I'm new to mac. never had a mac b4 but consider it later in the future. is there any mac forum like MDL since MDL mostly concentrate only on windows? i google around but most does not discuss like MDL does. example, activating, procedure etc. thx
There is no activation for Mac OS X Clients. Server versions are pure serial number based, and sometimes with online serial checks to make sure the serial is still valid, and the serial itself makes for a 10-user CAL or Unlimited CAL. The point of not having activation for Mac OS X, is that Mac OS X is intended to only run on Apple's hardware, which is the hardware license to run it. Apple's systems come with Mac OS X preloaded and on a disk. You are not forced to use it, Windows actually runs better on Apple's hardware than it does on the hardware from other vendors. Next, BIOS modifications don't exist for Apple hardware, since the current generation uses pure EFI (with an Apple blend since they started using it before it became UEFI) and the previous generation used OpenFirmware. Both allow for direct variable modification. EFI from a command line interface application (nvram), just like OpenFirmware. OpenFirmware also provides a preboot text console. EFI has a shell, but it's not installed on Apple's EFI implementation. Modifications aren't really needed, since the hardware is intended to 'just work', because their target group is more in the professional range, the kind of people that buy a system and buy support from the vendor as well, they don't want, nor need to touch anything other than their production tools.