On April 12, 2005 10:48 am, quoth The Disguised Jedi:
> OK...This is going to sound like a really dumb question, but I'm really new
> at this, but liking it so far...
> I've heard (and believe) that the Mac OS is built on a Linux kernel. Is
> this true? If so, does that mean that Macintosh\Apple compatible software
> can be installed on a Gentoo machine? There's lots of software out there
> I'd like to use in my Gentoo environment, and I can find Mac\Apple
> versions, but I don't know if it will work in Gentoo.
> Thanks for reading, and for any help you can give a poor newbie...
The user interface for OS X is based on Nextstep, acquired by Apple when it
took over NeXT. There is an open source project called Gnustep which is
trying to replicate the Nextstep API ("Cocoa"). This means that it might
eventually be possible to recompile Cocoa native applications to run on Linux
using Gnustep, but we are a fair way off yet. Gnustep is on Portage if you
want to try it out. Don't know if you would ever be able to run the binaries
directly on a linux system running on a ppc processor. It won't happen
tomorrow.
If there is a Windows version of the software then you might be able to run
that on an x86 linux box using Wine. Wine is very tricky, but sometimes it
works well. The releases of wine that work best are the ones from early to
mid 2004 and are not in portage.
Emulation is another route. You will need to check up Apple's licenses to see
what you are and aren't allowed to do, legally speaking. mol (Mac-on-Linux)
will allow you to install OS 9 or OS X within a ppc linux installation (but
may not always work). Sheepshaver will allow you to install OS 9 only. I
believe Sheepshaver will also emulate ppc and therefore will run on x86.
Qemu and PearPC are promising emulators for running PPC operating systems on
any architecture, but they are not ready yet (although Qemu will host x86
systems - e.g. windows - fine).
Robert
--
Robert Persson
"Don't use nuclear weapons to troubleshoot faults."
(US Air Force Instruction 91-111, 1 Oct 1997)
--
gentoo-user@gentoo.org mailing list
