Darling Picks Up New Contributors For Its macOS Compatibility Layer On Linux

[phoronix]

Phoronix: Darling Picks Up New Contributors For Its macOS Compatibility Layer On Linux

Darling is the long-standing (albeit for some years idling) effort to allow macOS binaries to run on Linux that is akin to Wine but focused on an Apple macOS layer rather than Windows. This summer it's been moving along and seeing some new developer contributions...

http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=Darling-2019-New-Contribs

[AsuMagic]

Once this matures out, it raises the obvious question of how well creative/workstation software will work out in comparison to Wine, e.g. Photoshop.

[rabcor]

Once this matures out, it raises the obvious question of how well creative/workstation software will work out in comparison to Wine, e.g. Photoshop.

I've been wondering for a long time why we don't have this shit, theoretically this would be a lot easier to develop than windows compatibility.

Also theoretically, since macos performance is complete ass, it's possible it'll run better than native if well done heh.

[Vistaus]

I've been wondering for a long time why we don't have this shit, theoretically this would be a lot easier to develop than windows compatibility.

I agree. But I think the sole reason for Wine popularity is the huge amount of apps and games for Windows.

[Guest]

Once this matures out, it raises the obvious question of how well creative/workstation software will work out in comparison to Wine, e.g. Photoshop.

One of my coworkers came up with an idea of a service similar to browserstack, where you could remotely use Adobe's software in your browser. Considering that PSD compatibility is all over the place, and majority of files from Photoshop users won't work in other editors, this would be huge for people who deal with these files, such as web designers.

Adobe could get much tighter control over their software that way, and people would be happy that they don't need to run a crappy proprietary operating system to use their software.

[AsuMagic]

I've been wondering for a long time why we don't have this shit, theoretically this would be a lot easier to develop than windows compatibility.

Also theoretically, since macos performance is complete ass, it's possible it'll run better than native if well done heh.

Wine is older than me, this is a fairly new project and it has no backing by companies like CodeWeavers and such, AFAIK. And, of course, an infinitely narrower community.
Companies backing Wine are risking much less than pouring money into a more experimental project like Darling.

[NateHubbard]

Wine is older than me, this is a fairly new project and it has no backing by companies like CodeWeavers and such, AFAIK. And, of course, an infinitely narrower community.
Companies backing Wine are risking much less than pouring money into a more experimental project like Darling.

There is also so much less to gain by having a Mac compatibility layer.

[CuriousTommy]

I've been wondering for a long time why we don't have this shit, theoretically this would be a lot easier to develop than windows compatibility.

Not really...

• You still have to support the Mac executable, which is different from Linux executable.
• Just like with Windows, you have to implement the proprietary API.
• macOS does certain things differently compared to Linux (For example, the way it handles normal users is very different from Linux or BSD).

The only things that could make MacOS easier to develop for are

• The source code that apple releases on their website.
• Not having to worry about vendor-specific implementations (nvapi, for example)

Otherwise, it would be the same as developing for Windows.

Also theoretically, since macos performance is complete ass, it's possible it'll run better than native if well done heh.

Probably for OpenGL, but not likely for Metal. There would probably be some lost performance running a metal application due to translation.

[yurikoles]

Yo dawg, I heard you like translation layers, so look at Dota2 that runs on Vulkan on top of Metal on top of Vulkan.

[microcode]

I've been wondering for a long time why we don't have this shit, theoretically this would be a lot easier to develop than windows compatibility.

You might think that, but there is a huge amount of framework functionality that Mac apps actually use. For example, Cocoa uses a non-trivial, specialized linear constraint solver for layout. The frameworks also include high quality, high complexity audio/video signal processing functionality that is pretty difficult to put together the way they have it.

Don't underestimate the work involved in this.

Also theoretically, since macos performance is complete ass

A lot of that garbage performance is due in part to their choice of APIs, and in many cases, no amount of clever implementation will fix it. Though I guess almost nobody could manage to make IPC as slow as it is on Darwin.