Read "Just for Fun", his autobiography, for full details.
Linus is probably biased about Mach though.... (Score:5, Informative)
The quick summary is that Andy Tanenbaum proclaimed Linux dead way back in '92, saying, "While I could go into a long story here about the relative merits of the two designs, suffice it to say that among the people who actually design operating systems, the debate is essentially over. Microkernels have won."
Linus on the other hand much preferred the monolithic design of linux, for a variety of reasons. Mr. Tanenbaum even went so far as to imply that Linux wouldn't be a passing project for his class. Ironic, no?
Even so, Tanenbaum did and still does have some good points about the Mach microkernel. I can't exactly imagine Torvalds is the most impartial judge of the mach microkernel.
Re:Linus is probably biased about Mach though.... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Linus is probably biased about Mach though.... (Score:4, Insightful)
...except to the people who actually use the software...
Re:Just hardware, no apple OS. (Score:3, Insightful)
If he cares at all, he probably is worried about responsiveness more than eye candy, and OSX can't help you there anyway. The hardware can, however...
no conversion needed (Score:4, Insightful)
They are not cache-friendly, and they are complex.
The hardware does have redeeming features. It runs
cool, allowing for less fan noise. It has AltiVec,
giving it wonderful performance on software RAID,
crypto, and image processing. The FPU is very fast.
Plus, Linus got it for free.
Re:Just hardware, no apple OS. (Score:4, Informative)
What a truly ignorant statement. Microkernels are more stable than macro's (theoretically) but come at the cost of speed.
Its a tradeoff.
I know shit about kernel design as well but the arguments I see are as follows....
With kernels getting huge, microkernels could be easier to write and maintain since they have to be bugfree and stable. Macrokernels are easier to write generally but when huge can lead to problems. A kernel that has a bug brings down a machine unlike a userspace app. What is Linux? 70 million lines??
In this day and age of fast hardware and very bloated software and kernels, the argument to use a microkernel is quite strong. More userspace and less code touching the hardware can make sense. Also the speed difference is less and less of an issue today.
Qnx is a microkernel and so is AIX. Both are the most stable operating systems out there besides OS/390.
Re:Just hardware, no apple OS. (Score:5, Funny)
After someone tells you a punchline, do you usually ask, "And then what happened?"
Microkernels are more stable than macro's (theoretically) but come at the cost of speed.
Yeah, yeah - micro, macro, CISC, RISC, this here achitecture is the best evar for everything.
Also the speed difference is less and less of an issue today.
Mmmm. You like bloatware, too, don't you?
Re:Just hardware, no apple OS. (Score:4, Interesting)
Just a side note, but that would execute a lot faster if you just piped the list of names through to xargs and let it run cat, rather than run cat once for each file:
Mods on crack (Score:5, Insightful)
The mods who gave the parent 4, Insightful know nothing about the kernel development process.
For one thing, the lack of support for binary-only modules is not an "oversight". It has been done deliberately, for somewhat political reasons, and is a touchy subject with many kernel developers.
Before giving (or modding up) grandiloquent advice on what the kernel and Linus "need", one should have at least some understanding of how the kernel is developed and what is its current state.
Re:Just hardware, no apple OS. (Score:4, Insightful)
Perspective on what? He works on the kernel, not the desktop. If he cared about the desktop, we wouldn't be in this mess.
Linux on the desktop is getting real long in the tooth for me. I'm trying real hard not to boot Windows but I keep doing it day after day even though I'm wasting all of my free time trying to assemble some usable "free desktop".
Re:Just hardware, no apple OS. (Score:5, Informative)
Now, now, while Linux is definitly not "ready for the desktop" no matter how many of the zealots tell you it is, I really can't say that it "takes all available free time to assemble some usable 'free desktop'".
Gnome and KDE handle this rather well in recent years and they come pretty standard with most distributions and even bootable CDs... Perhaps your requirements are different than others?
Yeah, it's easier to use all that crap in Windows because you're comfortable with it and it happens to work better in most ways but it's certainly not as difficult as you make it out to be to do it in Linux.
