Gentoo for Mac OS X Released

joeljkp writes "According to today's Gentoo Weekly News, Gentoo has released a new project: Gentoo MacOS (sic). This new distribution adds Portage, Gentoo's package manager, to Mac OS X, among other things."

OK, so...

[Anonymous Coward]

...where do I download the source code for OSX and what flags should I use when I compile?

Yea, and?

[soybean]

What does this do that fink doesn't already (for the last few years) do?

Re:Yea, and?

[justforaday]

What does this do that fink doesn't already (for the last few years) do?

Well, this one can compile the packages from source. Oh wait, Fink already does that...Yeah, how does this really differ from the Fink project, other than being based on Gentoo's portage system?

I don't think you get it

[Shinzaburo]

I don't think the parent poster "forgot" that the Mac OS X UI source isn't available for custom compiles. That's not what Gentoo MacOS is about -- it's about being able to easily install and update popular *nix software on Mac OS X.

Who would want a Mac without Quartz, Spotlight, etc? I certainly wouldn't give up these features. But some people might want to use alternate desktop managers on Apple hardware. Just because you're not interested in doing so doesn't mean there is no reason for others to want to.

Besides, you don't necessarily have to forgo the Finder and Exposé to use Gentoo MacOS. It's a package manager, and as such can install a bunch of *nix tools that work alongside Mac OS X without replacing it.

Re:OK, so...

[Anonymous Coward]

MacOSX != Darwin.

You may be able to get Darwin's source, but good luck getting the rest of MacOSX source. This shouldn't be called Gentoo MacOS its should be called Gentoo Darwin.

At least the MacOS zealots have something to be zealotishious about, Gentoo zealots only have zealotness to be zealotishius about. Obviously.

Re:Let's get it straight...

[Anonymous Coward]

..." I DON'T want linux software..."

Is someone twisting your arm to install OSS stuff?

No, Apple *has* a problem

[ink]

And Gentoo is the solution. OSX is shipped with a very stripped-down UNIX program suite. Fink addresses the problem nicely, and Gentoo looks like it's aiming at the same problem. I don't think the author meant that Gentoo on OSX *is* the problem.

Re:In case you don't get it.

[goMac2500]

I'm not sure you understand what this is... It is basically a Gentoo package manager, allowing you to downwload and compile Linux programs on OS X. Yes, it does sound like it could build the Darwin kernel. No, this will not magically make your computer faster. Apple has worked hard to ensure Darwin is already extremely fast. Not only that, their kernal extension system already disables kernal extensions you don't need. If anything the bottleneck is in Aqua, most likely in Windowserver. You cannot simply use a different Windowserver (like X11) and expect all your OS X apps to run. Windowserver contains a lot of custom code to create memory space foundations unique for Cocoa and Carbon (gotta load those Carbon resource files into memory). Windowserver is not open source and not able to be recompiled. There is no magical way to make X run faster. And I hate to break it to you... but Linux is starting to get just as slow with X11.

Re:Gentoo MacOS?

[DaCool42]

Perhaps "Portage MacOS X" would make more sense?

Re:OK, so...

[Geoffreyerffoeg]

Nice try, but no. The point of Gentoo MacOS is to use Apple's well-designed, proprietary OS with popular, open-source applications. If you want, go get Gentoo for Macintosh hardware / PPC, but you'll lose the benefits of Mac OS X. Not everything has to be open-sourced; frankly, there would be no was OS X could have reached the state it is in now had it been developed open source. There wouldn't have been enough incentive for Apple's talented developers, and management wouldn't have been motivated to include it with Apple computers.

Windows XP

[green pizza]

Hi, I'm Joe Q Developer. I only write small freeware apps, so Microsoft won't even talk to me. So please tell me where I can legally download the source to Windows XP?

Oh, I can't?

Apple may not release the source to its higher level frameworks, but everything you need for low-level hooks is right there in Darwin. Hell, that's most of the OS.

Re:how's its hygiene?

[saitoh]

If I rmemeber correctly, part of what was the big hitch against fink originally was that it broke rank and did that. /usr/local is your stuff, period. Nothing should be put in /usr/bin unless apple installed it, but /usr/local/bin is just your stuff. And fink basically just kinda gave everyone the finger when they said no and put it elsewhere.

