Nic Darwin

iBook Clamshell

2010-05-31T22:01:00.002-04:00

Got a new problem : an iBook Clamshell. It works fine, except for the cdrom drive, which I need to install another OS on the hard drive. I wasn't thinking it would be that challenging. It's a 1st generation iBook, with only one USB port (no firewire).

When I discover that the cdrom drive was broken, I just plug my USB DVD drive into it. Pressing [Option] key ([alt] key on a recent Apple keyboard) during booting brings the boot menu where we can choose the boot device. The external drive must be plugged and ready before the computer starts.

In the boot menu, icons change according the OS on it : smiley for Mac OS 1-9, X for Mac OS X, Tux for Linux, something like a happy sun (well it's suppose to be puffy) for OpenBSD and Huxley for Darwin. Mac OS 9 boot but hang when the CD wallpaper is shown. Mac OS X crash during the boot time (it seems that OS X disable the USB port during the boot procedure, which blocks de drive), Tux wasn't able to boot (loop in boot menu), as OpenBSD and NetBSD. The only one that works correctly is Darwin 8.01.

I've tried to boot from OpenFirmware without big success. OpenBSD almost boot. To make it boot, I would need to change config file and create a custom boot device.

USB pendrive doesn't work for me. At least I wasn't able to make the iBook see it as a boot device.

Another solution would be to boot from network. So I config my sawtooth with DHCP, NFS and Bootp services. The bootp keep give me an error and doesn't want to start.

So I've got Darwin working on it, but I need to patch and upgrade many parts to make it useful (8.01 doesn't contains a working X11 desktop, which previous version does. Don't know why.).

For now, I'm patching GCC, which is quite buggy and old in Darwin 8.01 release. It takes a lot of time.

Update : Not enough hd space to patch everything. It's just a tiny 3Gb by default on this generation of iBook. Otherwise, it works great with Darwin in text mode. Code some stuff. But the old and bugged gcc/lib version installed by default with 8.01 is annoying. I still love the design of this computer, not much the color (cyan), but is't a good start to learn internal working of Mach/Darwin. Originally, I was planning to give it to my nephews. It's a pretty study build laptop, good for kids. But since I wasn't able to install a GUI, they won't like it.

PowerBook Wallstreet II find an OS

2010-05-31T21:40:00.000-04:00

I finally got an OS on my PB. I resign myself to install Mac OS 9, but just to be able to use BootX. I first give a try to Ubuntu 6.06. Even if it works, I couldn't recommend anyone to use it since isn't supported anymore : it's an old version and it needs lots of work to make everything works, especially for most recent software. I overwritte my Linux partition with Debian 5.04 + LXDE. At least, it's current and have a lot of packages available in debian repositories. And it works great. Forget to use KDE or Gnome on this type of computer (too old). But LXDE works great. GNUStep could also be used.

iPhone OS internals (part 2)

2010-04-28T21:45:00.000-04:00

I'm still studying iPhone OS. I don't have an iPhone. I don't plan to get one (too expensive and annoyingly closed). But I'm curious.

The iPhone OS Technology Overview give me some hint of the underlying software architecture of the iPhone OS. Yes, it's a Mach kernel. And everything looks pretty similar to Mac OS X, adapted to an embedded system (which means some compromise and too often hacking to fit everything in a smaller package). Everything in an iPhone OS runs with a root account (no other accounts seems to exist). I wasn't able to get the source code of Mach kernel used in the iPhone OS. Some packages of the OS are open source. The strict minimum to compile some C code, but not enough to build a viable OS.

One nice source of info is Daniel Eran Dilger's blog. It looks like he share some Apple gods secrets. Very informative, even if there's some gray area and it's dated of 2007.

Anyway, ARM programming is a world on it's own. I'm still wandering in XNU source code (of x86/ppc), trying to figure out how it works. I'm pretty sure there's a secret sauce in iPhone OS's Mach kernel.

Cube

2010-04-23T08:47:00.000-04:00

I've salvaged a PowerMac Cube from trash sometime ago. The acrylic case is scratched and marked, but the computer works. I've increased the memory and changed the hard drive. Still, it does a hissing that make me almost crazy. The previous owner have added a fan inside the case (the Cube was suppose to be totally quiet). The hissing came from the IDE drive. I've tried different hard drive w/o success and the one in it is suppose to be new.

I would like to put Darwin and GNU/OpenStep on it. Mac OS X Tiger is a little bit slow and I would like to re-create something like a NeXTcube. After all, the web was created on this computer. But the PowerMac G4 Cube looks nicer than the NeXTcube and it's more powerful (well, it was made ten years later). I think it could be still useful with a good (adapted) OS/GUI and some basic tools (web server [Apache], web browser [?], editor [vim]).

