Apple OS X to run on Wintel PCs?

[Bonegavel]

The Boot Camp (http://www.apple.com/macosx/bootcamp/) beta from Apple lets Windows XP run on a Mac.

Apple now uses Intel processors.

I may be missing something here but isn't there just one short leap to making OS X run on Windows/Intel PCs?

I have my issues with Microsoft/Windows but I have come to really like XP (90% because of games) over the years, but with Vista over the horizon (requiring new hardware for most people) it would be interesting to see Apple make OS X run on current Windows XP machines.

Competition is always good for us end consumers even though I'm not naive enough to think that Apple could put a dent in Microsoft's Plate Mail +10 armour (at least not any time soon).

I think it's safe to say the Linux finally put a burr under Bill Gates's saddle (at least in the server department and with a lot of the technical folks) and Apple had been King of Computers at one point in the 80s (I'm sure Jobs still remembers what that was like).

As usual I'm not making much sense and my thoughts are disjointed, but I've always hoped that a viable contender OS arrives on the scene to at least give us a choice between Microsoft and no games (BeOS, OS2, Linux, Novell, etc. all disappointments on the workstation). Imagine where Intel would be right now if AMD wasn't there: we'd still be running Pentium 2 technology :D

Of all the wannabe's, I think Apple is the only one that could actually be the AMD to Microsoft's Intel.

[chinaski]

Now that I can run XP/Linux/X all on a mac mini (http://www.apple.com/macmini/), im never touching a PC again. Good riddance you clunky bastards!

[Franklinnoble]

I would actually prefer to get a suped-up Mac and run XP within a virtual computer instance. That'd be the best of both worlds.

Although a suped-up PC would be cheaper, and if you could run OSX within a virtual instance there, that'd be pretty sweet, too.

[MJ4H]

I would like to run OSX in some way, but never without the ability to also run XP on the same machine. I'm looking forward to that ability.

[chinaski]

I would actually prefer to get a suped-up Mac and run XP within a virtual computer instance. That'd be the best of both worlds.


That would be a horrible idea. There is no need for a virtual pc anymore, thats why this is such great news. You would just dual boot XP and X on your Mac. Or just only run XP on your Mac in you want.

[Franklinnoble]

That would be a horrible idea. There is no need for a virtual pc anymore, thats why this is such great news. You would just dual boot XP and X on your Mac. Or just only run XP on your Mac in you want.

I disagree. Why reboot to switch from one OS to the other, when you can run both at the same time? A dual-core (or eventually quad-core) processor and about 2GB of RAM would provide more than enough horsepower to run your base OS plus a second one in a virtual instance, and you could switch back and forth on the fly.

[chinaski]

I disagree. Why reboot to switch from one OS to the other, when you can run both at the same time? A dual-core (or eventually quad-core) processor and about 2GB of RAM would provide more than enough horsepower to run your base OS plus a second one in a virtual instance, and you could switch back and forth on the fly.

Well, if you put it that way, sure go for it. Im still stuck in the hardware darkages. Id rather have the free resources, I could never see a reason for myself to have to flip on the fly to a diff OS. Id play games in XP (as thats ALL XP is good for now that we can do this) and then do all of my programming & design work in X or Linux.

[Franklinnoble]

Well, if you put it that way, sure go for it. Im still stuck in the hardware darkages. Id rather have the free resources, I could never see a reason for myself to have to flip on the fly to a diff OS. Id play games in XP (as thats ALL XP is good for now that we can do this) and then do all of my programming & design work in X or Linux.

Well, that's why I qualified what I said with the premise that I'd have a suped-up machine to do it with. Otherwise, yeah, virtual computers can bring your system to its knees.

I can imagine most Mac users would love to be able to flip over to an XP virtual session to play games, etc., without having to re-boot their machines.

[stevew]

Now that I can run XP/Linux/X all on a mac mini (http://www.apple.com/macmini/), im never touching a PC again. Good riddance you clunky bastards!

Hmm, that's a pretty tempting idea for the near future.

[jeff061]

I don't get the point, maybe on a powerbook. Other than that, why would you pay more for worse hardware and load XP on it?

I'm anxiously awaiting someone to get OSX on a non-mac PC.

[Hurst2112]

I don't get the point, maybe on a powerbook. Other than that, why would you pay more for worse hardware and load XP on it?

I'm anxiously awaiting someone to get OSX on a non-mac PC.

pro tools baby...pro tools.

