[ale] OT: Re: posting to Linux mail list

aaron aaron at pd.org
Sat Dec 20 10:00:52 EST 2003


On Saturday 20 December 2003 08:54, Chris Ricker wrote:
> On Fri, 19 Dec 2003, aaron wrote:
> 
> > On Friday 19 December 2003 09:46, Christopher Fowler wrote:
> > > What I'm trying to say is that I would like to see an integration of
> > > UNIX and Windows.  Like OS X.  From a dumb user perspective, OS X is
> > > doing UNIX on the desktop right.
> > 
> > Don't know about any "dumb user" perspectives, but from a really smart and 
> > informed user perspective (-: e.g. mine ;-) OSeX is most DEFINITELY doing 
> > UNIX on the desktop right!  Mostly because it's not just Unix, but an Open 
> > Source variety of Unix!
> 
> Not to start a total flame war, but I'd say it's more accurate to call it a
> mediocre microkernel with a rudimentary Unix emulation layer glued on top,
> alongside a lot of proprietary graphical goop.
> 
> But then, I don't like it very much ;-)

As I believe I have pointed out before with info like...
<http://developer.apple.com/unix/index.html>
...there is nothing of "emulation" about it. The integral, low level FreeBSD 
Unix layer handles the overwhelming majority of OSeX network interaction and 
program API's. The full FreeBSD kernel (currently FreeBSD 5 with OSeX Panther 
10.3.x) is about as far from "rudimentary" as it gets.

This is of course assuming that one abides by the definition of emulation and 
doesn't mis-label FreeBSD and Linux as such. ;-) 

peace
aaron




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