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Java SE 6 For Mac OS X
Posted by
timothy
on Sat May 03, 2008 03:11 PM
from the hot-x-rated-java dept.
from the hot-x-rated-java dept.
wchatam writes "After a long delay, Apple has finally released a version of Java 6 for OS X. 64-bit Intel Macs are starting to see this pushed out via Software Update, but there has not been an announcement for when 32-bit Intel and PowerPC Mac users will get their versions."
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Somewhat old. (Score:2)
I guess it could be a reason which makes it 64-bit only aswell, or they just considered the other platforms to old to care, but that kind of suck. Pretty normal in Apple-land to consider old OS versions obsulete thought so maybe it's true for hardware aswell?
(Never mind the Apple fanboys which says that a G3 are still future proof.... Or how macs don't crash (mine crashed today for instance, I can somewhat understand it since Safari usually pick up
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I wasn't able to function in OSX with 1gb, so I had to wipe the system and install Ubuntu. Overall, a mac for business was a bad idea since I had a poorly supported, over priced linux box in the end.
After spending a year around an all mac shop, I noticed people just didn't say anything about something not working until a solution was brought forward, then a collective 'OMG finally!' would be felt.
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In our case Macs are very much the right tool for the job. Those in the company who used linux desktops and laptops spent far more time dealing with application and configuration issues. They've all switched and they're far more productive and com
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Even if I close all tabs in Safari the piece of crap use even MORE ram, and for what? What is cached? There is no undo for closed tabs in Safari. What is it storing in my RAM? Except memory leaks? Please tell me!
http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=542426&cid=23286992 [slashdot.org]
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I've got 4GB of ram in my mac and 1GB in my G4. Both run just fine.
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Here you have a screenshot from my MBP 16:25 today, I had my browser running and had run Google Earth, quit it and I got this kind of graphics glitches, the stuff to the right is spotlight. The machine was very slow as soon as there was a line switch in a text area and in the end it halted completely so I cold rebooted.
http://img291.imageshack.us/img291/8727/bild82ch6.png [imageshack.us]
I quit firefox at 18.34, it used 841 MB of ram:
http://img240.imageshack.us/img240/550 [imageshack.us]
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The only issue I've ever seen is too many flash animations running simultaneously. But that only drained CPU, not RAM, and is very rarely a problem since flash's CPU
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I don't think the sites are anything special, www.stylesearch.se, www.youtube.com and earlier www.spraydate.se and such. They do have
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Here you have a screenshot from my MBP 16:25 today, I had my browser running and had run Google Earth, quit it and I got this kind of graphics glitches, the stuff to the right is spotlight. The machine was very slow as soon as there was a line switch in a text area and in the end it halted completely so I cold rebooted.
http://img291.imageshack.us/img291/8727/bild82ch6.png [imageshack.us]
I'm fairly certain that this is not a software problem. It looks like you have a problem with the video hardware on your computer which is causing slowdowns, crashes, and video corruption. I would bring this system in for repair as soon as possible because this problem might cause problems with other components in your machine, as well as data corruption and loss.
Overall I've found Mac OS X to be a fairly stable operating system and the Mac hardware to be pretty solid but things do go wrong. This is alm
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The problem with a repair is that there are no Apple stores in Sweden so I may be without computer for like a month or something, which suck of course.
Or, wait, I get it. (Score:2)
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Never mind the Apple fanboys which says that a G3 are still future proof.... Or how macs don't crash (mine crashed today for instance, I can somewhat understand it since Safari usually pick up like 800 MB of ram and I only have 2GB and I had run Google Earth aswell. And if the machine runs out of ram you get issues.
The Mac G3s are as "future proof" a any older processor can get. Apple has continued with every release of Mac OS X to support the PowerPC processors and they will probably continue to do so for at least a while longer. Even when Apple stops producing Mac OS X for PowerPC you can still keep on running whatever version of Mac OS X you currently have on it. Yes, eventually people will stop producing PowerPC binaries which will run on the G3 but by then that machine will be so outdated you're probably bett
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A G3 _IS_ outdated, OS X is the most heavy OS I've ever used, Windows XP would live very happy on this 2.2GHz C2D, 2GB ram MBP. I don't say there is anything weird or wrong with G3 being outdated, 1GHz P3s is aswell. It's just the "omg macs live forever"-bs which is wrong. And even more s
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A G3 _IS_ outdated, OS X is the most heavy OS I've ever used, Windows XP would live very happy on this 2.2GHz C2D, 2GB ram MBP.
