Re: Do Mac owners learn to drive / ride?

T i m <news@xxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

It's an excruciatingly difficult job to make one OS
function in the same way as another (see WINE, below). Indeed If they
all worked in the same way there would only /be/ one OS (qv. UNIX,
a-ha-ha-ha :-).

And that would save lots of problems ... ;-)

You'd think so, wouldn't you? Have you seen the UNIX family tree?!

http://www.levenez.com/unix/

The original idea is that they were compatible. Guess what happened....

And who would care about that if it earnt Apple more cash? Wouldn't /
couldn't they 'buy into / up' the makers of one or the other VM's and
incorporate it (didn't IBM do something like that with OS/2 and
Win3.1)?

Look what happened to OS/2 :->

The acquisition of virtualisation tech by Apple isn't so far-fetched an
idea, although VMWare is making boatloads of cash for SMC at the moment,
so they're unlikely to sell, and Parallels do much else besides the Mac
desktop software and may be too big for Apple to swallow.

One alternative is XEN that runs on Linuxen - which seems to have
matured of late into something approaching a useable system. It's also
Open Source, mostly, and may not be too much of a chore to recompile for
the BSD-based Mac OS.

- to do so requires virtualisation support to be written in at kernel
level, and will still need a guest OS to run the applications properly,
- while it is true that systems like WINE are available (which attempt
to run Windows apps natively under Linux without virtualising the
Windows OS) they're not effective, and certainly not easy to set up.

Yes, I did hear of WINE via my Ubuntu experiments James but haven't
looked any further into it as I was warned it wasn't 'good' ?

Yes, in the way that the Atlantic is 'not small' :->

Also
part of my Ubuntu thing was sort of a free experiment into using
something other than M$ and I'd have to say for most of the 'everyday'
things I've tried (web, mail, music, video) it seems ok. However, as
with OSX (without virtualisation) it would be no good if you *needed*
to run the DSA CBT? That (for me and many other folk) is the deal
breaker and I was just thinking if the ability to run (some) Windows
stuff was *built in* to OSX (rather than an add-on) then it would open
it up to an even bigger market?

Probably would do - and given time it may yet happen. But by that time,
we'll all have mainframes in our pockets, capable of virtualisation in
hardware. (Virtulisation is actually Old Tech, from days of Big Iron run
by men in white coats, with clipboards and punch-card dandruff). Dell
are already selling servers with VMWare virtualisation in hardware, and
XEN are moving that way as well. As devices get smaller and more
powerful, expect to see that kind of thing move into userland. When that
happens, we'll see someone in a Black poloneck and jeans say "... and
one more thing...." and show us a completely straightforward way to
manage it.

Cheers,
--
james dore
IT Officer,
New College, Oxford
http://www.new.ox.ac.uk/ it-support@xxxxxxx
.

Relevant Pages

  • Re: OT: Computer Advice
    ... >> could with Win9x's partial memory protection. ... >> Unfortunately both poor hardware and buggy drivers are thirteen to the ... Actually IIRC if you REALLY want the best windows ... Wine isn't ready for primetime, ...
    (comp.sys.ibm.pc.games.rpg)
  • Re: Linux on Windows
    ... Kubuntu is in the news lately, very true, there are so many Linux ... Basically Windows Media Centre is nifty, but only runs on Windows OS ... Hardware is cheap but wont "Legally" run MacX OS. ... Consider virtualisation. ...
    (microsoft.public.windowsxp.general)
  • Re: VMWare / Wine
    ... Unless the license says you MUST run the software on Windows, ... could possibly have a claim against wine would be ... Microsoft because it's their IP that's potentially at risk. ... Consider most any piece of hardware for your PC. ...
    (Ubuntu)
  • Re: Ping Evul or Sycho
    ... suggested installing windows on top of wine in linux, ... case, no Fumbles, you won't need to install Windows into the emulator. ... Not that your stupid ass has ever even *TOUCHED* a Linux Windows ...
    (alt.2600)
  • Re: which windows emulator?
    ... Will Wine do the job? ... > some genuine Windows DLL files. ... There's also the open source Bochs ... Qemu a lot faster than without it. ...
    (comp.os.linux.misc)