Which BSD is Mac OS X based on

[cheetahman]

Also isn't there a program to port Linux programs to Mac BSD and use it on the mac.

[ginsuedog]

I thought Mac was based on BSD which is different then FreeBSD or NETBSD. I know you can port Gentoo's portage into OS X.

[Demetrius]

Strictly speaking, Darwin is based on BSD Unix (as are all of the open source BSDs). However, they use FreeBSD as their reference platform.

More information about how Darwin fits into the BSD family can be found here: http://developer.apple.com/darwin/pr...arwin/faq.html

[cheetahman]

So Mac OS X is BSD with the Aqua GUI

[the0r3tic]

So Mac OS X is BSD with the Aqua GUI

Darwin is made up of code from: FreeBSD, NetBSD and 4.4BSD Lite2. So Mac OS X is Darwin with the Aqua GUI, with more enhanced features etc.

[cheetahman]

So if thats the case could software be ported to Mac from Windows,Linux and BSD and ported back to Windows,Linux and BSD.

[the0r3tic]

So if thats the case could software be ported to Mac from Windows,Linux and BSD and ported back to Windows,Linux and BSD.

No, the closed-source version of Darwin has code that depends on certain hardware (which has been recentley hacked) and it's version of the mach kernel.

If your thinking about iTunes, that has virtually been rewritten more than ported.

[cheetahman]

So then only some can be ported

[cheetahman]

So if thats the case could software be ported to Mac from Windows,Linux and BSD and ported back to Windows,Linux and BSD.

No, the closed-source version of Darwin has code that depends on certain hardware (which has been recentley hacked) and it's version of the mach kernel.

If your thinking about iTunes, that has virtually been rewritten more than ported.

I am talking about Frozenbubble,Gimp,Gaim,Firefox and Darwin is has its own licence http://www.opensource.apple.com/apsl/

[Demetrius]

Alot of the code that OS X was built on was (other than the BSD based Darwin core) taken from the NeXTStep/OpenStep system (also based on BSD). Apple purchased NeXT, who was the developer of NeXT/OpenStep. AfterStep and WindowMaker both attempt to use the look and feel of the NeXTStep GUI.

Basically, there's alot more to OS X than just the Aqua GUI running on top of the Darwin core. Most, if not all current OS X applications are written with Carbon, or Coacoa (both proprietary Apple toolkits) and would have to be rewritten to be ported to any other operating system.