New Mac user

This first post is a little premature, since my IMac is not scheduled for delivery until 21 Dec. Apparently Apple doesn't build machines until they are ordered. But, it gives a few weeks of learning time before liftoff. The problem that I have right now is that I am gathering a ton of Mac info, but no experience or hardware to tie it to so some things don't quite click yet.

My current system is a fairly nice Linux box, but with nowhere near the spectacular display or power that I saw on the IMac in the store. I have far too many years invested in Linux/Unix to just completely jump entirely to a new OS, but, it was demonstrated to me that an IMac can also run Linux, and Windows, not that I care about the latter.

Doing research, I have found that there are two ways to run foreign OS's on a Mac. I believe that Parallel was what was demonstrated in the Apple store, and it ran Windows inside of OSX. I was told that Linux would do the same so Parallel is apparently some sort of VM application.

I have found another called Boot Camp, which seems to be what Linux calls Grub, or a boot manager. That is, you can boot an OS while leaving the other(s) totally inaccessable.

Muddying the water somewhat is that OSX is built on top of FBSD, or a derivative of it, and apparently Unix programs can just run natively. At the store I was shown the console box and it responded to every Unix command that I tried from a command line. Unfortunately, no one there knew much about it.

Questions. Which do Mac users use for accessing another OS? Boot camp or Parallel or ???? Or do you not even bother with other operating systems? Do users even decend into the Unix insides? Or does the GUI fill all needs?

We heart the command line. At least some of us do. I'm trying to learn more about it. There are a ton of VM apps, I use VirtualBox which is free to run OpenSolaris and get some experience messing around with the command line in a VM.

cptkrf said:

Questions. Which do Mac users use for accessing another OS? Boot camp or Parallel or ???? Or do you not even bother with other operating systems? Do users even decend into the Unix insides? Or does the GUI fill all needs?

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Simple answer: there are large populations of users who fall into each of these categories, and some who combine all of them.

I think the consensus would be that you don't need to fuss with another operating system unless you need to run specific software that just isn't available for the Mac. And, take into account that the Apple software is excellent, many would say superior to Microsoft's. Having been a PC guy since 51/4" floppy days, I at first thought I'd need Windows capability. I put Parallels on my Mac. After several months I uninstalled it. Never used it, never needed it, don't miss it.

Hey, I'm in the same boat as you. My first Mac is set for Delivery on the 21st. A bit to close to Christmas for my comfort, but I'm keeping my fingers crossed.

I'll be loaded up Boot Camp pretty much as soon as i get mine to boot it with Windows 7 along with Snow Leopard. Just for the pure reason i have some Windows programs i want to use, i will probably use each OS 50/50 so, both will get a good amount of use.

VegasGeorge said:

I think the consensus would be that you don't need to fuss with another operating system unless you need to run specific software that just isn't available for the Mac. And, take into account that the Apple software is excellent, many would say superior to Microsoft's. Having been a PC guy since 51/4" floppy days, I at first thought I'd need Windows capability. I put Parallels on my Mac. After several months I uninstalled it. Never used it, never needed it, don't miss it.

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Looking back at my post, I can see where it not exactly clear. I am not purchasing the IMac just to use the hardware for Linux. Based on what I have seen from friend's Macs and store demos, I fully intend to use it as a Mac with the Apple supplied software. From what little of it I have used, it appears to be excellent.

But I have decades of 'Nix programming that I use that I can't just throw away or rewrite and it would be nice if I could run it on this new and powerful machine. Nothing I have read so far suggests that I can't. It appears that OSX happily runs 'Nix scripts and programs just fine without having an alternate OS loaded. It is just the details on how to do so that I haven't worked out yet, and probably won't until I get my own machine to sit down and hack on. Can't wait.

Thanks

It's true that OSX is based on FreeBSD. However, since you have been using Linux for decades I'm preaching to the choir that code written for one distro or flavor doesn't always work on another, due to different included libraries, directory paths, required binaries, architecture, etc.

I think you'll find that code written using basic tools and libraries will run natively but a lot won't. A lot of code written for Linux doesn't run on BSD.

