Talk:XNU

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Contents 1 Two things 2 acronym? 3 Darwin userland 4 ARM processor too? 5 more on userspace drivers? 6 performance and scalability?

[edit] Two things

Two things:

• I think it is important to mention Mac OS X as a lot more people use it than Darwin, and a lot more people will recognise the OSX name than the Darwin name.
• If we are going to be specific that XNU code is from the FreeBSD kernel not the FreeBSD operating system, then we should then be specific that XNU code is from the Mach kernel not the Mach operating system. AlistairMcMillan 22:34, 24 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Is Mach an operating system? – Mipadi 03:24, 18 December 2005 (UTC)

[edit] acronym?

Can anyone verify that XNU actually stands for XNU's Not Unix ("is" probably shouldn't be listed as its own word of it would be XINU)? Most references on the Internet seem to be speculation (or speculation repeated as fact). —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 63.227.67.1 (talk • contribs) 21:23, 15 July 2005 (UTC)

It stands for X is Not Unix—I looked it up on Apple's website; – Mipadi 03:24, 18 December 2005 (UTC)

Thanks for the citation (sorry for taking so long to reply, I was unregistered back when I made the request). I'm curious if someone has quick access to older ADC documentation. I don't recall seeing the phrase until relatively recently, and I'm curious if there's some evidence of X is Not Unix being some kind of backronym. -rasd —The preceding comment was added by Rasd (talk • contribs) 18:39, 26 April 2006 (UTC)

They don't use the name XINU because this name was already used by an operating system made by douglas COMER for teaching purpose (and published in the "xinu book") - yoann padioleau

It sounds an awfull lot like GNU's Not Unix (se the GNU article) so X is Not Unix does't make much sense to me in this context (X is the display manager isn't it?)? XNU's Not Unix seems more logical. But the apple page indeed say X. :S

--Apis O-tang 08:25, 16 October 2007 (UTC)

No, the display manager in Mac OS X is the Quartz Compositor; the native GUI in OS X doesn't use the X Window System. I'm not sure what the "X" in "X is not UNIX" stands for, but it's not the X Window System - it's probably "X" as in "OS X". Guy Harris 08:50, 16 October 2007 (UTC)

Yes, but XNU was from NeXTSTEP right? (and they might have used X as a display manager, although I don realy know). So when XNU was developed, the name OS X didn't even exist... unless it was originally developed under another name and later renamed XNU for use in Mac OS X?

--Apis O-tang 15:51, 17 October 2007 (UTC)

XNU is descended from, among other things, the kernel in NeXTSTEP. As far as I know, the NeXTSTEP kernel was not called "XNU". NeXTSTEP did not use the X Window System, either; it used Display PostScript. Guy Harris 20:46, 17 October 2007 (UTC)

Ahh, well it makes more sense to me now, thanks for the information :). It sounds reasonable that X refer to the x in Mac OS X then, as you sugested.

--Apis O-tang 00:30, 18 October 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Darwin userland

Mac OS X was originally populated with mostly NetBSD userland. It wasn't heavily moved to FreeBSD until later (I suspect once Jordan Hubbard was brought into Apple from the FreeBSD project). —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 68.158.68.247 (talk • contribs) 5:39, 20 February 2007 (UTC).

[edit] ARM processor too?

The article now states: "Currently, XNU runs on x86 (Intel and AMD) and PowerPC based processors...". Didn't Apple also have to port XNU to the ARM architecture, in order to get a trimmed down OS X to run on the iPhone (which appears to be ARM-based)? --Georgeryp 03:54, 7 September 2007 (UTC)

[edit] more on userspace drivers?

i appreciate the limited mention of user space drivers, but would appreciate a bit more info. kernel space drivers are mentioned, as is the possibility of writing user space drivers, but no actual user space drivers are mentioned. are there any? are there likely to be any?

this is supposedly an architectural advantage, so whether it actually pays off in practice is significant. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.253.239.161 (talk) 17:59, 15 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] performance and scalability?

some discussion of performance compared with other operating systems as well as how well xnu scales when deployed on multiple cores or processors would be welcome. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.253.239.161 (talk) 19:34, 15 May 2008 (UTC)