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[goodcow]

http://apple.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=05/06/12/130234&tid=179&tid=1

Mac OS X 10.4 Tiger for x86 Leaked?
OS X
Posted by CmdrTaco on Sunday June 12, @09:19AM
from the believe-it-when-i-boot-it dept.
patr1ck writes "Mac Daily News is reporting that Mac OS X 10.4 Tiger for x86 processors has been leaked to the internet already. Apparently the version running on the development kit machines is easily transfered to run on any x86 machine. Conspiracy theorists unite: an Apple marketing scheme?"

http://macdailynews.com/index.php/weblog/comments/6012/

Report: Apple Mac OS X 10.4.1 for Intel hits piracy sites
Saturday, June 11, 2005 - 12:14 PM EST

"There is nothing at all that prevents the version of Mac OS X that runs on the developer transition machines from running on any PC with compatible components," Jeff Harrell writes for The Shape of Days. "The Intel-based Power Macintoshes that Apple is showing at their developer conference are based on an Intel motherboard, generic Intel graphics and off-the-shelf Pentium 4 CPUs... I estimate that we’re down to a matter of hours before Mac OS X 10.4.1 for Intel hardware is available for download on Internet software piracy sites and peer-to-peer piracy networks. (Update: A reader who for obvious reasons wishes to remain anonymous just demonstrated to me that the software is, in fact, already available on Internet software piracy sites.) If I can think through this stuff, Apple’s management can think through this stuff. This is the most awe-inspiring stealth marketing move I’ve ever seen."

"According to reports, Apple’s bundled iLife applications, major selling points for the Mac operating system, are already Intel-native and run at full speed... Given Apple’s experiences with software piracy, particularly the rampant software piracy that spread developer builds of Mac OS X 10.4 Tiger all over the Internet this past spring, Apple’s management from the top down knows full well that this developer preview will be in the hands of every kid with a cable modem within days of its release. Most of them will be able to install it on their own computers and run it and the full suite of iLife ’05 applications at full speed, and run most existing Mac software in translation. As a result, Apple will give thousands, possibly millions, of people a taste of Mac OS X running full speed on their own PCs. Apple’s giving their potential future customers a free taste, that’s what they’re doing. It’s a try-before-you-buy deal," Harrell writes.

 

[sprsk]

i want

 

[demi]

WELCOME TO THE REAL WORLD, APPLE.

 

[The Faceless Master]

well, it looks like they're off with a ROOOOOLLING STAAAAAART!

 

[StrikerObi]

Does it really matter? I mean, there's almost no software available for the platform. Sure Rosetta can run stuff written for Apple PPC, but does it work that well at this point?

It's only a development version, it will not be this easy to run OS X Intel on any x86 machine once the final version is out.

With all that said, did anybody NOT see this coming?

 

[boredJonathan]

I'm suprised really. I mean for we don't get rips of the demos shown off at E3, and while granted this is a developers confrence setup, which I think would mean a little more access to actual software, I am still suprised that something like this would be able to make it out of the confrence.

Also, am I failing to see how this becomes a good thing for Apple? In terms of the article quoted above, they try to spin it as a stealth marketing thing. I don't see it..

Doesn't mean I am not curious to try it out, as I've never gotten the chance to really sit down and fool around with OS X.

 

[Phoenix]

1) No one has been able to confirm this, unfortunately

2) The devkits nor the OS currently do anything to prevent this. This release of 10.4.1 is DRM free.

I can tell you with 100% certainty that the final OS won't work that way. The current OS doesn't even look at the hardware its running on, outside of checking to see if its an Intel proc.

 

[boredJonathan]

1) No one has been able to confirm this, unfortunately

2) The devkits nor the OS currently do anything to prevent this. This release of 10.4.1 is DRM free.

You would think confirmation would be happening pretty quick if it was in fact out there. Nothing stirs up the iternet like some good piracy. Given the fact that there is no DRM in 10.4.1, it makes it aleast a bit more plausible.

 

[StrikerObi]

I am still suprised that something like this would be able to make it out of the confrence.

They were giving it out at the conference, for developers to take with them...

How else are they supposed to develop software for it?

The discs at E3 are under lock and key, you can't open the get to them.

 

[ckohler]

The OS may be set to expire on 12/31/2005 the same time the dev kits are required to be returned to Apple. Still, a resourceful hacker might be able to get around that.

Here's some good info about the dev system:

They are using a Pentium 4 660. This is a 3.6 GHz chip. It supports 64 bit extensions, but Apple does not support that *yet*. The 660 is a single core processor. However, the engineers said that this chip would not be used in a shipping product and that we need to look at Intel's roadmap for that time to see what Apple will ship.

