Run Mac OS X Under Linux 103
A user writes, "Just saw at penguinppc that
Mac-On-Linux can now run Mac OS X. Nothing like having Mac OS X running on a VT to switch to and from." Cool, but ... why?
1 Mole = 007 Secret Agents
Why? (Score:2, Interesting)
Like so many things it's probably just because they can.
Re:Why? (Score:2)
pretty cool, guys.
actually, i'm certain there are plenty of uses here. it would be nice if someone could make a list of ideas. like, softwares which won't work under linux, but will work under OS X in this manner.
Ermm.. Wow. (Score:2)
Now if someone can just make a VERY SMALL ppc chip-and-io-driver emulator for Intel PCs, I can use that as my boot-sector image and have it run MacOS X. Presto! Jaguar on a Dell!
(okay, so I need a little better detail in the "miracle occurs" portion of my plan. But it'd be cool, no?)
Re:Ermm.. Wow. (Score:3)
Re:Ermm.. Wow. (Score:1)
Re:Ermm.. Wow. (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Ermm.. Wow. (Score:1)
Re:Ermm.. Wow. (Score:2)
Re:Ermm.. Wow. (Score:1)
Re:Ermm.. Wow. (Score:1)
Re:Ermm.. Wow. (Score:2)
One reason... (Score:2, Insightful)
It's use may be a bit limited for the LinuxPPC users, but it kind of fills a niche that Virtual PC and VMware fills (maybe not perfectly, but it's still usable, no?).
Another reason might be someone is required to access an Exchange server for calendar, mail, etc... and Outlook Web Access does cut it (OWA in 5.5 sucks, but OWA in 2000 is cleaner but still has dependencies on IE for some key features)... running Outlook 2001 or Entourage under Mac OS X could fill that part (though Entourage wouldn't provide access to public folders and other things).
Just my thoughts.
Wow (Score:3, Funny)
Or just go recursive: MacOS X->VPC->Linux->MOL->(repeat forever).
Re:Wow (Score:4, Informative)
VPC is a virtual x86 box while MOL requires a PPC. It sounds like it is very similar to VMware/plex86 except for PPC.
Re:Wow (Score:2, Interesting)
Granted this screenshot isn't OS X, it should work there as well.
next
Re:Wow (Score:3, Insightful)
Granted this screenshot isn't OS X, it should work there as well.
Sorry, nesthigh, I think you missed it. The OP was talking about running OS X inside a MOL instance, and in order to run MOL you have to be on PowerPC hardware. VirtualPC emulates Intel hardware, not PowerPC hardware. So you couldn't do it.
Your screen shot was obviously taken on a Mac running Linux, which was running MOL, which was running VirtualPC, but the chain ends there.
But I have to chime in with others on this one. Given that Mac OS X is superior in every stinkin' way to Linux (flame on!), why-- other than the mountain climber answer-- would you do this?
Re:Wow (Score:2, Interesting)
Q: Why would you choose Linux over OSX?
A: Better unix apps support. At this point Linux is the Unix with the most broad support and widest range of Unix apps. If you are running Unix apps Linux makes sense.
Q: OK but then why would you buy Apple hardware to run Linux?
A: Quite a few Linux guys really like the iBook as a latop. Small, good screen, reasonable cost, long battery life. In terms of distributions: YDL, Debian, Mandrake (though they may drop their PPC line) and Gentoo among others. So its not an unreasonable choice.
Q: OK but if you are a Linux only user who wants to buy a powerbook what do you need OSX for?
A: The same thing that PC Linux users use wine for. Those one or two apps they just can't find for Linux.
It makes sense though I'm not sure the market is going to be more than a handful of people.
Re:Wow (Score:4, Insightful)
What do you want to run under Linux that you can't run under OS X? I mean, we're talking about stuff you'd want to compile from scratch, here, because this is PowerPC rather than IA-32. If it doesn't talk directly to the hardware, you should be able to compile it on OS X with only, at most, minor trouble.
