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Darling – MacOS translation layer for Linux

darlinghq.org

21–30 of 274 posts

Re: Darling – MacOS translation layer for Linux

#21
post #4

It'll super useful when/if it supports XCode + Mac Developer Tools for iOS development. I think that's the main thing keeping app developers on their Macs.

That simply is not true. Most of the people that likes commodities of UNIX, nice UI and long battery life in combination with nice hardware uses Macs. Even people who do not do any iOS development. There is no such thing as Mac Dev tools, (maybe just iOS related but there aren't many that you do for that process besides Xcode). I use my Mac like I used Linux and FreeBSD, package manager check, nice terminal check, Em…

No, Windows had an Unix subsystem since forever, and WSL helps switchers more than ever actually.

Re: Darling – MacOS translation layer for Linux

#22

This is neat, but I can't think of a single non-GUI tool on OS X that I need or doesn't have an equivalent in Linux...

Photoshop?

And Scrivener. The OS X variant is a full major version ahead of Windows, and it isn't even supported on Linux.

Re: Darling – MacOS translation layer for Linux

#23
post #2

Hmm. I guess many developers use just the right amount of MacOS specific tools to justify this now. The git client Tower is something I've eyed before, but most tools I use are available on Linux, and I say that as someone who uses a Mac at work.

No GUI support at the moment.

Basic Cocoa apps work, as long as they don't crash and burn with GNUstep.

Re: Darling – MacOS translation layer for Linux

#25
post #6
post #4

It'll super useful when/if it supports XCode + Mac Developer Tools for iOS development. I think that's the main thing keeping app developers on their Macs.

Believe me, it is not. All Android and WP developers I know also used Macs. :)

I don't know anyone, and there are quite a few in this 4 floor building.

Not to mention across all company sites.

EDIT: And if you bother to listen to the Android Developers Backstage podcast, according to the Android team themselves the large majority is on Windows.

Re: Darling – MacOS translation layer for Linux

#27

Very impressive. I wonder how useful the existing GNUstep libraries would be for supporting at least some subset of GUI apps. I wonder how far at this point OS X's CoreFoundation etc. differ from what's in GNUstep.

GNUstep is stuck around half supporting Panther, if I remember correctly.

Re: Darling – MacOS translation layer for Linux

#28
post #2

Hmm. I guess many developers use just the right amount of MacOS specific tools to justify this now. The git client Tower is something I've eyed before, but most tools I use are available on Linux, and I say that as someone who uses a Mac at work.

So many awesome GUI tools for developers on Mac, I can't find on Linux. E.g. OmniGraffle is fabulous for doing diagrams. I have not found anything as well designed and functional on Linux.

You got so many nice git clients: Tower, Gitup, GitX etc. There are awesome diff tools like Kaleidoscope.

There are a lot of good tools for keeping all sorts of notes, programming snippets etc. My life is pretty much centered on Ulysses, which has a very good way of organizing and searching for notes.

Linux does of course have vim, emacs, etc but I'd say if you want a more modern feeling editor you got a lot more choices on Mac: TextMate, Sublime, SubEtaEdit, Smultron, Coda, Chocolate etc.

Then there are all sorts of specialized tools, e.g. I use a Dash a lot of looking up developer documentation. Paw is pretty neat for working with REST APIs. Base is great for looking at and manipulating SQLite databases.

Especially for any kind of graphical work, say you got to modify some application or toolbar icons, then you have a lot of great choices on Mac. Not only do you have the big powerful tools like e.g. Photoshop and Affinity Designer, but you to also small neat little tools like Pixen.

It really depends on how long you worked on the platform. I didn't use nearly as many of these tools some years back. But the longer you stay on a platform there more tools you start using as particular needs arise.

I've worked with plenty of colleagues who have used Macs for years, but who aren't really mentally into the whole Mac eco system, and so they often use various cross platform tools, websites etc before they actually explore the rich collection of desktop apps available on the Mac.

Re: Darling – MacOS translation layer for Linux

#29
post #10
post #7

Is there anything the other way around? Running a Linux binary on MacOS? Sometimes the source isn't available so recompiling isn't an option.

I don't think such a thing exists, probably because there are few/no applications that target Linux and not OS X that aren't also open source. Can you give an example of an app that is only released as a compiled binary for Linux and not OS X?

It's not so much "applications" as such, but it isn't uncommon for programs in bioinformatics to only be released as a binary (often only a Linux one) because they want to reserve the right to license their code. Or they will only release the source code to academic researchers because they don't like the idea of industry benefiting from their work. This is changing with a lot of people hosting projects on Github and the like, but is still there.

Re: Darling – MacOS translation layer for Linux

#30
post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That simply is not true. Most of the people that likes commodities of UNIX, nice UI and long battery life in combination with nice hardware uses Macs. Even people who do not do any iOS development. There is no such thing as Mac Dev tools, (maybe just iOS related but there aren't many that you do for that process besides Xcode). I use my Mac like I used Linux and FreeBSD, package manager check, nice terminal check, Em…

OP should have said "many app developers". The implications are a bit different because it doesn't mean 'all' or 'the majority'. Lots of people will stick with Apple hardware or the mac operating system I'm sure, but I do agree that I think a lot of people will cross over once some of these barriers are removed.

And it is okay! Different devices, different systems for different people. But what I really do not get is the amount of rage that is produced in the community, if you do not like certain device simply do not buy it, and do not bash people that do, because if there are reasons for you not to like it that doesn't mean it's same case for everyone else.

Anyway back to the story, I think that number of people that use Macs only for iOS dev is existent but not really that big. Except platform specific development (like .NET/Windows, or iOS/macOS for that matter), most of development is pretty platform agnostic (where you draw the line here is UNIX-like vs Windows OS). App developers will have to stick to Macs, unless Apple go totally insane and release dev tools for iOS on Linux (which won't happen in my opinion, because of the anatomy of both macOS and Linux). So OPs comment doesn't make sense from the beginning (both technically and economically for Apple).

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