Research and Case Study on

MAC OS X

Presented to:
Mr.Arnel A. Cueto
OS Instructor

Prepared by:
Candava, Catherine A.
Cañete, Joy P.
Comia, Mariel A.
Cuasay, Clarissa G.
Manalo, Jeanella Amour R.

NACT 112
10:00-11:30 AM
T-TH
 Introduction

Mac OS X is a uniquely powerful development platform, bringing a 32-bit and 64-bit

architecture and multiprocessor capability to the desktop and server arenas. It provides an
extremely productive high-level programming environment, Cocoa, combined with the full power
of real UNIX®, as well as a host of open source web, scripting, database, and development
technologies. The built-in Xcode tools, combining time-tested stability and performance,
standards-based technologies, and a remarkable user interface, make Mac OS X an amazingly
multifaceted development platform. Mac OS X delivers revolutionary technologies like Spotlight,
Dashboard, Automator, Core Data, Core Animation, Core Image, and many others. These exciting
additions to the modern, UNIX-based foundation make Mac OS X the most advanced operating
system available.
© SANS Institute 2002, Author retains full rights.
Key fingerprint = AF19 FA27 2F94 998D FDB5 DE3D F8B5 06E4 A169 4EB5 06E4 A169 4E46
Brief History
As a company, Apple has a very long history but Mac OS X's history is actually more closely
tied to its current CEO, Steven P. Jobs. Although Steve Jobs founded Apple Computers, now
Apple Inc., with his friend Steve "Woz" Wozniak, he was demoted from his executive position on
May 31, 1985 and then resigned on September 13, 1985. During his time away he formed a
company by the name of NeXT Inc. Steve Jobs' new company was in business from 1985 until
December 20, 1996 when it was bought out by Apple.
The seed was planted for Mac OS X's birth in 1985 when Steve Jobs met with Paul Berg, a
Nobel Laureate and biochemist from Stanford, at an event held in Silicon Valley. Berg complained
to Jobs about the of expense in teaching students about recombinant DNA from textbooks instead
of in the wet lab. Berg explained to Jobs that he needed Apple to create something similar to a
3M workstation, due to the fact that they had more than 1MB of RAM, a mega pixel display and
over a megaflop of performance.
Berg's concept for a workstation was far beyond anything that Apple was offering at the
time and the concept of a workstation had Steve Jobs contemplating starting a higher education
computer company during his last days at Apple in the fall of 1985. This idea led Jobs to starting
his own computer company immediately after resigning from Apple on September 13, 1985. Jobs
started Next with his fellow Apple employees Bud Tribble, George Crow, Rich Page, and Susan
Barnes who were some of the largest contributors to Apple's early successes.
 NeXTSTEP was intended to be a highly advanced object-oriented programming environment
and user interface, and the original plans for the NeXT computer were to purchase an already
available operating system to meet NeXT's demanding specifications. They needed an object-
oriented programming environment and a Unix-like Mach-based OS for the toolkit to run on. As a
result Steve Jobs went to Carnegie Mellon University and recruited Avie Tevanian, one of the
original Mach Engineers, to lead NeXT's team of software development. At this time NeXT began
development of their operating system using Objective-C just as Mac OS X still uses today.
Objective C is a reflective object-oriented programming language that adds Smalltalk-style
messaging to C.
Jobs unveiled the first NeXT computer that was running NeXTSTEP 0.8 on October 12,
1988 in San Francisco. It wasn't until a year later though that the final version of the product,
NeXTSTEP 1.0shipped on September 18, 1989. NeXTSTEP was based on Mach2.5and 4.3BSD just
like OS X which today is based on Mach 3and FreeBSD 5.
After NeXT's failure as a hardware company in the late 80's and early 90's it began porting
the NeXTSTEP OS to run on Intel systems in 1992. NeXT soon after dropped their hardware
business altogether and re-named the company NeXT Software, Inc. NeXTSTEP 3 was eventually
ported to four different Platforms, PA-RISC, SPARC, Intel x86, and Motorola 68000. Due to the
flexible nature of the NeXT OS it became very popular with some popular organizations such as
the CIA and various other government organizations.
The final part of NeXTSTEP's development continued under the name OpenStep after NeXT
teamed up with Sun Microsystems. OpenStep was basically NeXTSTEP without the Mach Unix
kernel. OpenStep was supposed to be a toolkit that ran on top of other OS's much like the NeXT
originally intended.
On December 20, 1996 Apple purchased NeXT Software, Inc. for $429 million. Apple's
purchase of NeXT was primarily for the use of the NeXTSTEP as Apple's next operating system
which we all know today as Mac OS X.
Hardware Requirements

