What do you think about the core system of macOS, often considered its heart? Do you prefer the traditional XNU (Mach + BSD) approach, or a more modular one like a microkernel architecture? Why do you lean towards that choice? You can share personal experiences too, but please avoid mentioning specific product names. Let’s keep the discussion focused on general architectural preferences!
Should macOS's core system be XNU or something else?
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I'm still amazed that XNU has survived this long. I was messing around with the Linux kernel around the same time, and I always appreciated how relatively "clean" XNU stayed despite its complex build process. For example, once when I was writing a kernel extension, I saw how naturally Mach's task structures and BSD's POSIX compliance fit together—like the best parts of two ecosystems simply merged. At that moment, I thought, "Why complicate things with another architecture?"
Then I spent some time in a simulation environment testing out microkernels, where the entire system nearly locked up because of a few kilobytes worth of message-passing errors. Even if there hadn’t been a performance hit, that debugging process definitely matured me. XNU’s hybrid design seems to strike a good balance between stability and flexibility. I don’t know how well it’ll hold up to future needs, but for now, I have no hesitation in defending the power of "tradition."