
macOS Kernel Extensions are officially deprecated - ameshkov
https://developer.apple.com/support/kernel-extensions/
======
CountSessine
Interesting.

The company I worked for and our competitor VMWare both had to create small
kexts to enable on-the-fly capture of USB devices. We both accessed USB
devices from user-space, but we needed to put small kexts in the kernel to
prevent class drivers from being automatically attached to general USB
devices. There was really no race-free user-space way of doing this and Apple
ignored our messages on their dev forums when we asked for assistance.

I wonder if they’ve added an interface for this? Or maybe promiscuous USB
device control just isn’t going to be possible now?

~~~
SyneRyder
If I'm correctly guessing that you might have worked on Parallels, thank you
for one of the best programs I've ever used. So many nice delightful touches,
like their autodetection of USB devices and asking if I want to use them with
the VM or the native system. Without Parallels I could never have used a Mac
as my main machine.

I've since moved back to Windows, but I hope Parallels might make a Windows
version. The Windows competitors aren't as good as their Mac versions, and
painfully slow compared to Parallels running on my ancient MBP 2012.

~~~
jamil7
> on my ancient MBP 2012

I still do all my work on one, fast as the day I bought it.

~~~
vaxman
Why can't someone slap the XNU api onto Linux and create a runtime system that
permits Apple's UX frameworks/libraries to be used by Linux developers (who
will create more performant apps that do incredible things while maintaining
the look-and-feel of the Macs that we once loved)? As long as we're booting
Linux on machines bought at their local mall outlet or online store, I don't
see the legal problem. Maybe a new generation of managers at Apple would even
cooperate with such a Linux distribution (something like A/UX of yesteryear)?

~~~
pmjordan
_Why can 't someone slap the XNU api onto Linux_

Probably because importing Mach messaging and VM APIs into the Linux kernel,
and recreating IOKit and similar from scratch is a pretty major undertaking;
the APSL isn't GPL-compatible, so using the existing XNU code and trying to
make it fit into the Linux kernel isn't something that could ever be
upstreamed. Aside from the fact that Linux's device model doesn't exactly map
to IOKit well.

Then there are invariably plenty of assumptions that userland makes: launchd
is probably assumed to have PID 1; all sorts of stuff like that.

Plus of course, there's the question of whether this would be inline with the
EULA of Apple's userland…

There's always GNUStep if you want to write Cocoa apps in Objective-C on
Linux. Somehow I have a feeling the APIs aren't what's been holding back Linux
on the desktop.

------
drewg123
I wonder if this is the end of drivers for 3rd party PCIe/thunderbolt high
performance NICs? I imagine that this may make Macs less viable for situations
where having a reasonably high performance 3rd party NIC is important (eg,
video editing).

Are there any details about DriverKit that are available?

I used to be a Mac driver developer ~10 years ago or so. I did one of the
first 10G drivers for Macos, and MacOS performance was always terrible
compared to Linux or BSD, but I can't imagine that moving it into userspace is
going to help anything. MacOS boundary crossing (eg, syscall, ioctl, and Mach
traps) performed even worse than their network stack as compared to Linux/BSD.

~~~
pjmlp
Yes, WWDC video

[https://developer.apple.com/videos/play/wwdc2019/702/](https://developer.apple.com/videos/play/wwdc2019/702/)

[https://developer.apple.com/documentation/driverkit?language...](https://developer.apple.com/documentation/driverkit?language=objc)

[https://developer.apple.com/system-
extensions/](https://developer.apple.com/system-extensions/)

Regarding performance, on the other hand Linux/BSD still don't match macOS
real time audio capabilities.

~~~
phonethrowaway
> Regarding performance, on the other hand Linux/BSD still don't match macOS
> real time audio capabilities.

Got a source for that? I use a Debian machine for an audio workstation. I
moved there from OSX and am using the same DAW and get less latency now.
Especially because I can run a real-time kernel...

~~~
pjmlp
The source is what professional musicians get to use.

They don't have to customise their kernel on the newly bought Window/macOS
laptop.