For the early releases of Mac OS X, the standard hardware platform supported was the full
line of Macintosh computers (laptop, desktop, or server) based on PowerPC G3, G4, and G5
processors. Later versions discontinued support for some older hardware; for example, Panther
does not support "beige" G3s, and Tiger does not support systems that pre-date Apple's
introduction of integrated FireWire ports (the ports themselves are not a functional
 requirement). Mac OS X v10.5 "Leopard", introduced October 2007, has dropped support
for all PowerPC G3 processors and for PowerPC G4 processors with clock rates below 867 MHz.
Mac OS X v10.6 "Snow Leopard" supports Macs with Intel processors, not PowerPC.

Tools such as XPostFacto and patches applied to the installation disc have been developed
by third parties to enable installation of newer versions of Mac OS X on systems not officially
supported by Apple. This includes a number of pre-G3 Power Macintosh systems that can be made
to run up to and including Mac OS X 10.2 Jaguar, all G3-based Macs which can run up to and
including Tiger, and sub-867 MHz G4 Macs can run Leopard by removing the restriction from the
installation DVD or entering a command in the Mac's Open Firmware interface to tell the Leopard
Installer that it has a clock rate of 867 MHz or greater. Except for features requiring specific
hardware (e.g. graphics acceleration, DVD writing), the operating system offers the same
functionality on all supported hardware.

PowerPC versions of Mac OS X prior to Leopard retain compatibility with older Mac OS
applications by providing an emulation environment called Classic, which allows users to run Mac
OS 9 as a process within Mac OS X, so that most older applications run as they would under the
older operating system. Classic is not supported on Intel-based Macs or in Mac OS X v10.5
"Leopard", but users still requiring Classic applications on Intel Macs can use the SheepShaver
emulator to run Mac OS 9 on top of Leopard.

Field of Application

- digital photography
- 2-D and 3-D animations
- video processing, streaming
- audio processing
- platform for DTP, web design
- office applications

One of the major differences between the previous versions of Mac OS and OS X was the
addition of the Aqua GUI, a graphical user interface with water-like elements. Every window
element, text, graphic, or widget is drawn on-screen using anti-aliasing technology. ColorSync, a
technology introduced many years before, was improved and built into the core drawing engine,
 to provide color matching for printing and multimedia professionals. Also, drop shadows
were added around windows and isolated text elements to provide a sense of depth. New
interface elements were integrated, including sheets (document modal dialog boxes attached to
specific windows) and drawers.

Apple has continued to change aspects of the OS X appearance and design, particularly
with tweaks to the appearance of windows and the menu bar. One example of a UI behavioral
change is that previewed video and audio files no longer have progress bars in column view;
instead, they have mouse-over start and stop buttons as of 10.5.

The human interface guidelines published by Apple for Mac OS X are followed by many
applications, giving them consistent user interface and keyboard shortcuts. In addition, new
services for applications are included, which include spelling and grammar checkers, special
characters palette, color picker, font chooser and dictionary; these global features are present in
every Cocoa application, adding consistency. The graphics system OpenGL composites windows
onto the screen to allow hardware-accelerated drawing. This technology, introduced in version
10.2, is called Quartz Extreme, a component of Quartz. Quartz's internal imaging model
correlates well with the Portable Document Format (PDF) imaging model, making it easy to
output PDF to multiple devices.As a side result, PDF viewing is a built-in feature.

In version 10.3, Apple added Exposé, a feature which includes three functions to help
accessibility between windows and desktop. Its functions are to instantly display all open
windows as thumbnails for easy navigation to different tasks, display all open windows as
thumbnails from the current application, and hide all windows to access the desktop.Also,
FileVault was introduced, which is an optional encryption of the user's files with Advanced
Encryption Standard (AES-128).

Features introduced in version 10.4 include Automator, an application designed to create

an automatic workflow for different tasks;Dashboard, a full-screen group of small applications
called desktop widgets that can be called up and dismissed in one keystroke;and Front Row, a
media viewer interface accessed by the Apple Remote. Moreover, the Sync Services were
included, which is a system that allows applications to access a centralized extensible database
for various elements of user data, including calendar and contact items. The operating system
then managed conflicting edits and data consistency.
 As of version 10.5, all system icons are scalable up to 512×512 pixels, to accommodate
various places where they appear in larger size, including for example the Cover Flow view, a
three-dimensional graphical user interface included with iTunes, the Finder, and other Apple
products for visually skimming through files and digital media libraries via cover artwork. This
version includes Spaces, a virtual desktop implementation which enables the user to have more
than one desktop and display them in an Exposé-like interface.Mac OS X v10.5 includes an
automatic backup technology called Time Machine, which provides the ability to view and restore
previous versions of files and application data; and Screen Sharing was built in for the first time.

