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A New Project To Run Mac OS X Binaries On Linux
- deleted 14y ago[deleted]
- throwaway2048 14y agothis has the potential to progress much faster, and much more completely than WINE, after all OSX is already a POSIX system, so many of the elements are already there.
- JulianMorrison 14y agoSurely POSIX is the least of it. Mac apps are built on an API that has been much extended since the NeXT days and which even then was a complete wrapper over the underlying Unix OS. Think "copying QT and the whole KDE ecosystem" to get a grasp of the scale of it.
- rjknight 14y agoAnd without access to the source!
- jiggy2011 14y agoI've long suspected that having OS X compatibility for Linux would be easier and more useful than Windows compatibility for many people. Due to their similar underpinnings and less legacy stuff in OS X. Being able to run XCode , Photoshop and Sequel Pro under Linux would certainly make my life easier. Whether Apple wants to kill this , support it or be indifferent would I suppose depend on whether they feel threatened by Linux on the desktop. They may even be happy to push people who are unhappy with the "iOSification" of Apple towards Linux in the future.
- pyre 14y agoOS X apps that 'shell out' to the BSD under-pinnings could be an issue. The CLI options can differ between Linux and BSD/Darwin.
- adamzegelin 14y agoA shim to handle common tools and remap the options would be feasible.
- chimeracoder 14y agoThat would seem to me to be the least of the problems. Just as you can install GNU coreutils on OS X, you can compile the BSD utilities to run on Linux as well.
- stcredzero 14y agochroot!
- pyre 14y agoI wasn't saying that it was impossible to run them. I'm just commenting on an issue that was immediately apparent to me. If a program calls '/usr/bin/nc' and expect BSD options, it's not going to get them. "Replace GNU coreutils with BSD coreutils" is an option, but not one that everyone would be ready to jump at, because now things running on your Linux system that expect GNU options won't be getting them.
- chimeracoder 14y agoYou can use chroot to solve this problem.
- pretoriusB 14y agoYou can use chroot, or you can have the OS X porting layer delegate those calls to the BSD tools transparently.
- deleted 14y ago[deleted]
- chimeracoder 14y ago> Whether Apple wants to kill this , support it or be indifferent would I suppose depend on whether they feel threatened by Linux on the desktop. They may even be happy to push people who are unhappy with the "iOSification" of Apple towards Linux in the future. Given Apple's behavior in the past and in other areas, I would be very, very surprised if they were to condone (let alone promote) anything even remotely resembling OS X applications on another system. While I don't think either outcome is likely, I'd be more willing to bet on them invoking some absurd copyright law to try and prevent this kind of work from happening (something along the lines of Oracle vs. Google).
- deleted 14y ago[deleted]
- asveikau 14y agoLess legacy, eh? Well, I guess there has been less emphasis on compatibility throughout the years, but NeXTSTEP is older than Windows NT...
- bjg 14y agoWhile I agree with your point, I'm not sure if Windows NT is the correct comparison. - Windows 1.0 released November 1985 [1] - NextStep 1.0 releaed September 1988 [2] 1. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows_1.0 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows_1.0 2. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NeXTSTEP http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NeXTSTEP
- johncoltrane 14y agoWindows vista, 7 or 8 are based on Windows NT: they don't have much in common with Windows 1.0. Just like Mac OS X is a rethinking of Mac OS based on NEXTStep and doesn't have much in common with Mac OS or even system 1. So yeah, I think the parent's comparison is correct.
- asveikau 14y agoI felt NT was an apt comparison because not only is it the basis for the current Windows, it also was their first 32-bit offering, i.e. where stuff got serious. 16-bit Windows was a fairly different beast. 9x was certainly influential but (1) is now dead and (2) came after NT, borrowed lots from NT in the beginning. In light of this, drawing comparisons between 1.0 and Win8 doesn't seem all that appropriate to me.
- bjg 14y agoI see where you are coming from. I guess my hesitation was caused by the assumption that while windows before NT was all 16 bit / 32 bit hybrid; it's API's are still essentially the same which is what you would care about when re-platting an API. However I will concede my argument like a true gentlemen, as I now realize the ABI is what we should care about. It is almost certainly different even if the API's haven't fluxed that much, and that is what a re-platt project would most care about.
- Xuzz 14y agoI wonder if they could use anything from the Magenta project, an attempt to make an iOS-compatible Linux implementation. Website: http://crna.cc/magenta.html http://crna.cc/magenta.html + http://crna.cc/magenta_source.html http://crna.cc/magenta_source.html HN discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4087224 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4087224
- Zev 14y agoThis mostly sits at a higher level than Magenta does -- you don't need kernel support for Foundation/AppKit ABI compatibility.
