Red Hat to bring Linux to Intel Macs

Efforts to boot Windows on Intel-based Macs have so far proven fruitless, but that doesn't mean the new boxes won't be able to run multiple OSes. And if the folks at Red Hat have their way, Linux may be running on your iMac and MacBook Pro long before Vista ever does. The company has announced plans to support the new computers, and will work to develop a boot loader that will work with the Extensible Firmware Interface, which fills in for a BIOS on the Intel Macs. However, Red Hat admits they don't yet have any Intel Macs in house, so it might take them a while to actually get going on this (though we have faith that someone in the open source community is already working on this very issue). Oh, and if you think you can get Windows working on a MacTel box, you may be able to collect a bounty; one enterprising fellow has launched a site where he's soliciting donations for a reward to be paid to the first person to dual boot Windows and OS X on an Intel Mac. So far, he's collected over $5,700.

[XGM @ Jan 25th 2006 12:02PM]

"And if the folks at Red Hat have their way, Linux may be running on your iMac and MacBook Pro long before Vista ever does."

Ya, thats for shure cuz guess what Vista will be delayed even more, full of bugs, huge security vulnarabelities, and even if i have the beta normal users wont be able to use it till its in stores. Man i love my MSDN account...

[Ray @ Jan 25th 2006 12:08PM]

I would much rather see linux programs and other windows applications working in Mac OS 10.4. Most people if not all buy Apple hardware for the OS so why would anyone use a dull Linux or even windows for that matter. If all the applications start working in Mac it will be the ultimate OS, better option than having to install 3 OS.

[Rmail @ Jan 25th 2006 12:20PM]

Why does everybody run overpriced software on even more overpriced hardware, the new macintel's is just geek-bling.

[Can0Spam @ Jan 25th 2006 1:04PM]

#2 Emulation already exhists, Dual booting is what they are talking about. Not the Operating system emulating a different OS to run programs at a reduced clock speed. The idea of having multiple OSes running on the same box is expedient and cost effective for many people. Pull your Apple Fanboy attitude out of your bung hole and try to let the market drive the innovation not your dogma.

[Benson Leung @ Jan 25th 2006 1:19PM]

#5: Dual booting is all well and good, but can only get you so far. It's still a pain to have to reboot your system to bring up another OS.

What #2 is talking about is NOT emulation, which implies instructions are translated from one ISA to another... but VIRTUALIZATION. Think VMWare.

The new Core Duo chips in these new Macs support Vanderpool virtualization technology. This means two OSes coexisting on a level that they haven't been able to do before.

It is not "fanboy" to think that all of this money and effort wasted on trying to dual boot and destroying iMacs in the process is complete wasted effort. In a sense it is wasted effort.

These people should be instead focusing on trying to leverage the virtualization features so you don't have to compromise in running two or three OSes on the same system simultaneously.

What would be better? Booting into Windows, wasting minutes to switch over to Windows to run one app, or to switch instantly to Windows or Linux when you need them without shutting down OS X?

I think the answer is clear. Virtualization is the key technology that people are ignoring... not just dual booting.

[Urza9814 @ Jan 25th 2006 1:42PM]

"Think VMWare."

Oh yea, that's so much better than emulation. Well, other than the fact that IT RUNS SO SLOW I CAN'T EVEN INSTALL WIN98! and my comp's got 2GHz and 1.5GB RAM! It's not that difficult of an operation!

[mark @ Jan 25th 2006 1:56PM]

Why would you want to run linux anyway? OSX is already a *nix OS, is there something that linux can do that OSX couldn't with properly written software?

[Hexwizz @ Jan 25th 2006 2:25PM]

There is already a EFI LInux LOader project going on over at sourceforge:
http://sourceforge.net/projects/elilo
This has been thoroughly tested on EFI Itanuim systems already, if I understand things correctly the code from this project will enable you to boot Linux off EFI based systems with little or no extra effort.

[pointless condescension man @ Jan 25th 2006 2:28PM]

Hey, no, #8... hadn't heard that... you must have been the first to report it... oh wait... no. No, no, no... that's been floating around essentially forever. Way to be on the ball.

Keep it up, sport!

[cbisquit @ Jan 25th 2006 2:32PM]

#6: Virtualization will not take care of the many OS specific libraries and environments (think DirectX) that #2 seems to imply should run natively in OSX in order to make windows apps work there. The virtualization you're talking about is well and good but it's still dual-booting, albeit simultaneous dual-booting.
What #2 is referring to is more like a WINE type environment, which isn't any closer to working on OSX than it is on Linux. Which is to say, crappily.
On top of that, Microsoft has no incentive whatsoever to open up its APIs for a more seamless integration. In fact creating DirectX was in large part an attempt to lock development effort out of the platform agnostic OpenGL standard to begin with, tying game development to the Windows and now Xbox paradigm. They've done similar things with .Net and you can expect more of that from them in the future. Windows IS windows apps. You're not gonna easily separate them.

#2 There is nothing any operating system can't do with "properly written software" because there are no arbitrary OS limits on what applications can accomplish. Some people prefer to run linux because it's far more flexible than OSX and there is more software written with it as a target environment.

