11 ms·

PureDarwin – Darwin-based open source OS

189 points by xvilka 6y ago

popped 6y ago
Can someone explain what the motivation is behind running Darwin?
- lewisinc 6y ago
  Continuous integration servers that aren't run on genuine Apple hardware?
  - nightowl_games 6y ago
    Using this for that would probably break terms of service just as much as a hackintosh would.
    - realusername 6y ago
      Depends the country you are in, a lot of countries have interoperability exceptions, so while a hackintosh might not be legal, something like this would.
  - tannhaeuser 6y ago
    One can hope this will become eventually possible, but with the pace of PureDarwin as it is, I doubt it will before Apple migrates to ARM with custom instruction set additions.
  - saagarjha 6y ago
    Perhaps if you package your code for MacPorts.
  - perardi 6y ago
    Wouldn't you have to reverse-engineer and implement a LOT of closed-source APIs and libraries to get a full iOS toolchain going?
    - xvilka 6y ago
      There is a project [1][2] to emulate iOS in QEMU. You can find more details about installation process and research itself in their articles [3][4]. [1] https://github.com/alephsecurity/xnu-qemu-arm64 https://github.com/alephsecurity/xnu-qemu-arm64 [2] https://github.com/alephsecurity/xnu-qemu-arm64-tools https://github.com/alephsecurity/xnu-qemu-arm64-tools [3] https://alephsecurity.com/2019/06/17/xnu-qemu-arm64-1/ https://alephsecurity.com/2019/06/17/xnu-qemu-arm64-1/ [4] https://alephsecurity.com/2019/06/25/xnu-qemu-arm64-2/ https://alephsecurity.com/2019/06/25/xnu-qemu-arm64-2/
- devenblake 6y ago
  As with many (maybe even most) computing projects, for the hell of it.[1] [1]: https://github.com/PureDarwin/PureDarwin/wiki/About#why-spend-time-on-darwin https://github.com/PureDarwin/PureDarwin/wiki/About#why-spen...
  - popped 6y ago
    Amen
- dschuetz 6y ago
  It seems that they do it for fun and giggles, but all the users are interested in, ultimately, is "Can it run macOS software? No? Stop wasting my time."
  - zymhan 6y ago
    Well it can run macports!
- ytch 6y ago
  For fun and research
  - kebman 6y ago
    Can we assume that the 'research' part will be of particular value to Apple, or am I wrong here?
    - detaro 6y ago
      I don't think Apple gets much from a few hobbyists having fun with some scraps of their code.
- popped 6y ago
  I'm struggling to understand HN these days. This is being downvoted, and IMHO is the key question to ask the folk putting in the effort. Would love a downvoter to give a hint...
  - hideout_berlin 6y ago
    just because it doesn't suit you it doesn't have to be done badly a little understanding for other projects thank you lg from berlin
  - oscargrouch 6y ago
    Not a downvoter but you have reached into one of those unwritten rules: You shall not criticize Apple, Rust and Elon Musk. HN is super cool for any other topics, except when there's some sort of tech cult involved in it.
    - dang 6y ago
      There's plenty of criticism of those topics. I think you're running into the notice-dislike bias: https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&query=by%3Adang%20notice%20dislike&sort=byDate&type=comment https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que.... Your comment here mostly says how you feel about them. This comment breaks the site guideline against going on about downvotes, by the way—in spirit if not in letter. Please don't post like this; it's off topic and boring.
      - oscargrouch 6y ago
        Sorry @dang. Your right. This is the best place to discuss about those same topics, BTW, even when from my perspective, some of them look to have a little more bias than others.
        dang 6y ago
        Appreciated! I think we all have these perceptions.
shivekkhurana 6y ago
Can it run software packaged for macOS ?
- 65536 6y ago
  The graphical user interface components of macOS are proprietary software, as are a bunch of other libraries included in macOS that software packaged for macOS is likely to use. So if this was a goal of PureDarwin then they’d have a lot of work ahead of them in order to implement those APIs. This wiki page on the repository seems to indicate that they are not intending to do that: https://github.com/PureDarwin/PureDarwin/wiki/Graphics https://github.com/PureDarwin/PureDarwin/wiki/Graphics > While Darwin is the operating system underlying Mac OS X, the graphical environments of PureDarwin and Mac OS X are very different. This is because most graphical aspects of Mac OS X (especially Quartz and Aqua) are proprietary, closed-source software and are not available for PureDarwin. Hence, PureDarwin uses a more traditional UNIX-like graphics system (X server), waiting a better alternative.
  - zeckalpha 6y ago
    https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/GNUstep https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/GNUstep may help with some of this, but it is hard to keep up with a moving target.
- hideout_berlin 6y ago
  clear! depends on which
- adamretter 6y ago
  I would be interested to know if it might be possible to eventually install XCode Command Line Tools or similar, and then use it to sign DMG packages? At the moment having to keep a Mac solely for the purposes of signing software packages is very frustrating.
em500 6y ago
Is there any reason for this submission at this time? This project hast been dormant/stagnant for years. Note the "stay tuned" message for a working bootabable image from Jan 2018: https://github.com/PureDarwin/PureDarwin/issues/35 https://github.com/PureDarwin/PureDarwin/issues/35
