Cadets, welcome to BootCamp
After a solution to boot Mac OS X along side Windows XP on Apple’s new Intel based hardware was announced last month, scooping a publically funded $13,000 for the developers, Apple have decided that there is a market for Apple Mac’s that do Windows natively.
So Apple have announced a Beta release of BootCamp, a new application that allows Intel Mac’s boot into Mac OS X (by default) or Windows XP. Of course, you will need a purchased version of Windows XP in addition to this free application.
The BootCamp software provides a utility for partitioning your Mac hard disk to allow a Windows XP partition. The software also provides drivers (not included in the public solution) for Graphics, Networking (inc. AirPort), Audio, Bluetooth, Mac Eject Key and Display brigtness.
BootCamp will be released fully in Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard, announced in August this year at the World Wide Developers Conference in San Fransisco. There are rumours that Apple will support Virtualisation technology in Mac OS X 10.5, allowing Intel based Macintosh’s to run OS X and Windows, Linux or whichever other OS natively within a window in Mac OS X, which if true would superceed this solution. Obviously everyone would prefer to run Windows XP on their Mac OS X desktop, with Virtualisation technology not only will this be possible, but there will be no performance hit like with the current MS Virtual PC software.
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