Live data from Hacker News

Darling – MacOS translation layer for Linux

darlinghq.org

71–80 of 274 posts

Re: Darling – MacOS translation layer for Linux

#71

I am hoping that with cross platform Swift we can start seeing more libraries to help us port Mac apps to Linux. I am a Mac developer but I'd love to make stuff available on Linux. I really like Linux as a backup plan, in case Apple totally drops the ball on professionals on the Mac. The Linux desktop is getting pretty good, but it lacks well designed high quality GUI applications. If porting to Linux was done easier…

Why wait for Swift? You can already do what you want with something like Lua. The only issue is that you have to be willing to build a platform around your Lua code-base, and not just have it handed to you ..

Re: Darling – MacOS translation layer for Linux

#72

> Why “Darling”? >The name Darling is a combination of “Darwin” and “Linux”. >Darwin is the core operating system OS X and iOS build on. If that's the case, why not Darlin? But then, I'm southern so that's why it makes more sense to me.

I was looking at emacs documentation the other day and thought that RMS is probably right that Linux should be called GNU/Linux. In that case, newcomers to this project might ask "What's GNU Darlin?

Gnu/Linux/Darwin == Gnarlin?

Seriously though, i used to think GNU/Linux was just envy of linux' success, but Gnu basically IS OS without a kernel (Herd, where art thou?).

Re: Darling – MacOS translation layer for Linux

#73
post #57
post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

The entire Android developer team here is on Macs. And go to any Android developer conference, and I'd be willing to bet money that most laptops you'll see are Macs.

If you wish I can tell exactly which podcast where they give their numbers.

Re: Darling – MacOS translation layer for Linux

#75
post #50

I am hoping that with cross platform Swift we can start seeing more libraries to help us port Mac apps to Linux. I am a Mac developer but I'd love to make stuff available on Linux. I really like Linux as a backup plan, in case Apple totally drops the ball on professionals on the Mac. The Linux desktop is getting pretty good, but it lacks well designed high quality GUI applications. If porting to Linux was done easier…

If you're interested in porting code, many of the OSX core libraries are available as part of the GNUstep project: https://www.gnu.org/software/gnustep/ Most of "cocoa" came from the OPENSTEP specification, and GNUstep offers quite a complete implementation.

I go back and forth on whether this would truly be useful. 10-15 years ago, having a fully baked, first class, slavishly source compatible implementation of GNUstep with broad adoption throughout Linux land would have likely been a game changer.

But now, it seems webified apps are king. The handful of native apps that people use are already satisfactorily implementable on Linux. In fact, a great number of native apps are being implemented on Linux in spite of the GUI bits not being source compatible with OS X or Windows. The major holdouts (MS Office, Adobe CS) likely have more to do with business reasons that factor much more than porting costs.

Now, if GNUstep were to become a compelling alternative to XCode for developing iOS apps, I could absolutely see that tide lifting the Linux fleet.

Re: Darling – MacOS translation layer for Linux

#76
post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you're interested in porting code, many of the OSX core libraries are available as part of the GNUstep project: https://www.gnu.org/software/gnustep/ Most of "cocoa" came from the OPENSTEP specification, and GNUstep offers quite a complete implementation.

Is there a list of things missing ? A guide on how to contribute ? I'd love to port my favorite OSX apps to linux (ITerm 2, I miss you so much ;_;) but that website makes it almost a point to be as useless as possible. Also, reading through http://wiki.gnustep.org/index.php/User_Guides , why does it talk about FileSystem Layout. Is GNUStep an OS ? I thought it was just a library. The whole thing feels a bit messy :|.

why does it talk about FileSystem Layout. Is GNUStep an OS ? I thought it was just a library.

Pretty much the first thing a desktop environment has to do is establish an abstraction layer for filesystems, so that desktop-enabled applications can have a consistent way to talk about files. Both Gnome and KDE have a VFS layer (GVFS and KIO, respectively).

Re: Darling – MacOS translation layer for Linux

#77
post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you're interested in porting code, many of the OSX core libraries are available as part of the GNUstep project: https://www.gnu.org/software/gnustep/ Most of "cocoa" came from the OPENSTEP specification, and GNUstep offers quite a complete implementation.

I go back and forth on whether this would truly be useful. 10-15 years ago, having a fully baked, first class, slavishly source compatible implementation of GNUstep with broad adoption throughout Linux land would have likely been a game changer. But now, it seems webified apps are king. The handful of native apps that people use are already satisfactorily implementable on Linux. In fact, a great number of native apps…

I wrote a blog post once about how the web is the new presentation layer for the desktop, that this is not necessarily a bad thing, and that a desktop OS (e.g. a Linux distro) should just fully embrace it by implementing a desktop that runs 100% via web technologies. Local and remote web apps could coexist as first class citizens, etc. I basically argued that HTML+JS+CSS renderers are the new X and that HTTP(S) is the new X11 protocol-- or at least that these parts occupy an analogous position in the stack to what X originally was. (They are technically quite different of course.)

The web is the OSS GUI stack with the largest, most diverse, and most active developer community, and with it you get to ride on the coattails of multi-billion dollar companies like Facebook and Google that have significant investments in the web.

I got DDOSed and threatened. I got some of the most insane all-caps slobbering and frothing at the mouth feedback I have ever seen in all my years of interacting with any developer community. You'd think I went into a conservative church and gave a talk about evidence for abortion in the Bible or something.

The vast majority of this came after the article got posted to Reddit /r/linux. Most comments there amounted to "web sucks and JS coders are weenies and next year will be the year of the Linux desktop as soon as we finish the next rewrite of (insert favorite project)." Intelligent criticism is good but the vast majority of the comments I read responded to none of the core points of my post and amounted to not much more than developer community religious bias.

I ended up taking the post down for two reasons:

(1) I got sick of getting DDOSed and it wasn't worth it to me to fight just to get an off the cuff opinion out there. I am not deeply invested in this and have better things to do.

(2) This convinced me that the "desktop Linux" community is toxic in the extreme and should be avoided. This includes avoiding providing any input whatsoever to that community. Also caused me to become a lot less loyal to Linux in general, since it's a community full of people who respond to any opinion differing from their own with absurd amounts of hate and vitriol.

Re: Darling – MacOS translation layer for Linux

#78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was looking at emacs documentation the other day and thought that RMS is probably right that Linux should be called GNU/Linux. In that case, newcomers to this project might ask "What's GNU Darlin?

I think nowadays we should start to use the name SystemD/Linux

How about poetteringOS ?

Re: Darling – MacOS translation layer for Linux

#80

> Why “Darling”? >The name Darling is a combination of “Darwin” and “Linux”. >Darwin is the core operating system OS X and iOS build on. If that's the case, why not Darlin? But then, I'm southern so that's why it makes more sense to me.

I feel like "Darlin" only sounds "cute" when said with a southern accent.

Yeah, me too. :)
Post reply on HN