Mac OS X is based on Unix and BSD operating systems. At its core, Mac OS X uses Darwin, which consists of the Unix kernel and associated programs and files. Darwin originated from NeXTStep, which was directly descended from BSD Unix. While Mac OS X shares a common ancestry with Linux and other Unix variants through BSD, it contains proprietary Apple code as well. The use of open source BSD code allowed Apple to build upon an established foundation and developer community while reducing development time.

1. macOS a fetish object for the Bourgeois / macOS vs Unix.

2. From Unix for Mac: Your visual blueprint to maximizing the
foundation of Mac OS X by Sandra Henry-Stocker & Kynn
Bartlett, 2003;
“UNIX is a trademark of American Telephone and
Telegraph Company (AT&T Corporation). Mac OS is a
trademark of Apple Computer, Inc.
You can get full use out of your Mac OS X computer by
learning the ins and outs of the Unix operating system.
Even though you may not know it, you use Unix every
time you turn on your Mac OS X computer, because at the
core, Mac OS X is Unix.
The original version of UNIX was created in the 1960s in
the Bell Labs of AT&T, by researchers who devised A

3. MULTI-USER OPERATING SYSTEM for large
mainframe computers.
BSD Unix System
From AT&T, the Unix system spread to research
universities, that quickly adopted it. The University of
California, Berkeley, was one of the earliest adopters
and developers of Unix.
The staff and students at Berkeley added many more
features to this ever-evolving operating system. The
updated Berkeley version of Unix was known as
Berkeley Software Distribution (BSD), and it forms a
major branch of the operating system family tree.
The BSD family tree must be an apple tree, because

4. the most recent fruit is Mac OS X, which is based on
the BSD Unix system from Berkeley.
The most famous open-source software is the free
operating system known as Linux. A young, Finnish
software developer named Linus Torvalds created Linux as
a version of Unix that could run on Intel-style PCs, as
well as other hardware. In addition to Linux, there are
several free versions of BSD Unix, known as Free BSD,
Open BSD, and Net BSD. Mac OS X is a cousin to these
free BSD operating systems, BUT IS NOT ITSELF A
FREE OPERATING SYSTEM.

5. The largest collection of open-source applications comes
from the GNU project, developed by the Free Software
Foundation. GNU is an acronym for GNU's Not Unix, and
yes, that is self-referential. Many of the Unix applications
that you run are based on GNU code.
Up to and including Mac OS 9, the Apple operating
system was not based on Unix. There was no Unix code
at the core of Mac OS 9 or earlier systems; instead, they
used an operating system that was developed WITHIN
APPLE COMPUTER.
Darwin
When it was time to create the next version of Mac OS,
Apple chose to base it ON A BSD UNIX
FOUNDATION, modified for the specific needs of Apple.

6. This version of BSD UNIX WAS CALLED DARWIN.
Darwin consists primarily of the Unix kernel, which is
the program that runs and manages all the processes and
shells of the operating system, along with associated
programs and files that make the kernel run.
Not all the Mac OS X operating system is open source;
for example, the programs used to create the Mac OS X
desktop and windows, KNOWN COLLECTIVELY AS
AQUA, are not available for free and are only distributed
as compiled applications.
Aqua
Each time you run Mac OS X on your computer, you are
using Aqua. Aqua is the graphical user interface system

7. that gives your Macintosh the distinctive look and feel of
Mac OS X.
About hidden files in macOS:
“You can use the -A option with the ls command to
list hidden files. Computers do not always display all
files to the user. They do not do this to deceive you,
but rather to help reduce the visual clutter in file
listings. Hidden files are usually special files, set apart
from the files that Unix users create and update. They
may be configuration files or files that establish your
shell environment. However, there are times that you
may need to see a listing of all of your files, both
hidden and normal, while working with Unix.
Unix hides files by giving them a filename starting
with a period (.).

8. Most commands, including the ls command, ignore
these files. You cannot see them in a normal file
listing.
They also do not appear in the Mac OS X Finder.
You can copy a file and its resource fork using the
ditto command. Mac OS X uses resource forks to store
additional information about the file. A resource fork
is a hidden file that accompanies another document.
When you use Aqua applications, resource forks are
created automatically but are kept invisible to both
the Mac OS X Finder and the Unix shell.”
THAT'S WHAT WE CALL FREEDOM.

