more on Mac and open source

If you wonder what is at the bottom of the Mac OS X versus Linux debate, you might like this article, fished out of mactechnews.de. The author entertains us with some of his experiences trying to get Linux to work, which is probably only amusing if you have tried - and more often than not also failed - a similar thing. But then he goes on to muse about the underlying principles and terms like kernels, distributions, GUIs (graphical user interfaces, i.e. the "look and feel" of an OS, or Operating System) and processor acronyms, also called "platforms" start popping up.

Amazingly, though, it does not get as messy as this sounds, and if you work your way through it, you can get a better picture of what these things are all about, and why a even closer merging of the powers of Mac OS X and Linux could be a good thing, especially at the kernel level, i.e. the principal structure of an operating system.

The bottom line; since Apple has already embraced UNIX and is moving towards Intel processors, it should as a next step also exchange their Mach kernel with the Linux kernel, which is a monolithic kernel instead of the microkernel that Apple is employing for their OS X.

The gain should be another performance boost and might effectively endear Apple even more to the Linux clientèle, which is probably more accessible than the Windows world if only the "technicalities" are set right.

Anyway, it is an interesting thought experiment for the more "kernelly inclined" ;-)