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Darling: macOS Translation Layer for Linux
- mewse-hn 6y agoGet ready for a lawsuit if you build iOS app interoperability
- squarefoot 6y agoCould Apple do that? The project is distributed under GPL3.0 which allows for commercial use, but apart from that they're not using it in any way that could be detrimental to Apple's business.
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- jagged-chisel 6y agoI think the insinuation is that in order to run iOS apps, one would necessarily need to infringe on Apple's copyrights. But that's not necessary. There is open source code at the base of macOS and iOS, and it's only that being used currently. Even to go further and create a full clone of iOS would be fine, if (and only if) a "clean room" implementation were made.
- aidenn0 6y agoThere is recent precedent that APIs are copyrightable.
- jagged-chisel 6y agoBut that doesn't indicate automatic infringement if used. The current decision in Oracle vs. Google says Google's implementation of Oracle's copyrighted Java APIs is fair use. Oracle is appealing, so maybe that will change, but the point is "copyrightable" still comes with "fair use."
- wtallis 6y agoAs I understand it, it's not a binding precedent yet. The Federal Circuit ruled in Oracle's favor on that question and the Supreme Court denied certiorari, but the Federal Circuit wasn't really supposed to be hearing a copyright question to begin with. They're the appeals court for patents, and on other issues tied up in a patent case they are only supposed to follow local circuit precedent (Ninth Circuit, in this case). So until the Supreme Court grants certiorari on this case or another case with the same question comes before a local circuit, there can't be any binding precedent on this matter that would apply to new cases outside Oracle v Google.
- athms 6y ago>the Supreme Court denied certiorari They denied the original appeal over copyrightable APIs. There was a second trial over Google's fair use argument and the jury ruled for Google. Oracle appealed and the Federal Circuit ruled against Google again. That decision was appealed to SCOTUS on January 24, 2019. Google's petition challenged both decisions by the Federal Circuit: APIs are copyrightable and Google's use of the Java API wasn't fair use. Certiorari was granted November 15, 2019 and arguments were planned for October 7, 2020.
- mewse-hn 6y agoApple are currently suing the people behind Corellium, an iOS emulator.
- kmeisthax 6y agoCorellium is a low-level iPhone emulator, which is furthermore only provided as a cloud service with Apple's code built-in. They're infringing on Apple's code in so many places that I'm pretty much convinced no lawyers were in the room when they were developing this. Traditionally emulators are distributed without any infringing code; it's up to the user to extract what they want to emulate from devices they own. For example, 3DS emulators don't ship with a copy of Nintendo's system software, they instead require you to buy a 3DS, hack it, and use some GodMode9 scripts to extract the relevant files. Similarly, one could have developed an iPhone emulator that requires the user buy and jailbreak a phone, and dump the relevant OS files (or extract it from an IPSW available from Apple, etc). This would have most likely been legal. Projects like Darling are a step removed from even that. Instead of providing a tool that lets the user run Apple's OS in emulation, you instead write your own OS that provides all of the relevant APIs/ABIs necessary to allow software dependent on Apple's OS to run. This tool can then be distributed entirely freely with zero Apple ownership involved. This approach is entirely legal, at least for another week or two, depending on if the Supreme Court understands what an "API" is better than the Federal Circuit.
- mhh__ 6y agoEven if they couldn't, I'm sure they'd try.
- 29athrowaway 6y agoLicenses and patents are different things.
- uzero 6y agoExactly. Also, be careful if you have a fruit as a logo.
- bb88 6y agoDoes someone have some screenshots for what it looks like under linux? In particular, how are the menus handled?
- peteretep 6y agoIn the absence of anything better: https://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=2091148&page=2&p=12390645#post12390645 https://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=2091148&page=2&p=1...
- kennywinker 6y ago> Q: Does it support GUI apps? > A: Almost! This took us a lot of time and effort, but we finally have basic experimental support for running simple graphical applications. It requires some special setup for now though, so do not expect it to work out of the box just yet. GUI support seems not to be ready yet, but when it is, it looks like they're using cocotron, so it'll look something like any of the examples you see on this page: http://www.cocotron.org/Examples/ http://www.cocotron.org/Examples/
- asddubs 6y agothey seem to have their own fork of it, as the original appears to be dead: https://github.com/darlinghq/darling-cocotron https://github.com/darlinghq/darling-cocotron
- peteretep 6y ago> Does it support GUI apps? Almost!
