Click Here for YouTube video of 25 different OSes running simultaneously on an Apple iMac!
Posted on 07/31/2015 10:36:47 PM PDT by Swordmaker
Think running two operating systems at the same time is clever? How about twenty-five?
Hypervisors or virtual machine monitors (VMM) are computer software, firmware or hardware that create and runs virtual machines.
While this demo has no practical purpose, it does help to illustrate how clean and efficient are VMware’s hypervisors.
Of course, VMWare makes one of the most widely-used software hypervisors for the Mac, Fusion Pro 7.
Ok you two, get a room.
It is possible, but not easy. VMWare works like it does because all of the OSes run on Intel hardware; to run OS 9, you need to emulate PowerPC hardware. SheepShaver is the most popular open-source PPC emulator.
No, usconservative, Apple is not running commodity components. Apple uses premium components which they order to their specifications. The parts that Apple includes in their products are from the top 5% to 10% of the quality runs of the manufacturers they purchase their components from. For example, Western Digital RED drives are culled from the top 5% to 10% of their drive manufacturing and are sold for NAS use. Apple's hard drives are selected from the same runs and will have Apple's logo placed on them, indicating they have passed that quality. Similarly, the RAM Apple selects to purchase is only from the top manufacturers.
Look at the engineering that goes into Apple products. . . it is superb. The Apple laptops are machined out of a single block of aircraft aluminum. They are not stamped. This makes them stronger. The metal is not just any aluminum but a far higher, more expensive alloy than just off-the-shelf aluminum, but one smelted to Apple's specifications. The component layout, even battery design is designed to maximize both cooling and battery volume for battery life. . . giving Apple the longest battery times laptops in the industry.
The fact is that if you compare Apples to Apples, in other words top end Windows PCs from top end makers such as Lenovo, Dell, Fujitsu, and HP with the Apple laptops, you will find that the Apple offering is often not only competitive, but less expensive. For example in PC Magazine's rundown of the 10 best laptops of 2015, the two lightest were the Apple MacBook and the Dell Latitude 13 7000. Let's compare them:
Dell Latitude 13 7000 2 in 1 (9/2014)
Apple MacBook (4/2015)
So the Apple offering is $300 less expensive, which is enough to by an Apple iPad Mini to give single advantage the Dell might have in that it comes apart into a tablet.
You can also buy a slightly heavier and larger screened Apple Macbook Air for as low as $829.00, which is what I am posting to FR from right now. Or a brand new 11.6" one with a 128 GB SSD for only $849. The 13 inch is only $100 more. So your price guessing is a bit off. . .
How can that be? I think you are misunderstanding Bootcamp, TexasGator.
You boot into Windows with Bootcamp, and it is a 100% Intel Windows computer with superior hardware. Where would there be a performance hit? I've never seen such a performance hit when booted that way. I can't see why there even could be one.
Bootcamp merely tells the hardware where to find the Operating System from which it will boot. The hardware doesn't care whether it is OS X, some version of Windows, native UNIX, or Linux.
Bootcamp does not stick around for any of the Operating Systems to "run under," TexasGator.
It depends. VMWare is a better virtual machine, but Parallels integrates better if you want your Microsoft Windows apps to work transparently with OS X on the Mac's desktop. in Coherence mode, Windows apps can be on your Mac Dock just like OS X apps and start normally without the user even knowing he or she is using Windows. . . except of course for the appearance of the app having a Windows look and not complying with Apple's menuing standards.
I’m an SCCM engineer that manages an environment of 87 Macs and 2000 PC’s. I know quite well what I talk about. My observations are strictly from viewing the provided pictures. I looked carefully to see if there were asset tags.
Yeah, I’m just not a fan of the stability compared to running in VMware.
Well, Apple really doesn't care what you do as a hobby. . . just don't go into the business of making them and selling them. Apple will legally slap you silly if you do, ala Psystar.
If you decide to make one, go for top quality components. There are several sites that can give you advice. However getting more modern OS X versions is not as easy as it once was because Apple no longer sells copies at all. It is a pirate approach completely now and is in complete violation of the law. There is no way you can purchase a legal copy of OS X Lion, Mountain Lion, Mavericks, Yosemite, or El Capitan without buying a Mac capable of running it. Buying a used Mac would get you a legal copy, but the license still says the OS is only for use on an Apple branded computer. That will be between you and your conscience.
The good news is that you can boot OS X from external sources including Flash drives and even Network drives. . . so it is possible. There will be some functionality that will be missing from a Hackintosh, but most things will be fine.