9. From Mac for Linux geeks Includes index by Tony Steidler-
Dennison:
“The first was the introduction of Mac OS X. It was the
first version of the Macintosh operating system to fully
utilize BSD at its core.
The creation of Mac OS X really starts with the
creation of UNIX. That story is well known, especially
among Linux geeks—a group that owes a great debt of
gratitude to the work of Dennis Ritchie, Ken Thompson,
and a team of Bell Labs engineers.
In the summer and early fall of 1969, these engineers
cobbled together a rough operating system based on the
Multiplexed Information and Computing Service
(MULTICS) operating system.
MULTICS was a project taken on jointly in 1966 by Bell,

10. General Electric, and Massachusetts Institute of
Technology (MIT), but dropped in 1969.
Like so many technical projects, work on the UNIX
system began with an informal discussion. Ritchie,
Thompson, and fellow Bell Labs engineer Rudd Canaday
met to talk about the project in the summer of 1969.
The notes from that brainstorming session were phoned to
the Bell Labs dictation system, transcribed, and sent to the
engineers. These informal notes would become the working
concept of operations for the initial version of UNIX.

11. Over four months following that meeting, work on the
UNIX system rolled forward. A rough filesystem was
created on the PDP-7, a system that, at its creation, was
state of the art.
The engineers, primarily Thompson, CREATED THE
OPERATING SYSTEM, SHELL, ASSEMBLER, AND
EDITOR IN JUST FOUR WEEKS.
They also developed a set of tools that would be
accessible to users on the system, including tools to
copy, print, and delete files. This core tool set was created
with the General Electric Comprehensive Operating
System (GECOS)—a system still in limited use on servers
and mainframes today. The tools were then transferred to
the PDP-7 using paper tape. With the assembler—the final

12. piece of the original system—successfully transferred to
the PDP-7, the fledgling UNIX system was no longer
reliant on GECOS.
UNIX WAS COMPLETELY SELF-CONTAINED, with
the full capabilities TO DEVELOP AND BUILD new
tools for the system included as part of the system
itself.”

13. THE REVOLUTION THAT IS UNIX.
“Macros and Pipes
Two more milestones in the development of UNIX
were accomplished in the years between 1970 and
1975.
The first was, in essence, another modernization of an
older computing idea— the concept of macros. Like
data structures at the code level, macros contained a set of
actions and operations that could be executed by users and
developers.
The overriding idea was to GROUP THESE SETS OF
TASKS TOGETHER in a series of operations initiated by
a single keystroke.

14. Macros did not exist in the early iterations of the C
language. Due to the growing complexity and power of
that language, macros for it were more difficult to create,
because that power and complexity demanded a similar
level of power in macro-like operations. RITCHIE AND
KERNIGHAN APPROACHED THIS PROBLEM HEAD
ON, CREATING A CONCEPT THAT WOULD TRULY
DISTINGUISH THE UNIX OPERATING SYSTEM
FROM OTHERS OF ITS DAY AND FROM MOST
THAT FOLLOWED.
RATHER THAN CREATING NEW CODE FOR
MACROS, Ritchie and Kernighan envisioned a
concept that would allow the output of one existing

15. command or tool TO BE PASSED AS INPUT TO
ANOTHER.
This concept efficiently leveraged the previous work of
creating the individual system tools, eliminating duplicate
effort.
MORE IMPORTANT, IT ALSO CREATED A
SEEMINGLY INFINITE NUMBER OF TOOL
COMBINATIONS.
ANY TOOL COULD PERFORM ITS DISCRETE
OPERATIONS, AND THEN SEAMLESSLY PASS THE
RESULT OF THOSE OPERATIONS AS INPUT TO
ANY OTHER TOOL for further processing and output—
perhaps to yet another tool, if necessary.

16. In effect, the concept created system “glue” capable
of tying many tools to many others as required.
Ritchie and Kernighan called this glue pipes.

