Ars Report - x86 on a white box

The hack will most likely be disabled when the final builds of the intel OS is finished. Even after that, Apple will most likely disable almost all future hacks with system upgrades.
 
Fundamentally, they can't stop you - as long as Darwin is open source, the part of the OS that communicates with the DRM hardware (evil. Eeeevil) can be replaced.

That's the whole point of open source software - freedom of choice. Apple can't have it both ways - either their core OS is open source, or their customers lack freedom of choice. Can't have both.

Anyway, even with a closed-source OS, DRM can always be circumvented. Always - it's just not a winnable fight. Read some cryptography texts if you want a thorough grounding on just why that's so.
 
From early reports I have seen the intel machine are faster than the dual g5's. To bad Jobs did not go with AMD there dual core kicks Intels ASS.
 
hawki18 said:
From early reports I have seen the intel machine are faster than the dual g5's. To bad Jobs did not go with AMD there dual core kicks Intels ASS.
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That makes me sad...still wishing i could get a G5 next year, gonna wait till after the switch, and turn my dell into a server and put the box in my closet or something...

after the Rebel XT and the Treo as well...hopefully i get approved for financial aid soon!!!
 
Remember that the x86 boxen in that benchmark were probably running Windows. Let's see those benchmarks again when x86 is running OS X.

Plus, remember that what you've displayed is Apple's benchmark(eting). Check Bare Feats for more impartial benchmarks. ;)
 
Or just forget about benchmarks that compare Apple and citrons altogether. Because most often, they test things you never actually do on your computer.
 
scruffy said:
Fundamentally, they can't stop you - as long as Darwin is open source, the part of the OS that communicates with the DRM hardware (evil. Eeeevil) can be replaced.
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Not necessarily since not everything that is in OS X appears in Darwin, most notably the various closed source drivers. I have no reason to believe that the part of the OS that communicates with the DRM hardware will be made available to the general public through Darwin.

Shame though, since Linux could benefit greatly from the Broadcom, nVidia and ATI drivers if they were made available under Darwin.
 
Viro said:
Not necessarily since not everything that is in OS X appears in Darwin, most notably the various closed source drivers. I have no reason to believe that the part of the OS that communicates with the DRM hardware will be made available to the general public through Darwin.
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It's not necessary to have access to the source of the software that interacts with the the DRM hardware, to write a fake implementation. All you have to do is check what system calls it exposes, and implement dummy calls of the same name that always return "yes, you are running on a legit mactel" answers.

The important part about Darwin being open source is that anyone can write a kernel extension for it. That kernel extension can expose the same API as a hypothetical closed-source one that ships with OS X, no problem.
 
 
scruffy said:
It's not necessary to have access to the source of the software that interacts with the the DRM hardware, to write a fake implementation. All you have to do is check what system calls it exposes, and implement dummy calls of the same name that always return "yes, you are running on a legit mactel" answers.

The important part about Darwin being open source is that anyone can write a kernel extension for it. That kernel extension can expose the same API as a hypothetical closed-source one that ships with OS X, no problem.
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You could do that, try to reverse engineer the drivers. But it isn't always an easy task, especially if Apple wants to make it difficult for people to reverse engineer. Many have been trying to reverse engineer the nVidia, ATI and Broadcom drivers for a while now, with no success. Same goes for the iSight, *book's soft modem, and loads of other devices that don't work well with Linux.

Then again, getting OS X to run on generic hardware might be far more sexy and exciting than doing drivers for any of the above, so we may get even more brilliant hackers working on it :)
 
Well, one could get hardware that _is_ supported. On the other hand, why not just wait until there's a Mac mini with intel processor. I guess I'll do just that, then. :)
 
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