OSNews > Thread > "what does this mean?" by Damind

Linked by Thom Holwerda on Tue 6th Nov 2007 21:38 UTC, submitted by SK8T

Apple has released the source code to Darwin 9, the underlying open source operating system ofMac OS X 10.5 Leopard. "Darwin is the open source UNIX-based foundation of Mac OS X. Darwin integrates a number of technologies, including the Mach 3.0 microkernel, operating system services based on FreeBSD 5 UNIX, high-performance TCP/IP networking, and support for multiple integrated file systems. Because the design of Darwin is highly modular, you can dynamically add device drivers, networking extensions, and new file systems."

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what does this mean?

by Damind on Wed 7th Nov 2007 00:14 UTC

Member since:
2006-06-08

I am not sure what this means? Can someone take the source and do the same thing that CentOS did with RH?

Before you apple guys get defensive I am just asking.

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RE: what does this mean?

by whartung on Wed 7th Nov 2007 00:22 in reply to "what does this mean?"

Member since:
2005-07-06

I am not sure what this means? Can someone take the source and do the same thing that CentOS did with RH?

Simply put, no.

Darwin != Mac OS X, rather it's the kernel and much of the base, system level userland. But you won't find things like the Finder or the Dock, or even the windowing system in the source code.

It's more like a basic BSD distribution, but without as large of a ports directory.

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RE[2]: what does this mean?

by zizban on Wed 7th Nov 2007 00:43 in reply to "RE: what does this mean?"

Member since:
2005-07-06

I use Mac OS X all the time as well as several Unixes and Darwin by itself isn't really that useful to an end user.

And there is DarwinPorts for it, if want ported software.

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RE[2]: what does this mean?

by Oliver on Thu 8th Nov 2007 00:36 in reply to "RE: what does this mean?"

Member since:
2006-07-15

But on the other hand, try to run the eyecand without it *g*

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RE: what does this mean?

by Sabon on Wed 7th Nov 2007 00:44 in reply to "what does this mean?"

Member since:
2005-07-06

Separate anything that is the OS (BSD) and what is the GUI (Apple).

Anything that is BSD is included. Anything that is Mac GUI and things that support that is not.

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RE: what does this mean?

by google_ninja on Wed 7th Nov 2007 03:03 in reply to "what does this mean?"

Member since:
2006-02-05

There was an OpenDarwin initiative going on awhile back, but they closed up shop because of a lack of enthusiasm, and not really wanting to be a host for Free OSX projects. The only real reason Darwin is good to have open is for debugging and educational purposes, and of course for people to write drivers for those of us who go the Hackintosh way...

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RE[2]: what does this mean?

by Nossie on Wed 7th Nov 2007 06:59 in reply to "RE: what does this mean?"

Member since:
2007-07-31

is it not also a good thing for those that use APE and for companies like intech that do the hi-cap drivers for large capacity drives on older G4s?

I ask this out of curiosity... is this true kernel access rather than just the sdk? or is it less complete than that.

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