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As far as I know they still use the Darwin kernel in iOS. Which means it scales from desktops and servers all the way down to phones... That seems pretty genera

As far as I know they still use the Darwin kernel in iOS. Which means it scales from desktops and servers all the way down to phones... That seems pretty general purpose to me.

justincormack 13y ago
No one uses Darwin for servers, not even Apple.
- mitchty 13y ago
  No one except a fair amount of people: http://www.macminicolo.net/ http://www.macminicolo.net/ You can turn old laptops into "servers", or raspberry pi's, or hell even a commodore 64 for that matter. As long as it serves something of value over a network it qualifies. Whether its a good idea is another matter.
  - kbenson 13y ago
    I think the fact you felt the need to put the word servers in quotes does a lot to show that you and justincormack are talking about computers serving a similar role, but with such laughably different requirements that it's obvious what point he was trying to make, and your statement, while technically correct, doesn't really change his point. You are correct though, people do use commodity and low-end hardware for extremely light server needs, and even in data centers.
    - alayne 13y ago
      Apple took a shot at traditional datacenter rack servers with their Xserve product line. I don't think it failed because OS X couldn't scale.
    - mitchty 13y ago
      I put servers in quotes to denote something that serves that wasn't purpose built for the role. Nothing more, the context from justincormack wasn't lost but there are a lot of uses for osx servers, for example compile farms. What I was referring to, which I thought was apparent but failed to convey, is that this perception of nobody doing it is a fallacy.
      - kbenson 13y ago
        We are saying the same thing. My post wasn't meant to contradict yours, just clarify. > What I was referring to, which I thought was apparent but failed to convey, is that this perception of nobody doing it is a fallacy. I just think that in this context the "nobody" you are referring to and the "nobody" he is referring to are not equal sets. Yours is a superset of his, which is why both statements are true (in spirit), while yours is true in fact.
        mitchty 13y ago
        True enough, think its been a long day for me then. Sorry for the confusion on my end. I do believe that means it is beer o clock time. Cheers and no worries mate.
- kisielk 13y ago
  What's this then? http://www.apple.com/ca/mac-mini/server/ http://www.apple.com/ca/mac-mini/server/ I know of a lot of businesses that run their servers on OS X.
- azernik 13y ago
  I'm pretty sure some of these [1] are still floating around - they were only discontinued two years ago. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xserve https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xserve
mitchty 13y ago
Additionally its folly to think servers can't gain from power management. Most servers are idle, or running maybe 40%, might as well let those other cores sit idle if they aren't used. Example is at idle with power management our latest xeon draws 300W versus 390 without. 900W at full tilt and all power management disabled. The excuse that windows is a "general purpose" OS doesn't fly in my boat. Granted I don't use Linux for laptops generally but power management should be something any OS does somewhat sanely. We're moving to Amdahls law now away from Moore, also is there a law yet on power requirements for appplications? So power consumption is only going to be more of a basic feature than bolted on. That and doing things like using avx or gpu's for array multiplication because the power requirements are cheaper etc...
- DanBC 13y ago
  See especially people who used to have performance problems realising that the server was running a screensaver. Terminal Server running serverside, not clientside, screensaver is poor for performance (https://groups.google.com/forum/?hl=en-GB#!search/windows$20server$20performance$20screensaver/microsoft.public.windows.terminal_services/6i-mfdhLs2g/Qm8wEaEnTL0J https://groups.google.com/forum/?hl=en-GB#!search/windows$20...) Q: My server has poor performance. (https://groups.google.com/forum/?hl=en-GB#!search/windows$20server$20performance$20screensaver/microsoft.public.windows.server.general/R_GJdYwTH08/mlRf7NX4sEAJ https://groups.google.com/forum/?hl=en-GB#!search/windows$20...) I genuinely don't understand the Google groups interface. So I might not have linked to the correct messages. Some scrolling might be needed.
conradev 13y ago
The Darwin kernel scales down as far as an HDMI adapter SoC[1] [1] https://www.panic.com/blog/2013/03/the-lightning-digital-av-adapter-surprise/ https://www.panic.com/blog/2013/03/the-lightning-digital-av-...
- adolph 13y ago
  Thanks for linking to that. I read it before the anon comment about the kernel so it was nice to catch up.