Re:Just hardware, no apple OS. (Score:5, Insightful)
See, this is bullcrap. It's always been bullcrap. What people mean is that it's not ready for *them*, which isn't nearly the same thing. The desktop experience on linux is far better than Windows 3.1, for example. It's better than Win95. It's better, for certain values of better, than OS 9. In fact, the Linux desktop has a lot of advantages over WinXP and OS X, although they do have a polish advantage. The Linux desktop is perfectly usable, no matter your level of technical sophistication. People get upset because they're skilled with Windows and can correct problems there, but don't want to learn the same skills under Linux.
Re:Just hardware, no apple OS. (Score:4, Insightful)
As far as learning new skills to correct problems under linux, that's a bit of a canard. Linux problems tend to be a lot more arcane than problems under other oses. Patch the kernel. Edit
I am not a fucking sysadmin. I do not enjoy fucking sysadmining. Trying to find out out why I have to manually load a module to get USB to work is not my idea of fun. I don't get my rocks off by screwing around with XF86Configs for a week only to get an image that almost fills the screen, and is almost straight across, and just has a little bit of white and black vertical lines in along the top and left edges. When I shove in my USB mouse, I want it to not only be recognized and made usable, but I want all 7 buttons to work damn it. For 10 years I've run linux as my primary OS, and not once in those 10 years has all my hardware worked.
Even if the driver issue is resolved. You then have to deal with the "community". Buggy software that if you ever say anything bad about it, you'll be shouted down as a heratic that should learn some respect for getting something for free. Releasing subpar software doesn't mean you're infallible, it just means you have a hobby. Then if the sofware ever gets to a usable state, the software will be rewritten "the right way" and the bug cycle starts all over again.
I like unix. I'm comfortable in unix. Unix let's me do my work, but these claims of linux apologists saying "Just wait! It will get better! Linux on the desktop is just around the corner! Linux is just a easy as windows! Linux is easy to install, it's windows that's difficult!" (That install line, is my all time favorite.) are getting old. I've heard them all before. Hell, I even used to spout that tripe. Then I grew up.
Re:Just hardware, no apple OS. (Score:5, Insightful)
With all that time invested and the several years more experience I have had with it over Windows and OS X I am going to say again that you are wrong and Linux is NOT ready for the desktop no matter how many times people like you claim it is.
Re:Just hardware, no apple OS. (Score:5, Interesting)
It's been ready for mine for some time. Anything I might "need" Windows for (with the sole exception of certain games) runs fine through Wine and/or VMWare.
I realize your comment was an overall defense of Linux usability...but I get just as tired of hearing "Linux isn't ready for the desktop" as I assume you do of "Linux is teh r0x0r!"
For most basic day to day use (e-mail, web browsing, typing up a letter and printing it) Linux is a fine desktop environment needing little tweaking (or at least no more than XP) and has next to zero learning curve as many environments are specifically designed to mimic Windows as faithfully as possible (unfortunately, as some would argue). For many desktop environments (mine in particular) it's superior. For others, it's sub-optimal to be kind.
The simple fact is, "ready for the desktop" is a misnomer and is no more meaningful than any other ridiculous invented memes foisted onto our consciousness by people (usually pundits, analysts, and journalists) who have little, if any, idea what they're talking about.
Re:Just hardware, no apple OS. (Score:3, Informative)
Which is a shame. Booting into OSX once in a while might give him an additional perspective.
True... it'd give him some excellent perspective on just how much Linux rocks. OSX has a great GUI, but the underlying OS has a fairly poor scheduler, disk accesses seem terribly slow and the VM systems tends to thrash really hard when you push it.
With regard to what Linus cares about, Linux isn't just a decent OS, it's a superior OS, better than Darwin, better than Windows NT and better in some ways even than
Re:Just hardware, no apple OS. (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Just hardware, no apple OS. (Score:4, Informative)
I don't know, I'm just saying that the talk about an OS tax, as usually applied to deals Microsoft has with OEMs, seems to not-quite apply here any more (or less) than it would apply to talking about the OS tax on a Palm device.
oblig Torvalds quote (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Just hardware, no apple OS. (Score:5, Informative)
--
Evan
Re:Just hardware, no apple OS. (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Just hardware, no apple OS. (Score:4, Interesting)
Mind if I call bullshit? [opendarwin.org]
Re:Just hardware, no apple OS. (Score:4, Funny)
Pedants. I couldn't resist, sorry. :-)
Big Deal (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Big Deal (Score:5, Funny)
Irony? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Big Deal (Score:3, Interesting)
Either way, I bought a mac to run linux apps, but I also stick with osX for the desktop and run X11 over it. it's only a g3 700 iBook, but it still feels fine.