I first tried OpenBSD. The basic installation takes a few minutes and I've got all the source code + many ports. OpenBSD offer a port of GNU/OpenStep. But the X server keep crashing all the time with a core dump. Unfortunately, don't have time/patience to debug it right now. For now, Yellow Dog Linux works fine. But it use Enlightenment and RPMs, which is not what I want. Enlightenment is pretty good (especially when you look the source code) but RPMs sucks. Moreover, YDL is based on Red Hat and I don't have all the source code.

Anyway, will do a follow up on the Apple PowerMac G4 Cube later. For now, here a photo of the outside acryclic case after some cleaning :

From PowerMac Cube

iPad my mind

2010-04-21T10:17:00.001-04:00

Lots of folks whine because they don't have an iPad, especially outside US where it won't be available before another awful month. Well, guess what ? Some Chinese guys works hard for a few bucks building the precious gadget (in condition that most iPad buyers wouldn't tolerate). Moreover, all those wonderful tablets trash the planet. So I ask everybody to calm down, get a little bit of respect for the iPad's workers and the planet. You will get one of those Apple product someday. Just be patient. After all, it will be obsolete in 6 to 12 months...

If you can't open it, you don't own it

2010-04-11T11:46:00.000-04:00

The maker manifesto it's quite clear. I tend to take some distance with latest Apple products : as nice as they might look and great features they got, they are less and less user servicable and the software/license are getting more and more closed. When I buy an electronic device, I must be able to open it, put whatever software I want on it, be recyclable, quiet and consume low amount of electricity. An iPad is pretty hard to open and Apple is getting more and more restrictive on their software usage. I must agree with Cory Doctorow : even if most parts of an iPad is recyclable (aluminium, glass, etc.), it will became an e-waste pretty soon since we can't change the battery nor control the software on it. I've got three (yeah 3) OS on my Sansa Sandisk MP3 player. Ok, the UI/control aren't as nice as the one on an iPod, but I can change the battery, add a memory card, choose the supported formats (OGG, MP3, AAC), and, quite easily, change the firmware for a custom one. And the Sansa isn't really open hardware, so imagine what we should be able to do with real open hardware.

iPhone OS Internals

2010-04-08T20:42:00.004-04:00

As much as we can get a good knowledge of inner working of Mac OS X (see the excellent Mac OS X Internals), as much we must speculate on the iPhone OS. We guess that it share same root. After all, XNU and Mach could be ported almost "easily" to ARM platform. And many GNU and BSD tools could also be compiled/adapted for ARM (see NetBSD, OpenBSD and Debian ARMish ports for example). More work is needed for Core Services and Cocoa, but Apple got some of the best engineers, so they can certainly write driver kit code needed and adapt UI elements for those kind of screen/"gpu"/interface.

What mystify me is the general processes handling. In Mac OS X, as far a I know, theren't a master process with a higher priority and power of life and death over all other processes. But in iPhone OS, it seems so. Not all processes are created equals : phone and music process have certainly a higher priority over other app processes. And there's always something that kills bad/crash apps so the iPhone/iPod/iPad won't (or ain't) suppose to crash.

I would find quite intersting to get an inner knowledge, especially in the context of a complex OS on an ARM processor and the promise of multitasking in the coming version 4. But there's always Apple's scarecrows with their software licenses, NDA, patents, lawsuits and so on that makes it less appealing (at least if you don't like to mess up w/ authority or wear a black hat). We could instead take a look at the dying Openmoko, Java flavoured Google's Android or Intel oriented Moblin to get a taste of this kind of knowledge. But it's less appetizing than a red shinny apple...

Forth

2010-04-07T16:38:00.001-04:00

The Forth programming language is a structured language that use reverse polish notation. For some, it will bring back in days of first HP calculators, for others, like me, Postscript and assembler.

So what's reverse polish notation ? Well, if you want to add 2 to 3, you will write it the operand first then the operator :

2 3 + .

(The final dot means process the equation)

If you type the previous code in Open Firmware, then press Enter key, you will get :

2 3 + . 5 ok

If there's an error in the code, the error message will be shown instead of 'ok'. But there's more than simple equations in Forth. Armit Singh have built an Hanoi tower solver in Open Firmware! Even a variant with graphics. In fact, the creator of Forth, Chuck Moore, had planned to use it in a multicore chip.

Open Firmware

2010-04-07T16:22:00.000-04:00

Open Firmware is an open standard to handle basic operation on a computer, a little bit like the BIOS. It was used in Apple's PowerPC computers (now, replaced by EFI in MacIntel). You have access to it by holding Command+Option+O+F keys when booting the computer.

The Old World versions (1.x, 2.x) suffer of many bugs, which can't be fixed, but the latest version, 3.0, used in Mac computers is more interesting.

