Re(2): Re(2): Re(2): Re(2): [SunRescue] Ultrasparc CPU dismantling

[Tim Hauber]

rescue at sunhelp.org,Internet writes:
>Is it available?  Are the rumors I heard about it having a 'n*x
>kernel true?
>
>Chris

Sorry about this on the Sun list

Currently shipping is OSX Server, not the final complete project.  I
wouldn't throw this one at an old Mac admin, but Unix guys should feel
quite at home. According to Steve Jobs it is a complete implementation of
BSD.  It will run Samba, which must really burn the die-hard Windows
admins. The included web server is Apache, it ships with all the normal
pieces, sendmail, etc.  It even has my favorite text editor, pico.

You can actually log into a text console (that feels funny on a Mac) and
administer the machine with your favorite shell. The default interface is
a GUI, but it isn't X.  It's Nextish, and I hate the file manager. I'm not
sure how easy it will be to port X apps to it.  The one we are running is
a blue and white G3 and it's just a file server, and it's in use, so I
don't play with it much.  The OSX installer is kinda dumb, and it seems to
have a list of machines it will install on, and won't on the others, in
fact, our version won't install on a G4 because it doesn't recognize the
machine.

It's built on the Mach kernel like MKLinux.

For people who want to actually play, look at Apple's Darwin project, they
have opensourced most of the underlying code for OSX.

There is apparently an ongoing OSX on Intel project at Apple, but I don't
know its status.

The OSX server is by far the fastest Mac file server I have ever
experienced, and I really like Macs for school lab situations.  We are
debating whether or not to netboot a lab of  19 G4's that we are currently
building.  The fun part is the lab mostly runs Win98 on Virtual PC, and it
is much more stable than our actual Intel based machines.

Tim