On Tue, 16 Apr 2002, at 1:54pm, michael bovee wrote: > Any comments? Anyone know of a BSD distribution of linux for OSX?
Okay, we're confused. Here are some definitions. (List: Corrections are welcomed.) Operating system: The set of software which gives you a "base" environment, on top of which other programs are built. The line between "base" and "other" is very indistinct. Kernel: The part of the operating system responsible for low-level interface to the hardware, and tasks such as memory management and process scheduling. Unix: An operating system developed at Bell Labs. Bought, sold, and given away so many times, nobody can remember who owns it anymore. System V: "System Five". A release of Unix from AT&T that became one of the two major "standards" for Unix-like designs. BSD: Berkeley System Distribution. A partial re-implementation of Unix, developed at the University of California at Berkeley (UCB). Borrowed some code from AT&T Unix, resulting in a long legal battle that came close to killing BSD at once point. BSD became the other major "standard" for Unix-like designs. POSIX: An attempt to turn all the Unix-like designs into a vendor-neutral standard. Not entirely unsuccessful. *BSD: The original BSD project forked into several new projects, including OpenBSD, NetBSD, and FreeBSD. Since they all share a common code base, they tend to have similar features and bugs, and thus are all lumped together with the designation "*BSD". Linux: 1. A Unix-like kernel, created by Linus Torvalds. 2. Any operating system (distribution) based on the Linux kernel. MacOS X: The supposed tenth release of Macintosh System; in reality, the first release of a completely new OS. Darwin: MacOS X is based on a BSDish Unix core, with additional layers for the graphical user interface, applications, and the like. The Unix core is called Darwin. i386: A semi-standard for a computer hardware platform. Roughly, any computer which is (1) compatible with the IBM-PC/AT design, and (2) based on a microprocessor compatible with Intel's 80386. Any computer running Microsoft Windows 95, 98, ME, 2000, or XP is an i386. Most Linux systems are i386 systems. Sometimes simply called "Intel". PPC: PowerPC. A microprocessor made by Motorola. Used in Apple Macintosh computers for the past several years. > After checking out the Fink project at sourceforge.net I decided to asked > my friend who wrote UltraScan for linux whether it might soon be possible > to run his software 'directly' under OSX. Well, that depends on your definition of "directly", but I suspect the answer will be "no". A pre-built binary for UltraScan is likely to be an i386 binary. That has no hope of running on a Macintosh, which uses a completely different hardware design. If you have the source code for UltraScan, you might be able to get it to build under MacOS X, which is basically a BSD Unix wearing a fancy disguise. However, there are some fundamental differences between the PowerPC architecture and the i386 architecture. If UltraScan depends on certain things (like how numbers are stored in the computer's memory), it will likely need major surgery to get it working. -- Ben Scott <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> | The opinions expressed in this message are those of the author and do not | | necessarily represent the views or policy of any other person, entity or | | organization. All information is provided without warranty of any kind. | ***************************************************************** To unsubscribe from this list, send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the text 'unsubscribe gnhlug' in the message body. *****************************************************************