~~~
bestham
Your statement was that audio latency is lower on OSX compared to Linux, and
you cannot back that up. We all know that the prevalence of Linux DAWs in the
studios are low. But that would only be related to OSX having the lowest
latency if latency was the only thing that ever mattered to professional
studios. Which it’s not.

~~~
pjmlp
Try to do the same with a standard Linux distribution kernel, without
customisation.

~~~
kelnos
Why? The goalposts you've erected are entirely arbitrary and unnecessary.

~~~
pjmlp
Because that is what regular users care about, they are not nerds compiling
kernels to achieve what is supposed to be a factory enabled capability.

My point stands, macOS kernel doesn't need to be compiled from scratch to
achieve that.

~~~
timc3
Ubuntu Studio doesn't need to be compiled from scratch to achieve it either..

The applications that most professionals involved in music and audio use don't
run on Linux. And with most professionals the application and it's stable
running is the key concern, the OS just facilitate the application.

------
cerberusss
If you want to know how much non-Apple kernel extensions you use, use
"kextstat" and filter out com.apple. In my case, I only use Karabiner:

    
    
      % kextstat | grep -v com.apple
      Index Refs Address            Size       Wired      Name (Version) UUID <Linked Against>
        185    0 0xffffff7f84cc0000 0x5000     0x5000     org.pqrs.driver.Karabiner.VirtualHIDDevice.v061000 (6.10.0) 4D004D1A-ED2F-3780-AD53-A10F286EC759 <51 6 5 3 1>
      %

~~~
theknarf

      Index Refs Address            Size       Wired      Name (Version) UUID <Linked Against>
        109    0 0xffffff7f83eb3000 0x7000     0x7000     net.sf.tuntaposx.tun (1.0) 95DD963D-E23D-3B0F-8DE8-A4D2F6BFA5CC <8 6 5 1>
        110    0 0xffffff7f83eba000 0x7000     0x7000     net.sf.tuntaposx.tap (1.0) 23FDB715-3D0D-3A26-ACBA-E3794C231CB7 <8 6 5 1>
        111    3 0xffffff7f83ec1000 0xf0000    0xf0000    org.virtualbox.kext.VBoxDrv (6.0.12) 79AB3317-5F6D-3FE0-965C-92E45277AA0D <8 6 5 3 1>
        112    0 0xffffff7f83fb1000 0x29000    0x29000    com.intel.kext.intelhaxm (7.5.1) D0CC7B8F-1F62-33B1-BE6B-B5573D2A607B <8 6 5 3 1>
        117    0 0xffffff7f84000000 0x8000     0x8000     org.virtualbox.kext.VBoxUSB (6.0.12) B1285DF7-2D17-3497-A948-40825951123A <116 111 54 8 6 5 3 1>
        180    0 0xffffff7f84964000 0x5000     0x5000     org.virtualbox.kext.VBoxNetFlt (6.0.12) C1B5DFEA-CB4C-30BD-9A92-C92391F7BDE0 <111 8 6 5 3 1>
        184    0 0xffffff7f84a2f000 0x6000     0x6000     com.valvesoftware.SteamInput (4357.73.42) 17B6ECD0-A50A-3D6A-B350-9C70805EE129 <44 6 5 3>
        191    0 0xffffff7f85b19000 0x6000     0x6000     org.virtualbox.kext.VBoxNetAdp (6.0.12) F8D3E46F-C4EA-397A-ACB1-EF2BF77C0506 <111 6 5 1>
        193    0 0xffffff7f85b2e000 0x6000     0x6000     com.getdropbox.dropbox.kext (1.10.3) F29DD0CB-48D6-311A-9B69-E39CF775493C <8 6 5 2 1>
    

\- Dropbox

\- Virtualbox

\- Tuntap for VPN

\- Valve controller support

\- Intel haxm for Android Emulator

~~~
tinus_hn
Pretty insane for an application like Dropbox to use a kernel extension.

~~~
simonh
They use it in SmartSync, so files that are actually stored in the cloud and
not physically on your local machine, are visible and selectable in the Finder
and automatically downloaded on demand.

