[rescue] OT: FeeCee rescue

[Derek Andersen]

Nathan Raymond wrote:
> On Tue, 30 Sep 2003, Derek Andersen wrote:
>>Just out of curiosity, why is a G3 (presumably running OS X)
>>'acceptable' while (say) an x86 laptop running Linux (or Solaris x86, or
>>whatever) not? Is it just the CPU?
> 
> Well for me it has to do with with OpenFirmware (which is derived from the
> OF in Sun boxes) and a legacy-free architecture that doesn't require
> kludgy BIOS tweaking (which varies from model to model as well as vendor
> to vendor) to make things work.  Combine that with an OS UNIX layer
> derived from the *BSD tree (mostly FreeBSD), an open source kernel, X11
> compatability, etc. and you pretty much have a workstation, give or take.

Okay, that's a good point; the BIOS is certainly one of the weak points 
for x86 systems, and legacy hardware is a pain to deal with. Arguably, 
those are both a side effect of the wide variety of hardware available 
to the x86 platform, but that doesn't make them any less annoying.


Derek Andersen