As far as I know they still use the Darwin kernel in iOS. Which means it scales from desktops and servers all the way down to phones... That seems pretty general purpose to me.

justincormack 13y ago

No one uses Darwin for servers, not even Apple.

mitchty 13y ago
No one except a fair amount of people: http://www.macminicolo.net/ http://www.macminicolo.net/ You can turn old laptops into "servers", or raspberry pi's, or hell even a commodore 64 for that matter. As long as it serves something of value over a network it qualifies. Whether its a good idea is another matter.
- kbenson 13y ago
  I think the fact you felt the need to put the word servers in quotes does a lot to show that you and justincormack are talking about computers serving a similar role, but with such laughably different requirements that it's obvious what point he was trying to make, and your statement, while technically correct, doesn't really change his point. You are correct though, people do use commodity and low-end hardware for extremely light server needs, and even in data centers.
  - alayne 13y ago
    Apple took a shot at traditional datacenter rack servers with their Xserve product line. I don't think it failed because OS X couldn't scale.
  - mitchty 13y ago
    I put servers in quotes to denote something that serves that wasn't purpose built for the role. Nothing more, the context from justincormack wasn't lost but there are a lot of uses for osx servers, for example compile farms. What I was referring to, which I thought was apparent but failed to convey, is that this perception of nobody doing it is a fallacy.
    - kbenson 13y ago
      We are saying the same thing. My post wasn't meant to contradict yours, just clarify. > What I was referring to, which I thought was apparent but failed to convey, is that this perception of nobody doing it is a fallacy. I just think that in this context the "nobody" you are referring to and the "nobody" he is referring to are not equal sets. Yours is a superset of his, which is why both statements are true (in spirit), while yours is true in fact.
      - mitchty 13y ago
        True enough, think its been a long day for me then. Sorry for the confusion on my end. I do believe that means it is beer o clock time. Cheers and no worries mate.
kisielk 13y ago
What's this then? http://www.apple.com/ca/mac-mini/server/ http://www.apple.com/ca/mac-mini/server/ I know of a lot of businesses that run their servers on OS X.
azernik 13y ago
I'm pretty sure some of these [1] are still floating around - they were only discontinued two years ago. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xserve https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xserve

mitchty 13y ago

Additionally its folly to think servers can't gain from power management. Most servers are idle, or running maybe 40%, might as well let those other cores sit idle if they aren't used. Example is at idle with power management our latest xeon draws 300W versus 390 without. 900W at full tilt and all power management disabled. The excuse that windows is a "general purpose" OS doesn't fly in my boat. Granted I don't use Linux for laptops generally but power management should be something any OS does somewhat sanely. We're moving to Amdahls law now away from Moore, also is there a law yet on power requirements for appplications? So power consumption is only going to be more of a basic feature than bolted on. That and doing things like using avx or gpu's for array multiplication because the power requirements are cheaper etc...

DanBC 13y ago
See especially people who used to have performance problems realising that the server was running a screensaver. Terminal Server running serverside, not clientside, screensaver is poor for performance (https://groups.google.com/forum/?hl=en-GB#!search/windows$20server$20performance$20screensaver/microsoft.public.windows.terminal_services/6i-mfdhLs2g/Qm8wEaEnTL0J https://groups.google.com/forum/?hl=en-GB#!search/windows$20...) Q: My server has poor performance. (https://groups.google.com/forum/?hl=en-GB#!search/windows$20server$20performance$20screensaver/microsoft.public.windows.server.general/R_GJdYwTH08/mlRf7NX4sEAJ https://groups.google.com/forum/?hl=en-GB#!search/windows$20...) I genuinely don't understand the Google groups interface. So I might not have linked to the correct messages. Some scrolling might be needed.

conradev 13y ago

The Darwin kernel scales down as far as an HDMI adapter SoC[1] [1] https://www.panic.com/blog/2013/03/the-lightning-digital-av-adapter-surprise/ https://www.panic.com/blog/2013/03/the-lightning-digital-av-...

adolph 13y ago
Thanks for linking to that. I read it before the anon comment about the kernel so it was nice to catch up.