Some questions before buying a Mac.

Sunnz

Sunnz

Who wants a stylus?
I have been reading the forums but got really confused so if you can answer some of my enqueries it would be great because I am thinking of buying a MacBook.

Well I wanted to buy the new Intel Macs; however I have heard that there are programs that have not been built for Intel Macs yet... and you had to emulate it with the PPC version... what's the deal with this? I mean, what kind of programs are needed to be emulated? Surely, software from Apple themselves should be all have a native version for Intel Macs right? What about other companies, like Maya, Photoshop? I'll be doing media stuff so I hope to run those programs as fast as possible.

Also, how many "classic" software are out there now? It sounds like a total mess to be have to emulate "classic" programs as well as PPC programs.

Last but not least, how easy/painfull is it to build programs in Intel Macs? I am actually not a Windows user, I am more used to the way of Linux where you have a software manager which downloads the sources of software and compiles it for you... does OSX comes with anything like this? Or maybe even just gcc packages? Does open source software genernally compiles on an Intel Mac and works; or does it have to be compiled into PPC version and emulate it???

Thanks.
 
For Intel Macs, Rosetta, is the software technology that emulates PPC programs that are not yet native to the Intel Version of OSX. Rosetta, comes on your Intel Mac, and runs in the back ground, when you run a program that is coded for PPC.
http://www.apple.com/rosetta/

Universal Apps, developed by Apple or other companies run on both PPC and Intel Macs.

You mention "Classic", you are speaking about OS9 programs. "Classic", was the transition between OS9 and OSX, and was used to emulate OS9 when programs were not yet ported to OSX. I am not sure you actually mean "classic", when talking about a new Intel Mac, that is using Rosetta.

I am not a program developer, although I can say that OSX comes with Xcode, a program to compile code. Some one else would be better able to answer that question.
 
'... and you had to emulate it with the PPC version... what's the deal with this?' - that simply means, MacOS X will launch 'Rosetta' (an emulator) to run PPC specific applications on an Intel based Mac. In most cases, the amount of performance degradation is minimal.

'I mean, what kind of programs are needed to be emulated? ... What about ... Maya, Photoshop?' - Go to hte 'Universal Binaries and Intel-Native Mac Applications' web page, and see if your desired applications are listed.

As for 'software from Apple themselves should be all have a native version for Intel Macs right?' - not so.

'Also, how many "classic" software are out there now?' - the term 'classic' applies to applications written for the 68K Motorola based Macintoshes; not PPC based Macintoshes.
There was a time, during the transition from the 68K Motorola to PPC based Macintoshes - where the software compatible with both microprocessors, was termed 'Fat Binary'. Apple is applying the same principle - transitioning from the PPC to Intel based Macs; but using the term 'Universal Binary'.

Based on your intent of 'classic' (meaning PPC specific applications) - no, not all current PPC specific applications will be re-written as 'Universal Binary' or 'Intel-Native'. The same situation happened with 'Fat Binary' and PPC-Native applications.

'Last but not least, how easy/painfull is it to build programs in Intel Macs? ...' - The 'Tiger' (MacOS X 10.4.x) install DVD comes with a 'Developer' installer. The development environment on the Mac is UNIX based - gcc, etc. The application to create the code is 'Xcode', with 'Interface Builder' as the graphic interface creation tool. There is much documentation provided with the 'Developer' installation; various on-line tutorials, articles, and sample code; and, published 'Xcode' books available.

-----

If you want a powerful, and (internally) expandable, Intel based Mac, to handle 'Maya', 'Photoshop', and 64 bit applications natively - you will have to wait for Apple's 'Mac Pro' (rumored name of Apple's Intel based tower).

Today, the 'World Wide Developers Conference', WWDC, begins; with much rumors as to what software and hardware may also be announced. Stay tuned to the various Mac related web sites (MacInTouch, MacMinute, MacWorld, etc.) for up to date WWDC announcements.
 
Don't forget about www.apple.com either. :) I'm pretty sure that store.apple.com will show the new Mac Pro machines as soon as "right after the keynote" as well. (As well as other new hardware, should there be any announcements...)
 
Photoshop is not yet Intel-native. You'll have to wait for CS3 (a pay upgrade, surely) to get a native Photoshop. Same goes for most of Adobe's apps. Most of Apple's own apps are native already.

There are four kinds of Mac apps out there now. I'll run them down for you:

PowerPC (PPC) / OS X — These will run on your Intel Mac more or less normally. They'll run using an invisible emulation layer called Rosetta. They'll be slower than native apps and use more RAM.

Intel — These will run on Intel Macs, and not PPC Macs.

Universal — This includes both PPC and Intel binaries in one neat little package, so it will run natively on both PPC and Intel Macs. Most newly-released apps are Universal Binaries.

Classic / OS 9 — These are OS 9 apps (either PPC or 68k). They can be run on PPC Macs using the Classic environment (which is sort of like a virtual machine, but the OS 9 windows can mix with the OS X windows). There is no Classic environment on Intel Macs, though, so these will not run on Intel Macs. This should not be an issue for anyone who's not coming from OS 9. Even on PPC Macs, nobody wants to use Classic (because it's ugly and kludgy), and very few people need to. So don't worry about it. If you're not sure you need it, you almost certainly don't.



As for open-source software, I don't have much personal experience, but my understanding is that it's pretty easy. You may want to check out Fink. I don't think you would need to compile them as PPC apps and run them with Rosetta. If they compile, they ought to compile natively, since there's not much non-Mac-specific software that's PPC-only.

