Section 37. Unix Under the Hood

37. Unix Under the Hood

Purring away beneath the shiny hood of both Tiger (Mac OS X 10.4) and Leopard (Mac OS X 10.5) is a stable, powerful engine: Unix. Power users know that Unix provides more efficient handling of programming code and improved stability when running several tasks at once.

For the rest of us, having Unix under the hood means Mac OS X boots up faster and runs more smoothly. Applications rarely crash; when they do, they're less likely to disrupt other programs. And robust processor and memory management means that we can work simultaneously in iPhoto, iTunes, and iDVD without slowing our computers to a crawl.