~~~
bouke
It would be great if there were some user-space support for this in next
year's macOS release. I think it would be useful for a lot of cloud storage
providers.

~~~
rgovostes
Apple previously added third-party sync integration points into the Finder to
stop Dropbox from injecting into that process (when it was easier and Apple
was locking it down). It’s likely they do not want to break Dropbox and will
try to support whatever it needs.

~~~
pmjordan
There is NSFileProviderExtension, but last I heard it was still a very
immature API.

------
pjmlp
> Kernel programming interfaces (KPIs) will be deprecated as alternatives
> become available, and future OS releases will no longer load kernel
> extensions that use deprecated KPIs by default.

This is the key part, as presented during the WWDC 2019 talks, the long term
roadmap is to make macOS into a proper mikro-kernel OS.

This is just the start.

~~~
qubex
Nothing about Xnu leads me to believe they are pursuing a _bona fide_ micro-
kernel architecture. This doesn’t really indicate anything in that direction
either. They’re just doing the typical Apple thing of enforcing a “one
proprietary port, one licensed plug” policy.

~~~
mike_d
We had a very serious performance issue resulting in crashes across our fleet
of macs that was ultimately traced back to an endpoint security solution that
was patching the kernel and doing dumb stuff.

These changes from Apple have forced this vendor to completely rewrite their
product the right way.

~~~
brazzledazzle
I saw a rewrite of some functionality from a vendor (rhymes with mcafsee) as
well. They decided to start running lsof to find open files. This can be
excruciatingly slow and cpu intensive on macOS. It was running it near
constantly effectively turning machines into beach ball render farms.

I suppose avoiding kernel panics is an improvement but let’s be real: these
enterprise vendors have always made shit software and rarely keep up with OS
releases or updates. They’re not about to change any time soon.

~~~
pjmlp
Indeed, but they are what causes OS vendor to actually do something about it.

Android now is requiring hardware memory tagging on ARM, Fortify by default,
and Treble requires out-of-process for new drivers exactly because of the same
kind of issues.

------
GeekyBear
Here's a text transcript from the WWDC 2019 session that gave an overview.

>A System Extension is part of your app that extends the functionality of the
operating system in ways similar to a Kernel Extension but running in user
space outside the kernel.

[https://asciiwwdc.com/2019/sessions/702](https://asciiwwdc.com/2019/sessions/702)

~~~
teruakohatu
Can this handle filesystem drivers? I am going to miss NTFS for Mac and one or
two Serial drivers I use.

~~~
szc
I'm curious which ones -- CDC drivers are supported automatically and since
Mavericks there is built-in support for FTDI and CH340G written by Apple. I
think there is still a PL2303 driver but I've not used something with one of
those for a couple of years.

I definitely do not miss the kernel panics from unplugging an older FTDI based
Arduino while it was sending serial data!

~~~
1over137
Apple's FTDI driver doesn't match against every FTDI device though, sometimes
you still need the VCP driver FTDI themselves provide.

~~~
KMnO4
FWIW, I’m having serious issues with my FTDI board on Catalina —- even after
installing the VCP driver. I’ve had to downgrade to Mojave for the time being

------
mrpippy
Kernel extensions being deprecated is not news (it was announced at WWDC). The
only real new info in this post is that 10.15.4 will pop up warning dialogs
when loading the certain types of kexts that have replacement APIs available.

------
sircastor
Does this mean Hackintoshes are on their way out? Kexts have been used in that
community to maintain support for non Apple hardware.

~~~
Teknoman117
It might mean switching more towards virtualization for Hackintoshes. It's now
possible to run a completely, 100% unmodified macOS in qemu/kvm on Linux and
use vfio passthrough to place GPUs (mostly Radeon cards) and other PCIe
devices into macOS.