- kayodelycaon 6y agoI'm kind of curious what non-GUI Mac apps exist. The built-in system utilities maybe? CUPS and Webkit both run on linux natively.
- kccqzy 6y agoPlenty of Apple-provided utilities like diskutil, hdiutil, etc.
- kayodelycaon 6y agoSo... built-in system utilities.
- duskwuff 6y agoThose two aren't particularly interesting outside macOS/iOS -- they're mostly just front-ends. The real implementation is in diskarbitrationd and the kernel.
- trothamel 6y agoMost of the Xcode build system is non-gui. Having things like xcode-build, codesign, altool, etc. running on a non-mac would be great for continuous integration purposes. (If it didn't violate some arbitrary Apple rule.)
- judge2020 6y ago> If it didn't violate some arbitrary Apple rule > You are expressly prohibited from separately using the Apple SDKs or attempting to run any part of the Apple Software on non-Apple-branded hardware. Better be running linux on a Mac mini somewhere. https://www.apple.com/legal/sla/docs/xcode.pdf https://www.apple.com/legal/sla/docs/xcode.pdf
- stephc_int13 6y agoI can't wait to use XCode on Linux, but that's probably overly optimistic...
- asddubs 6y agoit would be really nice to be able to debug safari from linux actually. the other day I had to fix a safari bug by relying on friends to test things for me, because I didn't have access to a recent enough apple device
- mtzaldo 6y agoI'm not related to the site, but next time you can use a macos vm...https://www.macincloud.com/ https://www.macincloud.com/
- asddubs 6y agoyeah, my plan b would have been buying some time on lambdatest.com, which is the same idea, but it was just a small thing on a personal project, so I was trying to get around having to pay money. thanks for the tip, though, I hadn't heard of that one
- uhoh-itsmaciek 6y agoFor what it's worth, I've had the same issue and have been able to reproduce some Safari bugs in the WebKit-based Midori.
- hevelvarik 6y agoWow, hope this works out, no easy way to do anything with my iPhone on Linux has been galling
- grishka 6y agoI wish they took more of a ReactOS kind of approach. Namely, use all the open-source parts that go into macOS, like the kernel and CoreFoundation, and write the proprietary ones from scratch. Then you'd finally have a desktop OS with no compromises and a huge existing app ecosystem (and a consistent GUI).
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- scythe 6y agoThat was tried with OpenDarwin, but Apple was not a fan of the project IIRC. More generally, it doesn't offer much of practical value to use the Darwin kernel which is at this point pretty tied to Apple hardware that comes with OS X anyway. You can still Hackintosh but it just adds a lot of additional complexity that you won't have to deal with on Linux.
- grishka 6y agoThe point is that desktop Linux is still pretty much a bunch of standalone components loosely duct taped together. Sometimes they fall apart, but even when they don't, it still shows. Linux GUIs still feel like an afterthought. upd: googling "OpenDarwin" bings up two first results that are news of it closing, in 2006
- chungus_khan 6y agoAnd working with the Darwin kernel would offer zero benefit in fixing this. The GUI coming out the other side would still rely on all the same technology as Linux desktops do, just as is the case on BSDs. Using a different UNIX kernel doesn't change any of that, and any effort made on the Darwin side would be easily ported to Linux. The GUI components of Mac OS are not open source.
- monadic2 6y agoIt would offer access to the mac software ecosystem, particularly the (imho) cohesive set of underlying frameworks. Just like linux is "just" a kernel but is in reality a center of floss development, actively organizing around bringing binary compatibility can bring incidental benefits. That said at this point I don't see anything inherently easier or beneficial about this than creating some other project around an alternative paradigm than PC derived desktop systems on top of some existing better supported kernel. That said contrary to what the previous poster implied I don't think either OpenDarwin or PureDarwin aimed at reproducing the proprietary bits—they were/are essentially quirky, buggy, poorly documented BSDs just as reliant on the floss ecosystem as much better supported stacks.
- war1025 6y agoHas this project regained some momentum? I feel like I heard about it a number of years ago and then it never went anywhere. The copyright at the bottom says 2012-2019, which makes me think it's the same project.