Xcode comes with GCC 3 and 4.
 
barhar said:
... the term 'classic' applies to applications written for the 68K Motorola based Macintoshes; not PPC based Macintoshes.

...
Click to expand...
You've got this backwards. Classic is the MacOS 9 environment running under MacOS X. MacOS 8.1 is the last version of Apple's OS which can run on 68k-based Macs. MacOS 9 retains significant portions of 68k code, but it runs exclusively on PPC-based Macs. Therefore, Classic is PPC-exclusive.
 
Thanks for the answers!

Well when I said "classic", I did meant OS9 classic... I had some experience with Macs and I saw those ugly OS9 things... but the classic thing is not even in Intel Macs... which is a good thing I suppose?

I guess my concern is... with Rosetta, is there a lot of apps that requires Rosetta, and if the performance drop large or not. What's exactly is universal binary, is it like 2 different version of binarys that they provide on a CD; or is it one single binary that works natively (but possibly not optimised.) on both PPC and Intel?
(I guess the main question here is, how may apps needs Rosetta, and how well Rosetta performs.)

Are there a large selection of Intel Mac apps?

So it has all the UNIX goodies, great!! What I am also concern about open source apps is, if I do download and compile them on an Intel Mac, it would run as native, not via Rosetta, right?

Thanks again!
 
IF there is a drive aviable for Linux, will I be able to compile it under an Intel Mac OSX and use it? Because I have a laser printer that only comes with Windows drives from the manufracer, but it had independent users who made drives for linux.

How does dual boot work? Say if I want to dual boot with Linux, do I use bootcamp or something?

How does this site work? It have a ticket system thing... does that post a thread on the forums or does it actually goes to a technician?

Thanks.
 
Most open source projects have made available ports for the Mac so there's no need to compile a driver per-se. Either way, remember that Mac OS X is not based on Linux (that's a common misconception since Linux is quite prevalent). It's actually based more on FreeBSD but Mac OS X has its own kernel, "xnu".

As for your laser printer, you might want to check out the project called GutenPrint if the manufacturer doesn't have a Mac OS X driver on their website.
 
Sorry guys but I have yet more questions... it may be alot but please help me if you can.

1, File system: how many fs are there for OSX? Can it read/write other fs like fat/ntfs/ext2/3/reiser/xfs?

2, BIOs: every PC has BIOs that detects hardware and transferrs controll to a OS on the hard disk... what is the counter part in a Mac? This may sound stupid... but why BootCamp is required to dual/tri-boot?

3, kernel source: how many kernels are there to choose in OSX? Xnu is the default one, right? I think some programs requires kernel source to compile, how does this work in

I am still selling my laptop and I'll be getting a Macbook when it is sold... so yea I need to know enough about Macs now... thanks for your answers!
 
1.) OS X can read and write HFS+ (all of them), read and write FAT32, read NTFS (but not write, so far). There's also UFS (don't use it). OS X can't currently read/write ext/reiser/xfs out of the box, anyway.

2.) EFI. intel Macs use EFI. BootCamp/firmware updates enable the compatibilty environment of EFI so you can boot Windows XP discs on intel Macs.

3.) Kernel sourcers for intel Macs are available again by now (since WWDC 2006 day one). But "programs" do not usually require them, really. It's not as if day in day out experience on Mac OS X is hampered by requiring Darwin (the underlying technology of OS X) kernel sources.
 
fryke said:
3.) Kernel sourcers for intel Macs are available again by now (since WWDC 2006 day one). But "programs" do not usually require them, really. It's not as if day in day out experience on Mac OS X is hampered by requiring Darwin (the underlying technology of OS X) kernel sources.
Click to expand...

Will I need to download the source somewhere or does it come with the Mac?

Even it is not really required, it is good to have access and they are fun to play with anyway! :D
 
It doesn't come with the Mac. You'd need to download it. Apple's started a wiki about these things. I'm sure you'll find it when you need it - I don't remember the link right now.
 
So it used to work with Linux?? I have heard in the Linux community that there are ways around it though. (Something to do with telling Bootcamp to install Windows, let Linux install fail then rescue the system.)

BTW, what is it like to install programs on OSX? Is it Windows-like next program, or Linux style of having a software manager that downloads and installs a program for you; or is there a MAC way?

Thanks.
 
Some applications have an installer you double-click, but most you just drag
and drop onto the applications folder. Uninstalling is just dragging this app. to
the trash can. Couldn't be any easier. There's none of that command line stuff to do almost anything in Mac OS X (but you can do almost anything the hard way by opening a terminal window).
 
Big_Cat said:
...There's none of that command line stuff to do almost anything in Mac OS X (but you can do almost anything the hard way by opening a terminal window).
Click to expand...

I don't know....I find it quite easy and quick to do stuff on the command line. It just seems a little more powerful, especially when the Trash doesn't want to empty because a certain file that's in there is apparently still in use. The Terminal allows me to bypass that problem.

....But then again I'm not the average user, especially when looking at my avatar. :D
 
Sunnz said:
You can access the trash can from terminal? How?
Click to expand...

Code: 
 cd ~/.Trash

And if you want to empty it...

Code: 
rm -rf *

Just make suret you're in the Trash folder otherwise you might end up deleting everything in your home directory. :p

If you need "rm" to prompt you about deleting each file, change the "f" to an "i". in the above command.
 
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