Intel Mac experiences

[Ted Mittelstaedt]

>-----Original Message-----
>From: owner-freebsd-questions at freebsd.org
>[mailto:owner-freebsd-questions at freebsd.org]On Behalf Of Scott Sipe
>Sent: Friday, May 26, 2006 12:14 AM
>To: freebsd-questions at freebsd.org
>Subject: Re: Intel Mac experiences
>
>
>
>On May 26, 2006, at 1:36 AM, vayu wrote:
>
>>
>> On May 25, 2006, at 9:13 PM, Ted Mittelstaedt wrote:
>>
>>>
>>> James, you missed the point.  If you have an Intel MAC it came
>>> with MacOS X (tiger) and that is basically the same operating
>>> system as FreeBSD.  Meaning, what are you trying to gain?  If
>>> anything, your worse off with FreeBSD since MacOS X comes with
>>> a gorgeous user interface that FreeBSD does not have.
>>>
>>> Ted
>>
>>
>> I can understand the desire.  OS X does have a polished and
>> beautiful desktop environment, but it is not FreeBSD.  If money
>> were no object for me, I would want a Macbook Pro with a triple
>> boot of OS X, Win XP and FreeBSD.
>>
>> Back to the original topic: James, I'm curious that you had any
>> results booting with any BSD or Linux.  The Intel Macs have no
>> BIOS,  I have read of hacks that got Linux (and Windows before
>> Apple offered it) to work, but it didn't seem straight forward
>> based on the accounts I read.
>
>This is not true--how do you think Bootcamp works? It provides BIOS
>emulation for booting windows, and whatever else.
>
>Secondly, why do people keep saying that OSX and FreeBSD are
>"basically the same operating system" -- if by basically the same you
>mean have a unix base, then sure. OSX runs on a hybrid mach
>microkernel (and with all the performance baggage this comes with). A
>great deal of the userland utilities originate from NetBSD or even
>OpenBSD in addition to FreeBSD. There is no ports system (sure,
>darwinports is similiar, though far less extensive). Boot system is
>entirely different. There's no way to buildworld or buildkernel, etc.
>Directory services are done completely differently than in Freebsd
>(netinfo?). There's not even an /etc/fstab. One could go on...
>

Because from a user's perspective of running and building software they
are the same.

Sure, you can't do the equivalent of a buildworld, but OS X is a
commercial
system they don't supply source code with.  So, all of the utilities and
scripts that FreeBSD has for managing the source to the operating system
are of course not going to be present if the source for the system isn't
supplied.

As for performance comparisons, anyone buying an Intel Mac isn't
looking for peak performance.  If they really were looking for peak
performance out of consumer-level gear they would get the fastest
Wintel motherboard and overclock it and run FreeBSD on it.  They
wouldn't be buying a Mac, or a HP, or a Dell, or any of those since
those companies don't manufacture bleeding-edge systems.

Ted