Wither Darwin x86

x (apparently) - 07:07am Jun 8, 2005 PST
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Travis Butler wrote:
> I don't know how much Darwin changes this equation, if at all. But my
> current gut feeling is that the 'MacTels' are going to be a different enough
> design from commodity PC hardware that getting OS X-Intel to run on a PC box
> will involve a lot more than hacking around a ROM check.

<http://db.tidbits.com/getbits.acgi?tbart=08125>

The Darwin issue is what makes this whole thing so confusing for me.
Right now you can run Darwin on a variety of x86 machines that most
definitely weren't made by Apple (no Apple ROMs at all). In theory, OS X
runs on top of Darwin and provides a complete hardware abstraction (that
is the job of the kernel). Given this, it's hard to imagine a machine
that can run Darwin, but can't run OS X.

These leads to one somewhat disturbing scenario: Apple might need to
cancel Darwin x86 in order to make it difficult for OS X to run on 3rd
party hardware. Aside from this coming across as a snub to the Darwin
community, I could see where this might be perceived as a defensive move
by Apple. More importantly I suspect Darwin hackers can probably adapt
and emulate whatever changes Apple makes to OS X to make it incompatible
with old Darwin releases.

Honestly, I think their best strategy is to let OS X compete in an open
market space on its own merits. No matter what Apple does, the margins
on hardware are going to be much slimmer in the PC market, so it's hard
to imagine them turning down the significantly higher margin business of
letting someone get their hardware from someone else, but coming to
Apple for some software.

--Chris

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Mike Cohen (apparently) - Jun 8, 2005 1:53 pm (#1 Total: 6)

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Posts: 136

Re: Wither Darwin x86

On Jun 8, 2005, at 10:07 AM, Christopher Smith wrote:

> The Darwin issue is what makes this whole thing so confusing for me.
> Right now you can run Darwin on a variety of x86 machines that most
> definitely weren't made by Apple (no Apple ROMs at all). In theory,
> OS X
> runs on top of Darwin and provides a complete hardware abstraction
> (that
> is the job of the kernel). Given this, it's hard to imagine a machine
> that can run Darwin, but can't run OS X.
>

There's more to OS X than just Darwin. Quartz, in particular, is
unique to OS X. One possibility I could think of is an on-board GPU
required for Quartz. In that case, you might be able to run Darwin
with X11 but no Aqua or the rest of the OS X toolbox.

x (apparently) - Jun 9, 2005 4:59 am (#2 Total: 6)

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Posts: 70

Re: Wither Darwin x86

Mike Cohen wrote:
> There's more to OS X than just Darwin. Quartz, in particular, is unique
> to OS X. One possibility I could think of is an on-board GPU required
> for Quartz. In that case, you might be able to run Darwin with X11 but
> no Aqua or the rest of the OS X toolbox.

Quartz is about the only part of OS X that is not part of Darwin but
that talks directly to hardware, so this does make some sense. However,
none of the Apple proprietary hardware in current Macs is doing
graphics. Apple is using ATI and NVidia for their GPUs, and frankly I
can't imagine Apple succesfully competing in that space. On one hand
maybe they can limit my choice of graphics cards if I want to run OS X,
but I think it's going to be very hard to limit my choice of systems.

I haven't seen it, but doesn't Apple provide some kind of a driver kit
for graphics cards?

--Chris

lars (apparently) - Jun 9, 2005 4:59 am (#3 Total: 6)

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Posts: 8

Re: Wither Darwin x86

On Jun 8, 2005, at 2:53 PM, Mike Cohen wrote:

> On Jun 8, 2005, at 10:07 AM, Christopher Smith wrote:
>
>
>> The Darwin issue is what makes this whole thing so confusing for me.
>> Right now you can run Darwin on a variety of x86 machines that most
>> definitely weren't made by Apple (no Apple ROMs at all). In theory,
>> OS X
>> runs on top of Darwin and provides a complete hardware abstraction
>> (that
>> is the job of the kernel). Given this, it's hard to imagine a machine
>> that can run Darwin, but can't run OS X.
>
> There's more to OS X than just Darwin. Quartz, in particular, is
> unique to OS X. One possibility I could think of is an on-board GPU
> required for Quartz. In that case, you might be able to run Darwin
> with X11 but no Aqua or the rest of the OS X toolbox.

Yep. One possible solution was mention in the comp.arch group: a USB
controller which on Macs will return 'Apple' as manufacturer instead
of 'Intel'. The non-Darwin parts of OS-X could easily check for such
an id and refuse cooperation when not found, leaving Darwin itself
totally unencumbered.

herouth (apparently) - Jun 10, 2005 12:26 pm (#4 Total: 6)

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Posts: 9

Re: Wither Darwin x86

Quoting Lars Duening <lars

bearnip.com>:

> Yep. One possible solution was mention in the comp.arch group: a USB
> controller which on Macs will return 'Apple' as manufacturer instead
> of 'Intel'. The non-Darwin parts of OS-X could easily check for such
> an id and refuse cooperation when not found, leaving Darwin itself
> totally unencumbered.

This approach will be hacked in about three days... There will appear cheap USB
controllers on the Market that will say "Apple" or whatever. They could even be
smart - if Apple wants to trademark the string or copyright it (like the Habeas
headers), then you create a controller that asks the user what the string
should be. Then the user is the one that violates the law, not the
manufacturer...

Sell these for $30 a piece. Even for $100 a piece. It's still cheaper than
buying a Mac.

Herouth

Nik (apparently) - Jun 10, 2005 12:26 pm (#5 Total: 6)

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Posts: 385

Re: Wither Darwin x86

Apple benefits greatly from its support of open source software. Every
time that they release an OS upgrade, a number of the BSD tools (such
as scripting languages and the Apache web server) get updated as well.

Who ports these updates to Darwin? Often it's the open source
community, running on both x86 and PPC machines.

With the recent re-open-sourcing of Safari under the Darwin project,
it's clear that Apple continues to see open source components as a key
part of their OS strategy.

Yes, Darwin might provide a bounty of clues as to how to
reverse-engineer OS X to run on non-Apple hardware, but I suspect that
the OS itself will provide much the same information. Closing the
source (which is already out there and unlikely to change drastically
with the release of MacIntel) is unlikely to do much to protect this
sort of hackery.

--Nik

jdb - Jun 10, 2005 12:26 pm (#6 Total: 6)

Posts: 6

Re: Wither Darwin x86

Apple does not release several drivers with the Apple Open Source license. There are many parts of OS X that are not represented in Darwin.

You can't compile Darwin on a PPC right now and use it as the kernel for OS X. I wouldn't be too worried about the future of Darwin. It seems likely that the x86 switch will help, not hinder.

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