[vsurfer]

Apple today announced that starting in January 2003, all new Mac models will only boot into Mac OS X as the start-up operating system, though they will retain the ability to run most Mac OS 9 applications through Apple’s bundled "Classic" software.

W -t-f does this mean? Any gurus out there care to examine this statement in view of using Linux and other *nixes on future machines as of Jan 03.

And whether holding down the option key will still allow booting into open firmware to choose an alternate OS boot disk?

[tooki]

Well, I can't say for certain, not having had the opportunity to test these new machines, but my guess is that since Mac OS X itself relies on a variant of BootX, the normal BootX will still be usable. I think when they say that the new machines won't boot OS 9, they probably mean that they won't be creating Mac OS 9 ROM support for that hardware, not that they'll be changing the machine such as to lock it into OS X.

tooki