The MacBook Pro, will it run x86 OSes such as Windows?
 

Well it's finally here, the MacBook Pro which can be seen at the Apple Store at store.apple.com, my question though is, is the Intel Core Duo processor like any other Intel processor, x86 and thus capable of running any x86 application/OS such as WindowsXP and x86 linux distros and their associated programs (of course first there will have to be drivers developed for the OSes) or is it a custom processor that'll only run mac programs/OSes?

Apple has said that, while they certainly won't support running any other operating systems, they're not going to do anything to keep you from doing so, either.

So, you should expect somebody to figure out how to multi-boot these machines in rather short order.

What makes me salivate is the likelihood that somebody will shortly figure out how to get Wine or some other sort of emulation / virtualization thing going so that you don't have to reboot and you get foreign code running at (almost?) full speed. That is, you won't have to reboot--you'll be able to, say, do Access development right on the Mac.

Of course, that's merespeculation...but it's gonna happen. Sooner, not later.

Cheers,

b&

I agree completely.

It's going to be cool that Apple hardware will be the first machines able to run MacOS X, Windows, and Linux.

Ah yes! Wine for OS X x86 would be a awesome addition, I'd say it'd be
best if ported to MacOS Xes native cocoa interface and could perhaps
even be nicely and seemlessly integrated into the OS so that double
clicking a windows app would simply open it up in a cocoa looking
interface, with the programs menu options in the top OS X menu
bar...so that way you could never tell you're actually using Wine and
Windows apps would fit right in to OS X...perhaps maybe even Apple
could consider doing this as I feel this'd be a really nice addition
to OS X x86 and would really be a incentive for switchers. I'm going to buy the Intel mac as soon as I save up the money...unfortunetly they're pretty pricey :( but I think it'll be worth it...it'll especially be cool how I hope to be able to not sell my PPC PowerBook, so then I'll still be able to experience PPC when it becomes obsolete (yeah I like to play with old obsolete tech items :P ) and compare it to the much better Intel mac...perhaps there will even be some OS X apps that never get ported to Intel which'd give my PPC PowerBook some real use :cool:...and even so it'll still be good for skype, IM, and surfing the web, and word processing, regardless of whether or not it's phased out

And so I take it that although it won't be possible right away, it will most likely become possible to run x86 OSes such as XP and Linux distros such as Suse once applicable drivers come out since the Intel macs processor is indeed x86 just like any other PC processor?

As long as companies don't then stop bothering to develop for MacOS X, on the theory that we can execute Windows binaries at native speed, then, yeah.

Hmm, so in that sense if people did stop developing for OS X because of this switch you think Apple would then create a new processor that only ran OS X but would still be Intel produced? Thanks for your patience and replies by the way! :)

Let's hope that doesn't happen. Even in the 3rd party world, i find Mac apps far superior in UI and function than their PC counterparts.

Yeah definetly, but then again even if the big time companies stopped developing for OS X we'd still more then likely have all the individuals and groups making apps for OS X...there's alot of those types of apps at macupdate.com and alot of them are good alternatives to apps made by the big guys (such as Gimp, and there's rumored to be a cocoa version of OpenOffice released somtime this year (2006))

:eek: I just realized, the Intel macs probably won't have Classic on them nor support Classic anymore huh? (now there's something my PowerBook could still be useful for :cool: )

No Classic.

SheepShaver will probably be ported. Of course it will be slow on Intel Macs because it will have to emulate the PowerPC processor.

wow, I just hope it dual boots, i don't like emulation. WINE is cool and all, but it craps out a lot when running higher end apps, or at least it does IME.

So can I ask a really Dumb question.

How will these Mac's be affected by Viruses ...??

Or am I misunderstanding and the .exe would only run in a Windows Os.

Without Windows-emulation running, just MacOS X-on-Intel?

Windows viruses will have no more effect on OS X than on Linux-on-Intel. (None)

With an entire Windows OS booted and running at full speed as a virtual machine, the way the Classic environment runs MacOS 9 on PPC Macs nowadays? They can wreak as much havoc as on any PC running Windows, with the exception that OS X would see the entirety of Windows as a process with limited authority, so the core parts of OS X would probably be safe. (Your users folder, on the other hand, might be vulnerable). Most PC viruses are hard-wired to attack things at certain paths, though, so mostly what would get infected would be things on the virtual disk that Windows was installed to.

With your x86 Mac booted into Windows instead of OS X, i.e., you've set it up to be able to dual-boot? Totally as vulnerable as any PC running Windows, with the possible exception of viruses that do their dirty work by writing to the BIOS. If I understand correctly the MacBook and the x86 iMac don't have a traditional BIOS. (Do they have OpenFirmware instead, I wonder?)

Since the viruses are taking advantages of Windoze flaws, even if they are able to run in OS X, they very likely would not do much of anything.

It seems fairly obvious for Microsoft to create a new version of Virtual PC that functions more like its existing versions for Windows. Because CPU instruction translation will no longer be needed, it shouldn't be too difficult for them to create software that just acts like a sandbox for Windows. I don't know if such a thing would remove some of the limitations of the current Virtual PC by allowing direct access to 3D graphics acceleration, etc, but if nothing else the applications would run at native speed.

Back to the original question of this thread, I just saw this:

http://www.betanews.com/article/XP_W...Mac/1137003330

Well, it looks like Windows Vista will work which'll be nice to those switching and those who like to use their mac but also like to run windows programs

http://www.betanews.com/article/XP_W...Mac/1137003330

Very interesting . . . but probably not the last word on this topic.

There are ways around this. For one, grub (a Linux bootloader) both runs on EFI and can boot Windows. Also, EFI has provisions for mimicking a BIOS; whether or not Apple saw fit to include such has yet to be confirmed.

But I still say that dual-booting misses the point. Virtualization is where it's at, baby.

Cheers,

b&

Also, GRUB is OS independent, meaning it supports almost virtually every file system (with the exception the version I am running on my boot disk does not fully support HFS+, but it does support HFS).

Someone has already put x86 os x onto a PC laptop, so I don't see why the reverse can not be done, and put windows on a mac.

http://www.gotstrife.com/?p=32%E2%80%B3

Check out this link, there is actually a pic out there of a sony laptop running x86 mac os x I just couldn't find it.

Unpublished backroom scene after the keynote:

BWAHAHAHA!

It's a darned good thing I wasn't drinking anything, or else you'd owe me a replacement PowerBook, hayne!

Cheers,

b&

meh...he could wait a month after february or so and they'd probably get pretty cheap on ebay ;) :D

It looks like Vista will run on PPC and Intel. I find that somewhat funny.

As for viruses, I believe that Apple's move to Intel is a paradigm shift for personal computing that will allow a much needed increase in 3rd party applications for Mac OSX. This incredible growth in consumer support will undoubtedly increase the number of hackers willing to see if they can exploit OSX.

Where'd you get the idea that Vista will also run on PPC? :confused:

I looked for the article I read. I can't seem to locate it. Seriously, I did read it somewhere. I know that doesn't make a thing "actual factual", but like I said, i thought it was funny.

As for logic behind such a claim, the ONLY real value I can think of is that Windows is now using 3 IBM PPCs in every XBox 360. I can imagine, at the very least, a round table discussion, regarding having their "award winning" (chukle!) OS on there.

It's late, i'll try to locate it tomorrow...er today.

Done.

http://www.gibix.net/dokuwiki/en:projects:sheepshaver

Classic for the Mac-Intel crowd.