~~~
asveikau
Speaking of virtualization, what about using macOS as a VM host? This
typically requires kernel mode drivers. It would be awfully inconvenient to
not be able to host VMs on a Mac development machine.

~~~
angry_octet
It could be this is done by MacOS itself, in a similar manner to Hyper-V on
Windows, where you can no longer use VMWare/VirtualBox/etc. Virtualisation is
critical to Win 10 security, wouldn't be surprised to see MacOS going in that
direction.

~~~
vbezhenar
My Windows used to BSOD when running with hyper-v enabled. I disabled it and
I'm not going to enable it again anytime soon. VirtualBox works just fine. I
don't know why do you think that it's critical to Win 10 security.

~~~
iggldiggl
And at least on my machine, hybrid sleep doesn't seem to be compatible with
Hyper-V, either...

------
hemancuso
Curious if anyone knows what Dropbox will do about SmartSync. KAuth extensions
are likely out as of 10.16, and the Endpoint Security extensions don’t let you
block a reply for more than 60 seconds, so you can’t dynamically page in large
files anymore.

~~~
jinushaun
The new FileProvider API supports something like smart sync: placeholders for
files that live in the cloud and download on demand.

~~~
Mister_Snuggles
OneDrive does this without requiring a kernel module.

~~~
hemancuso
They have access to a kernel module and entitlement that only they have access
to, com.apple.fileutil - and Apple has said they aren't giving out any more
entitlements for it.

------
steeleduncan
Is this the end of any form of fuse style fs on macOS? (whether osxfuse, or an
open source fork of an earlier version of it)

They say that future OS releases will no longer load deprecated KPIs, but they
do not note the VFS KPIs as deprecated in their list.

~~~
als0
Potentially, although OSXFUSE only works on old macOS versions now.

~~~
re
The latest version of FUSE for macOS, which is still freely available to end
users but no longer open source and not licensed to allow redistribution,
works on the current version of macOS. The open source code has not been
updated in a few years and as such only works on older macOS releases.

------
rswail
Just looked through my kexts. I've got two that I use, one that I dont, all
signed and approved by Apple:

* Driver for RTL815X that works with my USB Ethernet adapter from RTL.

The standard Apple driver refused to run at 1G, only at 100Mb. It'll be
interesting to see if they update the drivers any time soon.

* Tripmode that controls network I/O (I don't use it)

* Karabiner Elements to handle my custom keyboard

I use the (excellent) Karbiner-Elements to handle my keyboard and it has a
kext that sets up a virtual keyboard and virtual pointer as HID devices. So
I'm guessing that's going to need to be converted from a kext to something
using the HIDDriverKit.

------
ameshkov
As usually, Apple does not give developers any time to react. There is no
migration plan save for one video from WWDC where they briefly describe some
alternatives.

> In macOS 10.15.4, use of deprecated KPIs triggers a notification to the user
> that the software includes a deprecated API and asks the user to contact the
> developer for alternatives.

~~~
pjmlp
The alternatives are well known and everyone has half a year to actually read
about DriverKit and Network Extensions.

~~~
ameshkov
Well, let me disagree. The documentation is lagging. Right after the WWDC
there were nothing except for some header files.

Also, why half a year? Do you think it will take them that much to release
10.15.4?

~~~
api
What's this "documentation" thing you're talking about? Is it something other
than header files and code?

I'm joking but documentation (and tech support) do seem to be dying things at
Apple and elsewhere.

~~~
ameshkov
Actually, they are quite helpful on the developer forums.

Fully agree on the documentation point, though.

------
smcleod
I really hope that this is the final nail in the coffin for third party Anti
Virus vendors.

It's been really worrying to see large enterprises that have moved from
Windows to macOS and carry their thinking that the need to install a third
party AV product (which in turn often acts as a near-unrestricted way into the
kernel).

~~~
0az
I can't wait until I can uninstall University-mandated AV. I'm still waiting
for Jumpshot to respond to my CCPA inquiry.

