Leopard Server hardware requirements?

[John C. Welch]

On 10/02/2007 15:10 PM, "Markus Hitter" <mah at jump-ing.de> wrote:

>>>>>> And, just for the record, phasing out old equipment is good for
>>>>>> everyone, as it means less legacy code in the OIS to support old
>>>>>> hardware.
>> It reminds me of the famous quote "What's good for General Motors is
>>> good for the country."
>
>> The ability to say "No" is critical in any successful large - scale
>> project.
>> I fail to see why that magically doesn't apply here, nor why not
>> being able
>> to run Leopard on everything that ever supported every version of
>> Mac OS X
>> is some kind of problem.

> Up to Tiger, any version of Mac OS X runs on hardware as old as a
> PowerMac 7600. The only reason you can't just pop in the Installer
> DVD is, Apple has put consciously a few barriers into place to
> prohibit running Tiger on non-FireWire hardware.

Not without hacking the boot process, and it was not supported in any way,
shape or form. As well, the only configuration it ran not really slow in was
pretty much CLI only, and for that, why spend the time? Linux is your friend
for that.


> Once you work around these barriers, things run slowly but smoothly.
> Unix's hardware abstractions easily manage all the details.

Until you needed support of any kind. Then it's not so nice. For a science
project, sure. For something you rely on? Not so smart.

> So, the idea, Apple would clean out just a single line of code as
>soon as some type of hardware is no longer supported is ... without
>evidence. In fact, they will add code here and there to make sure the
>software requirements match the advertised ones. More chances for
>bugs instead of less.

Really? Care to tell me how supporting ADB until the end of time will
increase reliability? How about Classic. How does eternal classic support on
PPC increase reliability. Why limit it there? Why not insist on booting OS 9
on a G5, after all, it's just software. If that logic is correct, than
*every* argument for rewriting older Carbon code in Cocoa is so much
fantasy, and indeed, newer ways of writing code should be avoided, as they
would be less reliable, since they have more features which create more
chances for bugs.

By that logic, the older versions of Mac OS X are more reliable than the
current ones, and I cannot WAIT to see you prove THAT one.

>> Will your Mac OS X 10.4 machines burst into flame on Leopard's
>> release date?

>No. But with the release of Leopard a lot of people will either have
>to toss their older Mac to the trash, have to live with a mixed
>Leopard/Tiger environment, have to stick with all Tiger or have to
>hack the installer DVD. Just because Apple advertises a randomly
>choosen limit of 867 MHz.

Right, it's all randomly chosen by marketing. There's no technical issue
whatsoever. Why, an old ATI RAGE 128 will run Leopard just as well as an
X1600, and anyone thinking different is *obviously* falling for marketing
lies.

That may be a good argument for home use, but it falls apart anywhere else.
First of all, if your network is currently running fine, Leopard won't make
it run more finererer. Nor will Leopard make a poorly-operating network run
magically better.

Secondly, performance differences between even G5s and MacTel boxes is
significant. Compared to older G4s? Not even close, and that's sans GUI.
Compile speeds *alone* are in different universes, and this holds true for
pretty much all functions. This is due to not just clock speed, but bus
speed, memory speed, memory capacity, etc. You're not going to find much of
anything that even a slow MacTel isn't, at absolute worst, slightly better
at than a G4. My MacBook Pro destroys my Xserve G4, far above what the
830MHz difference in CPU speeds should account for, and it does well
compared to my Xserve G5, even with slower CPUs. The G4's bus speed is
*glacial* compared to a G5 or a MacTel, and that is not something to dismiss
as "randomly chosen limits".

The only reason they'd have to "trash" their systems is if they had a clear
need to upgrade every single system the day leopard comes out. Even in the
case of such a bizarre need, I cannot imagine "they" wouldn't even consider
the need for new hardware.

-- 
John C. Welch         Writer/Analyst
Bynkii.com              Mac and other opinions
jwelch at bynkii.com