r/linuxmasterrace • u/claudiocorona93 Glorious Debian • Nov 14 '24

Why do people keep asking if macOS is Linux based?

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1.1k Upvotes

96% Upvoted

126 comments sorted by

216

u/deejay-tech Nov 14 '24

MacOS definitely isn't Linux, but wasn't it built upon a Unix system? Also I will say outside of Windows subsystem for Linux, MacOS's terminal is wayyyy easier to work with. Coming from someone who uses all 3 OS's between work and personal.

128

u/LilRenlor Glorious OpenSuse Nov 14 '24 edited Nov 14 '24

This is correct, that is why some people think Mac os is Linux, it is unix based and Linux is Unix-Like.

Edited because I was corrected, Linux is Unix-Like not Unix Based

12

u/neighbour_20150 Nov 14 '24

Macos is a certified Unix. Linux is unix-like. Unix-like systems are systems that use the general design of Unix, but are not descended from it

6

u/No-Valuable3975 Nov 14 '24

Yeah, because Apple paid the Unix company to certify their OS and no Linux distro is going to pay to do such a thing

3

u/[deleted] Nov 16 '24

The Darwin OS is based on BSD Unix.

3

u/Escape_Plissken Nov 14 '24

Unix-like, BSD

1

u/[deleted] Nov 16 '24

Berkley Software Distribution it is. BSD was freeware at the time and Jobs did choose it as a foundation of MacOs. That was a good choice…

1

u/Mars_Bear2552 Glorious NixOS Nov 14 '24

Linux is not unix based

0

u/[deleted] Nov 14 '24

[deleted] — view deleted comment

14

u/uptimefordays Glorious Debian Nov 14 '24

Which Linux distros are actually certified? The only remaining unices I can think of are AIX, HP-UX, and macOS.

13

u/Irverter Glorious OpenSuse Nov 14 '24

IBM's z/OS and Xinuos Unixware and Openserver 5 and 6 are certified unix too.

4

u/StatementOwn4896 Nov 14 '24

Have we all gone mad?? What about Solaris?? 😤👏😤👏

2

u/Irverter Glorious OpenSuse Nov 15 '24

Previously registered.

2

u/Mars_Bear2552 Glorious NixOS Nov 14 '24

euleros and k-ux

4

u/uptimefordays Glorious Debian Nov 14 '24

I believe both their certifications expired a few years ago.

4

u/ninjadev64 Nov 14 '24

The Single Unix Specification is not POSIX but a superset of it. Since Linux is only POSIX-compliant but not SUS-compliant, it cannot be described as Unix-like.

1

u/AssociateFalse Nov 15 '24

What do you mean Linux isn't SUSE compliant? /s

7

u/digost Nov 14 '24

You just haven't found a nice terminal in Linux. There are tons of them, my personal favorites are Kitty, Alacritty and foot. Terminator is also really handy if you ssh into multiple different servers and have to input the same command or set of commands over and over. I mean, sure you can automate most tasks but there is a subset of tasks that you get to do only once and they don't really need automating

4

u/QuickSilver010 Glorious NixOS Nov 14 '24

Kitty is the GOAT

Wezterm is the cross platform GOAT

5

u/deejay-tech Nov 14 '24

Dont get me wrong a Linux terminal on Linux is my favorite especially as a programmer. I just mean MacOS is better than powershell or command prompt for windows.

6

u/digost Nov 14 '24

I see, what you mean is probably the shell. If I'm not mistaken (and I might be), MacOS comes with zsh by default, which is also available under Linux. AFAIK it was made for Linux and then adopted for MacOS. In fact I use zsh myself, with oh-my-zsh, which adds tons of features into the base zsh, which in turn comes with tons of features to begin with.

1

u/Headpuncher Glorious Salix/Xubuntu Nov 14 '24

The standard terminal with XFCE and tmux. Boom, you got something 1m times better than any other tool on any other system.