- asddubs 6y agoi checked out their repos on github, at first glance it seemed somewhat low activity (but not dead), but there's actually a lot of activity on the ARM branch at least: https://github.com/darlinghq/darling/commits/feature/arm-support https://github.com/darlinghq/darling/commits/feature/arm-sup...
- sicromoft 6y agoHow did they not name this Dine?!
- nom 6y agoLet's wine and dine them all :D
- deepstack 6y agoWho though emulation can be so delico.us.
- dkdbejwi383 6y agoI wine 'em and dine 'em, but I don't let them tell me what to do.
- IceyEC 6y agoOr Mine!
- m12k 6y agoRunning Darwin on Linux - Dar-ling. Plus nobody dreams of being the sidekick. But yeah, it would have been clever - I'm still disappointed that PyQT isn't called QTPy.
- TheUndead96 6y agoIn my mind it is now QTPy until the end of time
- mkl 6y ago"Qt" is pronounced "cute", not "cue tee". That's why it's PyQt, not PyQT or QTPy.
- interfixus 6y agoAccording to me, and according to my professionel coder friends who work with the thing daily, it's cue tee. Same way Tcl isn't tickle, PNG isn't ping, and LaTeX only grumplingly and with quite some self discipline on our side manages to remain la TECH. These jokes were marginally entertaining 30 years ago, tired by the turn of the century, and way past expiry today.
- Diesel555 6y agoI like the F-16 logo on the homepage. Sleek minimal airplane to represent fast with a nice outline.
- totetsu 6y agoThose may look like jet plain candies, [1] but I think they are in fact tux the penguins feet. [1]https://corpcons.nz/images/thumbs/0062343_pascall-deltas-jet-planes-2kg-pkt_300.jpg https://corpcons.nz/images/thumbs/0062343_pascall-deltas-jet...
- hu3 6y agoCould be but looking at the zoomed in image and HTML code confirms it's an F16: https://i.imgur.com/ypZWbti.png https://i.imgur.com/ypZWbti.png https://i.imgur.com/Os7BjsF.png https://i.imgur.com/Os7BjsF.png
- mig39 6y agoDoes this allow one to mount iCloud Drive on a linux box? Or has anyone figured out another way to do that?
- djxfade 6y agoThat should be possible without this approach. I found this project (which seems dead), but iCloud Drive itself should be fully possible to implement without a full translation layer. https://github.com/samuelthomas2774/icloud-drive-fs https://github.com/samuelthomas2774/icloud-drive-fs
- surfsvammel 6y agoIf this works, it’s a total game changer for me.
- davesque 6y agoUntil ARM Macs become prevalent.
- SomeoneFromCA 6y agoThen we'll use ARM Linux!
- unix_fan 6y agoLike were using android to run iOS apps?
- barbs 6y agoI like the idea, but I also can't think of anything I'd personally use it for. Does anyone else have any Mac apps on their "run-on-linux" wishlist?
- xenospn 6y agoI think Adobe apps would qualify, no?
- bscphil 6y agoI assume OP means Mac-only. It's pretty unlikely this this project will achieve more for Mac applications than Wine has for Windows applications.
- JellyBeanThief 6y agoOff the top of my head: OmniGraffle, Rogue Amoeba's Fission, Affinity Designer.
- d3nj4l 6y agoiTerm, for one.
- xondono 6y agoI was a iTerm fan, but nowadays it runs super slow on my MBP. Granted it’s old-ish but 2015 is not so long ago. Alacritty is way faster in my experience.
- broodbucket 6y agoAny particular reason why when there's a plethora of good Linux-native terminal emulators?
- eitland 6y agoAll my favorites are Linux-native. And yes, I have used Mac full-time for >3 years.
- steffan 6y agoThis is somewhat a philosophical question/ Ship of Theseus - you are only licensed to run MacOS on Apple hardware, but what if I had, say, an Xserve and replaced a hard drive? What about a Motherboard? Would a Franken-XServe with an AMD Threadripper still be ‘Apple Hardware?’
- alcidesfonseca 6y agoWindows 7 (and 8?) had an activation procedure that would be blocked if the hardware changed since the last one (I can’t remember the exact hw they hashed). They have since went back on the restriction and windows 10 has more forgiving activation rules.