Finder is a file browser allowing quick access to all areas of the computer, which has been
modified throughout subsequent releases of Mac OS X. Quick Look is part of Mac OS X Leopard's
Finder. It allows for dynamic previews of files, including videos and multi-page documents,
without opening their parent applications. Spotlight search technology, which is integrated into
the Finder since Mac OS X Tiger, allows rapid real-time searches of data files; mail messages;
photos; and other information based on item properties (meta data) and/or content.Mac OS X
makes use of a Dock, which holds file and folder shortcuts as well as minimized windows. Mac OS
X Architecture implements a layered frameworks. The layered framework aids rapid development
of applications by providing existing code for common tasks.

Target System Type

Apple Inc. is an American multinational corporation that designs and manufactures

consumer electronics, computer software, and commercial servers. The company's best-known
hardware products include Macintosh computers, the iPod, the iPhone and the iPad. Apple
software includes the Mac OS X operating system; the iTunes media browser; the iLife suite of
multimedia and creativity software; the iWork suite of productivity software; Aperture, a
professional photography package; Final Cut Studio, a suite of professional audio and film-
industry software products; and Logic Studio, a suite of audio tools. As of January 2010 the
company operates 284 retail stores in ten countries, and an online store where hardware and
software products are sold.

Established in Cupertino, California on April 1, 1976 and incorporated January 3, 1977, the
company was called Apple Computer, Inc. for its first 30 years, but dropped the word
"Computer" on January 9, 2007 to reflect the company's ongoing expansion into the consumer
electronics market in addition to its traditional focus on personal computers. Apple has about
35,000 employees worldwide and had worldwide annual sales of US$42.91 billion in its fiscal year
ending September 26, 2009. For reasons as various as its philosophy of comprehensive aesthetic
design to its distinctive advertising campaigns, Apple has established a unique reputation in the
consumer electronics industry. This includes a customer base that is devoted to the company and
its brand, particularly in the United States. Fortune magazine named Apple the most admired
company in the United States in 2008 and in the world in 2008, 2009, and 2010.

Advantage and Disadvantage

Mac OS X has several advantages over other platforms such as Linux and Windows. These
include:

-Mac OS X's Aqua UI takes up less system resources than Windows's Aero UI.

-Mac OS X has better security (though it's by obscurity) than Windows and you are much
less likely to get your Mac infected than a PC.

-Mac OS X has a simple, easy-to-use interface perfect for Technophobics, Kids, and Geeks
alike. It's easy enough for the home user, and powerful enough for the programmers.

-Mac OS X has the iLife and iWork suites by Apple which work beautifully and integrate
with each other (something you can't say about PC equivalents). All the programs in OS X
work flawlessy and invisibly together, making everything from E-Mailing to making a Home
Movie DVD a snap.

-Mac computers overall last longer (in years) than Windows PCs, and they can be sold on
eBay for a big portion of what you paid for them. (Sometimes up to 3/4 of what you spent
on it can be gotten back by selling it)

-If you need to run a Windows program, you can run Boot Camp on all Leopard Intel Macs
and install Windows on your Mac. When you need a Windows program, just reboot into
Windows. When you're done, you can reboot back into Mac OS X. You can even run Mac
and Windows applications at the same time with software like VMWare Fusion or Paralells.

-Contrary to popular belief, Macs can run many games out for PC without the need to use
Boot Camp, Paralells, or VMWare Fusion. However, most developers don't actually make
 the games for Mac in the first place, and it can take 1-2 years from the game's release for
PC for a 3rd party developer to make it for Mac. Many developers are making games for
Mac now, and Blizzard has always made their games for Mac.

-Easy to use
-Virus free
-With boot camp you can run XP or Vista on your machine, and with Parallels you can run
--windows programs in OS X
-More Stable
-More Dependable
-More visually appealing
-More user friendly & "just works"
-Simplifies a lot of things
-Less prone to virus, trojans, etc
-Less prone to hardware issues

Some disadvantages are:

-Macs can't be upgraded. This isn't a concern for the average home users, who probably
don't upgrade their PCs anyway.