It uses DDR-2 RAM at 533 MHz. SATA-2. It is using Intel GMA 900 integrated graphics and it supports Quartz Extreme. The Intel 900 doesn't compare favorably to any shipping card from ATi or nVidia. The Apple engineers says the dev kit will work with regular PC graphics cards, but that you need a driver. Apple does not write ANY graphics drivers. So, when we asked where to get drivers for better cards the engineers said "The ATI guys are here." He's right, they've been in the compatibility lab several times.

It has FireWire 400, but not 800. USB 2 as well. USB 2 booting is supported, FireWire booting is not. NetBoot works. The machines do not have Open Firmware. They use a Phoenix BIOS. That's right, a Mac with a BIOS. They won't tell us how to get in the BIOS. I'm sure we can figure it out when out dev kits arrive.

This transition is not about current P4 vs G5. It is about the future directions of the processor families. Intel is committed to desktop/notebook and server in a big way. Freescale/IBM are chasing the embedded market and console market. Apple would have been in a lurch in 2 years.

Also, all the cell people and the AMD people need to be quiet. Apple evaluated both. AMD has the same, if not worse, supply problems as IBM. Their roadmap is fine, but the production capacity is not.

The tested Cell as well. That processor is NOT intended for PC applications. (it was designed for game systems, not as a general use CPU) The lack of out of order execution and ILP control logic creates very poor performance with existing software. Having developers rewrite for cell would have been MUCH more work than reworking for Intel. And that's what this is, you rework your codebase in ALL cases, not rewrite it. "

 

[ckohler]

They were giving it out at the conference, for developers to take with them...

No they weren't. They were giving out XCode2.1, not 10.4.1 (for Intel).

How else are they supposed to develop software for it?

Only way to get OSX Intel is buy a $999 dollar dev kit.

 

[goodcow]

The OS may be set to expire on 12/31/2005 the same time the dev kits are required to be returned to Apple. Still, a resourceful hacker might be able to get around that.

might?

Everything with time expiration gets hacked, and rather easily.

 

[gigapower]

But before you buy it you have to be an ADC member, an upper level one at that currently.

 

[Phoenix]

But before you buy it you have to be an ADC member, an upper level one at that currently.

Correct, you have to be a premiere or select member of ADC. So thats $500 bones min. Then you can lease the IMac for $999. And don't worry folks looking for bootlegs... the graphics layer doesn't have driver support for the vast majority of PC hardware. You'll need drivers before it will even boot with most of the videocards people have out there.

 

[Phoenix]

Does it really matter? I mean, there's almost no software available for the platform. Sure Rosetta can run stuff written for Apple PPC, but does it work that well at this point?

Actually you've got all the iLife apps, all the development apps and everything else does indeed run under Rosetta. I won't say that it runs well, but it does run.

 

[goodcow]

Actually you've got all the iLife apps, all the development apps and everything else does indeed run under Rosetta. I won't say that it runs well, but it does run.

Just curious, and this question didn't deserve its own thread, is there a standalone downloadable version of the Apple Store promo from the keynote? I just thought it was really well done.

 

[Phoenix]

Just curious, and this question didn't deserve its own thread, is there a standalone downloadable version of the Apple Store promo from the keynote? I just thought it was really well done.

Not that I know of. You'd have to rip it from the stream: http://www.apple.com/quicktime/qtv/wwdc05/

 

[goodcow]

Not that I know of. You'd have to rip it from the stream: http://www.apple.com/quicktime/qtv/wwdc05/

Yeah, that's the stream I was talking about, I just didn't know if the promo was hidden somewhere on the site standalone.

 

[boredJonathan]

And don't worry folks looking for bootlegs... the graphics layer doesn't have driver support for the vast majority of PC hardware. You'll need drivers before it will even boot with most of the videocards people have out there.

Is this something that could be worked around, or that home made drivers could become available? It doesn't sound like it, but then again, none of this has sounded very likely to me.

 

[StrikerObi]

No they weren't. They were giving out XCode2.1, not 10.4.1 (for Intel).
Only way to get OSX Intel is buy a $999 dollar dev kit.

Well my point was that they weren't keeping it under lock and key. Developers have it. Red Mercury was talking like nobody could get it.

 

[Diablos]

I wonder if you can get this running on AMD CPU's?

 

[Hyoushi]

I wonder if you can get this running on AMD CPU's?

No.

 

[Hitokage]

The machines do not have Open Firmware. They use a Phoenix BIOS. That's right, a Mac with a BIOS. They won't tell us how to get in the BIOS. I'm sure we can figure it out when out dev kits arrive.

I really hope they go back to Open Firmware when they actually start shipping Mactel boxes. Moving to x86 is one thing, but dragging along the perhaps-even-more archaic PC BIOS is another.

 

[Seth C]

It's still not shown up on Usenet, so I'm saying it hasn't been leaked.