Hell, it's even the same compiler:
Reading specs from
Thread model: posix
Apple Computer, Inc. GCC version 1161, based on gcc version 3.1 20020420 (prerelease)
Re:Wow (Score:4, Insightful)
1) anything that uses the
2) Any program that uses an assembly subroutine anywhere
3) Any program that uses elf specific routines
4) Any program that uses a library which can't be ported
Re:Wow (Score:4, Informative)
I'm not a Linux user, and I have no idea what apps use the /proc filesystem, but it seems to me that anything that does is horribly unportable. If "not a small number of apps" require /proc, I'd say that the majority of those are poorly-written.
2) Any program that uses an assembly subroutine anywhere
Why can't OSX use assembly? If a program has some x86 assembly, sure, that'd be a problem, but not a OSX-specific one. You can't use x86 assembly on LinuxPPC either. An altivec-optimized assembly routine that decrypts RC5 works just as well on OSX, LinuxPPC, NetBSD, or AIX. See the distributed.net client source code for an example.
3) Any program that uses elf specific routines
Such as...? Again, if there are a significant number of apps that even care what your object format is, I'd say the majority of them are poorly-written. Emacs' lisp undumping business is the only thing I can think of (and emacs has already been ported to OSX and even comes installed in the base system). Whose bright idea was it to intentionally make emacs dump core and try to reconstruct an executable out of the core dump anyways? Oh, that's right... RMS. (Have you seen how many undump routines there are in the emacs source? Daaaamn... but I digress...)
4) Any program that uses a library which can't be ported
Sure, but seeing that I don't buy your points 1-3, I'd say that most libraries would be pretty easy to port :)
Actually, I'd say the main barrier to porting to OSX was that it doesn't use the X Window System for its GUI. But since X has been ported to it, that barrier's gone.
A problem that still exists is accessing hardware peripherals, such as playing sound, communicating with USB devices, or the low-level DVD access needed to play DVDs.
Porting to OSX can be highly non-trivial, but most of the time, it is trivial. I think more of the problem lies with developers who learned how to program on x86 Linux not knowing how to write portable code. Even spending some time trying to compile their code on other ports of Linux would help them--I've seen a lot of 64-bit-unclean code when trying to compile stuff on an Alpha (no, you can't cast a pointer to an int... why do you even want to?), and some code that assumes little-endian byte ordering too.
Re:Wow (Score:2)
Why do you think its taking the Fink guys so long to be able to port over all of say a debian distribution?
Re:Wow (Score:2)
Right, but that'd cause problems trying to port to any other *nix... the difficulty porting such programs isn't because OSX is "really really different" from Linux. I contend that if one writes a program that works on, say Linux and FreeBSD, it'll be trivial to port to OSX (barring the hardware stuff I mentioned). However, if one writes a program that's uses Linux-specific stuff, it'll be just as hard to port to OSX as it would be to port to FreeBSD, Solaris, or some other *nix.
Why do you think its taking the Fink guys so long to be able to port over all of say a debian distribution?
Lack of time and/or manpower?
FWIW, I've personally compiled ghostscript, screen, GMT, cronolog, readline, gettext, mplayer, SDL, lame, and netpbm on OSX without having to make any source code tweaks at all. A friend might've compiled Tomcat, although maybe he just installed the binary... not sure. Most of that stuff is in fink now, but much of it wasn't at the time I compiled them... since they didn't need any real porting work, I'm assuming they weren't in fink because nobody had gotten around to doing it yet, not because it was difficult to do. cronolog still isn't in fink yet, and as I mentioned, compiles straight out of the box... ./configure && make -j2 and you're set.
Re:Wow (Score:2)
I don't disagree with you. My point originally was that Linux relative to all the other Unixes had the greatest amount of software available not that OSX was particularly difficult. I'd assume that True64 and HPUX are probably much worse.
Re:Wow (Score:2)
Re:Wow (Score:2)
IMHO generally when an app is first created its much more limited in scope then it will eventually become and is often of limited use. Its only with time that it becomes clear why portability is vital. Certain groups like KDE or Xfree had portability as a priority from very early on; others certainly didn't. For example many of the SGI Irix apps tend to be highly non portable and porting them has been very expensive.