-Mac cost more, but as i have said above they last longer and can be resold for more than
Windows PCs. (I have a 1998 iMac and I can run Mac OS X Panther 10.3.9 from 2005 on it
and it runs just fine. Great for quick web browsing or listening to music in the kitchen.)

Small software base compared to Windows(with out useing bootcamp/parallels)

Not nearly as customizable
Missing some features that are pretty basic with Windows( my biggest hate is no page
up/down key, no real backspace key, and you have to use the control key to right click)

Any more I would say that about any operating system you pick will work, I still prefer
Windows Xp over everything, but Linux, OS X, and Windows are all great choices.
More pricey
Less control over your computer
Less software options
Less hardware options
 Harder to personalize

Deadlock Handling Facility

There is a certain level of deadlock detection/avoidance built into the record locking
facility. This deadlock handling provides the same level of protection granted by the /usr/group
standard lockf call. This deadlock detection is only valid for processes that are locking files or
records on a single system. Deadlocks can only potentially occur when the system is about to put
a record locking system call to sleep. A search is made for constraint loops of processes that
would cause the system call to sleep indefinitely. If such a situation is found, the locking system
call will fail and set errno to the deadlock error number. If a process wishes to avoid the use of
the system's deadlock detection, it should set its locks using F_SETLK instead of F_SETLKW.