It's quite powerful and we can have some fun to play with hardware in a booting shell. The language used is Forth, which I will discuss in another post. The devices are shown in a tree that you can navigate like files and folders in a typical OS. Each device got his own properties and methods (named 'words'). There's some environnement variables that you can set (at least if you have a good PMU battery), such as a welcome message or the device on which the system must boot. Apple got some technical notes if you want to learn more about it.

From Powerbook G3 Wallstreet

You can grab source code of some implementations of Open Firmware, if you want to learn how it works.

PowerBook G3 Wallstreet II

2010-04-07T15:53:00.002-04:00

The PowerBook G3 Wallstreet II, also nicknamed PDQ, is a revision of the first one (obviously). It is based on PowerPC 750 (aka G3), which was quite powerful at this time.

From Powerbook G3 Wallstreet

You can watch the video of the intro of the first generation. Well, sadly, now we don't see CEO/CTO demonstrate the superioty of their product by a live comparison as they did.

But that's not what I like about this product. More the design. So I put a bunch of photos to show what's it looks like. Even if it looks bulky in comparison with actual notebook, there's some features that are missing in modern laptop.

First of all, the robustness. After all, it still working after 12 years! For sure the PMU battery is out, but other than that everything works. Moreover, we can actually do most of the maintenance on it : change battery, hard drive, memory. We can't say the same for many laptops build as a throw away after usage. Some doesn't last more than a year! It's quite a shame when you need to take apart all the laptop to add memory or the battery is molded inside the case. I hope, naively, that some day laws will constrain manufacturers to make their products servicable and recyclable.

There's some nice touch also, such as plastic covers on ports, battery charge indicator, hot swapable bays, latches in those bays to release the keyboard, screen that goes at 180 degrees and the full black finish.

From Powerbook G3 Wallstreet

For me, the main problem is that I can't run the OS that I want...

Backlight problem on PB Wallstreet II in Mac OS X

2010-04-07T15:31:00.001-04:00

As said in previous post, there's a problem with backlight vs Mac OS X on Powerbook G3 Wallstreet. It seems to be a bug in video driver. The backlight can be triggered in open firmware :

backlight-on
backlight-off

after choosing pmu device.

I've put a (bad) video on YouTube that show the problem in Mac OS X on boot.

PowerBook G3

2010-04-07T11:34:00.001-04:00

Something we can't remove from Apple is their well design computer (in the post '97 era). I especially like the PowerBook G3 : black with a white glowing Apple logo. They look wonderful, comparing to Compaq laptop of this era. I bought a used one on ebay for 40$. And I painfully discover the Old vs New World...

Computers made by Apple before the first iMac (pre-1998) got a ROM chip that contains a basic OS, somewhat like the 8-bit computers (Apple II, Commodore 64, CoCo). The system in the ROM of those Apple computers is quite basic : searching a OS to boot from. The OS should be System x.x from Apple. Since it's a ROM chip, you can't reprogram it (new world macs got a flashrom, so you can change it and different OS). Of course, I want to run something like Linux, OpenBSD or Darwin on my PB G3 : it's not lightning fast, but capable system, at least for command line and simple GUI. I want to program the system in C and ASM (I love PowerPC chips, but that's another story).

My exact model is a Wallstreet II 233Mhz, with a 30Gb HD (obviously not the original one) and 192Mb of RAM.

I've tried hard to install Linux, Darwin, NetBSD and OpenBSD on it w/o success. I don't have the original disks nor a System 7-8-9 install CD. It looks like it will be just a pretty paperweight. I finally managed to install Mac OS X jaguar with a flashlight : there's a bug in ATI driver which close the backlight of the screen. So I can use it, at least after pressing the brightness button after the initial boot and until the computer goes to sleep (when it woke, the screen will be black, because the driver won't re-enable the backlight).

From Powerbook G3 Wallstreet

Some folks have more success, but, as far as I know, they have System 7-8-9 installed on it before changing to Linux, Mac OS X Panther (not officially supported, but at least the ATI bug is fixed). Maybe I could install NetBSD from the network/NFS drive (which I haven't tried).

I wasn't able to install developer tools yet (my old CD is busted), so I can't program in C or ASM. But I can program in Forth (that's another story) and I've now had a PB G3 Pismo on which I've got OpenBSD.

Paleontology

2010-04-07T10:54:00.001-04:00

I confess : I doesn't care about Apple in the pre-Mac OS X era. Using a cooperative multitasking OS, no thanks. I've already given a try w/ Windows 3.x. System 6-7-8-9 looks aged and I was frustrated of not having a terminal windows [it will be much faster to do file handling] (I was using Linux with KDE 2.x). But when I saw the presentation of Mac OS X in 2000, a dream come true : the best of both worlds. Good, stable UI and powerful underhood OS. It takes a long time before I got enough money to buy an Apple laptop (I was wanting a PowerBook 12", but I've just got enough money to buy an iBook 12" in sale).

