Chapter 9. Hybridizing Your System

We've spent quite a bit of time trying to raise the comfort factor in making a transition from Linux to Mac OS X. It's clear that much of what can be done on one system can be done on another, although the path to similar tasks may vary. The systems share a common ancestor, after all, in UNIX. BSD is UNIX. Mac OS X is based on BSD, although it also contains quite a bit of proprietary code. And Linux is really a close cousin. BSD can run Linux applications, provided the optional Linux emulation layer is selected as an install component. Linux, however, can't run BSD applications. Add to that basic differences in binary formats, and it's not always clear how a specific tool or process will translate from one platform to the other.

As a result, it's not always evident how these robust platforms can be unified to bring the best of all worlds into a single system. For example, how can we tie the multimedia capabilities of Mac OS X to the strong network infrastructure of BSD and the complete configurability and flexibility of Linux? That would be the ideal, certainly. It's tough to get to that point without some details on the similarities and differences between the systems—the strengths and weaknesses, really. Once you have that knowledge, it becomes much clearer how to best fit the pieces together to meet your needs. With that understanding, it's much easier to adjust your system to meet your work flow.