Memory Management in Mac OS X

Unlike earlier versions of Mac OS, Mac OS X includes a fully-integrated virtual memory
system that you cannot turn off. It is always on, providing up to 4 gigabytes of addressable space
per 32-bit process and approximately 18 exabytes of addressable space for 64-bit processes.
However, few machines have this much dedicated RAM for the entire system, much less for a
single process. To compensate for this limitation, the virtual memory system uses hard disk
storage to hold data not currently in use. This hard disk storage is sometimes called the “swap”
space because of its use as storage for data being swapped in and out of memory.
Virtual Memory in Mac OS X
In Mac OS X, each process has its own sparse 32-bit or 64-bit virtual address space. For 32-
bit processes, each process has an address space that can grow dynamically up to a limit of four
gigabytes. For 64-bit processes, the address space can grow dynamically up to a limit of
approximately 18 exabytes. As an application uses up space, the virtual memory system allocates
additional swap file space on the root file system. The virtual address space of a process consists
of mapped regions of memory. Each region of memory in the process represents a specific set of
virtual memory pages. A region has specific attributes controlling such things as inheritance
(portions of the region may be mapped from “parent” regions), write-protection, and whether it
is “wired” (that is, it cannot be paged out). Because regions contain a given number of
pages, they are page-aligned, meaning the starting address of the region is also the starting
address of a page and the ending address also defines the end of a page. The kernel associates a
VM object with each region of the virtual address space. The kernel uses the VM object to track
and manage the resident and nonresident pages of that region. A region can map either to an
area of memory in the backing store or to a specific file-mapped file in the file system. The VM
object maps regions in the backing store through the default pager and maps file-mapped files
through the vnode pager. The default pager is a system manager that maps the nonresident
virtual memory pages to backing store and fetches those pages when requested. The vnode
pager implements file mapping. The vnode pager uses the paging mechanism to provide a window
directly into a file. This mechanism lets you read and write portions of the file as if they were
located in memory. A VM object may point to a pager or to another VM object. The kernel uses
this self referencing to implement a form of page-level sharing known as copy-on-write. Copy-
on-write allows multiple blocks of code (including different processes) to share a page as long as
none write to that page. If one process
writes to the page, a new, writable copy of the page is created in the address space of the
process doing the writing. This mechanism allows the system to copy large quantities of data
efficiently.
Allocating and Accessing Virtual Memory
Applications usually allocate memory using the malloc routine. This routine finds free
space on an existing page or allocates new pages using vm_allocate to create space for the new
memory block.
Through the vm_allocate routine, the kernel performs a series of initialization steps:
1. It maps a range of memory in the virtual address space of this process by creating a map
entry;
the map entry is a simple structure that defines the starting and ending addresses of the region.
2. The range of memory is backed by the default pager.
3. The kernel creates and initializes a VM object, associating it with the map entry.
At this point there are no pages resident in physical memory and no pages in the backing store.
Everything is mapped virtually within the system. When a program accesses the region, by
reading or writing to a specific address in it, a fault occurs because that address has not been
mapped to physical memory. The kernel also recognizes that the VM object has no backing store
for the page on which this address occurs. The kernel then performs the following steps for each
page fault:
1. It acquires a page from the free list and fills it with zeroes.
2. It inserts a reference to this page in the VM object’s list of resident pages.
3. It maps the virtual page to the physical page by filling in a data structure called the pmap.
The pmap contains the page table used by the processor (or by a separate memory management
unit) to map a given virtual address to the actual hardware address.
Paging Virtual Memory Out
The kernel continuously compares the number of physical pages in the free list against a
threshold value. When the number of pages in the free list dips below this threshold, the kernel
reclaims physical pages for the free list by swapping inactive pages out of memory. To do this,
the kernel iterates all resident pages in the active and inactive lists, performing the following
steps:
1. If a page in the active list is not recently touched, it is moved to the inactive list.
2. If a page in the inactive list is not recently touched, the kernel finds the page’s VM object.
3. If the VM object has never been paged before, the kernel calls an initialization routine that
creates
and assigns a default pager object.
4. The VM object’s default pager attempts to write the page out to the backing store.
5. If the pager succeeds, the kernel frees the physical memory occupied by the page and moves
the
page from the inactive to the free list.
Paging Virtual Memory In
The final phase of virtual memory management moves pages in the backing store back
into physical memory. A memory access fault initiates the page-in process. Memory access faults
occur when code tries to access data at a virtual address that is not mapped to physical memory.
There are two kinds of faults:
 A soft fault occurs when the page of the referenced address is resident in physical memory but
is currently not mapped into the address space of this process.
 A hard fault occurs when the page of the referenced address is not in physical memory but is
swapped out to backing store (or is available from a mapped file). This is what is typically known
as a page fault. When any type of fault occurs, the kernel locates the map entry and VM object
for the accessed region. The kernel then goes through the VM object’s list of resident pages. If
the desired page is in the list of resident pages, the kernel generates a soft fault. If the page is
not in the list of resident pages, it generates a hard fault. For soft faults, the kernel maps the
physical memory containing the pages to the virtual address space of the process. The kernel
then marks the specific page as active. If the fault involved a write operation, the page is also
marked as modified so that it will be written to backing store if it needs to be freed later. For
hard faults, the VM object’s pager finds the page in the backing store or from the file-mapped
file, depending on the type of pager. After making the appropriate adjustments to the map
information, the pager moves the page into physical memory and places the page on the active
list. As with a soft fault, if the fault involved a write operation, the page is marked as modified.
Shared Memory
Shared memory is memory that can be written to or read from by two or more processes.
Shared memory can be inherited from a parent process, created by a shared memory server, or
explicitly created by an application for export to other applications. Uses for shared memory
include the following:
 sharing large resources such as icons or sounds
 fast communication between one or more processes
Shared memory is fragile. If one program corrupts a section of shared memory, any programs that
also use that memory share the corrupted data.
Wired Memory
Wired memory (also called resident memory) stores kernel code and data structures that
should never be paged out to disk. Applications, frameworks, and other user-level software
cannot allocate wired memory. However, they can affect how much wired memory exists at any
time. There is memory overhead associated with each kernel resource expended on behalf of a
program. As you can see, each thread created, each subprocess forked, and each library linked
contributes to the resident footprint of the system. In addition to wired memory generated
through user-level requests, the following kernel entities also use wired memory:
 VM objects
 the virtual memory buffer cache
 I/O buffer caches
 drivers
Wired data structures are also associated with the physical page and map tables used to
store virtualmemory mapping information, Both of these entities scale with the amount of
available physical memory. Consequently, when you add memory to a system the wired memory
increases even if nothing else changes. When the computer is first booted into the Finder, with
no other applications running, wired memory consumes approximately 14 megabytes of a 64
megabyte system and 17 megabytes of a 128 megabyte system. Wired memory is not immediately
released back to the free list when it becomes invalid. Instead it is “garbage collected” when the
free-page count falls below the threshold that triggers page out events.

Security Features
With Mac OS X, a security strategy is implemented that is central to the design of the
operating system, ensuring that your Mac is safe & secure. To enhance security on your
computer, Mac OS X provides the following features:
 • Open source foundation
• Secure default settings
• Modern security architecture
• Innovative security applications
• Rapid response

Security Framework

*The security framework in Mac OS X is an implementation of the CDSA architecture. It contains

expandable set of cryptographic algorithms to perform code signing & encryption operations
while maintaining the security of the cryptographic keys.

