[SOLVED] OSX Unix compliant question

Status
Not open for further replies.

checkii

Honorable
Apr 15, 2012
5
0
10,510
One of my classmate and I have a huge discussion over OSX's Unix system.

He says OSX is Unix because its certified by the opengroup as Unix compliant.
I believe OSX not Unix because it combines Mach and BSD to form OSX's XNU.

I understand the Unix part is certified, but I am hesitant to call it a Unix system simply because of its hybrid kernel.
 
Solution
If you want to learn to use and program UNIX, then OS X will do just fine. It supports all the system calls that any UNIX must and comes with most of the GNU utilities; any others can easily be added.

If you are interested in the history of the actual programming of the UNIX kernel, then your best bet is to study FreeBSD (and get hold of the book The Design and Implementation of the 4.4 BSD Operating System).

But you must understand that there are, and always have been, different flavours of UNIX. For example there are some subtle, and some not so subtle, differences between FreeBSD, Solaris, and AIX (just three examples). If you need to work with a particular flavour of UNIX then you need to learn with that particular one. If...
It is not unix. Unix as an OS is no more. Unix as we know it evolved into a whole ton of different operating systems including the current BSD variants and a ton of operating systems owned by IBM, HP, etc... that all trace their origins back to the System V code.

OSX is very close to Unix because it meets the single Unix specification.

The specification actually spells out very little in terms of what the kernel must look like and a number of operating systems which meet the specification entirely or are considered unix-like have very different kernel architectures but very similar application compatibility
 
You are wrong and your classmate is right. OS X is one of the few certified UNIXs. The only other for PCs is Solaris.

The difference, in practice, is negligible. Linux and the FreeBSDs are, to all intents and purposed, UNIX but cannot label themselves as such.

The nature of the kernel is irrelevant; there have been many, many different UNIX kernels over the years. How the specification is implemented doesn't matter. It's what it does, and what APIs it offers that matters not how it works under the hood.
 

checkii

Honorable
Apr 15, 2012
5
0
10,510
This question is important to me because if Mac OSX is by its nature a unix system (and I already have a mac book pro) then I can just learn unix from Mac OSX.

But I'm getting two different answers here. Will this come down to a vote? So far I got 2 against and 1 for.

I asked a unix irc channel about this. Their answer was: Unix is 3 things "philosophy, trademark, and source code" Mac OSX is the former two but not the 3rd. They recommend other type of unix gnu/distros if I want to learn Unix.
 
If you want to learn to use and program UNIX, then OS X will do just fine. It supports all the system calls that any UNIX must and comes with most of the GNU utilities; any others can easily be added.

If you are interested in the history of the actual programming of the UNIX kernel, then your best bet is to study FreeBSD (and get hold of the book The Design and Implementation of the 4.4 BSD Operating System).

But you must understand that there are, and always have been, different flavours of UNIX. For example there are some subtle, and some not so subtle, differences between FreeBSD, Solaris, and AIX (just three examples). If you need to work with a particular flavour of UNIX then you need to learn with that particular one. If you just want to learn to use UNIX in general ,and its various commands, then OS X, FreeBSD, Solaris, or Linux will all do the job.

But only the first and the third of those are true UNIXs.
 
Solution

orestesdd

Distinguished
Jul 21, 2010
328
0
18,790
I am in the same boat. I want to sharpen up my UNIX skills since I've been laid off, and find a new job, but I was thinking to buy a Mac Mini to learn more about UNIX. While I was at work, I was just a UNIX user, but now I would like to learn more about this OS so that I can get a new job. Thus, is it a good investment to buy a Mac Mini for this purpose? Thanks.
 

orestesdd

Distinguished
Jul 21, 2010
328
0
18,790


I believe Solaris is what I had running at work. Is it Solaris too expensive? What version of Linux do you recommend? I don't like FreeBSD because I've heard some news that it places lots of restriction on the type of hardware it can be used on. Linux may be a good choice because of the opposite of FreeBSD; that is, Linux seems to run on a wide selection of hardware. Anyhow, thanks for your input.
 
Solaris is free for non-production use. It's a real UNIX.

If you want to use Linux try a few Live CDs. Fedora, Debian, Gentoo are good choices that haven't strayed too far from the mainstream yet. Ubuntu is very popular, but it gets less and less like traditional UNIX with each new release (IMO).

