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Darling – macOS Translation Layer for Linux

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Re: Darling – macOS Translation Layer for Linux

#81

Post by bayindirh »

sjwright wrote: post #35
linguae wrote: post #17

What would be amazing is if Darling could join forces with the long-running GNUstep project in order to provide access to the Cocoa APIs. This would provide a means to run Cocoa apps on Linux, which will make Linux a more attractive operating system for prospective Mac converts and may also increase the popularity of GNUstep. Also, with many Mac users expressing anxieties about the future of the Mac given Apple's bus…

The problem with replacing MacOS is that its key value lies in aspects that the open source community have yet to succeed in, or are structurally unfit to succeed in.[0][1] — System-wide UI consistency, especially in the fine details — Singular UI/UX vision eliminates points of confusion and everything-is-a-compromise choices for third party developers — Navigable by non-experts, even when things turn to shit — Nomin…

As a long time (10+ years) Linux and macOS user, I accept most of the things you say, and macOS is an extremely time efficient platform to do work.

However, the lack of unifying vision is not an Achilles heel of the open source community. It's the essence of it. I like how any two installations of two distributions are never the same, and this broad ecosystem just works, tumbles, fights and creates new stuff.

I've created a compression algorithm [0] for my graduation project. It was a novel approach, but performed worse due to some technical reasons. One of my professors asked why I didn't compare it to a similar algorithm instead of plain old Zip. I said that our algorithm is never tried before, and it's pretty novel, so we had no equal to compare.

Then, one of my other professors replied to other professor asking the question. "There's no need to find an equal to compare. They did something new and untried. This is research".

Equally, Darling doesn't need to surpass macOS to be useful, because "this is research" too. Maybe they will learn something useful from this endeavor and incorporate it into Linux or their future development career.

This Katamari Damacy nature of GNU, Linux and free software community makes it so powerful and unique. Let Microsoft, Apple and Google have a top-down approach and others play as they feel and everyone improves the world as they wish.

[0]: https://www.academia.edu/20575315/Lossless_Text_Compression_...

Re: Darling – macOS Translation Layer for Linux

#82

Post by mypalmike »

beardedwizard wrote: post #23

I'm puzzled, wont most console apps already cross compile without much modification? Isn't this basis of brew/etc? The GUI piece seems like the key, but without it I'm failing to understand why this is significant.

Projects usually walk before they run.

Re: Darling – macOS Translation Layer for Linux

#83

Post by Symbiote »

microcolonel wrote: post #41
sjwright wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem with replacing MacOS is that its key value lies in aspects that the open source community have yet to succeed in, or are structurally unfit to succeed in.[0][1] — System-wide UI consistency, especially in the fine details — Singular UI/UX vision eliminates points of confusion and everything-is-a-compromise choices for third party developers — Navigable by non-experts, even when things turn to shit — Nomin…

> — System-wide UI consistency, especially in the fine details > — Singular UI/UX vision eliminates points of confusion and everything-is-a-compromise choices for third party developers I mean, first-party GNOME applications are as consistent as first-party Apple macOS applications; and third-party macOS applications are as highly customized as third-party applications one might run on GNOME. Not sure what you base y…

> I mean, first-party GNOME applications are as consistent as first-party Apple macOS applications

That's true in the basic sense, and my impression is that KDE is better than Gnome, but Mac OS is ahead of both in the overall consistency of interaction with the application.

All three platforms have a set of human interface guidelines:

https://developer.apple.com/design/human-interface-guideline...

https://hig.kde.org/

https://developer.gnome.org/hig/stable/

I use KDE, and the core applications are equal with Mac OS for consistency of interaction. The difference is the niche applications, where I think a Mac OS developer puts a bit more effort into following the guidelines, whereas the KDE developer adds an additional feature or customization.

Re: Darling – macOS Translation Layer for Linux

#84

Post by patrec »

ncmncm wrote: post #73

The main attraction of Apple products is the certainty that, no matter what you do, they cannot be made to do what you would like. The consequence is that you feel no urge to spend time tinkering to get there, and instead adapt yourself to what it actually does. This reclaims all the time and attention that you would have spent on tinkering. Since what Apple products do has proven adequate for a large number of peopl…

> So, the appeal of Mac emulation is very limited, because it starts out with tinkering.

There are countless of utilities for tinkering with you mac setup and the best and most tinker-y terminal for any platform is a mac-only app (iterm2). It's just that macOS starts out with a far high usability level without tinkering and comes with lots of basic stuff working that no amount of tinkering will ever give you with linux (like you can actually find files on your computer, good luck doing that with linux).

And of course even if your premise were true, there are plenty of reasons people would like to run macOS apps under linux:

- lots of good software is mac only

- automated testing with macs is a pain and expensive, doing at least some with linux boxes would be a pretty decent win.