Control Physical Access

A firmware password prevents a user with physical access to the computer from starting
up from an optical disk, a network boot volume, a separate drive connected in Target Disk Mode,
or into single-user mode. It also requires a password to be entered before the system will start up
from its regular boot drive.

Locking your screen

The ability to require a password to unlock the screensaver comes in handy here. It's a
checkbox setting in the Security pane in System Preferences
Using ACLs (Access Control Lists)

The traditional Unix file permission model is pretty simple. There are three classes of
user: you, people in the same group as you, and everybody else. You can restrict the ability to
read from, write to, or execute files in a given directory based on those three ownership roles.

File Vault

If you need total security for your user data, FileVault is about as close as you can get.
Integrated into the Mac OS since v10.3, FileVault basically turns your entire home directory into
one big encrypted disk image. It's a special type of disk image that can grow or shrink as
necessary (although this only happens when you log out or restart), and it prevents anyone from
reading through your home directory even if they have physical access to the machine.
 File Vault in Mac OS X

Firewall

- software that protects the network applications running on your server. IP firewall
service, which is part of the Mac OS X Server Software, scans incoming IP packets & rejects or
accepts these packets based on a set of filters you create

Firewall in Mac OS X

Watch Your Logs

 It's never a bad idea to keep an eye on what your computer is doing behind your back. Mac
OS X makes this easier with Console.app, tucked away in your /Applications/Utilities folder. Like
the best Mac applications, it's designed to do one thing and do it well: allow you to see your Mac's
log activity at a glance, and search quickly for specific items.

Console Application in Mac OS X

Use a Virus Scanner

The viral risk is mitigated by several new and old features of Mac OS X. By default, files
created in a user's home directory are not executable, which helps to lower the risk of infection.

By default, downloaded files are dropped into a new Downloads folder in a user's home
directory, which helps to keep suspicious files in one easy-to-scan location. Previous versions of
the OS warned a user when opening an application for the first time; now, 10.5 applies that
scrutiny to all downloaded files, pointing out when they were downloaded and asking if it's really,
really okay to open them.
 ClamAV is available in a specially-built Mac OS X version and receives just as much (if not
more) attention as the for-pay alternatives. By setting it to auto-update and keep a close watch
on your Downloads and Documents folders, you're already several significant steps up the security
ladder.

ScreenShot
 Definition of Terms

Aqua - The new graphical interface for Mac OS X, with a colorful translucent feel. Aqua
introduces an interleaved window layering scheme, where Mac OS 9 is single layered.
Carbon - The current set of programming interfaces, evolving from the previous Mac OS (Classic)
toolbox API, migrated over to run on Mac OS X. A distinction is now made between Carbon event
handling (Mac OS X) and Classic event handling (Mac OS 9). This architecture implements a
preemptive multitasking environment with protected memory.

CFM - The Code Fragment Manager is the loader for executable code and data fragments under
Mac OS 9 (CarbonLibStub9) and Mac OS X. It was built using CodeWarrior.

Classic - Refers to the user interface, Platinum Appearance, introduced in Mac OS 8. Under this
architecture's design, applications share the processor and memory.

Cocoa - Object-oriented tool kits for user interface development. Cocoa is comprised of two
object-oriented frameworks, Objective-C from NextStep, and Java from Sun MicroSystems.

Core Graphics Rendering - Provides the rendering services for Quartz. Its libraries include
QuickDraw, OpenGL, and QuickTime. Core Graphics Rendering is also designed to be a black box
for input and output conversion of Portable Document Format files.

Core Graphics Services - The primary duties include the window server, which handles the
composition of windows. The windowing system is a layered composite engine.

Darwin OS - The underlying kernel environment for Mac OS X. Darwin is a complete operating
system without the application layers and graphics interfaces. Darwin is open source technology
based on FreeBSD, 4.2BSDLite, and Mach 3.0.

Frameworks - Shared libraries (frameworks) that are bound to a particular application.

FreeBSD - FreeBSD is an open source, freely distributed Unix-like operating system, much like
Linux, its counterpart on the Internet. Mac OS X contains a BSD component.

Mach 3.0 - A Mach microkernel performs only a small set of functions. It can handle interprocess
communications; low-level processes such as hardware and memory management; and high-level
processes such as file systems and network stacks. Higher level functions are run by servers.

Mach-O - Mach-O Carbon applications are built using Apple's Project Builder, and the object code
is designed for the Mach kernel.