- pjmlp 6y agohttps://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/troubleshoot/windows-client/deployment/validate-oem-activation-key https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/troubleshoot/windows-client...
- asveikau 6y agoI remember hitting that on Vista when I swapped out a motherboard that died, circa 2007. It asked me to call a phone number. So I did. I explained to the phone rep what I did to cause the error. They asked me where I got my copy of Windows. I told them. They unblocked me.
- raverbashing 6y agoSounds like SoftPear (which IIRC stopped for tragic reasons) But unless you have the capability of running the GUI, it's hard to justify (is there a killer cmdline only app for Mac OS? I don't think so)
- alexellisuk 6y agoIt'd be nice to see the bootstrap automated or easier to get up and running on common distros like Ubuntu.. would an apt package be on the horizon?
- unixhero 6y agoHow about the Quartz compositor? Does it run that?
- xondono 6y agoHas anyone tried it with omnifocus?
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- bogwog 6y agoIf this thing can run even just the Xcode command-line utilities, it'd be a huge asset for cross-platform projects, build automation, etc. Definitely keeping an eye on this!
- logicOnly 6y agoIf Apple isn't getting their developer license and hardware brought, they will find a way to make it impossible. Apple needs to force developers to use their hardware or it won't have a native/refined feeling and developers will stick to Windows/Linux without the extra step of Apple.
- grawprog 6y ago>Apple needs to force developers to use their hardware or it won't have a native/refined feeling Or Apple stops making as much money in hardware sales and might actually have to lower their prices? >developers will stick to Windows/Linux without the extra step of Apple. Doesn't that mean Apple is already superfluous and only exists because of arbitrary restrictions created by Apple making the entire ecosystem artifical?
- delfinom 6y ago>Or Apple stops making as much money in hardware sales and might actually have to lower their prices? That already was a threat, in 2018 they removed their total unit sales numbers for a reason. The number was falling. Now they only report total revenue which they are boosting by cutting corners where they can. And they are still clamping down in the walled garden to further cement their position. Blocking xcode from running in darling is just a question of when.
- srtjstjsj 6y agoOr they might raise their prices to get more margin on remaining loyal users.
- p_l 6y agoLittle known fact but you can build most of the utilities on Linux, and if you use Mac to prepare some of the bits, you can end up with complete build environment. Not Xcode itself, but enough to be able to build from source, afaik.
- bkovacev 6y agoWould this eventually allow us to run things like iMessage?
- KMnO4 6y agoNo, iMessage is heavily controlled by Apple to the point where even Hackintosh computers running the entire Mac operating system can't always get it working. Without a real Apple device (or: a real Apple serial number cloned to your device), iMessage has little possibility of ever working, even if this project evolves to GUI applications.
- saagarjha 6y agoMany people are able to use iMessage on Hackintosh machines.
- Wowfunhappy 6y agoYeah, this is one of those myths that persists because it has some truth—if you aren't careful to generate a serial number that logically matches other (generated) parameters about the machine—model number, board id, etc—then iMessage won't work. But it's very much possible to do!
- LockAndLol 6y agoIf Zeus and other gods were able to exist under certain conditions that were reliably reproduced multiple times, they wouldn't be called myths anymore but real.
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- rmrfrmrf 6y agoi wonder if you could sign mac apps with this
- omginternets 6y agoAnother small step towards my ideal setup of: 1. Apple hardware 2. Bare-metal linux OS 3. Emulation/shims to run MacOS software on top Sure, it seems like a horrific Frankenstein's Monster of a setup, but since I can't have the best commercial applications, running on the (IMHO) best OS, running on (IMHO) the best hardware, this is a pill I would be willing to swallow.
- SeanLuke 6y agoIt appears that this webpage hasn't been updated for over a year. Hoping this project hasn't been put in mothballs.
- pmarreck 6y ago> We aim to fully integrate apps running under Darling into the Linux desktop experience by making them look, feel and behave just like native Linux apps. If this goes beyond just the "window dressing", it may cause UI issues
- daveisfera 6y agoShameless plug for a project I'm proposing to do the opposite (i.e. run Linux binaries from a container on macOS natively): https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/davejohansen/cider-cart/ https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/davejohansen/cider-cart...
- asddubs 6y agothis is not really the same thing, since you don't have to reverse engineer anything