Is Mac OS X a real Unix?

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felixding
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Is Mac OS X a real Unix?

Post by felixding »

I think it's just "unix based", which means it consists of a "Mach" kernel, some extentions from NeXTStep and some parts from freebsd.
CaptainValor
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Post by CaptainValor »

You hit the nail on the head there. OS X uses a lot of Unix code and is basically Unix at heart, but it's not a pure Unix OS by any means.
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Post by PPC_Digger »

CaptainValor wrote:You hit the nail on the head there. OS X uses a lot of Unix code and is basically Unix at heart, but it's not a pure Unix OS by any means.
What do you mean by a "pure" unix os? For an OS to be unix, it should be based/cloned/derived from the old unix distrobutions (e.g. 4.4bsd or hp/ux), or compatible with the unix specification.
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Post by willhart »

mac os x can run portable unix applications....it is unix at heart, and i'm pretty sure it's 100% unix at heart.
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Post by robojam »

The generally accepted benchmark for the 'purity' of a Unix operating system is whether or not it is Posix compliant.

To be honest I don't know if OSX is Posix compliant or not.

Anyone?
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PPC_Digger
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Post by PPC_Digger »

robojam wrote:The generally accepted benchmark for the 'purity' of a Unix operating system is whether or not it is Posix compliant.

To be honest I don't know if OSX is Posix compliant or not.

Anyone?
I guess that since the OSX core is Darwin, which is based on FreeBSD, which is a direct descendant of 4.4BSD, which is the last version of the Berkeley university UNIX distribution, OSX can be considered 100% UNIX.
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kybernaut
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Post by kybernaut »

robojam wrote:The generally accepted benchmark for the 'purity' of a Unix operating system is whether or not it is Posix compliant.

To be honest I don't know if OSX is Posix compliant or not.

Anyone?

Windows NT/2000/XP supports POSIX, That means it is UNIX... 8)
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Post by robojam »

kybernaut wrote:
robojam wrote:The generally accepted benchmark for the 'purity' of a Unix operating system is whether or not it is Posix compliant.

To be honest I don't know if OSX is Posix compliant or not.

Anyone?

Windows NT/2000/XP supports POSIX, That means it is UNIX... 8)
Windows NT/2000/XP implements some POSIX standards, but it is not POSIX compliant as an operating system.
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PPC_Digger
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Post by PPC_Digger »

kybernaut wrote:
robojam wrote:The generally accepted benchmark for the 'purity' of a Unix operating system is whether or not it is Posix compliant.

To be honest I don't know if OSX is Posix compliant or not.

Anyone?

Windows NT/2000/XP supports POSIX, That means it is UNIX... 8)
You insult the entire UNIX community by saying that! :lol:
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Post by CaptainValor »

If OS X was pure Unix, it would run on the x86 architecture as well. It does not, therefore it is more specialized.

(And yes I know about x86 Darwin, but I don't consider that to be OS X because the GUI and much of the higher-level stuff we associate with OS X is not there. ;))
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Post by PPC_Digger »

CaptainValor wrote:If OS X was pure Unix, it would run on the x86 architecture as well. It does not, therefore it is more specialized.

(And yes I know about x86 Darwin, but I don't consider that to be OS X because the GUI and much of the higher-level stuff we associate with OS X is not there. ;))
UNIX systems are UNIX even if the don't run on x86! UNIX existed long before x86, so you say that all the early UNIX systems were not UNIX? How about FreeBSD/PPC or Darwin/PPC? Are they not UNIX? And what about all those DEC Alpha UNIX systems or all the mainframe UNIXes? Are they not UNIX?
Get my point?
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Post by felixding »

so, we can simply say: mac os x is a unix?
is there anyone who had compared osx with pure unix such as bsd? what's the main difference?

also, i'm always wondering this sensitive question: mac is more advanced than pc? personally, i prefer pc.
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Post by Yukon Kid »

well what do you mean by saying "more advanced"?

everyone forgets that a computer is just as good as the software that is written for it, that includes drivers for any hardware you want to control.

the problem with the pc world is that ms windows is not as stable as it should be, but on a pc you can use linux as well as unix flavours and find a good level of stability. in the mac world over the years there are versions of macos to stay away from.

if I was a artist and I painted using water colours would I be less advanced than someone using oils?

I use both pc and mac, and I like the mac for some things and the pc for others, but I always tell my friends to buy a computer that does the things they want. for most noobs I recommend the imac or emac just because there are not as many internet related problems (15 yr olds writing viruses hahahah). but I always help them no matter which platform they get.

is mac more advanced? well in some ways it is because they use a standard with everything they build, usb, firewire, scsi, ata etc..... it allows for software to be built that works well with everything.
in the pc world there are more people that build add ons to a personal standard but even that is changing and some of that becomes a standard such as the "sound blaster" but the draw back is that it is harder to build software to run well with everything.

of all the toys I have added to my systems over the years I can say that every time I had no problems adding to the mac, but I have had hours of setup reconfig and frustration with some things on the pc. This of course was things that were supposed to be able to run to the computers at the time with the specs I had.

