Macs

[Liam Proven]

On Tue, Sep 15, 2009 at 6:37 PM, Amedee Van Gasse (Ubuntu)
<amedee-ubuntu at amedee.be> wrote:
> On Tue, September 15, 2009 16:26, Michael Haney wrote:
>> Well, the Mac experience is more than the hardware.  You're missing
>> the point if you look at just the hardware alone.  There is also the
>> software.  Mac OS X is a fully-certified Unix operating system under
>> the hood.  There are fewer security vulnerabilities, and most viruses
>> and malware for the Mac exist only as extremely limited
>> proof-of-concept code.  There is a lot of specialized software for the
>> Mac which has few or no alternatives on Linux or Windows.  There is
>> far more software for the Mac that you might imagine and its a myth
>> that the Mac doesn't have any worthwhile software at all.  Not to
>> mention also Macs have an EFI which has several distinct advantages
>> over a traditional BIOS.  To top it off, Mac OS X just works without
>> any of the usual hassles of using Windows.
>
> If Mac OS X is a fully-certified Unix operating system, then logically
> shouldn't all Mac software also be able to run on Linux? In theory?

Not even slightly, no.

Mac OS X does not use the X Window System as used in most Linux
systems or all other graphical Unixes; it has its own display layer,
called Aqua, based around a rendering system called Quartz based on
PDF. It also includes many layers of Apple software: Core Image, Core
Data, Core Audio, Core Animation, QuickTime, & a large & extensive set
of Objective-C class libraries inherited from NeXT Computer.

OS X does include an X server as an optional extra; it runs under
Aqua. So it's *MUCH* easier to get Linux (or other xNix) apps running
under OS X than it would be to get OS X apps runningunder xNix.

Saying that, there is a FOSS reimplementation of the original NEXTstep
libraries and frameworks. It's caled GNUstep:
http://www.gnustep.org/

If GNUstep got more attention & a bunch of updates, it might be
possible to recompiled FOSS apps for OS X & run them on Linux.

FWIW, I think it's criminal that there isn't a distro based around
GNUstep & its NeXT-style GUI.


-- 
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