Don't Know Jack . . . About Macs

Factual Questions
1
      • Are there alternate, third-party operating systems for Mac computers? I don’t remember ever seeing or hearing of one, but I got no Mac so I don’t really look. Non-MS op systems seem to be all the rage nowadays (even though I know that Macs already have a non-MS operating system). - MC
2

Yes, there are a couple I think, but the only one I know of is the BeOS.

3

Linux is also available for mac

Mere Life is not Victory.
Mere Death is not Defeat.

Joe Cool

4

Apple used to make its own version of UNIX, but that project is long gone.

I think we’ve covered most of the possibilities in this thread by now.

Of course, you can always write your own, and be another Linus Torald!

5

There was (is?) also OS9 for the 68K Macs. OS9 was one of the original real-time, multitasking operating systems. Very powerful, actually.

Note: I am NOT talking about MacOS 9. In fact, there was a lawsuit pending against Apple for using simply “OS9” in some of their promos. I’m not sure what the status of that law suit is.

6

Dang… does Apple not have a legal department? It seems that every time I turn around Apple is getting sued for naming one of their products a name that has already been used. This should be so easy to check out. Perhaps they should rebudget some of their marketing dollars to founding a new legal department.

Things are random only insofar as we don’t understand them.

7

Don’t forget that the Be OS also runs (ran?) on Macs. I still have the “preview release” which you could install either on a separate hard drive or hard drive partition. When you turned on the computer, you would be asked which OS you wanted to use.

8

There are are least two Linuxes (Linuces? Linuxen?) although many Macs will not run some variations: MKLinux will run on older PowerMacs, for example; and newer Macs can run Yellow Hat.

Much older Macs will run A/UX.

OS X and/or OS X Server is BSD Unix under the hood as well as being NextStep / OpenStep for all essential purposes, and therefore will run BSD software, and much NextStep / OpenStep s/w has been recompiled to run there as well.

From the ashes of the PREP / PPCP project, it may be possible to run PowerPC versions of NT (3.x?), OS/2, and AIX, although it may require the addition of bootleg hardware that was designed for but never incorporated into existing Macs (ISA board, I/O board for PC keyboard, PC mouse, and parallel ports). These are all pretty obscure variants on their respective operating systems, though, and would be hard to locate. The project tanked before any vendor actually released PPCP machines with any of these OS’s on them.

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