Its kinda like, install the Dev tools, then compile something from scratch, where does it go when you do 'make install'? It puts it in /usr/local/bin. Thats just how unix works, and since we are essentailly using a FreeBSD base, thats how it works (notice the reversal of more/less)

I can see arguments both for and against this, but one thing that portage does is it keeps track of what is *your* stuff, and where that stuff is, so if you dont like something, you can remove just that. Now, I've only had to do this once, and what I did was not tied to shared libraries, so someone else who uses Gentoo will need to chime in here (my server was done with "measure twice, cut once" planning).

But I can see how it can safeguard against that for each replease of OSX, given various components built into portage.

Now, I do understand the reasoning by using /sw, and it is a different way of doing stuff (and what it accomplishes is a very valid point, of keeping things seperate as you noted), just one that some people dont like, or have other reasons against which I am not well versed in.

- Page

Re:Full Text (images already /.'ed)

[Anonymous Coward]

No, it's just part of a long-standing Microsoft strategy of vapourware. They announce features ahead of time so that the PHBs are less likely to choose a competitor that has a short-term advantage, and then scale back on features closer to the release date. So-called "WinFS" has been touted as an upcoming feature for a few versions already. Before that, every version of Windows released since Windows 95 was suppsed to be "the" uncrashable Windows.

Re:OK, so...

[bfg9000]

...there would be no was OS X could have reached the state it is in now had it been developed open source. There wouldn't have been enough incentive for Apple's talented developers, and management wouldn't have been motivated to include it with Apple computers.

Except, of course, that it would drive sales of Macs, exactly as it has done. Apple wouldn't sell half the units if it weren't for OS X. And if you're worried someone else will take the source and port it to x86, that's irrelevant. The important functionality has been mostly duplicated WITHOUT having the source code; Expose, the Aqua look, the swooshy dock, brushed metal, the MenuBar... all are available elsewhere WITHOUT it being open sourced. So keeping it closed didn't help them keep a monopoly on their ideas, because once somebody sees a good idea, everyone else uses it. And that's okay. It's what we've always done, at least back to the time someone started copying Henry Ford's assembly line idea so they could compete effectively, thus creating the auto industry that gives us cheap, reliable automobiles. Society gets better by constantly taking other people's ideas ("standing on the shoulders of giants"), improving on them and reselling them. And then the other guy is forced to innovate again to stay ahead. That's capitalism. Capitalism doesn't work without competition to drive quality up and prices down. We argue against it when our favorite company is getting copied, but they copy people as well, regardless of what the zealots say. Konfabulator, Watson, Xerox Parc's GUI ideas, BSD guts, the iMac idea which an artist apparently submitted to Apple as an idea. No company is an island unto itself; everybody is affected by the innovations of others. And opening the source wouldn't help x86 or Linux or whatever duplicate the "whole widget" effect which is the main selling point of the MacOS, because the relevant code would only apply to the exact Mac hardware it was written for -- which means you gotta buy a Mac to get the "whole widget" effect, or make your own hardware and software yourself.

In short, it wouldn't hurt Apple a bit. Sure, somebody might port OS X and run it on their Toshiba, but the user wouldn't be buying a Mac anyway; they've already got a Toshiba. And the "whole widget" smoothness wouldn't be there, so it'd be more like running a crappy version of linux than the real OS X on the real hardware. They'd get bored and go back to Windows, or spring for a real Mac if they liked it enough. And Apple might sell a few more copies of iLife.

Not that I think Apple should waste their time porting OSX, I just know that some large firms don't allow closed-source, proprietary code on their servers due to security concerns. The Chinese government said they found an NSA backdoor in Windows; I would assume the NSA also ordered one put on the Mac.

Re:That's why the Metapkg Alliance was formed

[mrchaotica]

I use Fink right now on my iBook, and use Gentoo Linux on my PCs. The advantages Portage has over Fink (that I've noticed) are that Fink doesn't have a

--pretend

option (which shows what packages will be installed, without actually installing them), and the ability to (easily*) install unstable packages on a per-package basis (you have to completely switch Fink to the unstable tree, while with portage you can

ACCEPT-KEYWORDS="~<i>arch</i>" emerge <i>packagename</i>

)

*I think there might be a way to install a single package from unstable, but it's a complicated dirty hack