Darwin (operating system)

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Darwin
Developer Apple Inc.
Written in C, C++, Objective-C
OS family Unix (BSD)
Working state Current
Source model Open source
Initial release November 15, 2000; 16 years ago (2000-11-15)
Latest release 16.3.0 (December 12, 2016; 3 months ago (2016-12-12)) [±]
Platforms PowerPC, x86, ARM
Kernel type Hybrid (mostly monolithic)
Default user interface Command-line interface
License Mostly Apple Public Source License, with proprietary drivers[1]
Official website opensource.apple.com

Darwin is an open-source Unix operating system released by Apple Inc. in 2000. It is composed of code developed by Apple, as well as code derived from NeXTSTEP, BSD, Mach, and other free software projects.

Darwin forms the core set of components upon which macOS (previously OS X and Mac OS X), iOS, watchOS, and tvOS are based. It is mostly POSIX-compatible, but has never, by itself, been certified as compatible with any version of POSIX. Starting with Leopard, macOS has been certified as compatible with the Single UNIX Specification version 3 (SUSv3).[2][3][4][5][6][7][8][9][10]

History[edit]

Simplified history of Unix-like operating systems.

The heritage of Darwin began with NeXT's NeXTSTEP operating system (later, since version 4.0, known as OPENSTEP), first released in 1989. After Apple bought NeXT in 1997, it announced it would base its next operating system on OPENSTEP. This was developed into Rhapsody in 1997, Mac OS X Server 1.0 in 1999, Mac OS X Public Beta in 2000, and Mac OS X 10.0 in 2001. In 2000, the core operating system components of Mac OS X were released as open-source software under the Apple Public Source License (APSL) as Darwin; the higher-level components, such as the Cocoa and Carbon frameworks, remained closed-source.

Up to Darwin 8.0.1, Apple released a binary installer (as an ISO image) after each major Mac OS X release that allowed one to install Darwin on PowerPC and Intel x86 systems as a standalone operating system. Minor updates were released as packages that were installed separately. Darwin is now only available as source code,[11] except for the ARM variant, which has not been released in any form separately from iOS. However, the older versions of Darwin are still available in binary form,[12] and a hobbyist developer winocm took the official Darwin source code and ported it to ARM.[13]

Design[edit]

Kernel[edit]

The kernel of Darwin is XNU, a hybrid kernel that combines a heavily modified version of the Mach 3.0 kernel (Apple does not use Mach as a microkernel but as part of a hybrid kernel), various elements of BSD (including the process model, network stack, and virtual file system),[14] and an object-oriented device driver API called I/O Kit.[15] The hybrid kernel design leverages the flexibility of a microkernel[citation needed] and the performance of a monolithic kernel.

Hardware and software support[edit]

Darwin currently includes support for the 64-bit x86-64 variant of the Intel x86 processors used in Macs and the 64-bit ARM processors used in the iPhone 5S and later, the 6th generation iPod Touch and later, the iPad Air and iPad Pro, and the fourth generation Apple TV, as well as the 32-bit ARM processors used in the iPhone 5C and older, earlier generations of the iPod Touch, the iPad up to the fourth generation, and the second and third generation Apple TV. An open-source port of the XNU kernel exists that supports Darwin on Intel and AMD x86 platforms not officially supported by Apple, although it does not appear to have been updated since 2009.[16] An open-source port of the XNU kernel also exists for ARM platforms.[17] Older versions supported some or all of 32-bit PowerPC, 64-bit PowerPC, and 32-bit x86.

It supports the POSIX API by way of its BSD lineage and a large number of programs written for various other UNIX-like systems can be compiled on Darwin with no changes to the source code.

Darwin does not include many of the defining elements of macOS, such as the Carbon and Cocoa APIs or the Quartz Compositor and Aqua user interface, and thus cannot run Mac applications. It does, however, support a number of lesser known features of macOS, such as mDNSResponder, which is the multicast DNS responder and a core component of the Bonjour networking technology, and launchd, an advanced service management framework.