17. IN PRACTICE, PIPES WERE REVOLUTIONARY.
PIPES GAVE USERS POWER AND FLEXIBILITY
THAT SIMPLY COULD NOT BE ACHIEVED with
mere macros.
They also had an interesting side effect on subsequent
UNIX development: they narrowed the scope of NEW
TOOLS TO SINGLE TASKS.
What would become the hallmark philosophy of UNIX
systems was born in that reduced scope: “DO ONE
THING, AND DO IT WELL.”

18. THE IMPLEMENTATION OF PIPES ALLOWED
DEVELOPERS TO WRITE PROGRAMS THAT
PERFORMED A SINGLE TASK WELL, and then to tie
those applications, as necessary, to others created under
the same philosophy.

19. At the highest level, the use of pipes encouraged
developers to create system and user tools that
worked well together.

20. In 1970, Wozniak became friendly with a summer intern at
Wozniak’s employer, Silicon Valley stalwart Hewlett-
Packard. The friend made an increasingly compelling case
that a computer could be built and sold on a single
circuit board; that such a computer could, in fact, be the
basis of a company created specifically to sell computers
to individuals, rather than to businesses.
Though initially skeptical, Wozniak was eventually
convinced that his friend, Stephen Jobs, might be onto
something. After ending a brief college career of his own at
Reed College in Portland, Oregon, Jobs returned to Palo
Alto in 1974, taking a job as a technician at Atari. Jobs and
Wozniak became regular attendees and contributors at the
Homebrew meetings.

21. Jobs focused his attention on marketing, sales, and
fund-raising.

22. Unlike the histories of UNIX and BSD, which were
primarily technical achievements, the story of Apple
Computer is equal parts technical wizardry AND
MARKETING SAVVY.
It’s almost impossible to tell the story of one without
telling the story of the other.

23. In 1983, Apple introduced the Lisa, and another new
operating system. Lisa Office System (OS) implemented a
set of process-management system calls that bore some
resemblance to UNIX.
Additionally, the Lisa OS filesystem bore a striking
resemblance to UNIX, albeit with a few additional Apple
pieces.
But the most striking feature of the Lisa was a full
graphical user interface (GUI), as inspired by efforts at
Xerox’s PARC laboratory.

24. The Convergence: Mac OS X
Financially buoyed by his time at Apple, Jobs
purchased Pixar, a visual effects studio, for $10
million in 1986, and then founded a new company,
NeXT, Inc. NeXT would produce the NeXTStep
operating system, a UNIX-like system, and the
hardware on which it would run.
NeXTStep would eventually serve as one basis of the
rebirth of Apple and the Macintosh.
However, the convergence of the Macintosh and UNIX
actually began in the early 1990s, with a version of
AT&T UNIX known as Apple UNIX.

25. NeXTStep
NeXTStep was a direct descendent of 4.3BSD.
Its distinction from BSD rested in its use of the Mach
microkernel, originally designed as a drop-in UNIX
kernel replacement.
Back at Apple
Following Jobs’s departure from Apple, the company
went through a period in which it seemed, at once,
overambitious and underachieving.”
STILL TRUE TO THIS DAY.

26. “In 1997, Apple acquired NeXT for a staggering $429
million. The deal also included 1.5 million shares of Apple
stock, all of which were awarded to Steve Jobs.
Apple had returned to its roots, bringing back its founder
to head the company. In 2001, Jobs would remove the
“interim” from his CEO title. The company had also found
the operating system that would take it into the next
century in NeXTStep. Over the next four years, NeXTStep
would be ported to the PowerPC platform, while
maintaining synchronous Intel builds.

27. Jobs introduced Mac OS X, with its internal BSD and
Mach kernel, at the January 2000 Macworld conference in
San Francisco, California.
Apple had created a twenty-first century operating
system BY RETURNING TO TECHNOLOGIES BORN
IN THE 1970S.”
FOOLS!

28. “Following the acquisition of NeXT and the return of
Steve Jobs to the company, NeXTStep began a deliberate
metamorphosis to Darwin, the system that would
become the core of Mac OS X. While retaining its BSD
underpinnings, object-oriented libraries, strong
graphics orientation, and development tools, the
Darwin kernel was hybridized.
The XNU kernel took shape with elements of Mach,
FreeBSD, and code created in-house by the Apple team.