Probably because Windows XP is a six-and-a-half year old operating system, whereas Leopard was released six months ago. A more reasonable comparison would be either to compare XP to Mac OS X 10.0.4, or to compare Leopard to Windows Vista (but which version? I'd go with Ultimate).
Windows XP's system requirements are rooted in the cutting-edge technology of 2001, with a few increases on the way thanks to the three service packs, whereas Leopard was designed for the current and previous generation of hardware
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I won't say that macs don't crash, but if they are crashing on a regular basis something is wrong. Right before Leopard came out, my dual G4 was crashing on a daily (if not more basis). Since I knew I was about to install a new OS, I waited until Leopard was out before I did an OS install. I threw in a new IDE drive, installed Leopard, migrated data off of the old HD and things have been smooth ever since. If you mac crashes fairly often, then you either need to troubleshoot it or go for a fresh install. I
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Of course the plan failed as those people found the story and abuse their moderation powers without reading a single line.
In reality, this is big news. This is the only Java which is tied to single variant of single vendor's CPU along with single OS point release.
Win2K which is abandoned by its own Vendor
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However, if you think any mainstream Mac user is going to want to run X11-based Java apps on their system, you must be insane.
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Letter of apology (Score:2, Funny)
We're very sorry that unenlightened members of our organization have ported this abomination to your platform. I'm quite sure that you understand that large organizations often have rogue elements working against the organization's best interests from the inside. I assure you that we're working tirelessly to end the Java scourge. In the meantime, we offer our most sincere apologies not only to the Mac community, but to everyone who has been forced to use a Java application throughout hi
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Dear Sun,
Apology not accepted. We might have forgiven you for Java, but we'll never forgive you for NFS....
Sincerely,
Mac Users
Re:Letter of apology (Score:5, Insightful)
It's getting really old. At first it was stupidly amusing, now it's just stupid.
Java is a powerful, performant (by far moreso than the current batch of oh-so-trendy interpreted languages), cross-platform, *open-source* set of technologies. This suggests to me that it offers a lot to users of all platforms, especially open-source ones. In fact, it doesn't just suggest this to me. It does offer a lot to users of all platforms, and has been doing so for quite some time now. The fact that Slashdot has now become a playground for groundlessly insulting "Java" in the hopes of scoring a few mod points from the (as usual) hopelessly juvenile Slashdot moderators, makes me sad.
I know it's not trendy to bust into your acerbic sarcasm-filled world with my serious comment here. But somehow I doubt there are many people (aside from a few hard-core
Go poke fun at BASIC or something. Leave Java alone.
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Java6 for Intel 64, and now what? (Score:5, Interesting)
When Apple brought out OS X in 2001, it was all smiles as the system came with free developer tools, a Java-Cocoa API that allowed you to use Java to write native Cocoa apps as well as a C/C++ API that also allowed you to write native Mac apps.
The problem was that the Java-Cocoa api was buggy from the start, apart from having very slow response on a, at the time, very slow user interface. Apple never fixed some of the worst bugs in critical objects (PDF objects for example), and finally, in 2005, dropped further development for the Java-Cocoa bridge altogether.
Last year, Apple dropped further development for the C/C++ API, which is having a major impact on big applications like Adobe's Creative Suite, which now have to move to Apple's in-house Objective-C api.
The overall impression that I get is that Apple is only paying lip service to anything that doesn't come from Apple itself. Apple was known for this in the 90s and there was an acronym for that: NIH -Not Invented Here. This is also Microsoft suffers from, in its Embrace and Extend strategy.
This had serious repurcussions for Apple in the 90s and I, as a long time Mac user worry if it won't happen again. Java6 was available for other platforms over two years ago, and now Java7 is even almost here.
Seriously, if you're a Java developer, is there any actual reason to use Mac OSX? You're far better off using Eclipse on Linux.