Sorry, that is OS X running on that MacBook Pro. . . not any version of Windows. Another of the anti-Apple brigade on Freerepublic adamantly maintained that these Macs were just being operated as "dumb terminals" because that was all they were capable of doing. What a load of BS.
“Bootcamp does not stick around for any of the Operating Systems to “run under,” TexasGator. “
I would suggest you do your research on Bootcamp, Swordmaker.
It HAS to be ‘sticking around’ since there is a tool bar icon to click to switch partictions.
There is a little thing about the bios emulator which isn’t as optimized as the pc bios for the hardware running under windows.
Where was aMorePerfectUnion "hurling insults" in his reply to you? He said HE was an unpaid "Microsuck unpaid tech", not you. Where is the personal insult to you? It looks to me as if you embraced the sobriquet, accepted it, and made it your own.
Both laptops having i7 processors, 1TB HDD's and 4GB of memory.
One of the things you forget is that the Apple comes with an entire suite of software, not crapware and try-it-on-ware. Included is an office suite which includes Pages a MS Word file compatible word processor, Numbers, a spread sheet that is Excel compatible, and Keynote, which is in many ways superior to Powerpoint. Also included is Garageband, Calendar that integrates with all Apple devices, Messages, FaceTime which communicates with all other Apple devices, Photo for managing and editing your images, iBooks, iBooks author, TextEdit (also with full Word compatibility), iMovie for making your own videos, and quite a few others. These are not cripple ware but full feature software.
As I showed above, the two lightest in The 10 Best Laptops of 2015, that even comparing two very similar laptops, the Apple was $300 less expensive.
What I did not show was that I could have made the price exactly equal in the Education price by selecting an upgraded Apple MacBook. . . and the processors would have matched exactly!
Both the Dell Latitude and the Apple Macbook would have sold for $1549 with an identical 1.2GHz Intel processor, but Apple's MacBook would have come with a 512GB SSD while the Dell would still just have a 256GB SSD . . . and the Apple still has a far better RETINA display than the Dell's HD display.
Commodity components in every Mac Notebook or (God help me here..) a Dell Laptop include:
Intel i3, i5 or i7 Processors
DDR3 Memory
HDD/SSD
The above are common commodity parts found in any Mac or Windows Laptop. IMO there is no significant difference between a "top 5%" Intel Processor that goes into a Windows based laptop or a Mac laptop. They run at the same clock speed, etc.. I don't buy the "top 5%" argument.
You pointed out something I'd forgotten specific to the Retina displays (which are in fact better than a Windows based laptop.) Not sure if I give a crap about Mac's being machined from a single block of aluminum. Drop it and it's still going to break something, just like any other laptop. (Would love to see a drop test between a Mac and any other laptop manufacturer, don't think either would survive a five foot drop flat on the bottom of the case, or on any corner.)
Indeed you may be correct, Militant. The original source story on those photos said they were personal Macs. . . but I see what you are referring to. I also see older and newer model Macs of various vintages, note the older black Macbook in the back left. . . and they are definitely running OS X. Point taken. There is a mix in the room so it appears they engineers are allowed to select which computer they prefer. . . thanks for the catch. The point still stands that scientists and engineers still use Macs and OS X.
I prefer VMWare as well. . . it's a more professional approach but for users who need an occasional Windows app in a Mac environment, Parallels is better. It works. However, occasionally Parallels just decides to freeze out of the blue. . . I've never had a VMWare install do that.
Luckily the Windows app is a non-critical use. . . and we can restart Parallels and everything is fine. It's just a pain in the posterior every couple of weeks to a month or so. It makes it not worth the effort to replace it with VMWare.
According to Tom's Hardware Guide WD Red drives are best suited for NAS applications.
Western Digital Black is the performance drive line.
So if Apple's using Western Digital Red drives, looks to me like they're doing their customers a disservice. Especially since Western Digital Red drives look to be a few bucks cheaper than the Western Digital Black drives.
Personally, I use SSD for my OS, Western Digital Black for my VM's and applications, then WD Blue for NAS Storage as I'm not concerned about speed for anything on my NAS devices.
I'm not projecting, US. . . I'm just curious what you found objectionable in aMorePerfectUnion very civil and reasonable reply to you?
I know, Apple is not necessarily looking for "fastest". . . they are looking for reliable. Most Apple Macs boot from an SSD now. What they want are drives that will last for a long time in a workstation environment. The WD Black drives are also from the top 5% of quality and designed for higher speed. You will find those and other makers' top 5% drives on the higher end Apple computers. . . and you will find SSDs and hybrid drives in Apple's as well.