Re:Wow (Score:2)
As a Linux programmer all my apps should work on OSX, thats ok. It's not ok when the macers don't give there work back to the Unix community.
I mean. Half of OSX is Open source software. Apple can't even get there stinkin mediaplayer running on other unixes, and not there GUI. When they do. I might change oppinion. Until they do I stick with a standard *nix such as Linux.
Sure, they have an open source kernel. But we already have a couple of great kernels with much driver support etc, darwin outside of OSX is still mucho rare. There work on GCC is probably good for the community though. But it's not enough at all.
Fink (Score:1)
Re:Wow (Score:2)
2) it cannot be ported to Linux on PPC any way.
3) like dlopen? there is a wrapper for it on Darwin.
4) well then you cannot use Linux PPC any ways.
Re:Wow (Score:2)
All the points you make are equally true of porting between ANY operating systems, not just OS X.
Any program that uses routines particular to it's kind of executable file format, uses assembler or uses file-system specific things like
Anything that uses a specific library without abstracting it away behind a interface is bad at porting because it's tied to that library.
These are just general rules of software development and have nothing to do with OS X.
Yes, porting to OS X can be less trivial than porting to BSD, but that's only because BSD and Linux are incredibly similar from the superficial standpoint of user-space.
OS X and Linux are incredibly similar in terms of available API (think POSIX), but are very different on other things, like file-system layout, kernel api and driver api. But, that's also true of ANY operating system that isn't Linux or BSD.
Try porting to Windows. It's FAR more difficult than porting to OS X.
I think Fink makes a very convincing argument of ability to port to OS X. Hell, they've ported KDE for god's sake. That's far from a trivial program.
Anyway. Yes, porting can be difficult. If you do certain things that make your program less portable. But that will make it hard to port to ANY other os, not just OS X. But, it's not as hard as you make it out to be, depending on the application.
If it's a GUI program, than that's another matter entirely and you have my full sympathies. But, still, assuming you have a well-designed model-view separation, you should be able to write a new GUI in any language, for any toolkit, and get it to work.
Justin Dubs
Read the parent (Score:2)
How can this be a "moot argument" it was an answer to a specific question about two specific platforms. I don't disagree that porting is possible I'm just arguing that there is some work involved in porting. Having the entire Debian source directory does not give you the ability to run all of debian's software on OSX.
Re:Read the parent (Score:2)
Speaking as the original poster, I have to chime in here with a "nuh-uh." First of all, my original point was to say that the vast majority of all possible code will compile without modification on both Linux and OS X. Notice I said the vast majority of all possible code, not the majority of programs. Most of the APIs provided by Linux and common libraries are available on OS X. For example, today I needed to do some work on part of our software that uses OpenSSL. So I FTP'd it from my build server (a Linux box) to my Power Mac and messed around with it. I didn't have to change anything, not even the makefile. All of the required libraries were available, including libcrypto, in the default OS X installation. And I got to use Project Builder, which was a little bit of a "woo hoo."
And finally, I don't think four really qualifies as "several," especially when the fourth one is basically just "anything that depends on something that's affected by items one, two, or three."
Re:Read the parent (Score:2)
What do you want to run under Linux that you can't run under OS X? I mean, we're talking about stuff you'd want to compile from scratch, here, because this is PowerPC rather than IA-32. If it doesn't talk directly to the hardware, you should be able to compile it on OS X with only, at most, minor trouble.
Hell, it's even the same compiler:
I think my interpretation of your comment stands.
Re:Wow (Score:1)
Re:Wow (Score:2)
Bwah hah hah...
Apple is smart. But not that smart.
Re:Wow (Score:2)
I'd love to hear somebody-- anybody-- explain to me how Linux has any kind of edge over OS X. But please omit discussions on how Linux runs on just about any kind of hardware. I will simply argue that OS X runs on better hardware, and we'll be right back where we started.
What's Linux got going for it that OS X doesn't?
Comments of a political nature and absurd misuses of the word "free" will be pointed at, laughed at, and ignored.
