FreeBSD works on Itanium - Works on macs too?

[supanatral]

I was reading that Intel Itanium-based processors use EFI. So does that mean that if i were to download freebsd for Itanium processor that it will work on my mac as well?

Also, random quesion about EFI: Since BIOS uses 16bit code to run, how many bits does EFI use?

[lurk]

Question #1, is no. That Itanium uses a totally different instruction set than the x86 family. You would literally have as much luck installing the PowerPC version.

Question #2, The big difference is the addressing mode. BIOS starts up and runs in what is called "real mode" which goes all the way back to the first IBM PCs. That is what limits BIOS to seeing only 1MB of RAM and the like. EFI in contrast runs the processor in "protected mode" where it can see the whole memory address space. I do not think that it really cares about 32 vs. 64 bit then, it will just do the right thing.

To what your real question is, why don't you just get Bootcamp? That includes the EFI modules to fake a BIOS so that you can install a legacy operating system.

Finally, you do know that MacOSX already uses FreeBSD for its Unix user-space. So you already have FreeBSD running on your box even before you start down this path.

[supanatral]

I know what your saying about bootcamp. During my quick research, I figured out that boot camp only supports 32bit, however please feel free to correct me if i'm wrong.

After running Windows XP 32bit on a PC and then upgrading them to Vista x64I found out just how fast 64bit really is. The computer is so much faster running 64bit even though its running Vista.

[eric2006]

About 64-bit bootcamp:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boot_Ca...rosoft_Windows

[nixgeek]

Mac OS X does not use FreeBSD. It runs Darwin, a BSD derivative (and VERY derivative at that compared to other BSDs) whose kernel draws some code from FreeBSD 5.0 and Mach. FreeBSD and Darwin environments have their differences when it comes to userspace.

http://ezine.daemonnews.org/200010/darwin.html

So if he were to use the Terminal, he would have access to much of the BSD and GNU CLI applications found under a command shell in most any *nix, but much of how the system is managed would be very different. Check the following page and select "FreeBSD" and "Mac OS X" to see a chart showing the differences between them:

http://bhami.com/rosetta.html

I imagine that with Boot Camp you might be able to install FreeBSD, unless the FreeBSD distribution has support in the kernel for EFI-based systems. You can check out the following pages for getting FreeBSD 6.2 installed on your Intel Mac:

http://goddess-gate.com/dc2/index.php/post/251

[lurk]

It does so, neener-neener-neener!! (that was fun ;-) )

More maturely, I said that the OS X used the FreeBSD "user space" the kernel is Mach. When you type 'ls' or 'ps' in a terminal those commands are compiled from what one would call the FreeBSD distribution, for example for Tiger they were all synced up with FreeBSD 5.0 (I think that was the version) and I am sure that leopard will match 6.0.

If you look at the list of differences that you will find at the "Rosetta Stone for Unix" you linked there are not really that many. Two big ones account for most of the differences, the different kernel and the fact that OS X uses a directory service (Netinfo) by default. This is kind of an apples vs oranges comparison, in most cases the original interface is still present and used when Netinfo fails or would be a match if you configured the FreeBSD box to use a directory service like LDAP for that info.

Ignoring that, the other differences on that list are even less important and many are just wrong, OS X has dmesg and ifconfig thank you very much. I use them often. Others are just ignorant, like comparing Aqua to X11. The funny thing is that when you run X11 on your Mac those differences go away.

The final two differences of note are that the Mac does not use BSD style disk labels and the mach-o format for binary files. No user will ever see that difference and only a handful of system utilities even can tell the difference.

So, for all of your vanilla Unix needs as a user it looks like FreeBSD and you are running the exact same code. So I think that I can stand by my assertion.

[nixgeek]

Where did you see the comparison of Aqua to X11??

Are you sure you selected JUST Mac OS X and FreeBSD? I just ran down the comparison between the two and saw no comparison of Aqua to X11. It also mentioned that both used ipconfig and dmesg.

Make sure you follow the directions on the top of the page. Seems to render fine in IE, Opera, or Mozilla-based browsers.

Are you sure you looked at the correctly? The site also mentioned some commands that have nothing to do with NetInfo but still differ from your average FreeBSD system. And if you check at the bottom of the page it was last updated on August 16, 2007.

I'm not sure many BSDers would stand by your assertion that Darwin is a FreeBSD because of how it "feels" in the command line. A BSD, maybe, but even then it strays quite a bit from the norm. By your description, you might as well make the same assertion that Darwin is like GNU/Linux at the CLI, so there wouldn't be a need for installing GNU/Linux to learn it (which would be wrong).

[nixgeek]

There's some discussion on the subject in this Usenet group thread (circa 2004). They also mention that even though there are bits of FreeBSD in the kernel, it is far from being "like FreeBSD":
http://groups.google.com/group/fa.fr...arwin+freebsd#