Re: I've thought better of Linux
- From: "Kaz Kylheku" <kkylheku@xxxxxxxxx>
- Date: 13 Jun 2005 15:02:44 -0700
Brandon J. Van Every wrote:
> This is going to amuse the cat callers to no end. But reality is
> reality. Summary: I'm fleeing in terror from Linux. Which means I
> won't be using CMUCL or SBCL after all. Which might cause me to ditch
> Common Lisp, because I'm poor.
Ah, but you have to stop being poor before your opinion matters, you
see.
By the way, do you actually have a legal copy of Windows?
At least your crappy Linux copy is, dissatisfied as you might be with
it. :)
> I'm also realizing how irrelevant Linux is to shipping games. It isn't
> "an extra platform where I might pick up a few sales."
Extra? So where are the existing sales going? And why can't you afford
a proprietary Lisp system to run on your paid for and licensed Windows
installation?
Computer games bigshot, maybe you should pawn off your Rolex watch and
put a for sale sign on that Ferrari. :)
> Plus Apple is moving to x86, and in time will do all the things that the
> Linux world won't do.
But you are poor, remember? So whatever Apple rolls out, chances are
you won't be able to afford it. Thanks for dreaming on behalf of the
rest of us, though. :)
And that means hardware too; when Apple gets into X86, I don't think
that will mean you will be able to buy a shrink-wrapped box of their
operating system to run on your vanilla PC hardware. No, to ditch
Windows and become an Apple user, you will still have to buy an Apple
computer. (Prediction: there will probably be cracks to get Apple's OS
running on a vanilla PC). This is nothing new. Back in the days of
Apple II, clone machines came out, and people ran Apple operating
systems on non-Apple hardware. We might see an ``attack of the
clones'' if Apple makes something that is so similar to PC hardware
that a few mods on the hardware plus tweaks on the software can put
them together.
The Intel chip is quite irrelevant. Chips are a commodity, really. In
an ideal world, people would swap processors like dirty laundry, and
things would just recompile themselves. This is kind of done in the
embedded world. Not the magic recompiling part, of course, but the
dizzying array of different embedded processors that are out there.
Each one has its set of things that it's good at and loyal user base.
:)
In practical terms, Apple machines using Intel processors means really
only one thing: Apple users being able to run Windows apps at a decent
speed. But of course, legacy apps compiled for the POWER PC
architecture will have to be emulated.
Linux runs on PowerPC Macintoshes today. I.e. there are users of
Apple's own hardware who prefer to have Linux on it, at least some of
the time. Apple's software has not wiped out Linux on their own
hardware.
If Apple comes out with an X86 Mac, Linux will be ported to that. That
configuration will probably be able to share executables with an X86
Linux running on PC's. Great thing: compile Linux app on PC hardware,
ship on X86 Mac.
By the way, this reminds me, Sun Microsystems once moved to Intel
hardware. Back in the late 80's, they rolled out this box running
SunOS, a thing called the Sun 386i. Oh yeah, that really wiped out
every other Unix that was running on a 386, and sent MS-DOS scurrying
for cover. :)
They did this because the 386 emerged as a cheap, relatively fast
architecture with 32 bit physical addressing and demand paged virtual
memory on-chip. I.e. basically the same type of reasoning that Apple is
applying today.
Now if they had actually ported SunOS to an ordinary, stock 386 PC and
sold it, that would have been quite different.
.
- References:
- I've thought better of Linux
- From: Brandon J. Van Every
- I've thought better of Linux
- Prev by Date: Re: I've thought better of Linux
- Next by Date: Re: I've thought better of Linux
- Previous by thread: Re: I've thought better of Linux
- Next by thread: Re: I've thought better of Linux
- Index(es):
Relevant Pages
|
