Apple's OS X Is A Unix-Mac Attack

OLIVER RIST
March 6, 2000

I don't use Macs much. I've found that the Windows applications I use perform faster than their Mac counterparts-and typically over cheaper hardware. Up until Windows 98, that is.

Another thing that's kept me distant from the silicon orchard in the past is that the Mac always seems one or two steps behind when it comes to cutting-edge networking. For example, by the time Fast Ethernet became reliable under the Mac OS, it was already old news to my readers; ergo, there was little point in pursuing it.

Well, hang onto your hats, dear readers, because Apple has set out to change that perception in a big way. I managed to get some keyboard time with a buddy's system running a developer version of Apple's OS X, code-named Aqua. In a word: amazing.

To boil it down, this is Unix made easy. Aqua uses a Mach 3.0 kernel, which is basically a modified form of the BSD Unix operating system. Apple was already using this as part of its stand-alone Darwin operating system, but decided to also use it as the core of OS X DP3. (Check Apple's site for more information on Darwin: www.apple.com/publicsource.)

According to my buddy, installation is still a mix of OS 9 and OS X, but who knows if this will stick in the final version. Installation is a hefty 750 MB, but what you get for your three-quarter gig is truly worth the space. This has to be one of the glossiest, slickest and smoothest operating systems I've ever seen.

I'm talking about the ultra-smooth antialiasing of the system fonts, near-universal drop shadowing and graphics performance that was smooth as silk; little things like how minimizing a window means a miniature snapshot of that window appears in the dock and how you can then magnify that window to actually see what's there before maximizing it again. New beauty is mixed with new functionality, such as the ability to open a tcsh shell directly without having to boot to a new OS.

My buddy is an old Mac zealot and loved the new OS as much as I did, but he did have a few wishes. For one, he wasn't thrilled with the Unix look of the new file system. A return to the classic Mac file system was what he wanted, though I myself liked the new format. Another problem with the new file system is that it isn't case sensitive, which will mean some system editing when converting some old Mac or Unix apps.

This is an amazing piece of OS coding. If it lives up to its promise in the final version, I'd consider it worth the money to buy an OS for features and quality, rather than just for market presence. Well done, Apple.

Oliver Rist is contributing technical editor at InternetWeek and technical director at Grand Central Network Labs. He can be reached at orist@cmp.com.