Unix PC - Mac

Hello everybody, are there any unix operating systems our there for PC that will be compatible with my macs in the house on the network?

im not sure if this is what is going to happen, but it is possible. with all the news about apple moving over to the x86 processors, you may be able to install osx on your p.c. computers. i know that i would do that to all of my computers.

macman88 said:

im not sure if this is what is going to happen, but it is possible. with all the news about apple moving over to the x86 processors, you may be able to install osx on your p.c. computers. i know that i would do that to all of my computers.

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Just read an article that said Jobs has been approached by all the major PC OEMs (Dell - HP - etc.) about licensing OS X onto their x86 platforms - he has declined to do that.

So I believe whatever happens next week - you won't be able to run a future OS X on just any platform

As to Unix - I once looked at Red Hat - but it looked like they were mainly set up to do Linux servers - some talk about a future turn key Linux desktop code base. In fact I heard before I left Intel that '06-'07 was the expected time-frame for widely available Linux desktop OS SW

What do you mean by compatible?

PowerBookG4 said:

Hello everybody, are there any unix operating systems our there for PC that will be compatible with my macs in the house on the network?

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UBUNTU, Debian, and Yellow Dog (similar to red hat) are all flavors of linux that will run on the PPC platform. As for UNIX. I think you can install the unix kernal (mach/Darwin) of OSX without the GUI, but maybe not. This by the way is not may area of smarts.

mynameis said:

What do you mean by compatible?

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I mean like being able to share files between the two computers and so on...

Almost all flavors of Linux and BSD should do fine then. Ubuntu is not a bad choice for the novice.

EDIT: Neither Linux nor BSD are technically Unix, but I am assuming you mean Unix like.

Kokopelli said:

Almost all flavors of Linux and BSD should do fine then. Ubuntu is not a bad choice for the novice.

EDIT: Neither Linux nor BSD are technically Unix, but I am assuming you mean Unix like.

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Unix like would be fine if i can not find Unix... I would rather have Unix though. Already have linux ready to install, but would rather have atleast one of my machines Unix other then my macs.

OS X is not Unix either. It is a derivative of BSD.

The only operating systems I can think of off the top of my head that runs on x86 are Solaris (is it out yet?) and SCO Unix (I would not recommend it). There may be others as well.

oh i thought i heard somebody say osx was unix... ok then I guess I will install Linux somtime this week then.

It depends on who you ask and what you consider "Unix." Unix, in it's most proper form, is an OS that has passed a bunch of compliance tests. The most important of which are POSIX and ISO C compliance. To my knowledge no distro of Linux, BSD, or OS X has passed any of the variations of Unix certification. I don't think any have even tried.

Linux, BSD, and OS X all are somewhat POSIX compliant, though they may not pass the entire battery of tests. So from a standpoint of use and utility OS X, BSD, and Linux are considered Unix style OSes. It does not mean they are a flavor of Unix though. Look at Apple's propoganda and you will see what I mean. "Unix based" not "Unix."

This is why you will see some people refer to Linux, BSD, OS X, et al. as *nix. Not technically Unix but close enough for most purposes.