Re:Wow (Score:1)
It runs on dual Athlons.
Re:Wow (Score:2, Funny)
You live in a cold, quiet place and prefer a hot place filled with the whine of fans?
If you are trying to make a "lots of processing power for not much cash" point, please be more specific
If you are just trolling, you could at least have mentioned something exceptionally powerful
Troc
Re:Wow (Score:2)
> kind of edge over OS X.
Three things:
1. There are Linux distributions for many different architectures.
2. Price.
3. License (freedom).
Of course, there are a lot more than three things that OS X has over Linux, beginning with usability.
Re:Wow (Score:1)
"So now I can run MacOS X running Virtual PC running Linux running MOL"
A Good Addition (Score:2)
Also, I agree its a little redundant.
Still, it would be fun to play with the nested virtual machine game with this: Running Linux, drop in MOL, then drop in Virtual PC 5, then drop in Virtual PC 5 for Windows, then drop in VMware...
Re:A Good Addition (Score:1)
Re:A Good Addition (Score:2)
Re:A Good Addition (Score:2)
Mac ---TimbuktuPro control--->PC---TimbuktuPro control--->back to the mac
The computers flip out trying to figure out who is controling who. Not to mention the remote viewing of the desktop!
Re:A Good Addition (Score:1)
Why does it sound like we're going the way of running Linux/390 under hercules on Linux/390 on hercules on some other linux supported platform?
What is the point? (Score:1)
Re:What is the point? (Score:1)
To my taste, running Word, Excel and iTunes from a Linux/WindowMaker desktop is a lot more attractive than using OS X and XDarwin as a Unix.
I'm not sure what it is, but OS X (10.1 anyway, maybe Jaguar is better) seems, I don't know, constricted. It's slow, unresponsive, gets in my way and wastes screen space. The whole appeal of the Mac is that using it isn't a chore. For me, using Aqua is a chore.
When I open a terminal, I want it NOW, not in 10 seconds. I want keyboard app switching to work smoothly. I want multiple workspaces -- which, oddly, I never miss under OS 9.
Re:What is the point? (Score:1)
Re:What is the point? (Score:2)
Technically, I don't think either OSX or Linux is preferable over the other. While basic command line stuff ports pretty easily to OSX, there is a lot of stuff that's hard to port and where the OSX APIs are just enormously cumbersome compared to what Linux offers. In short, neither OSX nor Linux is clearly better than the other--they are different OSes for different user communities. But if you spend the money for a Mac, it makes sense to run OSX--for Linux, PCs are more cost effective platforms.
Re:For people like me. (Score:2, Informative)
Taken from their User Guide [maconlinux.net]:
What it will save you is having to by a second Mac or reboot each time you want to go into either Linux or Mac OS [X].Re:For people like me. (Score:1)
Sounds like VMware for PPC (Score:3, Insightful)
As for the questions asking why, I suppose it's the same reason you might want to run VMware on an Intel machine: develop/test for multiple platforms without rebooting; or get capabilities only available in one or the other without a reboot. What would be much more interesting to me is MOL (or equivalent) for OS X. Just like running Linux or FreeBSD under VMware for Windows, it would allow me to run LinuxPPC or maybe even NetBSD under OS X (Classic already takes care of OS 9, and probably better than this program could). And unlike the VMware on Windows case, my host operating system would be enjoyable to use. ;-)
Re:Sounds like VMware for PPC (Score:1)
In vmware it emulates hardware, making it very slow.
Since MOL doesnt need to emulate anything its fast! Super fast. Its like running Macos with linux running in the background.
I have been waiting for this for a long long time.
Re:The problem with emulated OS X on PC... (Score:2)
Re:The problem with emulated OS X on PC... (Score:2)
Dictionary.com:
3. Computer Science. To imitate the function of (another system), as by modifications to hardware or software that allow the imitating system to accept the same data, execute the same programs, and achieve the same results as the imitated system.
Re:The problem with emulated OS X on PC... (Score:1)
MOL uses your hardware no hardware emulation.
