Can I do kernel programming in Mac OS?

joshis1 · May 5, 2014

I am planning to buy Mac book - laptop because of its good performance.
I have a Dell Studio laptop with Fedora core -19, I am really upset with this System. First of all my laptop gets hot, and it simply shutsdown. Also, the battery backup is too low. On top of it, the laptop is heavier, my lap starts paining. Basically, I run a website http://www.tune2wizard. I am more into technical and linux/unix kernel is my interest.

1. Can I write kernel programs/modules - character driver, block driver and network driver in Mac OS - Macbook pro or Macbook air?

2. Can I write QT applications on Macbook?

3. Can I run the normal linux commands on macbook like -
cat /proc/cpuinfo
dmesg
exec , find ,

4. Do they support yum or apt for source code download?
or anything equivalent?

Are these programming tools are free of cost?

Another point is what makes Mac good compare to the Dell or lenovo laptops with better CPU core, RAM, etc. For example, MAC book with i5, 2nd generation, RAM - 4B, HDD - 128 GB - SSD is far better than Dell/Lenovo - i7, 4th generation, RAM - 16 GB, HDD - 1 TB - Serial. What makes MACbook better in performance than the laptop which has better hardware ?

meme1255 · May 5, 2014

joshis1 said:
I am planning to buy Mac book - laptop because of its good performance.
I have a Dell Studio laptop with Fedora core -19, I am really upset with this System. First of all my laptop gets hot, and it simply shutsdown. Also, the battery backup is too low. On top of it, the laptop is heavier, my lap starts paining. Basically, I run a website http://www.tune2wizard. I am more into technical and linux/unix kernel is my interest.

1. Can I write kernel programs/modules - character driver, block driver and network driver in Mac OS - Macbook pro or Macbook air?

2. Can I write QT applications on Macbook?

3. Can I run the normal linux commands on macbook like -
cat /proc/cpuinfo
dmesg
exec , find ,

4. Do they support yum or apt for source code download?
or anything equivalent?

Are these programming tools are free of cost?

Another point is what makes Mac good compare to the Dell or lenovo laptops with better CPU core, RAM, etc. For example, MAC book with i5, 2nd generation, RAM - 4B, HDD - 128 GB - SSD is far better than Dell/Lenovo - i7, 4th generation, RAM - 16 GB, HDD - 1 TB - Serial. What makes MACbook better in performance than the laptop which has better hardware ?

1) You should be capable to write your own kexts.
2) AFAIK yes - They'll run in XQuartz (OS X's X11 name) if you install required tools from Macports.
3) Nope, there are different ones: sysctl or system_profiler. They provide similar amount of information.
4) You can install Macports or Homebrew. It's aptitude-like package system.

XCode or other tools from Macports are free.

Mac (feel) is faster because of a solid state drive (SSD)

- HDD is the slowest component in any computer.

robvas · May 5, 2014

Sounds like you should get the Dell XPS 13 Ubuntu edition

michaelsviews · May 5, 2014

joshis1 said:
I am planning to buy Mac book - laptop because of its good performance.
I have a Dell Studio laptop with Fedora core -19, I am really upset with this System. First of all my laptop gets hot, and it simply shutsdown. Also, the battery backup is too low. On top of it, the laptop is heavier, my lap starts paining. Basically, I run a website http://www.tune2wizard. I am more into technical and linux/unix kernel is my interest.

1. Can I write kernel programs/modules - character driver, block driver and network driver in Mac OS - Macbook pro or Macbook air?

2. Can I write QT applications on Macbook?

3. Can I run the normal linux commands on macbook like -
cat /proc/cpuinfo
dmesg
exec , find ,

4. Do they support yum or apt for source code download?
or anything equivalent?

Are these programming tools are free of cost?

Another point is what makes Mac good compare to the Dell or lenovo laptops with better CPU core, RAM, etc. For example, MAC book with i5, 2nd generation, RAM - 4B, HDD - 128 GB - SSD is far better than Dell/Lenovo - i7, 4th generation, RAM - 16 GB, HDD - 1 TB - Serial. What makes MACbook better in performance than the laptop which has better hardware ?

What about asking this in the programming form

Panch0 · May 5, 2014

macports will bring most of the linux commands over.
if you are really into linux, you can always run a virtual machine so that you have linux running within OSX. VirtualBox is a free virtualization program and VMWare Fusion and Parallels ofer commercial versions.

using a VM you can run a linux server( really you could run many at once) on your Mac to develop and test before deploying to your live server(s). inside the VM, you are just running your favorite distro with all of your preferred tools.

jeremyhu · Jul 24, 2014

meme1255 said:
1) You should be capable to write your own kexts.
2) AFAIK yes - They'll run in XQuartz (OS X's X11 name) if you install required tools from Macports.

QT also has an AppKit backend as well, so you can have native QT applications without needing to use X11.

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Can I do kernel programming in Mac OS?

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