~~~
jedieaston
You don't have to worry about that anymore...

[https://www.jumpshot.com/](https://www.jumpshot.com/)

~~~
yjftsjthsd-h
That is ironically one of the nicest, cleanest, most to-the-point pages I've
ever seen on the web. ...I'm not sure what to do with this.

------
gentle
This is yet another reason to move away from MacOS. The blocking of 32-bit
apps, a requirement to have Apple notarize every application, and now the
removal of kexts.

If Apple still made great software and even better hardware then I wouldn't
care, but that hasn't been the case for years.

~~~
favorited
If you've been unhappy with hardware and software for years, why haven't you
moved to another platform? At least your OS if you didn't want to buy new
hardware.

~~~
viraptor
You effectively can't use alternative OSes on new mbps easily. Drivers are not
available and wifi firmware is broken (wontfix, don't care) for use with Linux
stack.

Reasons to stick with them: company purchasing policy.

~~~
georgebarnett
Your company will only purchase macs? Is there no windows option? That would
be .. unusual.

~~~
viraptor
There is, but the choice available doesn't quite work for developers. In my
opinion anyway. (reasonable for generic office workers though)

------
floatingatoll
> _At WWDC19, we announced the deprecation of kernel extensions_

The title as written deserves a (2019) since they announced this to developers
last year.

~~~
zymhan
That is only for a post written in, say, 2019. A new post that cites old
information is still a new post.

Additionally, they _announced_ the deprecation at WWDC, but that did not take
immediate effect. The point of this post is that they are as of right now no
longer supported.

~~~
pjmlp
They announced one OS release for deprecation period after an userspace API
for a previous Kext gets introduced.

So now that Catalina is officially released, they are following up on this.

------
loeg
Does this mean VFSForGit for Mac is dead? Is there some proposed mechanism for
filesystem implementations other than kernel extensions?

~~~
pmjordan
I was the external contractor brought onto the project as the project's macOS
kernel extension expert; my contract expired in November after the port was
put on ice. As far as I'm aware it's no longer being pursued, with sparse
checkouts being the new hotness.

I don't want to and can't speak for Microsoft, and I did not make the final
decision, but:

* The user space alternatives (NSFileProvider, EndpointSecurity) are not up to the job for various reasons.

* Porting everything to the much more involved VFS KPI would have been a large amount of work, and with a near-100% risk of having the rug pulled out under it yet again.

~~~
loeg
Cheers, I appreciate the details and context.

------
jes
I wonder about drivers for PCIe add-in cards for the new Mac Pro. I have a
client that has asked me to develop such a driver for their card so they can
run on modern Mac Pro systems. I’d work entirely in userland via DriverKit if
I could, but I don’t think the necessary APIs to interact with PCIe hardware
are available.

~~~
rarepostinlurkr
They are in 10.15.4

------
pronglelord9
>IOUSBFamily has been deprecated and headers removed from SDK since macOS El
Capitan (10.11). All clients should move to IOUSBHostFamily or USBDriverKit,
where appropriate and outlined below.

lol which one of you? i fully sympathize but oof, guess you lost that fight

------
cgb223
As a total layman to developing kernel extensions, is this another example of
apple limiting what you can do with their hardware, or just an effort to get
developers to modernize how they make drivers for macOS?

~~~
takeda
Well, apple makes the hardware, so they would typically make the drivers as
well. From what I read and understood is that without being able to load own
extensions you can only do whatever Apple allowed you to do.

It could be compared to changes that Chrome plans (or already introduced?) to
restrict extensions that filter sites which affect adblockers and you're at
mercy of Google what you can block and what you cannot.

Similarly here, you will only be able to hook to interfaces Apple provided,
but if you plan to do something that wasn't thought of, or Apple does not
approve, tough luck.

------
big_chungus
How will hackintoshing work without kexts? I'm no expert but have built a few,
and they make extensive use of them to make non-apple hardware work properly
and to add functionality.