Please don't take this into a pc or mac better than the other, I am simply trying to give view to answer the question.
thanks
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Post by willhart »

It's been a long time since I saw a good long post. :)
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Post by CaptainValor »

Indeed. Like gymnastics for the synapses. ;)
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Post by felixding »

Yukon Kid wrote:well what do you mean by saying "more advanced"?

everyone forgets that a computer is just as good as the software that is written for it, that includes drivers for any hardware you want to control.

the problem with the pc world is that ms windows is not as stable as it should be, but on a pc you can use linux as well as unix flavours and find a good level of stability. in the mac world over the years there are versions of macos to stay away from.

if I was a artist and I painted using water colours would I be less advanced than someone using oils?

I use both pc and mac, and I like the mac for some things and the pc for others, but I always tell my friends to buy a computer that does the things they want. for most noobs I recommend the imac or emac just because there are not as many internet related problems (15 yr olds writing viruses hahahah). but I always help them no matter which platform they get.

is mac more advanced? well in some ways it is because they use a standard with everything they build, usb, firewire, scsi, ata etc..... it allows for software to be built that works well with everything.
in the pc world there are more people that build add ons to a personal standard but even that is changing and some of that becomes a standard such as the "sound blaster" but the draw back is that it is harder to build software to run well with everything.

of all the toys I have added to my systems over the years I can say that every time I had no problems adding to the mac, but I have had hours of setup reconfig and frustration with some things on the pc. This of course was things that were supposed to be able to run to the computers at the time with the specs I had.

Please don't take this into a pc or mac better than the other, I am simply trying to give view to answer the question.
thanks
really thanks for your advice! I also think this kind of comparation doesn't make sense at all - you have told us the reason clearly as above.

We should find that Mac's market share reduced from 80% or more in many years before to less than 1% now, however, is it just because Apple had not opened its architecture to public? Nevertheless it's the only reason, in fact, Mac HAVE lagged behind.

as to me, using a mac or a pc is both ok. but I dislike some mac users feels arrogant and looks upon pc users.

my motivation to ask these questions and to express some personal feellings is: someone had posted a thread on the forum called "macfans"(the largest mac users community in my country) and said "please awaken! at present mac is not the most advanced personal computer as before!". I think you can image the situation - he was attacked by many many mac users......

btw: please forgive my poor English. English is not my native language.
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Post by willhart »

So, a little on topic, a little off-topic, what makes an OS a Linux? And is it true that the name came from Linus+Tux? I always thought it had something to do with UNIX...
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Post by Marc »

I was under the impression it was Linu for Linus Torvalds an Ux for Unix...e.g. Linus' Unix...
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Post by robojam »

willhart wrote:So, a little on topic, a little off-topic, what makes an OS a Linux? And is it true that the name came from Linus+Tux? I always thought it had something to do with UNIX...
I think an OS needs to use the Linux kernel to be a Linux, and you can put whatever shells or Windowing systems you like on top of it and it's still Linux.

Linux comes from Linus + Unix = Linux.

What makes something Unix will probably be debated for some time to come, but I think my point earlier is the nearest we could get in that Posix compliancy is the most common way of judging.
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Yukon Kid
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Post by Yukon Kid »

well if my memory serves well, linux started as a project to allow the pc to have a unix kernal that would work with x86 cpu's and anything that was attached, without having to load drivers you don't need etc. it was written in c++ and could be compiled locally. so to be a linux os you would have to use the linux source to create your version of the os on your computer. the fact that it is written in C++ allows for cross platform compiling by nature. I think that the boys at bell also wrote unix in c but the source is not pd.

as for the name you would have to ask Linus himself.
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Post by PPC_Digger »

Yukon Kid wrote:well if my memory serves well, linux started as a project to allow the pc to have a unix kernal that would work with x86 cpu's and anything that was attached
Close, but not exact:
Linus Torvalds didn't like the fact that there was no OS that could use the (at the time) advanced 80386 32-bit multitasking capabilities when it was out for almost 6 years, so he began to work on a UNIX clone that could use the 386' 32-bit features, taking clues from his teacher's minix (which was also a UNIX clone, but not optimized for the 386). Together with a group of programmers which he worked with through the new internet, he published the 0.01 and 1.0 kernels, which, together with the GNU tools, made the first (I think) 32-bit true multitasking 386 OS.
rudefyet
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Post by rudefyet »

i just figured out how compile all my favorite linux apps and games in OS X

i' grow more impressed with OS X everyday
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Post by PPC_Digger »

rudefyet wrote:i just figured out how compile all my favorite linux apps and games in OS X

i' grow more impressed with OS X everyday
It should be just like in linux, since OSX is UNIX and XCode's core is GCC. Am I right?
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Post by willhart »

PPC_Digger wrote:
rudefyet wrote:i just figured out how compile all my favorite linux apps and games in OS X

i' grow more impressed with OS X everyday
It should be just like in linux, since OSX is UNIX and XCode's core is GCC. Am I right?
On my real mac, Xcode is screwed up most of the time. It's way easier for me just to run ./configure make in Terminal.
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Post by rudefyet »

PPC_Digger wrote:
rudefyet wrote:i just figured out how compile all my favorite linux apps and games in OS X

i' grow more impressed with OS X everyday
It should be just like in linux, since OSX is UNIX and XCode's core is GCC. Am I right?
pretty much

i've discovered "Fink" though...it's like Gentoo's emerge...but for Mac OS X...just makes it simpiler to compile stuff

i think there is an actual release of Gentoo's Portage for OS X...i may have to look into that now
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