I have been using linux for a while now and wanted to ask how much does a linux machine difer from mac os machine because they all seem to be unix based and i was wondering at the same time why some softwares work in linux and not in mac and vice versa
The basic difference between Mac OS and Linux is Mac is based on BSD code. To elaborate it BSD means Berkeley Software Distribution, which also was developed in Unix Operating system like Mac OS. This is the reason they are of similar system because Linux is also developed by similar to Unix system.
But  Mac is binary compatible. Because it is based on BSD code, it can run many software of other OS with the same architecture because of it's  binary compatibility layer. Which Linux can not.
In addition to that Mac's applications are not open source, if not all but the majority. These applications were built on Libraries, which means they are not open source.This is the main reason why we can not use some software in Linux and Mac.
