Mac is UNIX. Registered UNIX programs: * AIX * HP/UX * Mac OS X and Mac OS X Server * Reliant UNIX * SCO * Solaris * Tru64 UNIX * z/OS * NCR UNIX SVR4 * NEC UX/4800 * SGI IRIX 6.5 Linux is made to work like UNIX, but is just not UNIX registered. It's among a group of OSes referred to as "UNIX-like". Many persons get careworn by the similarity in spelling and pronunciation, in order that they feel Linux need to be a kind of UNIX. Not so. Apple used an OS (variant 1.0 to 9.2.2) that was once now not even closely regarding UNIX from 1984-2001, and that continues many persons from realizing that OS X makes use of the X for three factors: X=ten, X for UNIX, and X for subsequent. Home windows isn't even carefully related to any of the UNIX or UNIX-like OSes. It used to be initially designed as an overlay for MS-DOS, and still has the various details of the DOS system. It's designed for BIOS compliance, a gigantic hindrance that Microsoft has been trying to walk faraway from for the previous ten years, but it surely appears the handfuls of computer makers won't go along with the trade to EFI that allows for Mac OS and Linux (when installed on an EFI approach) to out-participate in windows in most measurements. It might take a thousand words to give an explanation for the quality small print that make these distinct. Some basic principles are: -- Most Linux OS types are available free. That may be a enormous appeal for some folks. Mac OS charges US$29.Ninety five. Home windows costs round US$200 -- the biggest quantity of apps are on hand for home windows OS. The subsequent biggest number are for Mac OS. Fewer are to be had for Linux. Very few dwelling use functions are designed for UNIX methods except the Mac approach. Most UNIX use is for government, educational services, and scientific research. So far as what humans install, it seems most persons do not set up some thing. They buy a pc that has an OS already hooked up. They don't question it. If the OS stops working, they take the laptop to a store and pay to get the identical or an up-to-date variant of the identical OS mounted once more. They already have a method DVD that got here with the laptop, so they see no have to buy some OS DVD tey usually are not conversant in, erase their documents, and install a whole new expertise. The pc is a instrument, now not a toy to them, so it is not enjoyable as a piece of hardware. The web is enjoyable, films are fun, but now not the hardware or the OS. There's an ancient pronouncing that a laptop nerd makes use of a computer to use a pc. The quantity of geeks using desktops is some distance less than the non-geeks. The geeks just make much more noise, so we consider they symbolize most men and women. I'm definite if shops began selling handiest computers with Linux mounted, most of their consumers would go in other places to purchase a pc. The usual person has no need for Linux, due to the fact that it cannot play most games, can not run Microsoft office, cannot synch to an iPod, cannot synch to an iPhone, can't play QuickTime films, and can't play Shockwave Flash. There are hack-form approaches to get round a few these obstacles comparable to strolling yet another OS in Wine, but the average individual has no curiosity in bending over backward to make Linux work close to as well as home windows or OS X. That is not to say Linux is not a robust, flexible, secure process. It just is a nitch method that the common man or woman has no curiosity in. That's why it hoovers around 1% of the residence market.