Re: Darling – macOS Translation Layer for Linux

#85

Post by sjwright »

bayindirh wrote: post #81
sjwright wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem with replacing MacOS is that its key value lies in aspects that the open source community have yet to succeed in, or are structurally unfit to succeed in.[0][1] — System-wide UI consistency, especially in the fine details — Singular UI/UX vision eliminates points of confusion and everything-is-a-compromise choices for third party developers — Navigable by non-experts, even when things turn to shit — Nomin…

As a long time (10+ years) Linux and macOS user, I accept most of the things you say, and macOS is an extremely time efficient platform to do work. However, the lack of unifying vision is not an Achilles heel of the open source community. It's the essence of it. I like how any two installations of two distributions are never the same, and this broad ecosystem just works, tumbles, fights and creates new stuff. I've cr…

I don't disagree with anything you've said, and I don't think that my post—if read in full—disagrees with it either.

The lack of unifying vision in open source can be both an Achilles heel and its most valuable asset.

The lack of a community-led ethos in macOS can be be both its Achilles heel and its most valuable asset.

Re: Darling – macOS Translation Layer for Linux

#86

Post by ncmncm »

patrec wrote: post #84
ncmncm wrote: post #73

The main attraction of Apple products is the certainty that, no matter what you do, they cannot be made to do what you would like. The consequence is that you feel no urge to spend time tinkering to get there, and instead adapt yourself to what it actually does. This reclaims all the time and attention that you would have spent on tinkering. Since what Apple products do has proven adequate for a large number of peopl…

> So, the appeal of Mac emulation is very limited, because it starts out with tinkering. There are countless of utilities for tinkering with you mac setup and the best and most tinker-y terminal for any platform is a mac-only app (iterm2). It's just that macOS starts out with a far high usability level without tinkering and comes with lots of basic stuff working that no amount of tinkering will ever give you with lin…

The facts remain that (1) even Free-Software developers rarely tinker with their Macs, (2) what can be achieved by tinkering is extremely limited, and (3) vanishingly few who don't own a Mac have the slightest idea of, or interest in, what MacOS apps they might (someday) be able to run.

What would the results of a successful or unsuccessful test mean? Either might be a consequence of the different environment.

I have no difficulty locating files. They stay right where I put them. If storage did not keep growing it might bother me that they never fade away.

All that said, a few Mac owners, and even some former owners, might have a use for emulation, and I would never begrudge it to them.

Re: Darling – macOS Translation Layer for Linux

#87

Post by headsoup »

ncmncm wrote: post #73

The main attraction of Apple products is the certainty that, no matter what you do, they cannot be made to do what you would like. The consequence is that you feel no urge to spend time tinkering to get there, and instead adapt yourself to what it actually does. This reclaims all the time and attention that you would have spent on tinkering. Since what Apple products do has proven adequate for a large number of peopl…

I disagree entirely with that. I think Apple sold people the idea that what they provide is really cool and 'just works' and that you want to be in their 'ecosystem.' It worked, people bought the allure and then just stopped looking at other solutions because Apple said they don't need to.

I think your post highlights exactly that: a buy-in to the brand so strong as to not even try and look elsewhere when issues arise, just adapt and accept.

Re: Darling – macOS Translation Layer for Linux

#88

Post by mmjaa »

setpatchaddress wrote: post #52
microcolonel wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> — System-wide UI consistency, especially in the fine details > — Singular UI/UX vision eliminates points of confusion and everything-is-a-compromise choices for third party developers I mean, first-party GNOME applications are as consistent as first-party Apple macOS applications; and third-party macOS applications are as highly customized as third-party applications one might run on GNOME. Not sure what you base y…

CoreAudio round trip latency can be under 5ms.

My Linux DAW regularly trumps that.

Re: Darling – macOS Translation Layer for Linux

#89

Post by mmjaa »

sjwright wrote: post #60
setpatchaddress wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

CoreAudio round trip latency can be under 5ms.

And maybe you can get something comparable on Linux. Maybe? Do I have to think about which distro I use? Do I have to think about which audio hardware I use? Do I have to think about which audio apps I use? On Mac, you get that insane latency without having to put a moment's thought into any part of your architecture. I get that insane latency even if I never bothered to learn why latency matters. "Just works" is mor…

Ubuntu Studio just works.

Re: Darling – macOS Translation Layer for Linux

#90

Post by simonh »

ncmncm wrote: post #73

The main attraction of Apple products is the certainty that, no matter what you do, they cannot be made to do what you would like. The consequence is that you feel no urge to spend time tinkering to get there, and instead adapt yourself to what it actually does. This reclaims all the time and attention that you would have spent on tinkering. Since what Apple products do has proven adequate for a large number of peopl…

I don't really get this, MacOS is super tinker-y. You can script multi-app work flows with Automator, set up folder actions to magically transmute files (I have one that insta-shrinks the images in PDFs for me and puts them in an output directory), cast magic spells on selected data using custom services, use the full range of Unix commands for text processing. You have Perl and Python right there.

The things that are resistant to tinkering in MacOS are the UI and how you do stuff. Those are infinitely flexible in Linux, but heavily standardised on the Mac. However when it comes to getting useful stuff done, the Mac has a wealth of tinker-y toys waiting to do your bidding.

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