- todd3834 14y agoFull support for Photoshop is one of the main things that keep me from being able to be fully linux
- saurik 14y agoAn older such project, that already works for numerous use cases (such as running parts of Apple's toolchain) is maloader. https://github.com/shinh/maloader https://github.com/shinh/maloader
- runn1ng 14y agoactually, darling is based on maloader. (or, at least, uses parts of its code)
- rcthompson 14y agoDarling = darlin' = DARwin on LINux?
- aclimatt 14y agoYep. (The flashing cursor on the Wiki page gives it away.)
- zaknanny 14y agoHow long will this project be relevant considering that apple is planning on switching its processors from intel to some apple unique processor soon? If it is similar to the switch they made when switching to intel, nothing will be compatible.
- SG- 14y agoIt doesn't really matter, it's a research project. And second of all your statement that nothing was compatible with the Intel switch is completely false. PPC binaries worked just fine for years. Lastly, there aren't any plans to switch Macs to ARM, it's a rumor.
- justincormack 14y agoAnd even if there were, Linux runs fine on ARM, so this project could.
- fleitz 14y agoThe project will never really be relevant. If you have a serious need to run OS X probably already have OSX and a Mac. If you need to simultaneously run Linux you install it in a VM. This project like WINE for the most part will always be a "look what I can do" type project. It's never going to be a rosetta type system designed to bridge ecosystems as the VirtualBox / VMWare bridge already works quite well.
- stcredzero 14y agoHaving been disgusted by security holes in Preview and the lack of viable alternatives to Preview/Adobe Reader on OS X, I installed WINE and Foxit Reader on my Macbook Pro. (And used Automator to have it launched as an OS X app.) Google Chrome is ok for a PDF reader much of the time, but there are some really annoying bugs in its PDF functionality. (Which especially impact comics.)
- redial 14y agoJust out of curiosity, which security holes in Preview are you referring to?
- bitcartel 14y agoAn interesting research project, but don't hold your breath. Apple's private APIs are going to take a very long time to reverse engineer.
- codgercoder 14y agoRemember how exercised everyone got about Window's private APIs?
- bitcartel 14y agoReminds me of Yellow Box (http://www.roughlydrafted.com/RD/RDM.Tech.Q1.07/4B800F78-0F75-455A-9681-F186A4365805.html http://www.roughlydrafted.com/RD/RDM.Tech.Q1.07/4B800F78-0F7...)
- deleted 14y ago[deleted]
- pootch 14y agoThe world does not need another wine for any platform. This is what VMs are for. Waste of time
- moxie 14y ago"Darling also possesses some hope as the project is being worked on for a diploma thesis research project by a university student..." I would draw the exact opposite conclusion.
- leoh 14y agoOuch. This is not going to be easy. There are some major differences in dylibs versus so's in Linux.
- nedzadk 14y agoPhotoshop here i come :)
- djisjke 14y agoIt already runs on Linux, thanks to wine: http://appdb.winehq.org/objectManager.php?sClass=version&iId=25607 http://appdb.winehq.org/objectManager.php?sClass=version&...
- rbanffy 14y agoI'd suggest going after source compatibility rather than binaries. It shouldn't be that difficult to check an Xcode project for things incompatible with GNUStep and offer a way to allow ProjectCenter to build binaries on and to other platforms, provided the developer refrained to use Mac-only features. It would be a nice way to collect hard data on what should be considered more important for GNUStep to develop, generating countless other opportunities for students pursuing various degrees. BTW, is anyone building TextMate for platforms other than OSX?
- malkia 14y agoIn similar vein, there is cocotron - a framework that implements Cocoa (OpenSTEP), and other things - http://www.cocotron.org http://www.cocotron.org
- bitwize 14y agoInteresting project, but probably runs afoul of a whole passel of Apple IP, and so will get nowhere useful.
- United857 14y agoEven if you just focused on console apps, that would be a huge milestone for many folks. One example: being able to run XCode's command line build tools to generate iOS and Mac builds on our Linux CI boxes without a dedicated Mac build slave would be huge.
- tonyoconnell 14y agoHow lovely would it be to be able to run Adobe products on Linux? ... When Apple decided to fuck over Adobe by killing Flash I though the perfect countermove would be to release AdobeOS. They could crowd source the design from its user base, port their products to Linux and be in a very strong position to compete with OSX and Windows. Now that Apple has abandoned its old users for the mass market there's room for an open source OS for the designers, photographers and developers whose needs are not being met.