~~~
turdnagel
Was wondering the same thing. I'm guessing you'll always be able to install
them as long as System Integrity Protection is disabled.

~~~
pjmlp
Kexts will be completely removed, as long term plan.

It goes into two steps.

1 - A new user space API for what was previously kernel API gets introduced

2 - There is one OS release where the kernel API gets deprecated

3 - The release thereafter removes the kernel API

Long term roadmap is to make macOS into a proper micro-kernel OS.

~~~
self_awareness
Do you have any official references for this roadmap? There are several
comments on this page alone that try to debunk the 'road to microkernel' plan.
If you don't have any reference, please edit your comment and insert 'I think'
into proper places.

~~~
pmjordan
If you are relying on the ability to develop and load specific types of kext
in macOS in future, I recommend getting in touch with Apple DTS. (Note that
communications with DTS are unfortunately typically under NDA.)

------
quotemstr
It's shit like this that drives me never to use Apple products. Oh, your
company gives Apple laptops to SWEs and I can't order something different? No,
I won't work with you. I need full control over the machine I spend my day
driving, and this control includes loading kernel modules on my own damned
computer if i want to do that.

------
leoh
This was my favorite kennel extension. It allowed for accessing memory via a
device that you could call `cat` on, grep etc.
[https://www.osxbook.com/book/bonus/chapter8/kma/](https://www.osxbook.com/book/bonus/chapter8/kma/)

------
sircastor
Right now I use an empty kext to prevent macOS from seizing control of a
hardware programmer (keeping it from being accessed by the program that uses
it). It was a hack of a solution, but it worked.

This means for the moment, I don't have an upgrade path that works for me...

~~~
comex
USBDriverKit is the new way to do that.

------
pgt
I need Kernel Extensions for Karabiner and USB-to-TTY drivers to talk to and
program firmware on embedded boards. If I can no longer do this, my next
machine is not a Macbook. Unless there is a different way, this is a
dealbreaker.

------
dzhiurgis
How does something like Lulu firewall goons work instead?

Is there any alts for virtualbox?

~~~
als0
macOS provides an API called Hypervisor.framework for virtual machine managers
like Virtualbox. It means they don't need kernel modules anymore. QEMU also
uses it for acceleration.

~~~
dzhiurgis
Is there anything that I can use for running Windows now?

~~~
cerberusss
I'm pretty sure Parallels will come up with a solution. If you want to play
with virtualizing Windows via Hypervisor.framework right now, I remember that
the people from Veertu.com had Windows running via their Veertu Desktop
product. But they seem to be focused on virtualizing macOS-on-macOS right now.

~~~
cmsj
Parallels can already use Hypervisor.framework - it's a per-VM configuration
option.

~~~
cerberusss
Thanks, good information

------
sys_64738
What does this mean for VM technology like Parallels and Oracle?

~~~
wmf
They should have switched to Hypervisor.framework already.

------
dijit
Interesting. I can track 100% of my kernel panics on MacOS to kernel
extentions (VirtualBox in particular). Hopefully this improves stability.

------
greatjack613
Could this be the beginning of the arm transition?

I mean porting kernel extensions would probably be a big deal, so deprecating
them would be the first step.

~~~
m0dest
Short term, I suspect that it’s going to be more relevant for porting
functionality to iPadOS and/or allowing that functionality to be shared
between Mac and iPad (in Catalyst apps).

------
riddlemethat
I’m still on MacOS 10.14 thanks to depreciation of 32 bit support.

Guess Apple really wants to keep me locked in an old OS for as long as
possible.

------
actionowl
Does anyone know if this will impact:

\- FUSE

\- XQuartz

\- LittleSnitch

~~~
PappaPatat
I do not know about impact, but

$ kextstat -l | grep -v com.apple | tr -s ' ' | cut -f 7,8 -d ' '
at.obdev.nke.LittleSnitch (5430)

It does use a kernel extention.