License[edit]

In July 2003, Apple released Darwin under version 2.0 of the Apple Public Source License (APSL), which the Free Software Foundation (FSF) classifies as a free software license incompatible with the GNU General Public License.[18] Previous versions were released under an earlier version of the APSL license, which did not meet the FSF definition of free software, although it did meet the requirements of the Open Source Definition.[19]

Release history[edit]

The following is a table of major Darwin releases with their dates of release and their corresponding macOS releases.[20] Note that the corresponding macOS release may have been released on a different date; refer to the macOS pages for those dates.

Version Date Corresponding releases Notes
0.1 March 16, 1999 Mac OS X developer previews
  • Developer preview 1
  • 0.1 is contrived (for sorting and identification) as this identified itself simply as Mac OS 10.0
0.2 November 10, 1999 Developer preview 2
1.0 February 2000 (2000-02) Developer preview 3
1.1 April 5, 2000 Developer preview 4
1.2.1 November 15, 2000 Mac OS X Public Beta Code-named "Kodiak"
1.3.1 April 13, 2001 Mac OS X v10.0
  • Code-named "Cheetah"
  • First commercial release of Darwin
  • All releases of Cheetah (v10.0.0–4) had the same version of Darwin.
1.4.1 October 2, 2001 Mac OS X v10.1
  • Code-named "Puma"
  • Performance improvements to "boot time, real-time threads, thread management, cache flushing, and preemption handling"
  • Support for SMB network file system
  • Wget replaced with cURL.[21]
5.1 November 12, 2001
  • Mac OS X v10.1.1
  • Change in numbering scheme to match the Mac OS X build numbering scheme
5.5 June 5, 2002 Mac OS X v10.1.5
6.0.1 September 23, 2002 Mac OS X v10.2
6.8 October 3, 2003 Mac OS X v10.2.8
7.0 October 24, 2003 Mac OS X Panther
7.9 April 15, 2005 Mac OS X v10.3.9
8.0 April 29, 2005 Mac OS X Tiger
Mac OS X for Apple TV
8.11 November 14, 2007 Mac OS X v10.4.11
9.0 October 26, 2007 Mac OS X Leopard
iPhone OS 1
9.8 August 5, 2009 Mac OS X v.10.5.8
10.0 August 28, 2009 Mac OS X Snow Leopard
iOS 4
10.8 June 23, 2011 Mac OS X v10.6.8
11.0.0 July 20, 2011 Mac OS X Lion
iOS 5[27]
  • Mac OS X v10.7.0
  • XNU no longer supports PPC binaries (fat binary only for i386, x86_64).
  • XNU requires an x86_64 processor, except for iOS which is ARM based.
  • Improved sandboxing of applications
11.4.2 October 4, 2012 Mac OS X v10.7.5 (supplemental)
12.0.0 February 16, 2012 OS X Mountain Lion
  • OS X v10.8.0
  • Mac OS X was rebranded into OS X.
12.6.0 January 27, 2015 OS X v10.8.5 (with Security Update 2015-001)
13.0.0 June 11, 2013 OS X Mavericks
iOS 6		 OS X v10.9.0
13.4.0 September 17, 2014 OS X v10.9.5
14.0.0 September 18, 2014 OS X Yosemite
iOS 7, iOS 8		 OS X v10.10.0
14.5.0 August 13, 2015 OS X v10.10.5
15.0.0 September 16, 2015 OS X El Capitan
iOS 9		 OS X v10.11.0 and iOS 9.0
15.6.0 July 18, 2016 OS X v10.11.6 and iOS 9.3.3
16.0.0 September 13, 2016 macOS Sierra
iOS 10
  • macOS v10.12.0 and iOS 10.0.1 (initial release version)
  • OS X was rebranded into macOS.
16.1.0 October 24, 2016
  • macOS v10.12.1 and iOS 10.1
16.3.0 December 12, 2016
  • macOS v10.12.2 and iOS 10.2

The jump in version numbers from Darwin 1.4.1 to 5.1 with the release of Mac OS X v10.1.1 was designed to tie Darwin to the Mac OS X version and build numbering system, which in turn is inherited from NeXTSTEP. In the build numbering system of macOS, every version has a unique beginning build number, which identifies what whole version of macOS it is part of. Mac OS X v10.0 had build numbers starting with 4, 10.1 had build numbers starting with 5, and so forth (earlier build numbers represented developer releases).[28]

The command uname -r in Terminal will show the Darwin version number, and the command uname -v will show the XNU build version string, which includes the Darwin version number.