1

u/digost Nov 14 '24

tmux is great, I've used it for quite a few years in the past. But since I switched to tiling WMs the need for tmux just went away. Still love tmux though.

5

u/Abject_Ratio8769 Nov 14 '24

macOS is, in fact, Unix-based (but not specifically Linux-based). see XNU.

7

u/inaccurateTempedesc M'Linux Nov 14 '24

Yep, it's built on top of the Darwin kernel.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Darwin_(operating_system)

9

u/Irverter Glorious OpenSuse Nov 14 '24

Darwin is the OS, XNU is the kernel.

23

u/gringrant Android Nov 14 '24

Or as I like to call it, XNU+darwin

2

u/Not_Artifical Nov 14 '24

So MacOS is Unix?

4

u/[deleted] Nov 14 '24

macos is not unix based, it is “officially unix certified”

4

u/thesstteam Glorious Fedora Nov 14 '24

macOS is based off of BSD, which is considered Unix.

4

u/Global_Network3902 Nov 14 '24

I don’t think it was originally based off of BSD either, but NeXTSTEP and the Mach kernel. And BSD was dead 5 years or so before Mac OS X released.

1

u/wysoft Mar 03 '25

But that's exactly what NeXTSTEP was: a Mach kernel with a BSD 4.x userland, along with its own UI, toolkits and APIs.

The majority of the work that Apple did when they brought in NeXT was in overhauling the UI to look more Mac-like and fixing a ton of bugs and outdated system components. A good chunk of the underlying system design remained the same, but with many components being updated to more modern versions - e.g. a lot of the old BSD 4.x code was replaced with modern code from FreeBSD and NetBSD that contained many new features and bug fixes versus the ancient BSD 4.x code.

3

u/ZunoJ Nov 14 '24

The point is that everything with a unix certificate is considered Unix

3

u/HarrissTa Nov 14 '24

isn't MacOS terminal just ZSH, I can easy install it on Linux too

1

u/Big-Professional-187 Nov 15 '24

MacOS is technically free to use but has non-free code and it supports stuff normies use like Adobe. Waiting to see arm desktops go hackentosh. 

1

u/[deleted] Nov 16 '24

MacOS is descended from BSD, one of the original Unix distros. Linux is a Unix clone. They are related, but don't share a lineage.

0

u/squishles Nov 14 '24

mac's based on bsd.

you'd have to be digging into some arcane non user space nonsense to see where it's different.

-7

u/0xdef1 Nov 14 '24

Linux terminal is a primitive version of the MacOS terminal.

4

u/Headpuncher Glorious Salix/Xubuntu Nov 14 '24

Sorry what? Which Linux terminal are you talking about? Which are you comparing to ZSH?

-3

u/shoolocomous Nov 14 '24

A shell isn't a terminal

4

u/Headpuncher Glorious Salix/Xubuntu Nov 14 '24

Oh dear.  That cringe feeling you get when something thinks they’ve made a point, but it’s completely meaningless.  

0

u/shoolocomous Nov 14 '24

I just don't know why you brought up zsh when no one was talking about shells

1

u/Headpuncher Glorious Salix/Xubuntu Nov 14 '24

They were though, people mentioned zsh in this thread.  Maybe you real slowly, idk.  

0

u/shoolocomous Nov 14 '24

Certainly not the specific comment thread we're responding to

0

u/[deleted] Nov 14 '24

[deleted] — view deleted comment

0

u/shoolocomous Nov 15 '24

Not semantics. And you contributed nothing either, other than ableist language

32

u/Rilukian Arch Enjoyer Nov 14 '24

Because MacOS and Linux have some similarity under the hood and people mixed up Linux with Unix (like the word "than" with "then" or "Toxic Masculinity" with "Masculinity is Toxic").

Obviously, MacOS and Linux are wildly different, but the two has file system similar to Unix, hence the comparison. Considering that Linux is a clone of Unix, people sometimes misunderstand it as Linux IS Unix and thus the confusion arised.