- oefrha 6y ago
  Jan 2020, not 2018. And commit history indicates quite a bit of activity.
  - em500 6y ago
    Ok, I read that particular thread a bit more carefully: 2017-11-21: mcandre: "Release a working ISO ASAP" 2018-06-08: csekel: "We will be releasing ISO shortly. Thanks" 2020-01-18: piranna: "Any updates on this? It was one and a half years since it was anounced the ISO "soon"..." 2020-01-18: hideout: "yes we are on this .... stay tuned!" (hideout's last public commit to any darwin related repo dates from 2019-10-14) I was just surprised to see this on the front page today, since it doesn't look like anything substantial has changed. Maybe something I missed?
    - oefrha 6y ago
      HN submissions are often “I found out about this cool thing today and want to share it with other devs”. Whether it appears on the front page entirely depends on whether enough people find it interesting (subject to resubmission rules, of course).
      - syspec 6y ago
        The simplicity is amazing, and why i always come back. Links do not always need to be new. There are good things, which are not new. Like this one!
        hideout_berlin 6y ago
barnyfried 6y ago
This is kind of sad.
mjg59 6y ago
From a pedantic point of view, it's not open source - the XNU license has an additional restriction on top of the Apple Public Source License: "The rights granted to you under the License may not be used to create, or enable the creation or redistribution of, unlawful or unlicensed copies of an Apple operating system, or to circumvent, violate, or enable the circumvention or violation of, any terms of an Apple operating system software license agreement." which is a violation of term 7 of the open source definition.
- viraptor 6y ago
  That clause is really weird. IANAL (maybe it has specific meaning in law), but why is it even included as a clause rather than some comment / reminder saying that the licence doesn't make otherwise illegal things legal? In practice nothing would change if they skipped it, right?
  - PHPApple 6y ago
    It is likely in relation to running macOS on non apple hardware, as the Darwin kernel is often distributed with hackintosh tools. This would give them a reason to send a cease and desist otherwise legal software. edit: wording
  - aidenn0 6y ago
    I'm also NAL, but circumvention is not always illegal, nor is running a legally purchased copy of OS X on non-apple hardware (or at least that was true when OS X was distributed on physical media, which is also when that clause was written).
  - mjg59 6y ago
    Not all jurisdictions forbid what that clause forbids, and even in some jurisdictions where it would normally be forbidden there may be circumstances under which you're permitted to do so, so it's definitely intended to forbid you from doing things that would otherwise be legal.
- c3534l 6y ago
  If we're being pedantic, the Open Source Definition can't actually define what is and isn't open source, they can only say what is allowed their trademark certification. It's like if a there was a food label "natural" that got to put an N on their package if they met some conditions. They can tell you what is allowed to have the trademark on it, but they can't tell you what natural is because they're more of a brand than a dictionary. In my opinion, which is not based on promoting open-source or protecting a brand, open-source means literally the source code is open to anyone to view. Open-source is like a book that can be opened to look inside. Most of the open source initiatives have little to do with whether or not the source code is open and everything to do with what they want to promote in open-source. Their criteria doesn't even make the free as freedom versus free as in beer distinction. In short, the Open Source Definition, despite it's name, does not actually define open source.
hvs 6y ago
For the first few years of the 2000's, Apple actually supported a similar project called OpenDarwin. It was basically the open source components of MacOS. I ran it for a bit, but there wasn't much community support for it. https://web.archive.org/web/20060804104416/http://opendarwin.org/ https://web.archive.org/web/20060804104416/http://opendarwin... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Darwin_(operating_system)#OpenDarwin https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Darwin_(operating_system)#Open...
- x3haloed 6y ago
  That's too bad that community support was lacking. Things might be different now?
brockrockman 6y ago
NextBSD ("FreeBSD X") operates in a similar space and was also looking promising, but it looks like development stopped. In that approach, the BSD kernel was extended to support some Mach syscalls and libdispatch, launchd, and a few other userspace macOS-isms stuck around too. Slides + Video: https://www.reddit.com/r/freebsd/comments/3iikry/slides_nextbsd_aka_freebsd_x_video_in_comments/ https://www.reddit.com/r/freebsd/comments/3iikry/slides_next... There was also an effort some time ago to get opensource Darwin compiled and booted on ARM development boards: https://github.com/darwin-on-arm https://github.com/darwin-on-arm
InSaneDarwin-PD 6y ago
Would anyone actually like to help work on the project? I am one of the Dev's actively working on it. We could use the help, project was slow as I was working on my degree. Reply here and I will contact anyone who would like to join our efforts in making a difference on the Project.
- InSaneDarwin-PD 6y ago
  https://youtu.be/3p4dDQWu2hQ https://youtu.be/3p4dDQWu2hQ
InSaneDarwin-PD 6y ago
https://youtu.be/3p4dDQWu2hQ https://youtu.be/3p4dDQWu2hQ