Objective-C - An object-oriented C language (NextStep) that is based on ANSI C. It is one of the

frameworks that comprise Cocoa.
OpenGL - Industry standard for 3D graphics development and display. Apple has optimized an
OpenGL environment for Mac OS X.

Quartz - The core portion of the Mac OS X graphics and windowing environment, Quartz is
comprised of two core services, Core Graphics Services and Core Graphics Rendering.

QuickDraw - The primary Mac OS X graphics library for manipulating 2D graphics and text.

QuickTime - Apple's powerful tool for multimedia streaming and playback. The Pro version
includes an extensive authoring toolbox. QuickTime is equally adept on both Mac and Windows
platforms.

Sheets - Aqua's new methodology for handling modal and modeless dialogs. Sheets are used in
conjunction with the window to which they are attached. Sheets are translucent in appearance
and appear to slide out from underneath the window title.

Studied Issue

Above 80% people are using windows pc not Macs, so Internet Explorer is still the most
used browser in the world so checking compatibility of web based things in Internet Explorer
would be better in Windows PC than Mac OS X.

Positive Side

The web browser that you are using to visit that site - the same web browser that you may
well be using to visit every other site - has the power to download and install "updates" to the
operating system. It has the power to alter and modify the operating system.

As easily as Internet Explorer can download and install legitimate operating system
updates from Microsoft, it can just as easily download and install malicious software pretending
to be legitimate updates, from any other web site.

Internet Explorer advantages:

1. Internet Explorer 4 is built into Windows. This is true whether you add IE 4 to Windows 95
or just use IE 4 in Windows 98. (Much of the added attraction of Windows 98 is actually
added by Internet Explorer 4, so upgrading to IE 4 under Windows 95 gives you a kinda-
 sorta Windows 97 1/2.) Because of this tight integration, every file-and-folder window
becomes a browser window. You never need to run the Web browser separately. If you
have a window open showing, say, the My Documents folder, you can change the view of
your local documents to a view of a Web site just by typing a Web address in the address
line at the top of the My Documents window.
2. IE 4 uses all the regular Windows keyboard shortcuts. This can be very helpful if you do a
lot of Web browsing, because you don't have to learn new ways of doing things with the
keyboard. Hit the Backspace key and you back up to the previous folder in your hard drive
or the previous page in IE 4, to give one example. Common keystrokes just plain make
sense.
3. Java applets (small programs) run much better through IE 4 than through Netscape's
browser. IE 4 also does Java a lot faster.
4. IE 4 uses real shortcut files for its Internet "bookmarks." You can edit them, copy them,
put them on a floppy or send them by e-mail. They're files and not some sort of mystery
meat the way Netscape's "bookmarks" are.

Windows XP's main advantages are due to it's popularity, since Microsoft has been the
dominant make of operating systems for many years. Some of these advantages include:

1. Practically universal hardware support (done by vendors, not Microsoft).

2. Abundance of programs for it.
3. Support. Almost everyone has experience with it, so they will be able to offer support for it,
and help you with problems.

Direct advantages it has to OS X:

1. Runs on a far larger range of computers. OS X is specifically tailored to certain hardware

configurations, so not only will it not support some of the hardware on a computer other than a
Mac, it won't even boot on them. XP will run on almost every computer with an Intel or AMD
processor from 1998 to the present.
2. Cost. A computer with XP will (or did) cost far less than a Mac would.

Direct advantages it has to Linux:

1. Ease of use. Though ultimately debatable, most people find XP easier to use, or have no desire
to spend time learning to use Linux.
2. RTFM. Even beyond the initial shock of how different Linux tends to be from Windows has
passed, many users will simply not be willing to help you accomplish more advanced tasks, like
setting up a web server. The Ubuntu forums are a notable exception: they help everyone, and
have a specific rule against RTFM.