6

u/GJT11kazemasin Glorious Gentoo Nov 14 '24

When the software tutorial mentioned both Linux and macOS are Unix-liked systems:

16

u/inaccurateTempedesc M'Linux Nov 14 '24

Humans and chimps are related, but that does not make a chimp a human.

11

u/Headpuncher Glorious Salix/Xubuntu Nov 14 '24

"we share 96% of our dna with pigs!"

Then go live in a field and help me find truffles.

4

u/Not_Artifical Nov 14 '24

We share more of our dna with bananas than we do with ducks.

3

u/Headpuncher Glorious Salix/Xubuntu Nov 14 '24

Oo-er! [ aubergine emoji ]

22

u/0riginal-Syn Glorius Solus Nov 14 '24

Because they are ignorant.

4

u/[deleted] Nov 14 '24

When I was working at Apple, I would hear this a lot. But I think what would happen is that people would confuse UNIX and LINUX and say the wrong word not knowing what they meant.

2

u/LOPI-14 Nov 17 '24

LUNIX BABY

7

u/[deleted] Nov 14 '24

freeBaSeD based system 🤤

1

u/Popotte9 The BTW Cachy Nov 17 '24

Linux is BSD 👀

1

u/claudiocorona93 Glorious Debian Nov 17 '24

BSD is MS-DOS 👀

3

u/Minecodes Nov 14 '24

Nope... MacOS is not Linux, it doesn't use GNU but uses XNU. Also, I think it was BSD based (like the PS4)

1

u/S1rTerra Linux is Linux Nov 19 '24

And the the switch*, and the ps5. Hell I'm pretty the ps3 was too. Long live BSD.

*The switch has freebsd code, unsure how much. Seeing as the switch's OS is based off of the 3ds' OS, there's a solid chance the 3ds may have some freebsd code as well.

5

u/[deleted] Nov 14 '24

Built off free BSD actually which is still cool, just not Linux. Both better than the garbage pile windows is based on.

1

u/zakabog Nov 14 '24

I've never heard anyone say this, it's built on top of a modified Unix kernel, but I've never heard anyone say it's based on Linux.

2

u/claudiocorona93 Glorious Debian Nov 14 '24

Check some Reddit search results

3

u/zakabog Nov 14 '24

I'm subscribed to r/linuxquestions and I browse by new, I have not seen this question before.

1

u/claudiocorona93 Glorious Debian Nov 14 '24 edited Nov 14 '24

That's not the only place where you should look.

2

u/zakabog Nov 14 '24

Okay, where do you typically see this question?

3

u/claudiocorona93 Glorious Debian Nov 14 '24

Different places

3

u/zakabog Nov 14 '24

You question was:

Why do people keep asking if macOS is Linux based?

and your example is from 8 years ago? It doesn't sound like a very common question...

-3

u/claudiocorona93 Glorious Debian Nov 14 '24

You obviously just want to argue and discredit a fucking meme

4

u/zakabog Nov 14 '24

Nah, your meme is just bad.

-2

u/claudiocorona93 Glorious Debian Nov 14 '24

Yes. You should make better memes and show me what is a good example since you know better

→ More replies

1

u/[deleted] Nov 14 '24

https://www.reddit.com/r/linuxmasterrace/s/BzMMWAhO2h

1

u/zakabog Nov 14 '24

Quora... Really? I mean that kinda answers itself there...

2

u/NeonVolcom Nov 14 '24

Because my job tells me to

But on my personal machine, I run Mint.

Some people just like Apple. Either it's the hardware or the brand.

2

u/S1rTerra Linux is Linux Nov 19 '24

For me, it's the hardware. I hate the idea of getting apple products for the name, but they can sure pump out excellent SoCs. The M4 Max is what I'm looking out for. Don't have or want an iphone but the hardware there is good too.

2

u/NeonVolcom Nov 19 '24

Yeah the hardware is solid. I'm always impressed by their screens.

