[KLUG Advocacy] Apple using Intel chips ...

[Greg Mason]

> I tend to agree with you, but I also think there are some exceptions.
>
> I tried to find a DVD burner for my Powerbook and came up empty.

the PowerBook will take a standard slot-load optical drive. You might  
even be able to find a dual-layer one that fits.

> I looked into external USB/Firewire drives, and my research implied  
> that
> some kind of firmware mod was required.

no. The only FireWire firmware problems were with early Oxford  
chipsets, which contained a bug that ended up to users losing  
information. The reason this bug didn't show up before Panther is  
because nobody used that feature of the FireWire chipset.

> Then I found a company that sold replacement internal DVD drives for
> Powerbooks, so I ordered one, removed about a thousand tiny screws  
> on my
> Powerbook, replaced the internal CDROM drive with the DVD drive.
>
> It's standard ATAPI, so no problem, right?  WRONG!!!  Mac OS-X  
> (10.3 at
> that time) didn't see the drive at all.  Since I had my Powerbook dual
> booted, I booted Ubuntu Linux, and it found the drive without a  
> problem.

Yeah, that is a problem, but it comes from Apple only supporting  
their chosen hardware. Was it a Panasonic, Sony or maybe Fuji drive?  
Apple mainly uses Panasonic and Sony drives.

also, apps like Roxio's Toast add support for many more optical  
drives (but that doesn't help if you can't read the disc in Finder).

> If OS-X had a workspace switcher, I'd be happy with the desktop.
> If that latest Evolution ran, I'd be happy with the apps.

Have you checked out Gentoo MacOS and Fink? You might be able to get  
Evolution running. There was an app that actually was a desktop  
switcher for Panther. Not sure if it's 100% Tiger-compatible or not.  
It did everything you'd expect it to do, all with nifty 3D- 
accelerated transitions, a-la Exposé.

> Notice I said "less hassle".
>
> Instead of installing a bunch of third party RPM's for mplayer, when I
> find a plugin that doesn't work, like Real Player or Windows Media
> Player, I can just click on the link which takes me to a real.com/M 
> $.com
> page, I download the plugin, and I'm in business.  And of course,
> Quicktime is installed by default.
>
> And I REALLY like the fact that ALL the hardware is fully supported.
> It's really nice to just shut the lid and have it go to sleep, and  
> power
> management works, and have the sound works, and the internal modem  
> work,
> and the internal wireless network work, and the fancy touch-pad
> scrolling works, and ...

Hence it "Just Works", which was the largest factor in me switching  
completely from Linux to OS X. I didn't like spending time figuring  
out why my video card wasn't loading 3D drivers. Manually editing  
config files on a desktop should be for tweaks, if even that, not  
getting your machine running properly.

>> That's hard to do.  Is VMware seemless?  Is WINE seemless?  Not by a
>> long shot.
>>
>
> I think it can be done.  Maybe "seamless" isn't the correct word.  How
> about a nice GUI installer (with a lot of usable defaults), and after
> that Windows [apps] just run ...

It would be lovely to be able to run WIndoze apps on Mac OS X without  
loading windows first. Right now there is the Darwine project, which  
is mixing an x86 emulator with Wine, but it hasn't done much, yet. It  
would be wonderful if there could just be a port of Wine to Mac OS X

-Greg