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Off topic, but I look at it differently. The operating system is the whole, and is composed of many parts. To take your example, Mac OS X, Ubuntu, Fedora, etc would be the operating systems. Darwin, and Linux in the case of the others, is the kernel of the os, it is the central core component. I don't buy into the whole distribution mentality of the Linux oses, each system is an os compatible on the source level but typically not at the binary level due to different kernel/library versions and compile-time decisions, not to mention packaging. To use your other example, Windows 7 is an os while Windows NT is the kernel. Microsoft did call its os Windows NT, but they've since changed naming schemes. NT was still the kernel, even in those days. Microsoft just used the same name for simplicity's sake and to differentiate it from Windows 3.1 and later 9x which were still built on top of DOS.




Member since:
2009-07-28
Why it is hard for some people to understand that Mac OS X is not an operating system. It's a name for a distribution like "Windows 2000", "Windows Vista" or "Fedora", "Ubuntu".
Actual operating system inside this "Mac OS X" distribution is called "Darwin BSD". Like "Windows Seven" is actually "Windows NT 6.1". Or how "Ubuntu" is "GNU/Linux".
Why it's called Darwin BSD then? Because it's direct relative of 386-BSD UNIX! Of course it was outdated after Apple accuired NextStep from NeXt so they updated it with latest stuff from open source community. Namely FreeBSD and GNU blocks where used to update it. They also added lots of their own stuff.
Darwin BSD's kernel carries the name "XNU". Like "Gnu/Linux"'s kernel is "Linux" or how "Windows NT"'s kernel is "NTKRNLSRV"/"MinWin"...