PureDarwin – An Informal Successor to OpenDarwin • Hacker News Board

PureDarwin – An Informal Successor to OpenDarwin

#1

Post by cookrn » Tue, May 31, 2016, 4:38 AM UTC

PureDarwin – An Informal Successor to OpenDarwin
github.com

Re: PureDarwin – An Informal Successor to OpenDarwin

#2

Post by orionblastar » Tue, May 31, 2016, 4:50 AM UTC

Darwin was cool until Apple quit releasing ISO files and just the source code that needed a lot of work to debug it and put it back together.

I'm glad to see someone took it over and has a goal of making Darwin ISO files. I hope it also gets an OSX themed skin for whatever Desktop GUI they decide to use with Cario Dock or something to look like OSX.

Re: PureDarwin – An Informal Successor to OpenDarwin

#3

Post by lloeki » Tue, May 31, 2016, 6:13 AM UTC

This is something I've been waiting for. After years of standby I've been working on Arch OS X again lately (fully operational but currently waiting for trademark approval from the Arch Linux team) and Arch Darwin is something I was contemplating to do for fun at some unspecified timeframe in the future.

Re: PureDarwin – An Informal Successor to OpenDarwin

#4

Post by pjmlp » Tue, May 31, 2016, 6:27 AM UTC

orionblastar wrote: post #2

Darwin was cool until Apple quit releasing ISO files and just the source code that needed a lot of work to debug it and put it back together. I'm glad to see someone took it over and has a goal of making Darwin ISO files. I hope it also gets an OSX themed skin for whatever Desktop GUI they decide to use with Cario Dock or something to look like OSX.

Without the whole Objective-C/Swift userspace libraries it will just look like OS X, but it won't be OS X.

Re: PureDarwin – An Informal Successor to OpenDarwin

#5

Post by DigitalJack » Tue, May 31, 2016, 7:04 AM UTC

I fully appreciate the "doing it for the fun of it" mentality. Am I wrong in assuming that is the "why" behind this project?

I have used OS X full time for 7 years now, and I love it, but I never thought the kernel had much to recommend it.

Re: PureDarwin – An Informal Successor to OpenDarwin

#6

Post by soneil » Tue, May 31, 2016, 7:50 AM UTC

Other than moving it to github, is there actually anything new here? They're still talking about the xmas release (2008), and of targeting Darwin9 (2007) and Darwin10(2009).

Re: PureDarwin – An Informal Successor to OpenDarwin

#7

Post by mrweasel » Tue, May 31, 2016, 8:39 AM UTC

lloeki wrote: post #3

This is something I've been waiting for. After years of standby I've been working on Arch OS X again lately (fully operational but currently waiting for trademark approval from the Arch Linux team) and Arch Darwin is something I was contemplating to do for fun at some unspecified timeframe in the future.

If you don't mind me asking: Other than intellectual curiosity, why would you want to run Darwin, and not just one of the BSDs? Aren't a large number of the drivers still closed source?

Re: PureDarwin – An Informal Successor to OpenDarwin

#8

Post by fithisux » Tue, May 31, 2016, 9:18 AM UTC

pjmlp wrote: post #4

orionblastar wrote: post #2

Darwin was cool until Apple quit releasing ISO files and just the source code that needed a lot of work to debug it and put it back together. I'm glad to see someone took it over and has a goal of making Darwin ISO files. I hope it also gets an OSX themed skin for whatever Desktop GUI they decide to use with Cario Dock or something to look like OSX.

Without the whole Objective-C/Swift userspace libraries it will just look like OS X, but it won't be OS X.

KDE is better than Aqua. One needs Darwin for drivers and other subsystems. You can even run cocotron on this.

Re: PureDarwin – An Informal Successor to OpenDarwin

#9

Post by pjmlp » Tue, May 31, 2016, 9:50 AM UTC

fithisux wrote: post #8

pjmlp wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Without the whole Objective-C/Swift userspace libraries it will just look like OS X, but it won't be OS X.

KDE is better than Aqua. One needs Darwin for drivers and other subsystems. You can even run cocotron on this.

I cannot seat a Mac OS X user, or developer in front of it, and they will be able to use it just like Mac OS X.

Re: PureDarwin – An Informal Successor to OpenDarwin

#10

Post by lloeki » Tue, May 31, 2016, 10:19 AM UTC

mrweasel wrote: post #7

lloeki wrote: post #3

This is something I've been waiting for. After years of standby I've been working on Arch OS X again lately (fully operational but currently waiting for trademark approval from the Arch Linux team) and Arch Darwin is something I was contemplating to do for fun at some unspecified timeframe in the future.

If you don't mind me asking: Other than intellectual curiosity, why would you want to run Darwin, and not just one of the BSDs? Aren't a large number of the drivers still closed source?

The kext mechanism is pragmatic and interesting: as opposed to Linux kernel modules, binary kexts are compatible across whole kernel versions.

Also, having alternatives is always interesting. I was also interested in making the core of OS X† have some form of FOSS liveliness, but I've been quite disheartened about OS X and openness (however limited) since this[0] happened.

[0]: https://github.com/lloeki/xbox_one_controller/issues/2

† I do believe that FOSS is very important, but I also recognise the critical effect of closed source innovations, and believe that a delicate balance and synergy between both aspects can produce fantastic results.