[Marc Vaughan]

and then do all of my programming & design work in X or Linux.
Quick question out of interest - I code on Mac's, Linux and PC and find the PC vastly superior to the alternative platforms for coding simply because of the tool support available for the .NET C++ compilers - what compilers are you using on Linux/Mac (we use gcc/Metroworks on Linux and are in the process of moving to Eclipse on Mac (again from Metroworks originally) ) ... as I'm always up for improving my development systems.

[Ryan S]

Now that I can run XP/Linux/X all on a mac mini (http://www.apple.com/macmini/), im never touching a PC again. Good riddance you clunky bastards!

Apple hardware is very expensive. I would imagine more people would be interested in running OS X on a PC rather than running XP on a Mac.

[chinaski]

Quick question out of interest - I code on Mac's, Linux and PC and find the PC vastly superior to the alternative platforms for coding simply because of the tool support available for the .NET C++ compilers - what compilers are you using on Linux/Mac (we use gcc/Metroworks on Linux and are in the process of moving to Eclipse on Mac (again from Metroworks originally) ) ... as I'm always up for improving my development systems.

gcc is good as it gets in linux... i use codewarrior too. It all works fine enough for me, but im pretty positive im not compiling as much as you :)

[chinaski]

Apple hardware is very expensive. I would imagine more people would be interested in running OS X on a PC rather than running XP on a Mac.

yea but, have you seen the mac minis?! :D theyre so cool.

[Easy Mac]

If I could have a little Mac-mini running with a high-def external usb tv tuner, that would kick ass. Just hide the tuner behind everything, put the little mac on a shelf, and voila, hdtv tivo. Run media center or something on the mini (front row isn't near ready for anything like that) and there you go.

[SirFozzie]

I doubt it'll happen, the sheer amount of drivers for Wintel PC's would make it a nightmare, but reminded me of a joke.

In Heaven, you run Mac Software on a Windows-level box
In Hell You run windows software on a Mac.

[Franklinnoble]

I doubt it'll happen, the sheer amount of drivers for Wintel PC's would make it a nightmare, but reminded me of a joke.

In Heaven, you run Mac Software on a Windows-level box
In Hell You run windows software on a Mac.

Hence the virtual PC concept. Theoretically, you could have a virtual PC emulate a standard set of Mac hardware, no matter what your WinXP machine had under the hood. Then OSX doesn't know any better.

[jeff061]

While I'd certainly use VMWare or VirtuaPC to mess around with OSX, they are not solutions for serious PC use. Even with a monster rig.

[Godzilla Blitz]

I use both PCs and Macs almost every day.

I like the stable customizability of the Mac interface and all the nicely integrated programs that come with them.

I like the value that I get with a PC and the sheer number of programs available.

I hadn't thought about the Linux angle, which for me is useless, but if I can get a Mac that runs Windows well for games, I might be able to get by with just Macs.

The key for me is how fast the rebooting process takes. One of the reasons I have two computers is to check websites on both platforms. If going back and forth between operating systems takes a long time (full reboots), then it would probably still be worthwhile to just get two computers. However, even so, I could just get a dirt cheap PC to do that.

[Desnudo]

The who is in the what now?

[Daimyo]

While I'd certainly use VMWare or VirtuaPC to mess around with OSX, they are not solutions for serious PC use. Even with a monster rig.
I don't think this is true anymore and is getting less true everyday. Dual core PCs really makes the (non-gaming) performance pretty much equivalent to non-virtual. For example, at work I run a dual core 840 with 4 GB of RAM. The host runs Windows XP in a fairly locked down config that I use for work stuff like managing servers, etc. On top of that I run the following VMs:

always on VM for "risky" activities like web browsing, email, IM, etc
always on VM with linux for security tools I need for work
on as needed VM with Visual Studio for development stuff
on as needed VM with LC5 for security auditing
on as needed VM for batch scripting
on as needed VM with FOF for the times I need to do an export while at work

I almost always have at least three of these open at once and the performance is so good you can't even tell its virtual (there are exceptions - not every operation is suitable for virtualization). In fact I can kick off a password audit in LC5 that consumes 100% of a core and I still won't notice any performance hit on my web/email box. Since a single box almost never needs that much processor the bottleneck is usually disk... at home I have a X2 3800+ with 2GB of RAM and striped 10k raptor drives and I didn't run into performance hits until I had eight VMs running.

We've been virtualizing servers in GSX for a couple years and are now moving to ESX and the performance is even better... I even run Snort in a virtual box with the full ruleset and it doesn't impact the performance of the other boxes at all.

VMWare is an acceptable platform for serious PC (and server) use.

[Daimyo]

DOLA, while I can't wait until OSX works in VMWare, other than messing around, I can't really see what practical benefit it will provide that you can't get now running linux and XP.