Re:The problem with emulated OS X on PC... (Score:2, Informative)
In fact, one could say that it is MacOS X that has been ported to run on MOL
The only thing that is emulated is privileged aspects of the CPU.
Re:The problem with emulated OS X on PC... (Score:2)
Why? (Score:3, Insightful)
What hardware? (Score:1)
Re:What hardware? (Score:1)
so you can run apps (Score:2)
oh, wait. nuts. it's not ported to OS X yet.
*writes angry, impatient letter to adobe* *again*
well, hey, at least i can run The Gimp on OS X
oh
Re:so you can run apps (Score:1)
Don't waste the stamp. (Score:2)
It's been out for a few months now.
Re:so you can run apps (Score:2)
thanks fFor the tip!
Re:so you can run apps (Score:1)
Apparently you don't know much about MacOS X...
Re:so you can run apps (Score:2)
5 ppl now have pointed me to PS on OS X, even after i thanked someone fFor pointing it out.
and of *course* gimp runs on OS X. but like
Re:so you can run apps (Score:1)
The next time I will try to be more aware of irony in your posts...
Re:so you can run apps (Score:2)
i think i'll make you my fFriend. people who humbly reply to explanations are cool
Re:so you can run apps (Score:1)
It's Quark that we should be pestering. (Score:2)
Now if Quark would get off their duffs and release a native MacOS X version of QExpress, I would celebrate. As it is, Adobe's Indesign keeps looking better and better.
Adobe lets you download a 30 day trial which looks good and has me really wanting to switch.
-Peter
Why? (Score:1)
I sure don't.
And I bet those guys don't either.
a reason (Score:1)
Interesting (Score:3, Funny)
MacOS runs on Linux - Apple section (? I dunno, i have everything on the FP) and the statement "but why...?"
Remember Google? I got a M$ .NET vis studio ad (Score:1)
Recently I've surfed the M$dev zones just out of curiosity so maybe my ad cookies got tainted but this stinks! It's an article on Linux+osX and I get a stinkin' 24 blinkin' bits M$ ad right up my face... so next time
Please
If anyone wants I can email a snapshot...
Logo love (Score:1)
Re:Logo love (Score:1)
Better get your copy (Score:1)
Why should they? (Score:1)
Re:Why should they? (Score:2)
Apple's EULA doesn't allow this, and their litiguous nature in other things leads me to believe they might come down on this project.
Re:Why should they? (Score:1)
---snip----
Q: Does MOL run on the AmigaOne hardware (or in general, on non-Apple hardware)?
A: It does. MOL runs on any PowerPC hardware (except 601-based systems). However, the EULA of MacOS prohibits its usage on non-Apple hardware (it is of course perfectly legal to use MOL to boot a second Linux thoiugh).
----snap-----
So, I guess they are on the save side.
Can I boot a remote firewire dev? (Score:2)
Can I plug in an external firewire drive and install Linux onto it, then boot into it without disturbing my internal OS X install? (And for extra credit, while booted into the firewire linux partition, run MOL and boot my internal drive's OS X install?!)
I guess this may be a stupid question for Mac'ers, but I'm a newbie and this world is still pretty new to me. To give you an idea, you can't imagine how excited I was when a friend showed me how to turn on verbose boot messages! :-)
Re:Can I boot a remote firewire dev? (Score:1)
Disappointing (Score:1)
Great! It doesn't need a ROM image. Unfortunately it needs a Mac.
I'm dying to run Mac OS X (and I don't mind buying the OS), but there's no way I'm going to actually buy a mac..
Flamebait? (Score:1)
Isn't that a bit of a flamebait?
Seriously 'tho, how often does someone writing a Linux app ask why? It's generally more like 'Would anyone else want to try this out?'. And the answer is generally Yes.
MAC OS X under linux (Score:1)
Re:RS6000 (Score:1)
You can use MOL to run LinuxPPC on LinucPPC on a non-Mac however.
because... (Score:2)
Because you can't control-alt-F[1-6] and get a full-screen VT in Mac OS X, that's why.
Re:Granny Smith's rectum (Score:2)
Re:Granny Smith's rectum (Score:2)