UNIX for Dummies Questions & Answers

so, what's everyone's opinion on Darwin (x86 rendition)?

is it worth installing at the moment?

pros? cons? comments?

Apple's OS X is based on Darwin. Apple would not chose Darwin as it's OS core and risk it's future if the OS was not a good one.

Please keep in mind the rules of the forums are not to bash operating systems or have religious wars about them.

I apologise, i did not intend to begin such a flame... i have seen more than a few rediculous linux/bsd arguments get out of hand. perhaps i should rephrase my question:

can anyone give me a description of their experience with Darwin?

(BTW: i love OS X, why do you feel i might think otherwise? If i didn't like it, i wouldn't be installing darwin in less than a week...)

Alright... the only thing I really got out of going to Toronto this weekend was Darwin. What a waste *smacks head*.
Anyway.... I get home with the gzipped iso file on a CD-R and open it with WinRAR (i had previously deleted my linux partitions to make room for the shift). it opens, and to my surprise, i see file*s*... not a single iso file (note the absense of an *s*). This simply will not do... Nero needs either an image or a bootable partition to make a bootable CD, and I have neither. Next step: i boot into rescue mode with my red hat 9 cds and try to gzip -d the file. Gzip tells me that the file is not a valid gzip format (in other words, it told me to screw off 'real polite like'). I reboot into XP and try the dos version of gzip provided in the /dosutils directory. Same problem.

Anyone have experience with the installation process?!?!
I know winRAR will automatically open ISO files, but even then it should appear as a sub file... I gues I should try winZip tonight.

So close to the apple-ie goodness I can taste it, yet so far away.

are you trying to install osx on an i386 machine? that will not work. did you try booting from the cd? im not really sure what the cd you have is supposed to be.

My machine is an athlon XP box, which conforms to the x86 architecture. Darwin is NOT OSX! Darwin is a flavour of BSD (mach, whatever). OS X is the PPC version of Darwin AND Apple's Aqua interface. All I want is the x86 version installed on my box, and therefore I d/led the x86 ISO file. The CD i have contains a gzipped ISO file (darwin 6.6.1 x86) and a few dirty yiffy pics. I was in too much of a hurry to bother getting the image burnt while I was there, and decided to take the compressed file and play with it at home.