Kernel Extension Horror

Posted by: sn00p

Kernel Extension Horror - 07/04/2005 19:41

There I was, merilly hacking away the apple USB CDC example to try and get my smartphone working on os x.

I then had the bright idea of installing the USB developer extension so I could log the data. After a bit of fiddling I then decided to restore the original extension back and on next reboot the powerbook informed me that the extension wasn't valid and that it wasn't loaded. Eek.

Of course, the keyboard & mouse on the powerbook are USB devices so I had a major problem!

What's really amazing is that I reinstalled off of the dvd and did the "keep user stuff" option. Came back an hour or so later and everything (barring a few system updates) was back up and running, wifi & MSN had even logged in.

Well impressed.

Suffice to say I think I'll be doing my driver debugging on my desktop mac from now on!
Posted by: siberia37

Re: Kernel Extension Horror - 08/04/2005 11:15

<sic>You mean you can actually do programming on Macs? </sic>
Seriously, sounds like Macs are getting more like Linux boxes every day- except without the headaches and unforgiving nature of Linux.
Posted by: sn00p

Re: Kernel Extension Horror - 08/04/2005 11:38

Quote:
<sic>You mean you can actually do programming on Macs? </sic>
Seriously, sounds like Macs are getting more like Linux boxes every day- except without the headaches and unforgiving nature of Linux.


To be honest I've not done any GUI stuff (other than "hello world") on OS X yet, I've got a book and I'm currently reading it. I have to say I'm not entirely convinced about the "interface builder" style of designing apps (outlets & such - drag and drop connections), but that's because every gui I've ever programmed has been message based - my comfort zone!

Still trying to get my head around objective-c as well!

I know somebody who switched from linux to OS X a couple of months back and now wonders why he spent the last 4 years "wasting his time" with linux!
Posted by: drakino

Re: Kernel Extension Horror - 08/04/2005 15:25

Quote:
Seriously, sounds like Macs are getting more like Linux boxes every day


Well the core of the OS is Darwin, a fully open sourced BSD OS that runs on both PPC and x86. OS X ships with quite a few Unix tools in it including Apache when "personal web sharing" is turned on, Samba for windows file sharing, and an X11 application to allow X11 apps to run in Aqua. Beyond that, projects like Fink bring in the majority of other open source programs for Unix platforms.

The top half (Aqua and other GUI components) are the closed source bits, but a few things are open. Safari is based off KHTML out of Konquerer, and the next iChat is adding in pieces of Jabber.

OS X is really just a continuation of NeXTStep, with many classic Mac OS touches. Apple wanted to replace Mac OS with something more modern, and was either considering NeXTStep or BeOS. Thankfully they chose NeXTStep, as this brought back Steve Jobs. I think without a drastic change in their leadership, Apple would be gone today. For any OS X owners, check out Jobs showing NeXTStep 3.0. Definitly lots of things there that still exist in Mac OS X.

For a few of my work friends, OS X is quickly turning into their *nix of choice, usually on a portable like the iBook.
Posted by: wfaulk

Re: Kernel Extension Horror - 08/04/2005 17:03

Still, I would like to have seen BeOS make it. It was a very nice OS, other than the choice of C++ for a system language.
Posted by: tfabris

Re: Kernel Extension Horror - 08/04/2005 18:19

Yeah, I loved the simplicity of BeOS. I wish it could have made it, too.
Posted by: TigerJimmy

Re: Kernel Extension Horror - 09/04/2005 17:50

I remember drooling over the NeXT boxes at a tech fair in engineering school in about '89 or so. I really wanted one of those machines. A personal desktop computer with a real multitasking OS. How cool.

Of course, in those days the only application of any use that ran on it was Mathematica. I bought a Mac.