Negative Side

1. Requirements high, too hot deal:

Windows Vista, the next generation operating system requires superb computer to install.
It consumes a lot more resources than its predecessor windows XP. For vista Aero to work, you
need to invest something more than what you would have expected to invest before. The
graphics card requirement is quite high. The graphics card must be of DirectX 10 supported. The
required minimum graphics memory on the graphics card is 128 MB. For better performance,
graphics memory must be of 256 MB. The minimum hard disk space required is 20 GB for
installation of Windows Vista. Processor speed is also expected to be high for Aero to work
smoothly without causing any hiccups. The memory requirement for Windows Vista system is
high. The system will work smoothly when one has got RAM of about 2 GB installed. Totally, I
would like to say that, Windows vista eats up lot of resources, than its predecessor, the Windows
XP.
2. Regarding price, sucking your hard earned money:

The price of Windows Vista Ultimate edition seems to be too high. Ordinary user cannot
thus, have a look into all the features of Vista, which is only available in the Ultimate Edition.
Microsoft seems to be not so interested in country wise markets. The prices are set according to
the US market. However these prices are on higher side for developing asian countries. Microsoft
should set the price of Vista as per the market. It is the time for Microsoft to think over this
aspect, having introduced stricter validation process.
3. Replace the oldies, another way of extracting:

This is a usual problem, which always exists whenever new operating system gets
released, and you have an old system or have some old components in the system. If one decides
to install windows vista in the old system, then they should check the compatibility of system
components, checking whether Vista supports them or not. Some manufacturers will still provide
Vista support for the oldies by providing the latest drivers for the same. If manufacturers are not
providing the latest drivers, you need to purchase a new device as a replacement for the existing
device. Before, you purchase a new device you need to check out for Vista compatible or Vista
ready logo, which is put up on the device.
4.Window appearance. Did you like the different look?

In Windows Vista, the window appearance underwent lot of unwanted changes. The
windows in Windows Vista, the window appears similar to that of MAC OSX. The Minimize,
Maximize, and Close buttons, wore a different look. The three buttons got reduced in their sizes,
making them unclear to aged people, people with eye sight problems. The minimize, maximize,
and close buttons have reduced in sizes. The icon in the other end has disappeared, which makes
the window slightly dull in appearance.
In overall, the new operating system, Windows Vista is said to be an ideal replacement to its
predecessor, the Windows XP
Windows XP has gained a large number of security vulnerabilities over the years, many of which
cannot be fixed without a complete rewrite. It has no native support for SATA drives, and a buggy
Bluetooth stack.

Conclusion

The researchers have positive feelings about Mac OS X. If they were to choose a
computing platform today to run their "digital life", it would be Mac OS X, unless their line of
work or specific needs require/dictate otherwise.

This doesn't mean what works for them would work for others. This also doesn't mean Mac
OS X has no "issues". It has many: it carries a lot of "old" technology and baggage, it is not
bleeding edge in many respects, several things are ugly below Apple's pretty interface, it
costs money, it needs Apple hardware and it even has kernel panics on its own once in a
while. Still, Mac is currently the most worthy client platform in their opinion: the only
operating system currently in production that, within reason, lets you have your cake and
eat it too.

Mac OS X has managed to become rather Utopian with time. If you care, it doesn't
alienate you from *nix. In fact, it gives you a very colorful environment to play with: you
 have Mach, FreeBSD, a nice driver development environment, and a lot of the system's source
code to go with it.

If you are used to *nix (including Linux), you can get a lot of the same, or similar software
on Mac OS X. You can compile it yourself, or hope to find it in one of the port collections.

Apple's traditional emphasis on ease-of-use seems to work most of the time, although
there are exceptions. In my opinion, Mac OS X is representative of a "best-effort" approach -
Apple took technology they had collected over the years, along with technology that had
flourished in the open source world, and put together a reasonable system.

Currently there is nothing that I want to be able to run (as per my needs and wants) that
does not run on Mac OS X.

Recommendation

Some people find windows to be better than mac but the researchers recommend using
macs because the researcher find the interface much easier to navigate.

Mac is slightly more expensive but it is worth it and they stay current for much longer
than windows and each operating system update is stable and not beta as it is in window vista
(which is a piece of crap by the way so if you get a pc dont get windows xp...).
 Research Sources

http://news.cnet.com/8301-10784_3-9803779-7.html

http://www.oreillynet.com/pub/a/network/2000/07/13/magazine/carbonese.html

http://osxbook.com/book/bonus/ancient/whatismacosx//history.html

http://www.guidebookgallery.org/pics/gui/desktop/full/macosx103-1-1.png

http://mactrainingguide.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/11/mac_os_x_screenshots.jpg

http://blandname.com/wp-content/uploads/2006/09/mac-os-x-1047-server-screenshot.png

http://osxbook.com/book/bonus/ancient/whatismacosx/

http://osxbook.com/book/bonus/ancient/whatismacosx/history.html

http://www.answerbag.com/q_view/685061

http://audacity.sourceforge.net/about/images/audacity-macosx.png

http://switchtoamac.com/site/key-mac-os-x-security-features.html