Mac OS underlying FreeBSD - does it run Linux emulation?

[Coleman Kane]

On 4/4/07, Robert Watson <rwatson at freebsd.org> wrote:
>
>
> On Wed, 4 Apr 2007, Mike Meyer wrote:
>
> > In <20070404130249.GA41671 at kukulies.org>, Christoph P. Kukulies <
> kuku at kukulies.org> typed:
> >> does  anyone know whether one can run Linux applications under the
> underlying
> >> FreeBSD of the MAC OS (on an Intel Core Duo mini Mac)?
> >
> > No, you can't. The "underlying" FreeBSD is userland code; not kernel
> code.
> > The OSX kernel is based on Mach.
>
> While it's true you can't run Linux binaries on Mac OS X, it's not for the
> reason you're suggesting, and your statement regarding FreeBSD kernel code
> in
> Mac OS X is simply incorrect.  The Mac OS X kernel, XNU, contains
> significant
> quantities of FreeBSD kernel source code, including a FreeBSD-derived VFS
> and
> network stack.  Other parts of the kernel, such as the scheduler and VM
> system, are derived from Mach.  While the FreeBSD-derived code has been
> significantly modified since it was originally forked, a lot of code moves
> backward and forward between the platforms: the FreeBSD audit subsystem is
> derived from the Mac OS X audit subsystem, and Mac OS X's smbfs and MAC
> Framework support are derived from FreeBSD.
>
> Robert N M Watson
> Computer Laboratory
> University of Cambridge


In addition to this, there have been examples of  the Linux kernel hosted by
Mach in the past (such as MkLinux). From my understanding, the only thing
that prevents this from being realized is that nobody has sat down to
actually write/port the code to do it.

--
Coleman Kane