macOS System Administrator
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- Snippet from Wikipedia: MacOS
macOS (previously OS X and originally Mac OS X) is a proprietary Unix operating system, derived from OPENSTEP for Mach and FreeBSD, which has been marketed and developed by Apple since 2001. It is the current operating system for Apple's line of Mac computers. Within the market of desktop and laptop computers, it is currently the second most widely used desktop OS, after Microsoft Windows and ahead of all Linux distributions, including ChromeOS and SteamOS. As of 2026, the most recent release of macOS is macOS 26 Tahoe, the 22nd major version of macOS.
Mac OS X succeeded the classic Mac OS, the primary Macintosh operating system from 1984 to 2001. Its underlying architecture came from NeXT's NeXTSTEP, as a result of Apple's acquisition of NeXT, which also brought Steve Jobs back to Apple. The first desktop version, Mac OS X 10.0, was released on March 24, 2001. Apart from OS X Lion, all versions from Mac OS X Leopard onwards are UNIX 03 certified. Each of Apple's other contemporary operating systems, including iOS, iPadOS, watchOS, tvOS, audioOS and visionOS, are derivatives of macOS. Throughout its history, macOS has supported three major processor architectures: the initial version supported PowerPC-based Macs only, with support for Intel-based Macs beginning with OS X Tiger 10.4.4 and support for ARM-based Apple silicon Macs beginning with macOS Big Sur. Support for PowerPC-based Macs was dropped with OS X Snow Leopard, and it was announced at the 2025 Worldwide Developers Conference that macOS Tahoe will be the last to support Intel-based Macs.
Previous Macintosh operating systems (versions of the classic Mac OS) were named using Arabic numerals, as with Mac OS 8 and Mac OS 9. Until version 11, macOS Big Sur, all versions of the operating system were given version numbers of the form 10.x, with this format persisting from Mac OS X 10.0 through 10.15; starting with macOS Big Sur, Apple switched to integer version numbers that increased by 1 with every major release, and in 2025, they switched to year based version numbers with macOS 26.
A prominent part of macOS's original brand identity was the use of the Roman numeral X, pronounced "ten", as well as code naming each release after species of big cats, and later, places within California. Apple shortened the name to "OS X" in 2011 and then changed it to "macOS" in 2016 to align with the branding of Apple's other operating systems. In 2020, macOS Big Sur was presented as version 11—a marked departure after 16 releases of macOS 10—but the naming convention continued to reference places within California. In 2025, Apple unified the version number across all of its products to align with the year after their WWDC announcement, so the release announced at the 2025 WWDC, macOS Tahoe, is macOS 26.
Something of note about macOS is the OS itself never had any Digital Rights Management to install or use and could be distributed freely, differing from those who use Windows which requires Microsoft Product Activation.