------
phn
I'd just like to point out that the title is a bit misleading -- They are
deprecating extensions that use parts of the kernel API that have
alternatives, as these become available.

How well that will work in practice remains to be seen. But they aren't simply
deprecating all kernel extensions.

------
0x0
Really hope this won't kill osxfuse, virtualbox or vmware. Will it?

~~~
comex
No; none of those are using deprecated APIs. VirtualBox and VMware could avoid
the need for a kext by moving to Hypervisor.framework, but there's no
immediate need to.

~~~
cmsj
Perhaps worth noting that Parallels can already use Hypervisor.framework -
it's a configuration option per VM (although I don't know if you can have a
mixture of the options running at the same time).

~~~
Wowfunhappy
I tried switching Parallels to the Apple hypervisor once because I was
curious. I ran a quick x264 encode to test performance, and Apple's hypervisor
was quite clearly worse.

Far from a comprehensive test, but, yeah, there's probably a reason Parallels
defaults to their custom kext.

------
ubermonkey
Huh. The only non-Apple ones on my Mac are for:

* VMWare Fusion * Little Snitch * Dropbox

plus one for a firewall I don't run anymore and could get rid of.

------
lsiebert
I just found Turbo Boost Switcher, which uses a kernel extension to manage
intel turbo boosting. I'm a little worried that this sort of change will
prevent this kind of innovative work (and quite possibly the application
altogether.
[http://tbswitcher.rugarciap.com/](http://tbswitcher.rugarciap.com/)

------
BooneJS
I haven’t had experience with kexts lately, but they were a source of
instability for me in the past. Not sad to see them go.

------
synthecypher
RIP tonymacx86 :(

------
mister_hn
Is this a move to kill any Hackintosh attempt?

~~~
Hamuko
There's probably easier ways of going about it. I doubt Apple really cares
that much about Hackintosh users. Many of them probably have legit Apple
hardware as well. I personally own a Hackintosh, a MacBook, an iPhone and an
Apple Watch, and also have a MacBook at work.

------
chatmasta
What if I need to format a FAT32 flash drive?

~~~
duskwuff
That has never required a kernel extension.

~~~
chatmasta
Sorry, I meant NTFS. That requires a "system extension" AFAIK -- is this not
the same thing as a kernel extension?

~~~
Wowfunhappy
A̶F̶A̶I̶K̶ ̶n̶o̶n̶e̶ ̶o̶f̶ ̶t̶h̶e̶ ̶m̶a̶j̶o̶r̶ ̶t̶h̶i̶r̶d̶ ̶p̶a̶r̶t̶y̶
̶N̶T̶F̶S̶ ̶M̶a̶c̶ ̶d̶r̶i̶v̶e̶r̶s̶ ̶u̶s̶e̶ ̶k̶e̶x̶t̶s̶.

Edit: I'm completely, totally, and utterly wrong, don't mind me.

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SyneRyder
Both Tuxera NTFS and Paragon NTFS are kernel extensions.

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Wowfunhappy
Tuxera is a kernel extension? I have Tuxera installed right now, and there's
no kext for it in /Library/Extensions.

I also could have sworn Tuxera was FUSE based...

Edit: Oh, but it shows up in `sudo kextstat`. Okay, I'm completely wrong then.
I _was_ wondering how a FUSE filesystem could have such good performance...

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SyneRyder
Yeah, I was going by Tuxera's website FAQ that has an answer for "I'm Getting
A System Extension Blocked Message During Installation". Didn't actually check
for the kexts myself, so thanks for verifying.

A macOS without Tuxera NTFS and Parallels Desktop is going to be really
problematic for me, but presumably Apple will find workarounds for them. I
already switched back to Windows a year ago anyway.

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comex
Not all kext functionality is deprecated (yet), only things that have userland
replacements. Filesystems are not deprecated.