189 points by xvilka 6y ago

popped 6y ago

Can someone explain what the motivation is behind running Darwin?

lewisinc 6y ago
Continuous integration servers that aren't run on genuine Apple hardware?
- nightowl_games 6y ago
  Using this for that would probably break terms of service just as much as a hackintosh would.
  - realusername 6y ago
    Depends the country you are in, a lot of countries have interoperability exceptions, so while a hackintosh might not be legal, something like this would.
- tannhaeuser 6y ago
  One can hope this will become eventually possible, but with the pace of PureDarwin as it is, I doubt it will before Apple migrates to ARM with custom instruction set additions.
- saagarjha 6y ago
  Perhaps if you package your code for MacPorts.
- perardi 6y ago
  Wouldn't you have to reverse-engineer and implement a LOT of closed-source APIs and libraries to get a full iOS toolchain going?
  - xvilka 6y ago
    There is a project [1][2] to emulate iOS in QEMU. You can find more details about installation process and research itself in their articles [3][4]. [1] https://github.com/alephsecurity/xnu-qemu-arm64 https://github.com/alephsecurity/xnu-qemu-arm64 [2] https://github.com/alephsecurity/xnu-qemu-arm64-tools https://github.com/alephsecurity/xnu-qemu-arm64-tools [3] https://alephsecurity.com/2019/06/17/xnu-qemu-arm64-1/ https://alephsecurity.com/2019/06/17/xnu-qemu-arm64-1/ [4] https://alephsecurity.com/2019/06/25/xnu-qemu-arm64-2/ https://alephsecurity.com/2019/06/25/xnu-qemu-arm64-2/
devenblake 6y ago
As with many (maybe even most) computing projects, for the hell of it.[1] [1]: https://github.com/PureDarwin/PureDarwin/wiki/About#why-spend-time-on-darwin https://github.com/PureDarwin/PureDarwin/wiki/About#why-spen...
- popped 6y ago
  Amen
dschuetz 6y ago
It seems that they do it for fun and giggles, but all the users are interested in, ultimately, is "Can it run macOS software? No? Stop wasting my time."
- zymhan 6y ago
  Well it can run macports!
ytch 6y ago
For fun and research
- kebman 6y ago
  Can we assume that the 'research' part will be of particular value to Apple, or am I wrong here?
  - detaro 6y ago
    I don't think Apple gets much from a few hobbyists having fun with some scraps of their code.
popped 6y ago
I'm struggling to understand HN these days. This is being downvoted, and IMHO is the key question to ask the folk putting in the effort. Would love a downvoter to give a hint...
- hideout_berlin 6y ago
  just because it doesn't suit you it doesn't have to be done badly a little understanding for other projects thank you lg from berlin
- oscargrouch 6y ago
  Not a downvoter but you have reached into one of those unwritten rules: You shall not criticize Apple, Rust and Elon Musk. HN is super cool for any other topics, except when there's some sort of tech cult involved in it.
  - dang 6y ago
    There's plenty of criticism of those topics. I think you're running into the notice-dislike bias: https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&query=by%3Adang%20notice%20dislike&sort=byDate&type=comment https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que.... Your comment here mostly says how you feel about them. This comment breaks the site guideline against going on about downvotes, by the way—in spirit if not in letter. Please don't post like this; it's off topic and boring.
    - oscargrouch 6y ago
      Sorry @dang. Your right. This is the best place to discuss about those same topics, BTW, even when from my perspective, some of them look to have a little more bias than others.
      - dang 6y ago
        Appreciated! I think we all have these perceptions.