My gaming machine runs linux all the time (rtcw nightly with it) and my work box, is a desktop machine, and runs linux too.
I wouldn't use a Mac with Linux on it for a desktop, but LT doesn't *need* a desktop for what he's doing.
Ah, well.
Wow (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Wow (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Wow (Score:4, Insightful)
Firstly he is only switching hardware to one of these [apple.com] not OS (as is mentioned in the summary now).
Secondly, he is showing how Linux is portable. The PPC versions run just as well as x86. So now people can say "But how do you know it works on Mac platforms?"
Thirdly, there are no tangible reasons to go to Windows, and it's hard to see how he could benefit.
He has been posting from torvalds@ppc970.osdl.org (Score:5, Interesting)
Always good to see another boost to the PPC64 platform though...
So what. (Score:3, Informative)
Re:So what. (Score:5, Funny)
Yea but... (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Yea but... (Score:5, Funny)
Is he any relation to Linus?
He already stated this (Score:5, Informative)
Re:He already stated this (Score:5, Funny)
Re:He already stated this (Score:4, Funny)
Hey (Score:5, Funny)
He is using linux on a dual g5 (Score:4, Interesting)
Linus has beaten the two biggest drawbacks of macs (Score:5, Insightful)
Hey, I'd take it too, given that kind of deal!
Linux and the Fashion Conscious? (Score:4, Insightful)
Some of my previous employers think of Linux (unfairly) as nothing more than a DOS knock-off. I'd love to see their jaws drop when they read about this. (Perhaps Vogue might do a fashion shoot with Linux on a Mac Mini?)
smart people think alike (Score:4, Informative)
a) Linux on PPC is at least as good as on any x86 CPU.
b) Apple hardware is desired over your Average Joe's box from Dell or HP.
Re:smart people think alike (Score:5, Insightful)
Rather, free hardware is desired over your average hardware you pay for.
Re:smart people think alike (Score:3, Insightful)
I read it more like apathy as opposed to making a point about PPC or x86 let alone Apple, Dell, or HP.
Hardware doesn't matter. That's the only important point. Hardware provides the ability to run software. That's it. Speed, capacity, and reliability are features. With Linux, compatability is no longer a big deal. While apple makes some very nice systems (I put them in the top tier), they are not the only ones making nice systems.
Yo Torvalds! You rock, dude! (Score:3, Insightful)
I find all those OS and Hardware flamewars silly. Not that I expect them to stop now but that man sure gained some respect in my book.
Nice tidbit and all (Score:5, Insightful)
Have you ever heard about... (Score:5, Funny)
Just kidding. For GODS SAKE I was just kidding. I swear.
Re:Have you ever heard about... (Score:3, Funny)
Yeah... the kind of rats that say "Damn, the ship is sinking and we're all gonna die if we stay here. Let's jump ship and drown before it sinks!"
single-handedly (Score:5, Insightful)
Oh, I thought there were several people involved in Linux? Didn't know Linus created it "single-handedly".
Thanks for pointing that out to me, ZDNet!
Why run Linux on a Mac, if you're not Linus? (Score:5, Insightful)
Personally, though, I don't see a lot of point in running Mac hardware and not running Mac OS X. The OS is what makes the system so insanely great.
Re:Why run Linux on a Mac, if you're not Linus? (Score:5, Insightful)
The Apple Powerbook is steps ahead of comparable offerings from the PC world, from a purely hardware perspective. We're not comparing GLOPS here. We're talking the light weight, strong brushed anodized aluminum, glowing keyboard, Firewire 800, Bluetooth 2.
I'd run Linux on Powerbook over an Inspiron any day of the week.
Re:Why run Linux on a Mac, if you're not Linus? (Score:3, Interesting)
I'd dearly love to get a dual G5, both for video editing and my daily work. I'd especially love to see how Hercules runs on one.
Re:Why run Linux on a Mac, if you're not Linus? (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:The only reason I run Linux on x86 vs. G5 (Score:3, Insightful)
OS X is a true Unix. It's not Linux, and doesn't have all of the feeping creatures that Linux has had added to it - and my fingers still type "ps -ef" - but it's a real Unix, by anyone's definition.