I'd just throw VMWare or VirtualBox on it, and you can just run your code in a VM. On a brand new iMac, there will be no hit in performance to do this, you'll think it's running natively on the hardware. Unless your code is trying to render Pixar films or something, LOL.

Over time, you'll find all the analogues of tools you need to use today for OSX, and probably never need to boot up the VMs after a while.

You could always run Linux natively in a bootcamp partition and go virtual Linux in the OSX partition as well (best of both worlds).

I'll throw in what my experience is with running Windows XP under bootcamp.

I have no experience with anything running virtual or with Linux.

I only have two programs that I still need to run in Windows and under Bootcamp Windows runs like it did on my old PC.

The "kid" I bought the computer from said he set it up that way because he was playing "First-Person-Shooter" games that were only available for Windows and he said he never had a problem with lag when running the computer in bootcamp.

The only problem running under bootcamp is that I cant just bring up Windows anytime I want while running in OSX. I have to restart and hold down the Alt key to boot to Windows. I can view the files that are in the bootcamp partition but cant seem to modify or delete them if I am in OSX. I have to boot to Windows in order to modify or delete stuff in the bootcamp partition.

Running Windows under bootcamp has also forced me to get proficient at OSX instead of taking the easy way out and running virtual Windows if I got lazy.

Boot Camp vs Parallels

What I'm not seeing here is an explanation of the difference between Boot Camp and other VM software like Parallels or VMware. Boot Camp creates a dual-boot system where you can only use one OS at a time. Parallels allows you to use your VM at the same time you're using OSX. I personally use Parallels and like it much better than Boot Camp since I often use a Windoze program along with one of the OSX programs. Can't do that with Boot Camp. Running Parallels in Coherence mode allows me to run a Windoze program alongside a Mac Program.

RezDuane said:

What I'm not seeing here is an explanation of the difference between Boot Camp and other VM software like Parallels or VMware. Boot Camp creates a dual-boot system where you can only use one OS at a time. Parallels allows you to use your VM at the same time you're using OSX. I personally use Parallels and like it much better than Boot Camp since I often use a Windoze program along with one of the OSX programs. Can't do that with Boot Camp. Running Parallels in Coherence mode allows me to run a Windoze program alongside a Mac Program.

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I like the idea of running Windows in bootcamp because it's seperated from OSX by a partition. I like Windows and all but putting it in the same partition as OSX is kind of like purposely installing a virus.

Even if OSX is suppose to be immune to Windows' problems, I'd rather not take the chance.

droflex said:

I like the idea of running Windows in bootcamp because it's seperated from OSX by a partition. I like Windows and all but putting it in the same partition as OSX is kind of like purposely installing a virus.

Even if OSX is suppose to be immune to Windows' problems, I'd rather not take the chance.

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OSX will always be immune to pretty much any problem that would run on a windows machine since it uses different file extensions. Viruses are plausable but not the same run that would run on a windows machine. .exe for windows .dmg for apple. Your mac doesn't even know what to do with an exe file so it usually just hangs out like a brick doing nothing.

As I understand it anyway.

johnnyFIVE said:

OSX will always be immune to pretty much any problem that would run on a windows machine since it uses different file extensions. Viruses are plausable but not the same run that would run on a windows machine. .exe for windows .dmg for apple. Your mac doesn't even know what to do with an exe file so it usually just hangs out like a brick doing nothing.

As I understand it anyway.

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This is absolutely correct. The binaries (code that can actually be run) are compiled in a different "language" under Windows that MacOS can't understand (hence not being able to run Windows programs natively on a Mac).

So, even if you have Windows installed under VMWare or Parallels, viruses can't move from Windows to Mac. Also, the VM runs in basically a file that is treated as a partition, it's not like the Windows filesystem is merged into the Mac's filesystem. If you want to be really anal you can always turn off the sharing between the two filesystems when you set up the VM.

mostro said:

This is absolutely correct. The binaries (code that can actually be run) are compiled in a different "language" under Windows that MacOS can't understand (hence not being able to run Windows programs natively on a Mac).