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Re:Java6 for Intel 64, and now what? (Score:4, Insightful)
Still, it's what kept Apple form going under in the 90s, so there must be something good about it.
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The only sad thing about it is that Mac fans are often very loyal to the platform no matter what Apple does. It makes it very difficult to level any constructive criticism at Apple, as Apple fans will often deny the criticism.
You could make this claim with regard to pretty much any OS and have plenty of evidence to support it. Applying it to Mac users, I'd actually say they are more likely to complain and file bug reports with Apple than say, most Linux users. I've had numerous conversations with Linux on the desktop developers that run as follows:
Me: I have this problem on Linux.
Developer: That isn't a problem.
Me: Here's the use case and why it fails.
Developer: Okay it is a problem, but no other OS is any better.
Me: He
Putting resources where it makes the most sense (Score:2)
I have been really heavy into Java development from the start. But you know what? I can see that Java desktop apps are always going to be a smaller subset of native apps. There just is not widespread adoption to date, thus the greatly diminished focus on keeping the Java->Cocoa bridge healthy.
As for the Carbon (what you incorrectly label C/C++ API's), well Apple said all along that the plan was to transition to Cocoa, and that Carbo
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Long term, Apple is probably doing what is going to be best for Apple. I have been really heavy into Java development from the start. But you know what? I can see that Java desktop apps are always going to be a smaller subset of native apps. There just is not widespread adoption to date, thus the greatly diminished focus on keeping the Java->Cocoa bridge healthy. As for the Carbon (what you incorrectly label C/C++ API's), well Apple said all along that the plan was to transition to Cocoa, and that Carbon was a bridge to that end. It's true that Adobe got rather screwed in particular in that at a crucial point in time they were told Carbon was going to last a few more years than Apple is saying it will now. But Adobe also had a really long time to work on a Cocoa port.... note that Lightroom has no issues in that regard. That was unfortunate for both Apple and Adobe, but in the long run it's going to make everyone switch to a single API sooner which means more support can go into maintaining and improving one API rather than two. As a side note, just because Cocoa is more of an Objective-C API doesn't mean you can't easily call it from C/C++ code.
1997 WWDC Carbon transition API released. 2007 End of Life for Carbon listed. Adobe/Macromedia and Microsoft had a very long run--at least 8 years more than they were expected with Carbon.
Time to move on or lose profits.
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32 bit intel macs? (Score:2)
What models of macs came with a 32 bit OS? Or are they simply referring to mac os 10.4, which I believe had some 32 bit support, but didn't have all API's (like cocoa) available in 64 bit versions.
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The initial machines were CoreDuo, not Core2Duo. Our family had a 32-bit MacBook Pro, MacBook and Mac Mini. I've since replaced the MacBook Pro with a Core2Duo model, but the MacBook and Mac Mini continue to do decent service and there's no need to replace them.
Cheers,
Ian
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I was going crazy about this fact until I heard a really funny side effect. As that JRE is pure 64bit, making it default Java applet handler in Safari will practically disable Java since Safari is... 32 bit
Sun guys should leave Open Office developers alone a bit and treat Apple just like Microsoft. They should figure already that Apple doesn't like their tool, will do anything to s
Why isn't this Sun's job? (Score:4, Insightful)
If you're on Linux and you want to run Java apps, you go to the same place and download an RPM.
On Solaris, of course, you go... guess where... and download Java.
Last time I installed it on FreeBSD, I used the Linux binaries in Linus emulation mode. There's a FreeBSD Java project now.
And Sun has recently announced that they'll be supporting Java on the iPhone.
But if you have a Mac, Sun tells you to bugger off and ask Apple.
I'm sure there's some good historical reason for this weird exception, but given that Sun's supporting Java on much smaller platforms than Mac OS X, wouldn't it be in Sun's interest to take on the Mac as well if whatever legacy business agreement with Apple isn't working out? If they did that, then possibly it'd even become possible to get up-to-date Java support for older versions of OS X.
How about it, Sun, are you willing to put your programmers where your mouth is?
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No, really, what's Sun up to? (Score:2)
Alternatively, the FreeBSD
Re:No, really, what's Sun up to? (Score:5, Interesting)
At the moment, legal eagles are working through some paperwork regarding acceptance of this code into the GPL source tree. But in coming months we'll hopefully see the BSD and, by extension, Landon Fuller's OS X work hosted in the main openjdk codebase. Patience...