The iBook came with Mac OS 10.2 (Jaguar) [I will tell the story of my iBook in another post]. One thing that pleased me in Mac OS X was it's openess : I could run many BSD and Linux software, I've got good free developpers tools, Apple provides a lot of documentation for it and, moreover, the underhood of the OS was open sourced under the Darwin umbrella. Even if I doesn't plan to modify a software, I always enjoy having the source code, at least to judge the quality of it. And there's some confidence that I won't be lost in the sea if the software suddenly disappear : I could rebuild it or correct it to keep using it if I need so.

Years later, I managed to install Darwin 8.01 on a PowerMac G4. At the beginning, Apple release an ISO cd image of the system (they are still available, hidden somewhere on their website). It was quite disappointing : not so much stable and needs a lot of tweaks to make a really usable system. Some people build something from it worthwhile : the now defunct OpenDarwin, from which PureDarwin tries to do a follow up, and GNU-Darwin, which build a free version in the sense of the FSF. But it's quite hard to work in (against?) Apple's playground.

That said, Darwin still got an attractive power : XNU microkernel, Mach kernel and other great packages from Apple. Plenty of good stuff to study for an OS aficionado.

Next post : PowerBook G3.

Paléontologie

2010-04-01T21:33:00.004-04:00

Je dois confesser que je ne m'intéressais pas du tout aux produits d'Apple avant qu'ils annoncent leur passage vers un système d'exploitation à base Unix. Auparavant, un Mac n'était qu'une curiosité qui devenait rapidement une frustration. Je cherchais le moyen d'avoir une fenêtre de terminal pour accélérer le tout. L'interface me semblait plus un frein et devenait rapidement un fouillis d'icônes. Puis, ce n'était plus du tout au goût du jour : pas de réel multitâche, interface désuet, etc. À comparer à KDE 3 ou autre gestionnaire de fenêtres Linux de l'époque, les affres du temps commençaient à se faire sentir. Mais la venue d'un kernel XNU avec une base BSD allait tout changer. Et l'interface graphique : enfin quelque chose de joli à regarder. J'ai longtemps observé les modèles sur le site web et en vitrine avant d'avoir les moyens d'en acheter. Bon, maintenant, j'ai possédé quelques Macs (ce n'est pas une maladie que l'on attrape, la passion des produits Apple ?). Je demeure toujours mi-figue, mi-raisin devant la pomme.

J'ai commencé à utilise Mac OS X à la version 10.2. Venant du monde Linux, j'étais habitué à un certain confort offert par KDE (Gnome n'était pas aussi avancé à l'époque). Et j'étais frustré de ne pas retrouver certains éléments dans Mac OS X : bureaux virtuels, navigation dans les dossiers efficaces, terminal puissant, etc. Bon, les dernières versions ont corrigé la majorité de ces lacunes. N'empêche qu'il y a toujours une facette qui est déficiente. Je dirais même qu'elle empire avec le temps...

Un aspect qui m'intéressait en particulier dans Mac OS X était l'ouverture : comptabilité avec GNU et BSD, code source disponible pour la majorité de la couche Darwin, documentation. Apple offrait même des images ISO de Darwin. Mais la première fois que j'ai installé le Darwin d'Apple (8.01, il faut fouiller, mais il est encore disponible), j'ai rapidement déchanté : ça fonctionnait plutôt mal sur mon PowerMac G4. À vrai dire, ce n'était pas du tout stable. Depuis, Apple ne donne même plus la peine de créer de telles images disques. Il faut rapiécer chacun des paquets, en croisant les doigts que tout soit là (et croire au Père Noël).

Plusieurs ont tenté de bâtir un système complet à partir de la base de Darwin. OpenDarwin a fini par mourir au combat. GNU-Darwin est dans un état incertain. Le petit dernier, PureDarwin, issu des cendres d'OpenDarwin, n'a pas dépassé le stade d'ébauche. Difficile de se coltiner au monde Open Source auprès d'Apple. La pomme se garde toujours les meilleurs cartes dans son jeu et les quelques vaillants qui ont tenter de bricoler un système l'ont fait avec grand peine et succès plus que mitigé.

N'empêche que Darwin possède un pouvoir attractif. Comme le naturaliste anglais, il soulève à la fois l'ire et l'admiration.

Prochain billet, le PowerBook G3.

At the beginning...

2010-03-29T20:54:00.001-04:00

No, no, no. I won't talk about evolution theory. Well, maybe...

This blog is more about Darwin, the basic OS under Mac OS X. It's a group of software, tools and kernel from Apple, GNU, BSD, Apache freely available and open source :-)

Well, I will also discuss about other aspect of Apple technologies. I've got a predilection for the command line. It's nice to get beautiful icons and tremendous graphical effects, but sometimes nothing is better to learn that to mess up with some low level stuff. You've got a powerful feeling. Something that can't be said with some other monopolistic OS...