shivekkhurana 6y ago

Can it run software packaged for macOS ?

65536 6y ago
The graphical user interface components of macOS are proprietary software, as are a bunch of other libraries included in macOS that software packaged for macOS is likely to use. So if this was a goal of PureDarwin then they’d have a lot of work ahead of them in order to implement those APIs. This wiki page on the repository seems to indicate that they are not intending to do that: https://github.com/PureDarwin/PureDarwin/wiki/Graphics https://github.com/PureDarwin/PureDarwin/wiki/Graphics > While Darwin is the operating system underlying Mac OS X, the graphical environments of PureDarwin and Mac OS X are very different. This is because most graphical aspects of Mac OS X (especially Quartz and Aqua) are proprietary, closed-source software and are not available for PureDarwin. Hence, PureDarwin uses a more traditional UNIX-like graphics system (X server), waiting a better alternative.
- zeckalpha 6y ago
  https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/GNUstep https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/GNUstep may help with some of this, but it is hard to keep up with a moving target.
hideout_berlin 6y ago
clear! depends on which
adamretter 6y ago
I would be interested to know if it might be possible to eventually install XCode Command Line Tools or similar, and then use it to sign DMG packages? At the moment having to keep a Mac solely for the purposes of signing software packages is very frustrating.

em500 6y ago

Is there any reason for this submission at this time? This project hast been dormant/stagnant for years. Note the "stay tuned" message for a working bootabable image from Jan 2018: https://github.com/PureDarwin/PureDarwin/issues/35 https://github.com/PureDarwin/PureDarwin/issues/35

oefrha 6y ago
Jan 2020, not 2018. And commit history indicates quite a bit of activity.
- em500 6y ago
  Ok, I read that particular thread a bit more carefully: 2017-11-21: mcandre: "Release a working ISO ASAP" 2018-06-08: csekel: "We will be releasing ISO shortly. Thanks" 2020-01-18: piranna: "Any updates on this? It was one and a half years since it was anounced the ISO "soon"..." 2020-01-18: hideout: "yes we are on this .... stay tuned!" (hideout's last public commit to any darwin related repo dates from 2019-10-14) I was just surprised to see this on the front page today, since it doesn't look like anything substantial has changed. Maybe something I missed?
  - oefrha 6y ago
    HN submissions are often “I found out about this cool thing today and want to share it with other devs”. Whether it appears on the front page entirely depends on whether enough people find it interesting (subject to resubmission rules, of course).
    - syspec 6y ago
      The simplicity is amazing, and why i always come back. Links do not always need to be new. There are good things, which are not new. Like this one!
      - hideout_berlin 6y ago

barnyfried 6y ago

This is kind of sad.

