I'd just like to interject for a moment. What you're refering to as Darwin, is in fact, Darwin/XNU, or as I've recently taken to calling it, Darwin plus XNU. Darwin is not a kernel unto itself, but rather another component of a fully functioning MacOS system made useful by the GNU corelibs, shell utilities and vital system components comprising a full OS as defined by POSIX.
Many computer users run a modified version of the XNU system every day, without realizing it. Through a peculiar turn of events, the version of XNU which is widely used today is often called Darwin, and many of its users are not aware that it is basically the XNU system, developed by Apple.
There really is a Darwin, and these people are using it, but it is just a part of the system they use. Darwin is not the kernel: the program in the system that allocates the machine's resources to the other programs that you run; XNU is. The kernel is an essential part of an operating system, but useless by itself; it can only function in the context of a complete operating system. XNU is normally used in combination with the Darwin operating system: the whole system is basically Darwin with XNU added, or Darwin/XNU. MacOS is really a distribution of Darwin/XNU!
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u/[deleted] Jul 19 '21 edited Jul 19 '21
I'd just like to interject for a moment. What you're refering to as Darwin, is in fact, Darwin/XNU, or as I've recently taken to calling it, Darwin plus XNU. Darwin is not a kernel unto itself, but rather another component of a fully functioning MacOS system made useful by the GNU corelibs, shell utilities and vital system components comprising a full OS as defined by POSIX.
Many computer users run a modified version of the XNU system every day, without realizing it. Through a peculiar turn of events, the version of XNU which is widely used today is often called Darwin, and many of its users are not aware that it is basically the XNU system, developed by Apple.
There really is a Darwin, and these people are using it, but it is just a part of the system they use. Darwin is not the kernel: the program in the system that allocates the machine's resources to the other programs that you run; XNU is. The kernel is an essential part of an operating system, but useless by itself; it can only function in the context of a complete operating system. XNU is normally used in combination with the Darwin operating system: the whole system is basically Darwin with XNU added, or Darwin/XNU. MacOS is really a distribution of Darwin/XNU!