[Gilbert Turner @ Jan 25th 2006 2:34PM]

the problem with osx is not that its not unix, its that apple has botched the core of the unix which makes it difficult to run native unix/linux programs under osx without some modifications. Especially the awkwardness to run any program that uses a graphical display running on a *nix graphical server, eg XFree86 or XOrg. osx uses its own graphical display software that is not natively supported by any true unix software. Tons(literally) of great open source software already exist for unix and linux and as most people see it, why make modifications to a gnu/opensource program to make it run on a non-open source operating system. Though many people are taking existing programs and modifying them to run on osx (google 'fink') as a whole, you arent going to see actual osx supported applications at the base development level, except possibly for a charge. There is just not a giant demand from the developers standpoint to code open source programs on a closed source operating system, but due to the nature of open source, this isnt going to stop you from taking an existing program and modifying it to run on osx.

[cbisquit @ Jan 25th 2006 2:38PM]

err.. meant #7 in the coda

[jared @ Jan 25th 2006 3:11PM]

#8: Google is almost certainly developing their own custom Linux kernels, and almost certainly not developing their own desktop operating system.

[dem @ Jan 25th 2006 3:18PM]

hmmm. i've been running fedora core linux on my box for a while and i don't call it an intel-nix. amazing marketing geniuses at apple. they have all you suckers believing that PC's are mac's. (remember x86's are called PC's) LOL.

hey look i colored my mouse white and broke the secondary button! i think i'll call it an imouse.

[Mike Jones @ Jan 25th 2006 3:44PM]

#13= PC user

pfft

[pointless condescension man @ Jan 25th 2006 4:51PM]

Apparently #8 now = #7... go me.

[R @ Jan 25th 2006 7:19PM]

#5, Intel has not released any chips that currently support the Vanderpool specification. Core Duo will support Vanderpool in future steppings however.

[AL @ Jan 25th 2006 9:01PM]

We all want the same thing here, run any/all apps under your favorite OS without loosing any CPU cycles, right? (you can use emulation crap but no ones seems to like that!) Well one nice way to do that would be to have all OSs share the same standardized API, that way you could run your favorite windows app inside a mac and your Mac apps inside Windows... and that will happen when...let me see... NEVER... because Microsoft likes selling windows and Apple likes selling Macs. although Linux users would not mind i guess, but they would certainly mind switching to another API, i mean who wouldn't! In any case that's what Java attempted to do, but unfortunatelly lost CPU cycles on the way, especially in the GUI...

and besides how many of you out there really own/have software for both systems that you need to use?

[The ZeroCorpse @ Jan 25th 2006 9:50PM]

Or you could buy a cheap-ass x86 system and install Linux for free.

[Rev. Nathan Speer @ Jan 25th 2006 10:34PM]

What is holding back any distribution of Linux being able to run off of the new Macs? It is my understanding that the hardware is nearly identical to a x86 laptop, with of course some expansions and unique hardware? Could one not be able to put Linux on there now, and may be out of a few features (perhaps the internal sound or camera might not work)?

I mean, from both the Windows and the Apple fanboys it sounds to me that it would be the same architechure of a conventional i386 or i686 processor...

[Toshimitsu Tanaka @ Jan 26th 2006 3:51AM]

I tried boot of asianux that supported EFI.
The loading of initrd.img was completed,
And, it stopped.

Maybe, it is not an easy way.

http://toshi3.cocolog-nifty.com/.shared/image.html?/blog/images/efi_3.jpg

[Adam C @ Jan 26th 2006 10:04AM]

We have had Linux booting on EFI-based servers for years... EFI is not anything new, just new on the desktop

[EatingPie @ Jan 26th 2006 2:26PM]

RedHat on Mac? Why? Why? Why? ...

Lemme go all real world on yoh asses.

Me: Mac OS X Unix hacker (kindasorta). First person to install BASH on OSX Beta... can't prove it, but there it is. So lemme put it this way: Fink? DarwinPorts? Imbeciles. Suffice it to say, if there's source, I will com(pile).

:)

Aight, but we use RedHat Linux at work. Meaning: our customers use the RedHat Linux systems we sold them. The answer "yeah, but that app works on OSX!" never flies with your RedHat install base.

So, yeah, RedHat booting on the Mac... Great! Necessary for lotsa people like me.

I can develop and test right there on our deployment platform, and practice my Linux admin skills (er... skillz... er... sk1llz), and as soon as I'm sick of Gnome, I jump back to the brushed metal beauty of OS X.

-Pie

[Gilbert Turner @ Jan 26th 2006 11:38PM]

Hey pie-

installing bash on osx is no big thing. It doesnt qualify you as a hacker. bash is simply a shell, along with zsh sh and the many many other choices. its a program that inputs and outputs and provides terminal services to the user.

i'de say some other things, but i'm going to keep my dignity.

- just my two cents

[Constantinos Kouloumbris @ Jan 27th 2006 5:54PM]

Am I the only person here that knows that RedHat and other Linux OS can already be installed on ppc macs eventually they will be able to do for intel macs as well.

[Manuel @ Jan 27th 2006 9:15PM]

I am to superior whether I not all our computers on Linux reequip, far fewer viruses and more simply to serve, with us in Europe is ms leading. But one should look around around an alternative. sorry still for my bad English

[blood @ Jan 30th 2006 4:53PM]

I'll continue to run Fedora natively and emulate Win and Mac environments throught VMWare, like I am now (yes, the OS X images are out there already in the torrent).

Whomever said that VMWare was slow doesn't have a fast enough box and/or has never run Linux on said hardware. VMWare on Linux runs like a scalded dog.