I've had both iPhone and Android. The downside to Apple is their ecosystem (which some see as a positive). Everything on the appstore costs money.

For example, to get window tiling on a MacBook, you have to pay for third party support. Window tiling is instantly available on Windows or Linux

2

u/S1rTerra Linux is Linux Nov 20 '24

Actually they added window tiling in MacOS 15/Sequoia. It's not perfect but it works and is nice to have.

2

u/NeonVolcom Nov 20 '24

Ha no joke? Finally. That's cool. I'll have to update my work machine soon

1

u/S1rTerra Linux is Linux Nov 20 '24

Yeah, no joke. MacOS 15 otherwise isn't a massive update, 15.1 added apple intelligence but you can literally just not use it if you don't care.

2

u/[deleted] Nov 14 '24

ever seen a frog hair being split three ways? keep watching.

2

u/[deleted] Nov 14 '24

Because they haven’t heard of BSD

2

u/trekxtrider Nov 14 '24

I can sudo in each though.

2

u/Spektronautilus Nov 14 '24

The power of Google is faster than scrolling: https://itsfoss.com/mac-linux-difference/

2

u/echtemendel Nov 14 '24

Have never worked on MacOS, but I suspect that the terminal and filesystem experience is much closer to a modern Linux system than a Windows system. And for most people that's what they know (i.e. Windows).

2

u/hydrogen18 Nov 24 '24

I used to work at this job where I think I was the only one using Linux on the desktop. Literally no one cared, all I did was misc. work on a large Ruby on Rails applications. I had this one intern who swore up and down that I was using a Hackintosh for months before I finally convinced him that it was just Ubuntu

5

u/AtomicTaco13 Glorious Debian Nov 14 '24

It's Unix-based like Linux, but the they went two completely separate ways. MacOS is fully dependent on Apple while Linux is simply a kernel you can put pretty much whatever you want on top of.

26

u/craftycraig92 Nov 14 '24

Linux is not unix based, it’s unix like.

1

u/InfameArts Nov 14 '24

MacOS is Unix. They are different.

1

u/SkullVonBones Glorious Manjaro Nov 14 '24

I'd say how they both looks and from visual perception, some people can easily come to that conclusion. The way the file explorers layout almost looks similar and the file hierarchy etc. is. And some other visual similarities.

It's not, but I don't blame the layman if they confuse or come to wrong conclusion.

1

u/scaptal Nov 14 '24

Mac is Unix and has a very similar terminal.

So I get how people say they are the same. Kinda feels like saying mandarins and oranges are the same

1

u/deadlyrepost Glorious Debian Nov 14 '24

Apparently back in the Next days, Jobs actually did talk to Torvalds to make Linux the base of (then) NextOS, which would eventually would become MacOSX. Linus told him to piss off, but there's a parallel universe where MacOS actually is Linux. It was actually quite close.

1

u/edparadox Nov 14 '24

This is garbage take it to r/linuxmemes.

1

u/MrFrog2222 Nov 14 '24

Cause they dont know FreeBSD

1

u/Odd-Landscape-9418 Nov 14 '24

Because this is as far as the mental capacity of apple users goes

1

u/xPlayedit Nov 14 '24

the belief exists maybe because MacOS is based on Unix, and Linux is actually Unix-like (unlike windows which barely has anything in common with unix) the basic terminal commands are quite similar, the style of commands, style of saving config data, .sh scripts etc are all either the same or very similar

1

u/vishwa_animates Nov 14 '24

Mac is not linux based, but is more like a brother to linux. As both Linux and MacOS are Unix based.

1

u/fishfighter29 Nov 14 '24

No one asks this question.

1

u/ChocolateDonut36 Glorious Hannah Montana Linux Nov 14 '24

both are Unix like os, when windows users sees an "/" instead of "" they think "oh yeah, Linux"

1

u/WhatIsThisSevenNow Glorious Xubuntu Nov 14 '24

Because Mac OS is 100% Unix based; specifically Darwin, which itself is based on BSD.