Derived projects[edit]

Due to the free software nature of Darwin, there are many projects that aim to modify or enhance the operating system.

OpenDarwin[edit]

GNOME running on OpenDarwin.

OpenDarwin was a community-led operating system based on the Darwin system. It was founded in April 2002 by Apple Inc. and Internet Systems Consortium. Its goal was to increase collaboration between Apple developers and the free software community. Apple benefited from the project because improvements to OpenDarwin would be incorporated into Darwin releases; and the free/open source community benefited from being given complete control over its own operating system, which could then be used in free software distributions such as GNU-Darwin.[29]

On July 25, 2006, the OpenDarwin team announced that the project was shutting down, as they felt OpenDarwin had "become a mere hosting facility for Mac OS X related projects," and that the efforts to create a standalone Darwin operating system had failed. They also state: "Availability of sources, interaction with Apple representatives, difficulty building and tracking sources, and a lack of interest from the community have all contributed to this."[30] The last stable release was version 7.2.1, released on July 16, 2004.[citation needed]

PureDarwin[edit]

In 2007, the PureDarwin project was launched to continue where OpenDarwin left off. PureDarwin is currently working to produce a release based on Darwin 14.5. available based on Darwin 10.10.5.[citation needed] This release will have X11, DTrace, [31] PureDarwin nano is another release of PureDarwin that is intended to be a minimalistic CLI-only build with networking.

Other[edit]

See also[edit]

References[edit]

