this post was submitted on 06 Dec 2023
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Darling is a translation layer that lets you run macOS software on Linux, not an emulator, it's like wine but for MacOS apps.

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[–] [email protected] 137 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago) (3 children)

Oh come on, we could have lived in a world where the translation layers are called WINE and DINE!

[–] [email protected] 71 points 10 months ago (4 children)

How petty would it be to make a fork of it just to rename it to DINE?

[–] [email protected] 23 points 10 months ago

The right kind of petty.

[–] [email protected] 14 points 10 months ago

It's the only logical choice!

[–] [email protected] 11 points 10 months ago
[–] whostosay 3 points 10 months ago

You'd likely need to write someone complimentary software called KNIFE.

[–] [email protected] 35 points 10 months ago

I mean, "Wine, Darling?" Is still pretty good

[–] [email protected] 89 points 10 months ago (4 children)

for those not familiar, this basically lets you run command line tools. anything with a GUI will not work.

[–] Quazatron 24 points 10 months ago
[–] Limeey 22 points 10 months ago (1 children)

Everything starts somewhere, but I wonder what macOS cli’s are the target for this tool that doesn’t have a Linux equivalent

[–] [email protected] 32 points 10 months ago

CLI's are likely not specifically the target. I suspect the CLI is just the "low hanging fruit" and core set of software that needs to be supported before you build up to a fully functional GUI apps.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 10 months ago

Seeing how the majority of CLI apps available on the Mac are ported over from Linux in the first place, what is even the point?

[–] WalrusByte 26 points 10 months ago (1 children)
[–] AbouBenAdhem 12 points 10 months ago (2 children)

For software that’s currently available on both Windows and MacOS, how does the performance of the Windows version under Wine compare to the MacOS version under Darling?

[–] [email protected] 20 points 10 months ago

Wine is much, much better at this point. In particular, Darling doesn’t have much support for GUIs yet, so unless it is a command line tool you probably want to stick with Wine.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 10 months ago

I imagine if Darling gets as well supported it would be better. But it will not be optimized as much, even though the core architecture may be way more similar

[–] just_another_person 8 points 10 months ago (5 children)

Anyone have experience with it? I'm trying to think of something that is MacOS only that I care about to test it with, but coming up empty.

[–] [email protected] 13 points 10 months ago

Haven't tried it yet, but I can see myself using it in the future. It could be great for automating Mac/iOS development and administrative workflows. I don't think you can compile, sign, notarize, or inspect Mac/iOS apps without Xcode tools (which are, of course, Mac-only). It's a pain in the ass to operate Mac VMs for such purposes, and it's only getting more difficult as time goes on. IIRC Apple only allows 2 guest VMs per host now.

Not sure if there are any non-Mac tools to work with dmg files (Mac disk images).

If GUI support is sufficiently developed in the future, there are plenty of Mac apps I would like to run. iPhone app support on Linux would be an absolute game-changer.

[–] torvusbogpod 7 points 10 months ago

Might be a good way to run Photoshop if it's more compatible with Adobe apps than Wine

[–] [email protected] 4 points 10 months ago

I mean they have lots of MS Apps, Adobe stuff, some video editors and all that, maybe MS apps on macOS are less hard to run

[–] [email protected] 1 points 10 months ago

If in the future it ever gets good support for gui's and is stable. For sure gone try Qlab.

It's simple the best show control software I tried yet. But for now I will be using Linux show player or borrow a MacBook.

[–] ForgotAboutDre -3 points 10 months ago

Safari is by far the best browser for battery performance. I'm uncertain if this would translate over to safari running in darling when it supports guis fully.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 10 months ago (4 children)

I don't really understand the appeal of this. What command line software is there on MacOS that there isn't an adequate equivalent to on Linux?

[–] [email protected] 23 points 10 months ago

Well, none. One assumes the aspiration is to implement Cocoa, to allow GUI apps to run.

[–] [email protected] 11 points 10 months ago

Its a first step. And then some day complex software can run, even though I have the feeling that has all shady DRM stuff inside

[–] [email protected] 8 points 10 months ago

For me the appeal is potentially being able to verify that my code at least compiles and has basic functionality on Darwin. No idea if this can be useful for anyone other than developers.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 10 months ago

Well, none. One assumes the aspiration is to implement Cocoa, to allow GUI apps to run.

[–] brianorca 4 points 10 months ago (1 children)

How long until they stop delivering apps with Intel support, which would break this tool?

[–] [email protected] 4 points 10 months ago

Uhm, if that happens, maybe the devs could use something like qemu or a specialized fork of it?

[–] [email protected] 4 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago)

I do love the textutil program in MacOS, very powerful and easy to use. Maybe this will run it.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 10 months ago (1 children)

Cool. Do you know if this project will support PowerPC-era Mac OS X apps or if that makes any difference? There are a bunch of quirky and fun games that could avoid being lost to time if an "emulator" can run them.