You have been misinformed about FreeBSD. I have yet to find any hardware it won't run on. In fact I have had more problems with Linux than FreeBSD in this respect. It can be a little more difficult to set up than Linux but is a direct decedent of the original UNIXs. And, if you are learning, difficult can be good. You only learn from things that aren't easy.

With any of these OSs you don't need cutting-edge hardware and it is probably best to go for a relatively modest system without fancy processors and graphics cards. Just give it plenty of RAM (real cheap right now).

If you are already used to Solaris it would seem to be the obvious choice.
 

orestesdd

Distinguished
Jul 21, 2010
328
0
18,790


Thank you for your help. I believe I was using Solaris at work, but I am not 100% sure. I will post a separate post to deal with the selection of hardware where I can run some flavor of UNIX. What I am most concerned with is to be able to print to my current wireless printer at home, a Kodak HERO 7.1. I guess I will have to write another post to look for a cheap solution. I may have to build my own UNIX box, but I can't only afford about $600. Anyhow, again thanks for all your input.
 

AidanJC

Distinguished
Mar 22, 2011
231
0
18,690


It seems like theres a couple of problems with this forum in particular.

When i click on the Mac OS X link in the forum selection, i get an error message saying "The site is temporarily unavailable.
Please come back soon."
 
There do seem to be problems with the OS X forum.

I don't know whether your printer will work under any of the OSs mentioned. The wireless part, and probably printing, shouldn't be a problem, but scanning could be. I would expect that if it works with one of the OSs it will work with all of them. This is the sort of issue that a Live CD helps with.

But it would still be cheaper to use a PC and buy a new printer (HP printers work with just about anything) than to buy a Mac.
 

orestesdd

Distinguished
Jul 21, 2010
328
0
18,790


I cannot spend lots of money to buy another printer since I got laid off. One thing I can do is to use my Windows 7 to log in to the UNIX machine, and then print from Windows. I just want to see if I can simulate my previous work environment. By the way, I posted another thread requesting help to build a simple UNIX computer, but I got no answers.

I think it will be better to buy just a Windows PC off the shelf and install some flavor of UNIX. I will keep coming back here to see if I get more feedback. Anyhow thanks.
 
If you can't afford a new printer you certainly can't afford a Mac Mini!

If you already have a PC why not just install one of the OSs in a virtual machine using VirtualBox? It will cost you nothing, you can guarantee that any of the free OSs discussed will run in that environment, and perfermance will be almost as good as a native install. Also, you can play with allof the OSs, at no cost, to see which suits you.

I would say that a VM is the ideal solution in your case.
 
If you can't afford a new printer you certainly can't afford a Mac Mini!

If you already have a PC why not just install one of the OSs in a virtual machine using VirtualBox? It will cost you nothing, you can guarantee that any of the free OSs discussed will run in that environment, and performance will be almost as good as a native install. Also, you can play with all of the OSs, at no cost, to see which suits you.

I would say that a VM is the ideal solution in your case.
 

orestesdd

Distinguished
Jul 21, 2010
328
0
18,790


I tried to install Cygwin, but it gave me a headache and I decided to remove it. I don't think that using a VB (whatever VB is) will simulate my old job environment, for I may have at least two users at home using this. I am afraid that if I use the VB on my laptop, it may ruin whatever software I have on my laptop, and this is the main reason why I want a different physical box to run UNIX. I will do a little research to see if I can do that on HP ProLiant ML110 G7 Server. However, I am researching two configuration one with Intel® Core™ i3 2120 and another with Intel® Xeon® E3-1220.

I will do some digging about VB since this is the second time someone mentioned at a FreeBSD forum. By the way, my budget to do this will be no more than $800 and I may need to buy a monitor and or more RAM since the above boxes only come with 2GB. I really appreciate your feedback but everything I do now is a tough decision for me.

Now I found out that there is a similar software to the VB; that is, I found that VMWare Workstation 8 will may eventually allow me to move my VMWare Workstation or Server to the "Cloud". It may even allow me to run a Mac OS X, which may be useful for me and my step son. Let me dig a bit more about VMWare.
 
VirtualBox is a free alternative to VMWare (and is preferred by many). Basically, it makes your computer behave like two or more computers. VMWare is fine, though not free. But there is VMWare Player which is frree and has all the features you need.
 

orestesdd

Distinguished
Jul 21, 2010
328
0
18,790

For now I will play with VB as it is free. I just hope I can do what I want though I may still have to buy another cheap PC. Thanks again. Now it is the hard part--loading FreeBSD onto VB to see if it works.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.