 

[Phoenix]

It's still not shown up on Usenet, so I'm saying it hasn't been leaked.

That's been my thought as well since there is no installation media - the machine comes preinstalled with the OS and outside of the few people with close ties to Apple, the rest of the world has to wait until next week (or later) to receive their units.

 

[ckohler]

I really hope they go back to Open Firmware when they actually start shipping Mactel boxes. Moving to x86 is one thing, but dragging along the perhaps-even-more archaic PC BIOS is another.

No doubt! This is the biggest thing that botheres me about this whole transition. Open Firmware is a big part of what make a Mac so plug-and-play friendly.

I'm keeping my fingers crossed that they are only using a BIOS now because the dev kit is just a stopgap until the actual Macs with Intel are developed. But, having said that, there are transition docs on Apple's site that state clearly that Macs with Intel processors are designed to use BIOS chips. =/

 

[maharg]

Eh, PCI itself is pretty plug and play friendly. A lot of remaining problems on PCs with p&p have more to do with the fact that IRQs are still limited and the IO memory is still limited. Also keep in mind that even where the PC BIOS provides some kind of additional configuration support, most OS' (including NT) bypass it and do it themselves for various reasons.

If their partnership with Intel is really tight, they might go with EFI, which is pretty nice from a bootloader and hardware config perspective.

 

[goodcow]

No doubt! This is the biggest thing that botheres me about this whole transition. Open Firmware is a big part of what make a Mac so plug-and-play friendly.

I'm confused... everything I plug into my PC works fine... and I know OSX has drivers, because it installs a bunch of them when you install the OS, so... *confused, but not a developer*

 

[Phoenix]

Eh, PCI itself is pretty plug and play friendly. A lot of remaining problems on PCs with p&p have more to do with the fact that IRQs are still limited and the IO memory is still limited. Also keep in mind that even where the PC BIOS provides some kind of additional configuration support, most OS' (including NT) bypass it and do it themselves for various reasons.

If their partnership with Intel is really tight, they might go with EFI, which is pretty nice from a bootloader and hardware config perspective.

OpenFirmware goes far far beyond plug and play. One of the cool things you can do with OpenFirmware is set up one mac so simply be a target disk of another one and connect them via firewire. The host can then boot off the target mac, or install an OS onto the target mac. I had one situation that required this. 10.4 Server was distributed on DVD only and the old G4 that is running the server needed a DVD ROM drive. Rather than go out and buy a DVD drive, I just set the server up in target mode, plugged my Powerbook into it, installed the OS onto the Powermac, and then restarted both machines.

 

[maharg]

Ah. I wouldn't call that Plug and Play, which has a pretty specific technical meaning. That is nifty, but also doesn't really seem like something that couldn't be done in a software layer. Including via an EFI exectuable. I'd quite like to see them adopt EFI. It's a seriously nifty boot layer.

 

[ckohler]

Here's the wordage from Apple's Universal Binaries document:

Open Firmware:
Macintosh computers using Intel microprocessors do not use Open Firmware. Although many parts of the IO registry are present and work as expected, information that is provided by Open Firmware on a Macintosh using a PowerPC microprocessor (such as a complete device tree) is not available in the IO registry on a Macintosh using an Intel microprocessor. You can obtain some of the information from IODeviceTree by using the sysctlbyname or sysctl commands.

http://developer.apple.com/document...l#//apple_ref/doc/uid/TP40002217-CH239-283936

 

[8bit]

It's still not shown up on Usenet, so I'm saying it hasn't been leaked.

It's on that Swedish place. Now, whether or not it is what it claims to be is a different matter.

 

[Baconäger]

I hear people on Slashdot are saying it works with AMD machiens too...

 

[boredJonathan]

Well my point was that they weren't keeping it under lock and key. Developers have it. Red Mercury was talking like nobody could get it.

Wasn't aware of how quickly they were handing out the developer boxes, I just skimmed the article and thought they were saying it had come off the confrence floor which seemed odd. At any rate, if it has shown up on torrent sites, we'll hear about it soon and find out how compatable it all is.

Should be interesting times.

 

[Phoenix]

I remained unconvinced. You'd have to pull the drive off a machine that already has it installed as there is no installer with the devkits.... and you can't get a devkit for a "couple of weeks" unless you are a certified buddy Apple dev (i.e a friend of Apple).

 

[Diablos]

No.

Weaksauce. I hate Apple.

AMD > Poop > Apple > Rotting Corpse > Intel

I put Intel at the very end because they still put their Celeron CPU's in value Dell, HP, etc. PC's, many of those being purchased by corporations. Celerons are the worst fucking processors on the face of the earth, you could put in an Athlon XP 2500+, sell the damn PC's for even less and get something that can perform almost as good as a 3GHz CPU.

Fuck off Intel.