I was using that as an example for my explanation of how Apple selects its components, not that Apple actually uses Western Digital RED drives preferentially, just that they specify drives of that quality in both the slower and faster speeds.
A short time ago, a shipment of supposedly high-end 3TB HDs from one manufacturer were delivered to Apple, they did not give the makers name. . . and some (under ten, I hear) of that shipment failed. Apple recalled ALL of the laptops and replaced all of the drives, recovering the data for the customers. Good thing that 3TB drives are not a standard install size and are a special order upgrade. . . the recall number was not huge.
The Seagate drive debacle of the last couple years has been bad. . . I've heard that some have as high as an 80% failure rate in under two years. NOT good. . . and some of the lower end PCs have those drives in them. One of my doctors bought two 3TB external backup drives with these seagate drives. BOTH failed in under six months and are unrecoverable except by a data recovery service. One will spin for about two minutes before stopping. . . the other, maybe 30 seconds.
UH, they do survive quite a bit of abuse. . . when the Macbook Air was introduced at the MacWorld conference several years ago, Apple had a LADDER of them which about a 120 lbs model was climbing up and down. Every ten minutes or so, they'd take one out and replace it with another and put the one that had been a rung on the ladder out for people to use on the counter. Since the ladder had about seven rungs, each MacBook Air was used as a rung for about an hour of being stepped on, up and down, several times a minute as the model climbed up and down the ladder. I challenge you to put any Windows laptop into that ladder.
Apple MacBooks have fallen out of planes and survived. . . or off the tops of speeding cars when their owners have been stupid. . . and survived with only cosmetic damage. Some I will grant you did not survive the falls, but a lot survived.
Aircraft aluminum is TOUGH stuff.
Just this week I posted an article on FR about an iPhone that survived essentially unscathed after falling 9,300 feet from an airplane. Again, machined from the same aircraft aluminum the Apple laptops are made from.
However, lets discuss RESALE value. Used Macbook Airs, for example, are routinely sold by their owners after four of five years of use for between $300 and $750 and up, depending on the screen size and SSD capacity. You can check this on eBay, if you like. How many Windows laptops sell for that much after four to five years? I am pretty sure the number is close to none. Hell, Just a few months ago I was offered over $500 WHOLESALE from a dealer for my soon to be eight year old 24" Intel iMac who had a buyer who was willing to pay $750 for it. Again, you can check eBay and Craig's list to see what these older Macs are going for. . . and you will NOT find older Windows computers selling anywhere near that. My office sold our eight year old Mac Pro for $1000 which could not be upgraded to the later OS X versions and we bought a four year newer one for $1200 that could be upgraded to the latest and greatest OS X version. Our original Mac Pro cost us new $2499 eight years before, sold for $1000, cost per year to own it, $137.38. Chicken Feed.
So, take that hypothetical $1000 Mac, and subtract the end of use recovery when you sell it and it suddenly is only $500 or maybe even only $400 out of pocket over the life of owning it, because you recover a lot because Macs retain their value. Windows PCs get thrown away. If you buy a $750 MacBook Air and four years down the road you sell it for $350, your cost is really only $350. Buy a $400 Windows laptop and two years from now, you throw it away and buy another $400 Windows laptop.
That tool bar icon's a link to a Utility, TexasGator. It is not running in the background or supporting Windows. It is not necessary for the running of Windows. All the utility does is re-direct the computer hardware to a different OS to Boot.
MacBook Pro is the best performing Windows laptop
BY PETER COHEN — Thursday, Apr 25, 2013 at 9:30 am EDT
The MacBook Pro was judged to be the "best performing" Windows laptop, according to a new study by PC services company Soluto. Soluto used "frustration analytics" to make the determination, according to Brooke Crothers at CNet.
"Frustration analytics," in this case, tracks the crapware that PC makers put on machines fresh from the factory. Apple doesn't make new MacBook owners jump through hoops to have a useable machine, so the MacBook Pro wins.
Soluto feels their comparison is valid because it looks at computers used in the field, as opposed to how they can optimally be set up to run. Other "frustration metrics" measured by Soluto include crashes per week, hangs per week, average boot time, and frequency of "Blue Screens of Death."
Getting Windows working on the Mac takes some extra steps, though - installing Boot Camp or virtualization software and a fresh copy of Windows, for example. Soluto also dings Apple for possible driver issues.
Do you use Windows on a Mac? Are you doing it with Boot Camp or virtualization software? How's your experience, compared to a regular PC laptop?
Frankly, most of us are not interested in running Windows either way. We are glad to shut the Windows experience. The vast majority of Mac users CHOSE to leave Windows behind for good and well considered reasons.
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