I also appreciate having a GUI that's not bloat
Why should it matter? (Score:5, Insightful)
Linux is portable. It shouldn't matter if the main man behind it is running it on a PC, a Mac, an Amiga, a PS2, or a toaster. This should be seen as a good thing.
Re:Why should it matter? Here's one reason. (Score:4, Interesting)
Anyone who worrries that x86 support is going to end anytime soon is just silly. Thankfully, I don't see anyone claiming that anywhere. The sky is hardly falling.
But that doesn't mean it doesn't matter somewhere. Personally, I'm hoping that by having the "father of Linux" running Macintosh hardware that more attention will be made to PPC ports, incorporating more capabilities of the hardware, and bringing some of the distros more on par with their x86 cousins.
Are you aware that it's only been within the past few months that there have been some fixes for sleep support on Apple laptops? I'm running a PowerBook here myself, but until more recently couldn't even consider running Linux on it, as if I did I couldn't put the system to sleep (and expect it to wake back up, at least). The built-in AirPort Extreme wireless adapter is likewise unsupported.
Having Mr. Torvalds running on Macintosh hardware may help illuminate these issues, and get a push going to get Apple to open up their specs a bit more, or at the very least attract more Open Source developers to the cause. Personally, while I run OS X as my main desktop environment on my PowerBook, I wouldn't mind seeing PPC Linux on-par with x86 Linux when it comes to hardware compatibility. It's close, but there is room for improvement.
(And for the record, while OS X is my day-to-day OS for getting work done, I do keeep an Ubuntu PPC live CD in my laptop bag for those times when I want/need to run Linux, and have several Intel-based Linux boxes which I routinely access through the PowerBook).
Yaz.
Linus, what kind of bagel did you have today? (Score:5, Funny)
endian (Score:5, Insightful)
This is *SO* old (Score:4, Informative)
Tragic little story (Score:5, Funny)
I have a PC that my sister and I used to use for our operating system development. One night, I was writing a new memory manager on it, when all of a sudden it went berserk, the screen started flashing, and the whole VI session just disappeared. All of it. And it was a good memory manager! I had to cram and rewrite it really quickly. Needless to say, my rushed memory manager wasn't nearly as good, and I blame that PC for the crap I got.
I'm happy to report that my sister and I now share an Apple Dual G5 that we got for free! It's a lot nicer to work on than my old PC was, it hasn't let me down once, and my memory managers have all been really good.
Thanks, Apple.
Linux Thorvalds
Why? (Score:3, Insightful)
This is coming from someone who owns and uses a Mac laptop (running OSX) and a Linux-based desktop PC.
Technology whore, eh? (Score:4, Funny)
Jumped the gun! (Score:3, Funny)
You're all missing the point (Score:5, Insightful)
It completely prevents the merging of kernel patches that malfunction on non-x86 platforms.
Sure, these would get ironed out eventually, but if someone were to inadvertently do something x86-specific, it would immediately break on Linus's computer. That's a pretty darn good guarantee that the kernel is going to remain architecture-independent all the time, rather than only after cross-platform QA has been recently performed.
Re:You're all missing the point (Score:4, Interesting)
No it doesn't. It still allows the merging of kernel patches that break mips, arm, 68k, alpha and so on, and of course and especially Sparc.
Great! We can finally end the language argument (Score:5, Interesting)
Well, here ya go, time to STFU about that
"Torvald's response came quickly and succinctly. "My main machine these days is a dual 2GHz G5 (aka PowerPC 970) - it's physically a regular Apple Mac, although it obviously only runs Linux, so I don't think you can call it a Mac any more
If the inventor of it can call the operating system "Linux", then I say that means it's officially "cool" to use the term "Linux" to in fact refer to Joe Blow's "LinuxOS". We;ve more or less dropped saying GNU in front of it, so let's just drop the pedantic grammar fascist lecturing about the difference between a Kernel and the OS.
Now the other issue. He doesn't care about userland space. You know, I think this is a serious problem. Think about this long and hard for awhile. Then rethink about it.