mjg59 6y ago

From a pedantic point of view, it's not open source - the XNU license has an additional restriction on top of the Apple Public Source License: "The rights granted to you under the License may not be used to create, or enable the creation or redistribution of, unlawful or unlicensed copies of an Apple operating system, or to circumvent, violate, or enable the circumvention or violation of, any terms of an Apple operating system software license agreement." which is a violation of term 7 of the open source definition.

viraptor 6y ago
That clause is really weird. IANAL (maybe it has specific meaning in law), but why is it even included as a clause rather than some comment / reminder saying that the licence doesn't make otherwise illegal things legal? In practice nothing would change if they skipped it, right?
- PHPApple 6y ago
  It is likely in relation to running macOS on non apple hardware, as the Darwin kernel is often distributed with hackintosh tools. This would give them a reason to send a cease and desist otherwise legal software. edit: wording
- aidenn0 6y ago
  I'm also NAL, but circumvention is not always illegal, nor is running a legally purchased copy of OS X on non-apple hardware (or at least that was true when OS X was distributed on physical media, which is also when that clause was written).
- mjg59 6y ago
  Not all jurisdictions forbid what that clause forbids, and even in some jurisdictions where it would normally be forbidden there may be circumstances under which you're permitted to do so, so it's definitely intended to forbid you from doing things that would otherwise be legal.
c3534l 6y ago
If we're being pedantic, the Open Source Definition can't actually define what is and isn't open source, they can only say what is allowed their trademark certification. It's like if a there was a food label "natural" that got to put an N on their package if they met some conditions. They can tell you what is allowed to have the trademark on it, but they can't tell you what natural is because they're more of a brand than a dictionary. In my opinion, which is not based on promoting open-source or protecting a brand, open-source means literally the source code is open to anyone to view. Open-source is like a book that can be opened to look inside. Most of the open source initiatives have little to do with whether or not the source code is open and everything to do with what they want to promote in open-source. Their criteria doesn't even make the free as freedom versus free as in beer distinction. In short, the Open Source Definition, despite it's name, does not actually define open source.

hvs 6y ago

For the first few years of the 2000's, Apple actually supported a similar project called OpenDarwin. It was basically the open source components of MacOS. I ran it for a bit, but there wasn't much community support for it. https://web.archive.org/web/20060804104416/http://opendarwin.org/ https://web.archive.org/web/20060804104416/http://opendarwin... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Darwin_(operating_system)#OpenDarwin https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Darwin_(operating_system)#Open...

x3haloed 6y ago
That's too bad that community support was lacking. Things might be different now?

brockrockman 6y ago

NextBSD ("FreeBSD X") operates in a similar space and was also looking promising, but it looks like development stopped. In that approach, the BSD kernel was extended to support some Mach syscalls and libdispatch, launchd, and a few other userspace macOS-isms stuck around too. Slides + Video: https://www.reddit.com/r/freebsd/comments/3iikry/slides_nextbsd_aka_freebsd_x_video_in_comments/ https://www.reddit.com/r/freebsd/comments/3iikry/slides_next... There was also an effort some time ago to get opensource Darwin compiled and booted on ARM development boards: https://github.com/darwin-on-arm https://github.com/darwin-on-arm

InSaneDarwin-PD 6y ago

Would anyone actually like to help work on the project? I am one of the Dev's actively working on it. We could use the help, project was slow as I was working on my degree. Reply here and I will contact anyone who would like to join our efforts in making a difference on the Project.

InSaneDarwin-PD 6y ago
https://youtu.be/3p4dDQWu2hQ https://youtu.be/3p4dDQWu2hQ

InSaneDarwin-PD 6y ago

https://youtu.be/3p4dDQWu2hQ https://youtu.be/3p4dDQWu2hQ