# MAC ports on freebsd



## Anonymous (Nov 22, 2010)

Hi all,

I've heard that the MAC OS X uses the bsd kernel underneath. So is it possible to have the mac ports and programs like macTex to be installed in FreeBSD. I was just wondering with the same kernel, but a UI on a whole different level make the systems seem so different.


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## sossego (Nov 22, 2010)

If the packages are available in source form, then yes.


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## nekoexmachina (Nov 22, 2010)

> If the packages are available in source form, then yes.


and if it does not depend on mac osx features like aqua toolkit


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## phoenix (Nov 22, 2010)

GUI applications for MacOS X will not run on anything except MacOS X.  The GUI layer (Quartz) is only available on MacOS X.

TUI (text-based) apps for MacOS X may or may not work on other OSes, depending on what features they use.  For example, apps that use NetInfo to store their configuration data won't work on systems that lack NetInfo.

IOW, use the apps that are available for your OS.    Use the ports tree on FreeBSD to install the apps you want.


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## fronclynne (Nov 22, 2010)

No, Apple uses a variant of the mach kernel.  There is some FreeBSD userland under there (I think they even use tcsh(1) as the standard shell), and you can use gcc of various versions, but anything that requires their proprietary libraries won't port.


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## UNIXgod (Nov 22, 2010)

What does the ui have to do with mac ports? Mac ports ui is the shell just like in freebsd.

mac ports pops everything into /opt. in some cases will duplicate system installed tools as to not stomp and apple's distro. They actually do this to avoid breakage via apple's software update program.


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