29. History
UNIX and its various derivatives had been well
known and highly regarded since the late 1970s.
It was the operating system of choice for business,
academia, and, since the early 1980s, government research
programs. The large, active code base made it possible to
customize a full operating system FOR ALMOST ANY
NEED.
BSD also had a large and dedicated user base. Bugs in
the system were fixed quickly. The code was under
constant review and revision by the community.

30. That community, in fact, made sure that each new tool
added to BSD underwent thorough TESTING UNDER
THE UNIX PHILOSOPHY THAT IT SHOULD “WORK
WELL WITH OTHER TOOLS.” That established process
and history would potentially REDUCE THE
DEVELOPMENT TIME FOR THE APPLE TEAM.

31. Open Source Base
The open source basis of Mac OS X was actually
misrepresented in Steve Jobs’s hyperbolic
announcement of the operating system at the 2000
Macworld conference in San Francisco.
Two pieces of that announcement in particular made more
of those origins than was supported by reality:
- Calling Mac OS X “VERY LINUX LIKE”, Jobs noted
that it uses “FreeBSD UNIX, which is the same as
Linux.”
WHILE THERE ARE SIMILARITIES, there are also
many differences between the two operating systems.

32. - Jobs also noted that Mac OS X “was completely open
source.”
Again that's not exactly true. WHILE THE DARWIN
CODE IS, IN FACT, OPEN SOURCE, many elements of
Mac OS X are not.”
But Steve Jobs is a Marketing People, he is not There "to
Tell you the truth", But to Sell you "a Dream".

33. “While the FreeBSD basis of Mac OS X moved the
Macintosh into the modern age, IT IS NOT THE
COMPLETELY FREE AND OPEN SOURCE operating
system painted by Jobs’s Macworld announcement.

34. The decision to continue using open source tools in
Mac OS X created, to paraphrase Torvalds, “enough
eyeballs to keep the bugs shallow.” It allowed Apple
to call upon a large pool of user-created tools.”
MEANING FREE!

35. “Extensibility
Based on BSD, NeXTStep WAS HIGHLY
EXTENSIBLE.
The basis of NeXTStep was BSD’s native C. The power
of C had already been proven and could be extended
easily as the operating system grew to meet new
demands.

36. The full set of UNIX USER-SPACE TOOLS available
in FreeBSD is available in Mac OS X natively.
As already noted, the core of Mac OS X is based on
FreeBSD and is a true UNIX.
BSD, Linux, and Mac OS X are clearly branches
straight from a single tap root: the UNIX
OPERATING SYSTEM.

37. Let’s go back one more time to the origins of Mac OS X. It
began its life as NeXTStep, which was a direct
descendant of OpenBSD—UNIX through and through.
The core implementation of BSD in Mac OS X is
Darwin.
Mac OS X is compatible with the Single UNIX
Specification Version 3, is certified UNIX 03–
compliant, and is fully POSIX-compliant.
The systems share A COMMON ANCESTOR, after all,
in UNIX. BSD is UNIX. Mac OS X is based on BSD,
although it also contains quite a bit of proprietary
code.

38. You’ll recall that BSD is a direct fork of UNIX, created by
students at UCB. That fork took shape beginning in the
late 1970s, with BSD development proceeding in a path
parallel to that of UNIX. As BSD development continued
through version 4.2, UNIX development moved into
System V (SysV).”

39. We continue the Bullshit of Mac OS X:
From Beginning Unix by Paul Love, Joe Merlino, et al.,
2003;
“Unix is a case-sensitive operating system. This means
that the case (capitalization) of file and directory names
matters. In DOS or Microsoft Windows systems, you can
type a filename with no regard to the capitalization. In
Unix, you must know the case of the file or directory name
because you could have three different files named real_file
, Real_file , and REAL_FILE.
Mac OS X IS A CASE-INSENSITIVE.

40. This means that on Mac OS X there is no distinction
between naming a file real_file , Real_file , or
REAL_FILE.”
From macOS Support Essentials 10.12 - Apple Pro Training
Series: Supporting and Troubleshooting macOS Sierra by
Kevin M. White and Gordon Davisson:
“About UNIX Commands
Mac systems have long been both POSIX- and UNIX
03–compliant. Thus, macOS is compatible with most
UNIX software.”

