Date: Thu, 9 Mar 2000 08:01:06 -0800 From: Scott Hess <scott@avantgo.com> To: Gerard Farrell <gfarrell@nctrf.nf.ca> Cc: freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: Apple Message-ID: <20000309080106.C11088@river.avantgo.com> In-Reply-To: <38C7ABED.FB74BFD2@nctrf.nf.ca> References: <38C7ABED.FB74BFD2@nctrf.nf.ca>
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On Thu, Mar 09, 2000 at 10:19:36AM -0330, Gerard Farrell wrote: > I have been hearing a lot lately that Mac OS X is "based" on FreeBSD. > Is this true that the unix layer between the mach kernel and the API's > is FreeBSD? What does this say with respect to binary compatibility > between FreeBSD and Mac OS X? My understand was that the kernel itself would be custom, but the stuff on top of it would be heavily derived from FreeBSD (actually, I'm not sure it's specifically FreeBSD, or a combination of the free BSDs). This obviously implies that the kernel interfaces will be pretty similar, but low-level stuff, like device drivers, might not be similar in the least. I wouldn't hold out for binary compatibility at _all_. Assuming you have a PowerPC FreeBSD executable of some sort, it's possible you'll be able to run it on Mac OS X, if you pull over the right libraries. Going in the other direction is very unlikely, though. If NeXT^H^H^H^HApple references _any_ Mach functionality in their system libraries, for instance, then you wouldn't be able to move the executable plus the libraries to FreeBSD and expect them to work. GUI apps are going to be right out, unless Apple has really changed their stripes recently, and kept it a very close secret. Later, scott To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-questions" in the body of the message
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