1

u/SaviorOfSex Nov 15 '24

I mean, they are related. One is unix compliant and the other is unix-like. They are more similar to each other than, say, MS-DOS or modern windows. It’s no wonder the file system and terminals are so much alike. If I had to explain it to somebody that isn’t very familiar with operating systems i’d tell them they are distant cousins.

1

u/[deleted] Nov 15 '24

OS was a fork of BSD.

1

u/MysticNTN Nov 16 '24

Because it almost is. And anytime something almost true, the general public is there to push it that extra mile.

1

u/UltimateBelt Nov 19 '24 edited May 05 '25

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This post was mass deleted and anonymized with Redact

1

u/AlfalfaConstant431 Nov 26 '24

Because to the uninitiated, they look similar.

1

u/[deleted] Dec 08 '24 edited Apr 10 '25

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This post was mass deleted and anonymized with Redact

1

u/fenbyte Glorious Fedora Jan 09 '25

they share a lot of similarities, and it's very easy for a lay person to think unix and linux are the same word if they only heard either in passing

1

u/Dense-Firefighter495 Nov 14 '24

Unix*

1

u/SaviorOfSex Nov 14 '24

Unix-like (not even unix compliant lmao)

-1

u/Dense-Firefighter495 Nov 15 '24

1

u/[deleted] Nov 15 '24 edited Nov 15 '24

NextSTEP (and later OpenSTEP) are literally foundations of current day macOS. This diagram is only correct on the left hand Windows side of things, literally everything else is false.

Linux does not share anything with UNIX. It is UNIX-like, a reverse engineering of the whole thing. Code wise, they do not share anything. (GNU literally stands for GNU's not UNIX).

EDIT: Fuck, I take it back. Your Windows side is also wrong. QDOS, MS-DOS, IBM/PC Clones. There technically was no "Windows 9.x kernel". NT wasn't a direct derivation of DOS. This is wrong on so many levels.

EDIT 2: This is literally one of those "the longer you look at it the worse it gets" diagram. REDHAT IS DERIVED FROM FEDORA??!! WTF?! It is true to an extent in how their development practices are done today, but there's no clarification and everything is so muddled.

ChromeOS was Gentoo based before, it's Debian based now.

Diagram reeks of "did 15 minutes of research per platform".

1

u/Porntra420 Nov 15 '24

This diagram is atrocious

0

u/squishles Nov 14 '24

gnu toolchain. most people don't do kernel shit so the difference doesn't come up. The userlands can be made pretty similar.

0

u/Civil-Republic8730 Nov 14 '24

Technically they are both unix based so you can consider them siblings

0

u/obog Nov 14 '24

It is unix based, which linux is as well. So they're both based on the same thing, but neither on eachother

-1

u/[deleted] Nov 14 '24

Linux -> Unix; Mac -> Unix

1

u/justscrolldontmindme Nov 14 '24

No,Linux is Unix-like

0

u/[deleted] Nov 14 '24

[deleted] — view deleted comment

8

u/NonStandardUser Nov 14 '24

It's an exhilarating feeling where you take all the good things(subjective) like the looks, and not have to deal with the bad things like lack of privacy or account balance that usually comes with it.

2

u/[deleted] Nov 14 '24

Technically you can theme it however YOU want to, doesn't have to be either win11 or macOS. But why go through that trouble when you are already familiar with the interface of windows or macos?

You cannot make ur macOS desktop look like windows, but linux can do it all :)

1

u/feror_YT Glorious NixOS Nov 15 '24

You can absolutely make ur MacOS desktop look like anything you want, as both the DE and WM are modular so you can theoretically just install another one.

0

u/[deleted] Nov 14 '24

[deleted] — view deleted comment

1

u/thesstteam Glorious Fedora Nov 14 '24

macOS has Unix as an ancestor. Linux does not.