While the macOS kernel combines the feature of a microkernel ( Mach)) and a monolithic kernel ( BSD), Linux is solely a monolithic kernel. The Mach part is responsible for low-level work, such as multitasking, protected memory, virtual memory management, kernel debugging support, and console I/O.
The BSD subsystem part of the code is “typically implemented as user-space servers in microkernel systems”. The acronym stands for “XNU is Not Unix.” According to Apple’s Github page, XNU is “a hybrid kernel combining the Mach kernel developed at Carnegie Mellon University with components from FreeBSD and C++ API for writing drivers”. The macOS kernel is officially known as XNU. There are hundreds of Linux-based operating systems called distributions.įor simplicity, we tend to address it as Linux OS instead of a specific Linux distribution. Linux is not an operating system but needs different components like desktop environments to form an operating system. On the contrary, Linux (the kernel) was built as a free and open-source replacement for Unix. This is why macOS has a combination of Unix components along with Apple’s proprietary technologies.
Apple later acquired NeXT and brought back Steve onboard as part of the deal, making NeXTSTEP OS the base for macOS. While it got some attention, it wasn’t a big success. Technically, it was based on the Mach Kernel and the UNIX-derived BSD.īack then, a NeXTSTEP operating system was created to power the devices/computers built by NeXT. The foundation of it was built by Steve Jobs’s NeXT computer company when he wasn’t at Apple. So, let’s compare Apple and Orange Penguin. There are plenty of differences between the two UNIX-like operating systems and I shall highlight both the similarities and the differences in this article. macOS is not Linux despite the similarities. This is why some people even think Apple’s macOS is based on Linux. And not all Windows applications and games are available for macOS and Linux.
While the differences between Linux and Windows are quite obvious, Linux and macOS may seem similar to many.īoth can run Unix commands in the terminal, and the user experience is vastly different from Windows. We often compare Linux with Windows, but what about comparing it with macOS?
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