Most of you will know that the underlying core set of components of Mac OS X and the iPhone operating system are released under the Apple Public Source License, an FSF-approved open source license. Few of you, however, will have actually used Darwin in any other form than Mac OS X or the iPhone OS. Despite numerous projects attempting so, Darwin has never gained any significant traction apart from Apple's own interest. The PureDarwin project tries to rise from the ashes of the OpenDarwin project, and has just released a Christmas developer preview.
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Member since:2005-06-29
I guess you guys should read up on what Darwin has to offer. Most importantly, it differs a GREAT deal from Linux, BSD, and Solaris in that it uses a diferent kernel type, closer to that of Windows NT than that of the aforementioned.
It also has something called I/O kit, an object-oriented device driver kit that is very, very different from that othe roperating systems have to offer.
Those are just two I knew from the top of my head.
Sometimes, you need to dig a little deeper before you see the real differences. Sometimes, they just don't show up in the GUI. Sometimes, you need a little more technical knowledge.
Edited 2008-12-26 13:31 UTC
Member since:2005-11-10
When all you can tell about a microkernel is that it is NT-like, I would refrain from questioning other people's technical knowledge.
In any case, Linux, BSDs, and OpenSolaris... all use different kernels, threading approaches, and heck even io subsystems. Simply saying that "it is different" doesn't quite answer the question of what makes Darwin interesting. Don't you think?
Member since:2008-02-05
It's not very NT-like. It's a Mach kernel, "inherited" by Apple from its acquisition of NeXT. The Mach kernel has some interesting architectural features that make an open source Darwin-based OS an interesting idea indeed, and a worthy project to pursue.
Microsoft's NT kernel pretended to offer similar architectural features with all its dithering on about how it uses a "hybrid" kernel, but the truth is that the NT kernel just made use of some superficial characteristics of a modularized monolithic kernel without actually leveraging any of the advantages thereof. PureDarwin may actually prove to offer the kind of benefits NT only pretended (and failed) to offer, because of its choice of core architecture.
Member since:2005-11-10
http://etoileos.com/etoile/
Member since:
2006-03-26
Exactly. Tons of OS projects jump up like this every day it seems. None of them seem to offer any more than what is already out there. No-one does anything creative with the GUI, or tries to improve that at all. Everyone just seems to be content with: Take a linux/darwin,bsd kernel, slap some existing packages in it to make it usable, slap KDE/Gnome/Enlightenment/or what have you on top of that, then claim you just created an OS.
I would love to see a project like this though that runs off of openstep gui, and uses objective c/gnustep for their main api. I think that would set it apart better. That combined with an appearance overhaul on openstep.
Edited 2008-12-26 13:30 UTC