  1. ^ "Binary Drivers required for PureDarwin". Retrieved July 20, 2009. 
  2. ^ "Mac OS X Leopard - Technology - UNIX". Leopard Technology Overview. Apple Inc. Archived from the original on December 27, 2008. Leopard is now an Open Brand UNIX 03 Registered Product, conforming to the SUSv3 and POSIX 1003.1 specifications for the C API, Shell Utilities, and Threads. 
  3. ^ The Open Group (May 18, 2007). "Mac OS X Version 10.5 Leopard on Intel-based Macintosh computers certification". Retrieved February 11, 2013. 
  4. ^ "Mac OS X Version 10.6 on Intel-based Macintosh computers". The Open Group. Retrieved December 4, 2014. 
  5. ^ "Apple technology brief on UNIX" (PDF). Apple. Retrieved November 5, 2008. 
  6. ^ "Mac OS X Version 10.8 on Intel-based Macintosh computers". The Open Group. Retrieved December 4, 2014. 
  7. ^ "OS X Version 10.9 on Intel-based Macintosh computers". The Open Group. Retrieved December 4, 2014. 
  8. ^ "OS X version 10.10 Yosemite on Intel-based Mac computers". The Open Group. Retrieved December 4, 2014. 
  9. ^ "OS X version 10.11 El Capitan on Intel-based Mac computers". The Open Group. Retrieved October 23, 2015. 
  10. ^ "macOS version 10.12 Sierra on Intel-based Mac computers". The Open Group. Retrieved September 29, 2016. 
  11. ^ Hubbard, Jordan (October 31, 2007). "Re: Darwin 9.0 Source Code Available."". darwinos-users (Mailing list). Retrieved November 27, 2007. 
  12. ^ opensource.apple.com/static/iso
  13. ^ github.com/darwin-on-arm/xnu
  14. ^ "Mac Technology Overview: Kernel and Device Drivers Layer". Apple Developer Connection. Retrieved February 11, 2013. 
  15. ^ Singh, Amit (January 7, 2004). "XNU: The Kernel". Retrieved February 11, 2013. 
  16. ^ "Voodoo XNU Kernel Source".  Requires an Apache SVN client.
  17. ^ "XNU on ARMv7". 
  18. ^ "FSF's Opinion of the Apple Public Source License (APSL) 2.0". 
  19. ^ "The Problems with older versions of the Apple Public Source License (APSL)". 
  20. ^ "Open Source Releases". Apple Developer Connection. Retrieved February 11, 2013. 
  21. ^ "Technical Note TN2029: Mac OS X v10.1". Apple Developer Connection. Archived from the original on November 14, 2001. 
  22. ^ Siracusa, John (September 5, 2002). "Mac OS X 10.2 Jaguar". Ars Technica. Retrieved May 31, 2008. 
  23. ^ Siracusa, John (November 9, 2003). "Mac OS X 10.3 Panther". Ars Technica. Retrieved May 31, 2008. 
  24. ^ Siracusa, John (April 28, 2005). "Mac OS X 10.4 Tiger". Ars Technica. Retrieved May 30, 2008. 
  25. ^ Siracusa, John (October 28, 2007). "Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard: the Ars Technica review". Ars Technica. Retrieved May 30, 2008. 
  26. ^ Siracusa, John (August 31, 2009). "Mac OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard: the Ars Technica review". Ars Technica. Retrieved November 29, 2009. 
  27. ^ As found on a jailbroken iPhone 4S
  28. ^ Prabhakar, Ernie (November 9, 2001). "Darwin Version - New Scheme in Software Update 1". darwin-development (Mailing list). Retrieved June 2, 2008. 
  29. ^ "OpenDarwin". OpenDarwin Project. Archived from the original on January 6, 2006. 
  30. ^ OpenDarwin Core Team and Administrators (July 25, 2006). "OpenDarwin Shutting Down". OpenDarwin Project. Archived from the original on August 4, 2006. 
  31. ^ "PureDarwin Download Page". 
  32. ^ "Security Enhanced Darwin". SEDarwin. January 22, 2007. Archived from the original on October 5, 2011. 
  33. ^ "What's New In Mac OS X: Mac OS X v10.5". Mac OS X Reference Library. Apple Inc. November 13, 2009. Archived from the original on December 8, 2009. 
  34. ^ "L4/Darwin (aka Darbat)". Ertos.nicta.com.au. May 9, 2007. Archived from the original on December 19, 2013. 
  35. ^ yuriwho (May 5, 2002). "WirelessDriver Home Page". Wirelessdriver.sourceforge.net. Retrieved July 12, 2010. 
  36. ^ "iwi2200 Darwin". SourceForge. March 27, 2009. Retrieved June 13, 2010. 
  37. ^ "Port BSD tulip driver(s) to Darwin OS | Download Port BSD tulip driver(s) to Darwin OS software for free at". Sourceforge.net. Retrieved July 12, 2010. 
  38. ^ "RealTek network driver for Mac OS X/Darwin". SourceForge. March 15, 2006. Retrieved June 3, 2010.  Project inactive since March 15, 2006.
  39. ^ fansui; et al. (August 1, 2007). "RTL8150LMEthernet". SourceForge. Retrieved June 13, 2010. 
  40. ^ "ZyXEL Modem Drivers for OS X/Darwin | Download ZyXEL Modem Drivers for OS X/Darwin software for free at". Sourceforge.net. May 14, 2002. Retrieved July 12, 2010. 
  41. ^ "Mac OS X PC Card ATA Driver". Pccardata.sourceforge.net. December 20, 2001. Retrieved July 12, 2010. 
  42. ^ "Mac OS X Ext2 Filesystem | Download Mac OS X Ext2 Filesystem software for free at". Sourceforge.net. October 14, 2002. Retrieved July 12, 2010. 
  43. ^ "ext2 filesystem in user space". SourceForge. July 14, 2008. Retrieved June 13, 2010. 

External links[edit]

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