Now on the other matter, the OS X Java, there have been pleadings from Java developers in the past for Sun to take the reins and do an official port. Particularly a few months ago when Leopard shipped without Java 6.
What makes the port to OS X harder than, say, Linux? Among other things:
* A Cocoa implementation of AWT
* Porting the hotspot virtual machine to PPC
* native libraries, e.g. the Java-Cocoa bridge
These are not trivial tasks they require some expertise of OS X and PowerPC internals. If they were simple to implement, Apple wouldn't be 2 years late. For Sun to replicate these existing features from scratch would take many man years. And for 10%, or thereabouts, of the desktop market they obviously don't see a cost benefit. Would Sun be willing to 'buy back' Apple's source tree and GPL it? Some OS X internals Apple may not wish to expose (IP issues) and like Sun's codebase be encumbered by code they don't own.
Ultimately some of the ball is in Apple's court. They have sought to maintain their own Java port for competitive reasons such as low level OS integration. But what competitive advantage they deem to have when their releases are a full version behind Linux, Solaris and Windows is debatable.
Would Apple publish changes back to openjdk? They seem reluctant to. One benefit:
* PowerPC hotspot - someone else can maintain legacy architecture support for the G4. Who else have a vested interest in openjdk? Redhat, who have signalled intentions to support multiple architectures besides x86. Do Apple and Redhat really compete for the same markets, aside from a few Xserves???
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If they were simple to implement, Apple wouldn't be 2 years late.
If Apple doesn't even have 1.5 working properly on Leopard, I suspect that they have other issues.
As for Apple's possible issues with competitors... it's getting to the point where the question isn't going to be Java on OSX vs Java
Don't look for this in 10.4 (Score:3, Insightful)
Frankly I was amazed that Acrobat 8 Professional requires Mac OS 10.4 when it only came out 18 months after 10.4 was released. (But then perhaps Apple was paying Adobe a little bit under the table to help strongarm Mac owners into coughing up their $129 upgrade fee.) And of course Office 2008 requires 10.4 as well.
I have a hard time believing that the OS changes so fundamentally from one version to the next that apps can't be reasonably ported. I guess the only reason legacy versions of Windows enjoy so much support is simply because of the vast amount of market share Microsoft enjoys.
Makes me glad I use a free operating system and free software, still annoying as fuck supporting my users though.
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"Java: write once, debug everywhere."
Re:So? (Score:5, Insightful)
I was about to say that this matters to the Java Fanbois, in the hope that they would finally get to play with the Java 6 features now that they're supported on the major platforms. "Doesn't run on Mac, must run everywhere" is a very solid argument against moving to Java 6.
As it happens, I must be new here, and I accidentally read the article.
Sadly, a Java 6 app still doesn't run everywhere. According to the Update [apple.com], it'll only run on 64-bit Intel Macs with OSX 10.5.2 installed. If Apple doesn't do something about that fact, this update really doesn't mean much for anyone interested in developing for broad market deployment. This will only affect the tinkerers that happen to be running the latest version of OSX on 64-bit hardware, or developers that are fortunate enough to be able to target an audience that uses modernish technology.
So, nothing to see here unless you're a bleeding-edge Java+Mac fanboi. Granted, that particular market segment has gotten the shaft for far too long. It's good to see at least a small step in the right direction.
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The MacBook, the MacBook Pro, the Mac Mini, and the iMac all shipped with a Core Duo model initially. The only model that didn't is the Mac Pro. Oh, and Xserve....
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Granted, it is probably be possible to write it in to the Linux kernel, or to add some kind of custom classloader into the VM itself, but the benefits would be minimal (although moderately cool). You could save yourself the trouble of writing three custom shell scripts that launch Java with your desired arguments. I'll grant that's a rather nice goal, but it's pretty low on the S
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Re:So? (Score:4, Insightful)
There is a real problem at Apple with Java. Java6 was in beta 2 years ago at Apple, and has only been released in a crippled form for OSX, now. The thing is, Java7 is already on its way for the rest of the world.
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