On 4/4/07, Robert Watson <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:


On Wed, 4 Apr 2007, Mike Meyer wrote:

> In <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>, Christoph P. Kukulies <
[EMAIL PROTECTED]> typed:
>> does  anyone know whether one can run Linux applications under the
underlying
>> FreeBSD of the MAC OS (on an Intel Core Duo mini Mac)?
>
> No, you can't. The "underlying" FreeBSD is userland code; not kernel
code.
> The OSX kernel is based on Mach.

While it's true you can't run Linux binaries on Mac OS X, it's not for the
reason you're suggesting, and your statement regarding FreeBSD kernel code
in
Mac OS X is simply incorrect.  The Mac OS X kernel, XNU, contains
significant
quantities of FreeBSD kernel source code, including a FreeBSD-derived VFS
and
network stack.  Other parts of the kernel, such as the scheduler and VM
system, are derived from Mach.  While the FreeBSD-derived code has been
significantly modified since it was originally forked, a lot of code moves
backward and forward between the platforms: the FreeBSD audit subsystem is
derived from the Mac OS X audit subsystem, and Mac OS X's smbfs and MAC
Framework support are derived from FreeBSD.

Robert N M Watson
Computer Laboratory
University of Cambridge


In addition to this, there have been examples of  the Linux kernel hosted by
Mach in the past (such as MkLinux). From my understanding, the only thing
that prevents this from being realized is that nobody has sat down to
actually write/port the code to do it.

--
Coleman Kane
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