Sorry to disapoint you, but MAC had "UNIX inside" since the old days of the
"Lisa" computer (which came out before the IBM PC). Later, their MACIntosh
was based on the XEROX windows interface, had "UNIX inside" and was still way
ahead of then GEM software for PC ("kind of" windows environment).
The main reason they failed all this time was because of their proprietary
hardware, and the unavailability of "MAC compatibles". Because they were
protecting their hardware so much, it was also difficult to get "MAC
compatible" cards. Since there was hardly any competion in the MAC world,
their prices remained high. Micro$oft banked on that by making sure that they
never took any hardware approch that would make the MAC software readily
compatible on their equipment.
That is still the case today. What would have prevented MAC from transforming
their software to run on a PC? They don't want to. They want you to get a MAC
and be stuck with their hardware line. They don't care about Linux running on
MAC since all they really are interested in is selling hardware. On the other
hand, Micro$oft has the most to lose since it is a software vendor. So they
fight Linux any which way they can, mainly by spreading insecurity about it.
They realize that the commercial battle is already lost though. Linux is now
a commercially viable product accepted by major corporations as a cost
effective, efficient and reliable solution to any server needs. The Korean
government has lately converted 23% of their desktop to Linux (120,000 copies
of Linux) and they calculated that they saved 80% of the cost of a
corresponding Micro$oft solution. That kind of numbers is going to be hitting
Micro$oft right in the middle, where it hurts.
You can expect a feirce battle ahead. They are already trying to diversify,
the X box is an example. Pretty soon, products like Lindows, VMware, Wine and
the likes will make M$-Windows a sub-system, something running under the
control of another major OS, and with time it will be less and less used even
if available.
Good thing for us there isn't anyone to buy Linux from or else they would
already have done so and it would have been rendered useless.
Gerard Perreault
On Sunday 20 January 2002 11:37, Jose Luis Vazquez Gonzalez wrote:
> Hi,
>
> just to pulse the list opinion on this topic,
>
> I have been browsing the Mac OS X demos and... Damn! I haven't got a
> Mac! (Anyway it would be very expensive to have a mac compared to the
> corresponding PC version machine price)
>
> Am I wrong when I say Windows and X-Windows + KDE or GNOME are dinosaurs
> compared to Aqua?
>
> Mac have been always way ahead on that, but the great thing about this
> Mac OS X is a 'Unix inside'. I believe Linux would have had its days
> count if Mac OS X would run on x86 and Aqua+Quartz were open source. No
> problem, that is not going to happen, although the kernel + BSD
> compatibility layer are kind of open source under the Darwin project(
> that is way too young today, it does not even run on an Athlon, I have
> read).
>
> On the other hand we have QNX, have you seen the floppy demo?
>
> http://www.qnx.com/demodisk/
>
> Incredible!!!
>
> A full windowed environment with a web browser, text editor, filemanager
> on a single disquette.
>
> It detected my USB keyboard and mouse and I was able to run the
> windowing system at 1280x1024 (only 256 colors, though).
>
> That is impossible with standard linux software today, you need
> XWindows+QT/GTK+GNOME/KDE... a pileof packages and MB just to show up a
> nice window on the screen.
>
>
> The point here is, if Linux wants to make it on the desktop and on
> embedded appliances (with builtin screens) it should start to think
> about getting rid of the old and heavy XWindows.
>
> Becuase, what does XWindows do anyway?
>
> I know it was good for backward compatibility, but if KDE / GNOME ran on
> a new windowing system we could start forgetting about XWindows.
>
> Of course KDE is slow, any KDE call goes through KDE + QT + XWindows and
> the XWindows protocol before reaching the screen.
>
> XWindows was designed for terminals connected to mainframes on slow
> networks. Desktop linux boxes don't need that,and Linux in general does
> not need that on 95% of the cases I guess and still has to go through
> the Xprotocol bottleneck between the Xclients and the Xserver even on a
> single PC installation.
>
> My point is...
>
> Isn't this time for renewing the display basement on Linux?
>
> I've been reading about the Mac OS X architecture:
>
> Aqua on top (=KDE/GNOME + Mandrake/RH... tools)
> ------------------------------------------------
> Quartz + OpenGL + Quicktime (=QT/GTK + XWindows)
> ------------------------------------------------
> Match+BSD (= Linux Kernel)
>
> On the Mac architecture I understand what the parts do:
>
> Aqua is the desktop, high level GUI objects (not just widgets, but full
> file dialogs, file trees, scrolled editor panes, interapplication comms
> and so on...)
>
> Quartz is the display layer (based on PDF), OpenGL does the 3D effects
> and Quicktime the rest of the media video+audio on top.
>
> On linux, Gnome and KDE are the desktops. Then there is QT/GTK that
> allows access to windowing primitives.
> So what the hell does XWindows?
> Why is it still there?
>
> I already felt XWindows was too heavy for everyday desktop use, but
> this though became stronger in my mind after reading the article 'X
> Windows must die':
>
> http://www.osopinion.com/Opinions/MontyManley/MontyManley9.html
>
> On the other hand, I am not as radical as the author there. I understand
> that Linux is a reacting platform and not a R&D platform and it can't
> be; You cannot ask to people doing open source software to research as
> if they had a full salary at Apple/MS/HP/IBM/whatever Labs.
>
> Maybe it is possible to get to some middleway solution like starting a
> new branch at XFree86.org to get rid of the old and useless weight.
> Create a new core 3 genration display layer like taking Quartz ideas and
> support in the future the old XWindows as a plugin.
>
> If someone has deep knowledge on this topic (maybe someone from XFree)
> and believes I am talking crap here then, please explain it to me. And
> give me some URLs in where I can learn my mistake.
>
> [I am too busy at the moment, but I hope to be released from some
> Windows programming stuff soon and then I wouldn't mind to join a
> graphics programming group trying to evolve Linux windowing system, I am
> a bit bored of comms programming stuff and Java/XML/web services...]
>
> Congratulations if you managed to read all till here without getting
> bored!
>
> Thanks for listening!
>
> Jose
--
Gerard Perreault
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
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