Maybe it's time someone with ultimate say so DID care? Just maybe that might be a good idea seeing as how it's 2005 and not 1995? Look on the shelf at the retail level, how much "Linux" do you see? Perhaps time for some groups to think about forking the kernel and having the forked maintainer dictators actually *care* about userland? Get some much needed standards going? Evolution is not static.
no longer untouchable (Score:4, Insightful)
i think the biggest thing about this is that it legitimizes
the mac hardware for linux advocates - which have been
traditionally x86 biased. it legitimizes linux as
multi-platform more than anything else could have done.
j.
"Switch - Share Your Story" :D (Score:5, Funny)
Tell us your story
"Well, I found the need for a dual CPU big-endian computer with 64 bit addressing on which to test patches for the Linux kernel, so I got this Power Mac G5, wiped OS-X..."
No news, Alpha was there first (Score:5, Interesting)
So he's just doing the same, this time with a platform not so fancy but with a safer future.
It means an easier life for us Linuxers on PPC, but we were already blessed with great hackers both on the kernel and in other parts; for example the leader(s?) of the Debian X Strike Force are Linux on PPC users.
Now what would be great is if proprietary vendors start porting their stuff... every day I miss things like j2re plugin for Mozilla, a Flash player, Adobe Acrobat and NX. Granted there are alternatives and clones, but gcjwebplugin still crashes Epiphany and ain't Java 2 level yet, swf_player is only playback, no interaction and takes way too much CPU, Evince doesn't do PDF forms and X.Fast (LBX) simply can't work in POTS dial-up situations where NX shines.
My Theory (Score:4, Interesting)
Having a dual-proc PowerPC with G5 (PPC 970) processors will increase the chances that Linus will think about performance issues for such hardware. The 970 has a longer pipeline than the G4, for example, so it's possible to leave quite a bit of performance on the table with code that stalls the pipeline a lot.
If Linus' insights on this for Linux can help the OS X people even find 1% better performance for any publically quoted benchmark, it will have paid for itself many times over.
This is just a SWAG (simple wild-assed guess).
The response to this article amazes me (Score:5, Insightful)
I think the simple matter is that Macs are generally appealing, and that those who like them tend to evangelise a lot and those who don't have some fear that x86 is not good enough, or somethiing to that extent.
It's like if he bought a Mercedes (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Yes, (Score:3, Informative)
Re:What's the date? (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Nothing wrong with mac hardware (Score:5, Informative)
Wrong
Apple includes full Developer's TOols with every version of OS X, including a customised version of GCC. So there is a compiler, and much more with OS X.
Actually I find OS X runs surprisingly well on old Macs (perfectly working on my 350MHz G3 iMac) but if you want to use Linux, that's cool too. Just don't make inaccurate statements about OS X.
Re:Nothing wrong with mac hardware (Score:4, Informative)
Apples do not come with a C compiler. Here at work, I have an iBook I bought in October
Funny, my wife's iBook, purchased in December, came with a compiler. It wasn't installed by default; I had to install it from one of the CDs that came in the box, but that only took a few minutes.
Re:Nothing wrong with mac hardware (Score:4, Informative)
Re:What distro is he running? (Score:4, Informative)
Re:What distro is he running? (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Do the posters even read the fucking articles?! (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Which distro I wonder (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Heretic! (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Not too happy about this (Score:5, Insightful)
It's funny you should mention this. Have you ever worked on a Chrysler? How about a Mercedes? I've owned both and worked on both and I can tell you that the Mercedes is a better-engineered vehicle in every way. Most Chryslers that are not highly powerful are really fucked over versions of Mitsubishis. In other words, riding to meetings in one of their piece of shit minivans doesn't seem to have helped Chrysler build a decent vehicle. They make a few good cars (more since the merger) and a bunch of crap and it's all driven by economic desire. As usual, automotive metaphors are not applicable to computers.
Given that the majority of Linux developers, maintaners, etc are still using x86, I sincerely doubt that there will be any serious issues with loss of quality. On the other hand, this will probably significantly improve PPC support, and since PPC is going to be in all the game consoles coming out, I want good PPC support in the hopes that someone will hack one or more of them to run Linux. Especially the new Xbox.
Re:OK, cut to the chase (Score:5, Funny)
Re:I wonder how long it will be... (Score:5, Insightful)
Both x86-64 and PowerPC have pros and cons. Until someone decides to prove conclusively that it's not the OS, or anything else in the system, but only the processor that is the problem, this is mere speculation on the part of fanboys.
You are a troll and nothing more.