OSNews > Thread > "RE[3]: What BSD could have been" by TechniCookie

Linked by David Adams on Tue 8th Apr 2008 16:33 UTC

"I am very happy about the direction in which the Mac OS X GUI is going, although sadly many Mac users aren't interested in (or don't know about) the "lower levels" of the Macintosh Operating System. Have you ever wondered why the Terminal greets you with the words "Welcome to Darwin"? Why do BSD and Mac OS share certain bits of code? Why does Wikipedia describe Mac OS X as a graphical operating system? Today we're going to take a look at the underlying open source technology which powers your fancy Leopard OS - the hidden core set of components, named Darwin."

6 62 Comment(s)

http://osne.ws/f4e

Thread beginning with comment 308755
To view parent comment, click here.
To read all comments associated with this story, please click here.

RE[3]: What BSD could have been

by TechniCookie on Tue 8th Apr 2008 21:21 UTC in reply to "RE[2]: What BSD could have been"

Member since:
2005-11-09

To ... erm, cater ... :-) the desktop crowd, there are systems that are based upon BSDs, intending to make the BSD easier to newbies, but without breaking compatibility to the underlying OS. Examples are PC-BSD and DesktopBSD, both based upon FreeBSD, with different grades of compatibility.

That is true but doesn't change the fact that the underlying OS is being designed and developed with servers in mind. Darwin includes many features in the kernel to improve experience for the desktop user.

Additionally, the discussion in this thread has been distinguishing between the DE and the underlying system and in the case of both DesktopBSD and PC-BSD they are as you say yourself both FreeBSD underneath.

Reply Parent Bookmark Score: 1