So, even if you have Windows installed under VMWare or Parallels, viruses can't move from Windows to Mac. Also, the VM runs in basically a file that is treated as a partition, it's not like the Windows filesystem is merged into the Mac's filesystem. If you want to be really anal you can always turn off the sharing between the two filesystems when you set up the VM.

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Ahhh. But can the Windows files (.exe's and such) still get infected when running Windows virtual, and would Malware and spybots still cause grief?

I was thinking that if my bootcamp partition got crapped-out because of something that the worse case scenario would be I could leave it for dead and just boot into OSX and be on my merry way.

I find it kind of relieving in a way that I cant just bring up Windows at the drop of a hat. I honestly think I would have just resorted back to it because it would be the easy way out. It's human nature.

They could still become infected. It doesnt matter what you do, if a bad exe runs no matter how your running windows a bad exe runs and it will bog down the running of that instance of windows. however just closing parallels or booting in OSX or whatever will completely render it pointless. It is also for the most part not possible for some virus to leak over to OSX from windows and do something.

In terms of software, I prefer iWork with Apple over Office. Pages > Word and Numbers > excel in my opinion.

From the underlying Unix standpoint, even if a real dummkopf got social engineered and clicked on all the wrong stuff, a rogue program couldn't get out of the home folder and won't have the execute bit set so it wouldn't run anyway. Of course, that is assuming that the above mentioned user is not brain dead and didn't get scammed into SUDOing something. This assumes that Apple hasn't changed the basic structure of Unix when they adopted it. I hope not.

But, to a more gladsome note. My i7 is scheduled for Dec 15, not Dec 21. So, another question. Anybody have any comparison between Parallels and VMware? I have used VMware on Linux boxes and it worked just fine. Great, in fact.

I will need to purchase one or the other and was wondering if anybody has used both?

Switched!!!

My new i7 arrived today, 7 days ahead of schedule. A nice early Christmas present. After a few hours, I feel like an expert. Actually, this thing was so easy to set up that my Grandmother could have done it. The 27" LED display is fabulous. Makes my fairly new 23 inch wide screen monitor look like something from the old DOS days.

I would ask some howto questions, except that so far everything works. However, there is a defugalty that I don't understand.

This system has 4 hardware cores and using the Activity Monitor I can see them in use. If I kick off a cpu intensive test program (just a C language loop) I can see it running in core 1. However, when I start up some Apple supplied program like IDvd or IMovie, all four of them are used. I know that Grand Central Dispatch will let a programmer multi-thread a program, but is Snow Leopard and the Apple ISuite software already multi core aware?

Not a big deal at this point, just wondering.

For Linux/Unix users who are thinking about switching, OSX has run every 'Nix program I have thrown at it so far. Audacity, Gimp, Perl TK, TK Ruby and everything from CPAN. Plus, source code has compiled natively - Mysql, Sqlite, DBD and DBI drivers, etc. So Snow Leopard really IS based on Unix. (Actually, I didn't doubt it - just glad to see that it is a fairly standard distribution.)

Long night ahead.

cptkrf said:

Long night ahead.

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hahaha, congrats and enjoy!

Im jealous of that screen! lol

Hahah nice man! I'm the same way with computers. I get a new one and it's a long night a head of me. Congrats on the 27" screen!

Snow leopard runs by default in 32 bit mode. You can boot it into 64 bit mode by holding down the 6 and 4 keys during boot. The latest Apple software all runs in 64 bit mode, it's just the OS thats running in 32. It makes hardly any performance difference at all. I think they did it that way because there are still so many older apps in use that wouldn't run if the OS defaulted to 64 bit.

Unless you write your program to take advantage of multiple cores, it will by default execute on a single core, that's working as designed (in your application). As you've noted, running more complicated applications will make use of multiple cores.

And, Darwin (the Mac kernel) is based on BSD and this isn't just Snow Leopard, Apple made the change a while back going from their proprietary Kernel to one based on BSD..

Anyway, enjoy the iMac which is the EXACT same one I've been eyeing, just trying to figure out how to offset the price..

Regards