4 ms·

Mac OS X is using a Mach microkernel.

• wmf 16y ago
  Not really. AFAIK, NeXTSTEP/OS X is based on Mach 2.x which wasn't really a microkernel (the BSD code wasn't moved to userspace until 3.0).
  • glhaynes 16y ago
    XNU (the Mac OS X / Darwin kernel) is based on Mach 3.0 but still has BSD in the kernel: Early versions of Mach had monolithic kernels, with much of BSD's code in the kernel. Mach 3.0 was the first microkernel implementation. XNU's Mach component is based on Mach 3.0, although it's not used as a microkernel. The BSD subsystem is part of the kernel and so are various other subsystems that are typically implemented as user-space servers in microkernel systems. from http://osxbook.com/book/bonus/ancient/whatismacosx/arch_xnu.html http://osxbook.com/book/bonus/ancient/whatismacosx/arch_xnu....
    • i386 16y ago
      There was a research project at ERTOS to port XNU to L4 microkernel. Interestingly, this guy now works at Apple on the kernel team. http://ertos.nicta.com.au/software/darbat/ http://ertos.nicta.com.au/software/darbat/
• deleted 16y ago
  [deleted]