41. MacOS is a LIMITED UNIX, as we will see later.
“Hidden Items
The root level of the Mac system volume contains
many resources that UNIX processes require and
UNIX administrators expect.
Apple made the wise choice of configuring the Finder
TO HIDE these items from THE AVERAGE USER.
On a daily basis, the average user—and even most
administrator users—does not need to access any of these
items from the graphical interface.

42. Realistically, the only people who even care about these
normally hidden resources are going to be using the
command-line interface via Terminal to do their work
anyway.”

43. Realistically Really and yet in my daily use, even not using
the terminal, I create or delete hidden files 'through the
graphical interface'.
MAC OS WAS CREATED FOR THE 'LITTLE
BOURGEOIS', the Proof, the Mac Online Store there to repair
the os.
Unthinkable for a 'PURIST WHO HAS A UNIX', to Have
Control over his system.
It's a typical reflex of a small bourgeois fetishist, who is
more interested in the fetish, than in the use.
But the idiot 'has a Mac Os'.

44. “Symbolic Links
[by default] You cannot create symbolic links from the
Finder, but the Finder can follow symbolic links to the
original item.
Symbolic link shortcuts are part of the traditional
UNIX file system; they are pointers to the file-system
path of the original item. Thus, in many cases, if you
move the original item, the symbolic link is broken.
In macOS, you can create symbolic links only in
Terminal.”
Dah!?
This confirms my Theory that the Mac Os user is a
consumer, not a user. A User free to choose.

45. “Hard Links
Hard-link shortcuts are also part of the traditional
UNIX file system; they are actual additional
references to the original item.
You can create hard links ONLY IN TERMINAL. The
Finder cannot create hard links, but it can follow
them.”
Gosh, this Mac Os system is a scam, you get a system you
pay for and plus a relatively expensive hardware, BUT YOU
ARE RESTRICTED IN IT.
It makes no sense, and has nothing to do with the Unix
philosophy, which was created to FREE THE USER.

46. “The macOS system layout is designed to strike a balance
between ease of use and advanced functionality. For the
basic user, looking at the root (beginning) of the file system
from the Finder reveals only four default folders:
Applications, Library, Users, and System. The contents of
these four folders represent all that most users, and many
administrators, ever need to access. Yet when advanced
users look at the system root from Terminal, they see
many more items that the Finder would normally hide.
Thus, the complexity and flexibility of a UNIX
operating system remains accessible to those users
who require it.”
WHAT A LOUSY SALES PITCH!

47. I've been on Linux for years, and I have access to more
possibilities than a Mac Os FOR FREE.
What follows is WORSE, and shows this Little Dictator
Mentality:
“Historically, UNIX systems like macOS have allowed users
and processes with root (or System Administrator) access
to bypass system permissions. Thus, as covered in Lesson
11, “Manage Permissions and Sharing,” any user or process
with root access could essentially modify any item on the
system volume. Further, processes running as root are
normally allowed to modify the memory stores of any
running process.
As a default on macOS, any administrator can install
software that can potentially request root access.

48. Because many users don’t think twice before
authenticating an installer or update, an administrator
user could easily install malware that could take
advantage of root access. This is why, from a security
perspective, root access is a significant risk factor.”
Basically, the User is a jerk.

49. “System Initialization:
Launchd Once the kernel is up and running, the Mac is
ready to start running processes at the behest of the
system and, eventually, human users. Again, the first
nonkernel process started is launchd, located at
/sbin/launchd, which runs as root and is given the process
identification number of 1. In UNIX terms, launchd is the
first parent process that spawns other child processes, and
those processes go on to spawn other child processes.
APPLE STRONGLY ENCOURAGES ALL
DEVELOPERS TO ADOPT the launchd system for all
automatically started processes, but the launchd process
also supports legacy startup routines. This includes
support for running the traditional UNIX /etc/rc.local

50. script during system initialization, if present, though this
script is not included on macOS by default.”
WHAT FREEDOM!

51. “Why does the Finder hide certain folders at the root
of the system volume?
Answer:
The Finder hides traditional UNIX resources from
average users because THEY DON’T NEED ACCESS
TO THOSE ITEMS.”
WONDERFUL, the Whole History of Mac OS goes in the
opposite direction of technology and user liberation (Unix).
Good luck apple!