[goldstategop]

MacOS X is really a souped up Linux tightly integrated to the hardware. Linux users should feel right at home. The undelying OS X kernel - surprise - is UNIX! The key advantage Apple has is experience and know how in making its distro slick where other Linuxes have struggled.

(Denny Crane: "I Don't Want To Socialize With A Pinko Liberal Democrat Commie. Say What You Like About Republicans. We Stick To Our Convictions. Even When We Know We're Dead Wrong.")

[solitas]

MacOS X is really a souped up Linux tightly integrated to the hardware. Linux users should feel right at home. The undelying OS X kernel - surprise - is UNIX! The key advantage Apple has is experience and know how in making its distro slick where other Linuxes have struggled.

From OSX's help files:

• Beneath the easy-to-use interface of Mac OS X is a robust and complete UNIX operating system called Darwin. Darwin is based on open technologies such as FreeBSD, Mach, Apache, and GCC. It comes with hundreds of powerful UNIX applications already installed.

You access the UNIX operating system in Mac OS X by using the Terminal application. Terminal is in the /Applications/Utilities folder.

• Darwin: Beneath the easy-to-use interface and rich graphics of Mac OS X is Darwin, an Open Source UNIX-based foundation built on proven technologies such as FreeBSD, Mach, Apache, and gcc. Darwin is a complete operating system, comparable to Linux or FreeBSD, and provides the usual kernel, libraries, networking, and command-line environment that UNIX users expect.

• Frameworks: Mac OS X includes a variety of application frameworks to support developers in many different communities. Cocoa is a set of object-oriented frameworks designed for rapid application development, making it easy to add rich Aqua GUIs to existing UNIX software or to create entirely new applications from scratch. Carbon is designed to provide a gentle migration path for developers transitioning their applications from Mac OS 9 to Mac OS X. Java allows development and execution of cross-platform Java 2 Standard Edition programs in Mac OS X, including those written using Java Developer Kit (JDK) 1.4.1.

• Aqua: Apple's user interface for Mac OS X, using color, transparency, and animation to enhance the usability and consistency of the system and applications.