On Sat, 2003-10-11 at 03:04, Craig H. Block wrote: > This is probably a wierd question, but is there any possiblity of an OS X > port for i386? That may be a good alternative workstation OS. I'd like to > have a Linux workstation, but there's just too much software I use only > available for Windows. Often there are Mac versions of stuff. Ideally, I > would like a non-Microsoft OS that can run all my obscure Windows > applications. What's happening with the Windows emulators for Linux these > days? > > Thanks,
Craig, There isn't a port for OS X to the IA32 (technical term for i386-PIV) CPU. Apple's revenue comes from their hardware sales. Also, by having an operating system targeted for a platform they produce, they can have a more stable and tested environment. Apple can test their hardware better since they know exactly what sort of bugs may creep up. Sun Microsystems is in the same boat here. Solaris, Sun's flagship OS, is rock solid on Sun hardware. There is a release of the OS X userland and kernel that is maintained by the community and Apple known as "Darwin". You can download and run Darwin for free, and it runs on IA32 as well as the PowerPC line of processors. It is a development OS though, and not that great for desktop or server use. Quartz, Coca, and all the other stuff that makes OS X so pretty is NOT in Darwin, and is not available for Darwin. WINE, a Win32 compatablity layer for IA32 Linux and Freebsd, is getting better every release. I've been able to run Office, Photoshop, IE 6, Yahoo Messenger, and a few other Win32 applications under Linux. There are polished WINE products you can buy from 3rd party commercial vendors as well, such as Codeweavers and Transgaming. Codeweaver's Crossover product is targeted towards Office-like apps, such as Office and Viso, where as Transgaming is more for getting Win32 games working on Linux. As for Freebsd, their support is currently non-existant. If you want to do emulation of Win32 under Linux and FreeBSD, try VMware. I use it at home and work, and it runs almost every application you could want. It runs an entire operating system under Linux, so you could have Win98, WinXP, and FreeBSD all running on your Linux box at the same time without a reboot. Beware that applications with a lot of video animation or complex sound tend to get choppy, and the price tag for VMware is rather high. Hope this helps, Mark _______________________________________________ RLUG mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.rlug.org/mailman/listinfo/rlug
