maximilian298453 Posted June 26, 2008 Share Posted June 26, 2008 Someone with a lot more knowledge than I can tell me why this is a stupid idea. If I get this, a device driver converts the device's IO scheme to one the OS can understand. If that's true, shouldn't it be possible to write a program to convert the windows standard for IO into the osx one? Then any device driver for windows would work (with this conversion) under osx. If it somehow is possible, it'd be darned useful, although I'd have a hard time seeing it for performance critical things like graphics cards, perhaps more for network cards and the like. Just tossing it out there. Link to comment https://www.insanelymac.com/forum/topic/112623-converter-from-windows-to-osx-for-drivers/ Share on other sites More sharing options...
Poco Posted June 26, 2008 Share Posted June 26, 2008 I would like to see the day someone would make something like that. But I would have to say it would be close to impossible to make one. If you ask me it is impossible because of the huge differences between the OSs. Its like someone being able to make an OS that runs windows and mac apps. Simply out of this world. Just my opinion, iPoco Link to comment https://www.insanelymac.com/forum/topic/112623-converter-from-windows-to-osx-for-drivers/#findComment-797063 Share on other sites More sharing options...
tomnic Posted June 26, 2008 Share Posted June 26, 2008 A similar project exists for Linux and FreeBSD, it is called NDISwrapper or NDISulator, for wireless and network cards... taking a .sys driver for win and converting to a loadable module in linux or freebsd without recoding anything... It should be nice to port it to OSX. Not totally impossible so... Link to comment https://www.insanelymac.com/forum/topic/112623-converter-from-windows-to-osx-for-drivers/#findComment-797560 Share on other sites More sharing options...
kytzu Posted June 26, 2008 Share Posted June 26, 2008 So far is not possible to port drivers form Linux to OSX (and OSX is based on UNIX) so for windows I'm sure it's impossible! Link to comment https://www.insanelymac.com/forum/topic/112623-converter-from-windows-to-osx-for-drivers/#findComment-797657 Share on other sites More sharing options...
BigPimpin Posted June 26, 2008 Share Posted June 26, 2008 Ndiswrapper is evil. On Linux it gives the false sense that a device is supported. You don't get the full features of your network adapter when you use it. Don't hold your breath waiting for an OSX version. Link to comment https://www.insanelymac.com/forum/topic/112623-converter-from-windows-to-osx-for-drivers/#findComment-797658 Share on other sites More sharing options...
csim Posted June 26, 2008 Share Posted June 26, 2008 Imagine forking a few of the open source virtualization projects which presently exist, eliminating all the functions that would not be of any use and adding or improving appropriate support for direct access to hardware, a custom tailored version of Windows which all things unrelated to the functionality of the hardware and host software are removed. Integrate this product into the Darwin/XNU kernel and voila, Windows Native Driver Support. However, its limitations are obvious, this would consume a greater amount of system resources, also it would increase the overhead so performance will be more or so unpleasant. Link to comment https://www.insanelymac.com/forum/topic/112623-converter-from-windows-to-osx-for-drivers/#findComment-797731 Share on other sites More sharing options...
maximilian298453 Posted June 26, 2008 Author Share Posted June 26, 2008 Out of curiosity, how does parallels handle device drivers? I realize the conversion is the opposite way. Also, it bears mentioning that in theory this isn't one program, but several, one for each class of device (network card, printer, sound card, etc). I figured such a thing was in principle possible, but had no illusions that it was likely to be attempted anytime soon (if ever). Link to comment https://www.insanelymac.com/forum/topic/112623-converter-from-windows-to-osx-for-drivers/#findComment-797868 Share on other sites More sharing options...
BigPimpin Posted June 27, 2008 Share Posted June 27, 2008 Out of curiosity, how does parallels handle device drivers? Good question. Windows has supported drivers for many more devices than OSX and I don't think Apple could re-write all of them. The technology must share the PCI/USB/Firewire/etc bus hardware between the native OSX operating system and the Windows guest, in which case it's actually the native Windows drivers controlling the devices with a thin sharing layer for interrupts and I/O data paths in between. But I'm not sure. Link to comment https://www.insanelymac.com/forum/topic/112623-converter-from-windows-to-osx-for-drivers/#findComment-798192 Share on other sites More sharing options...
tomnic Posted June 29, 2008 Share Posted June 29, 2008 Ndiswrapper is evil. On Linux it gives the false sense that a device is supported. You don't get the full features of your network adapter when you use it. Don't hold your breath waiting for an OSX version. It depends from card to card... the project itself is very cool! It worked for me in freebsd + at those times an unsupported broadcom wifi card. There's even a thread in insanely about porting it to osx... supporters wanted! http://forum.insanelymac.com/index.php?sho...mp;#entry463950 Begin from there searching sources: http://developer.berlios.de/projects/evil-sources/ So, again, really not easy at all, but not impossible! And results can also be improved Link to comment https://www.insanelymac.com/forum/topic/112623-converter-from-windows-to-osx-for-drivers/#findComment-800253 Share on other sites More sharing options...
MagicWTF Posted July 29, 2008 Share Posted July 29, 2008 tada, pour toi, this should shed some light for you Apple Dev. Con. Unix driver porting, and app porting Link to comment https://www.insanelymac.com/forum/topic/112623-converter-from-windows-to-osx-for-drivers/#findComment-837465 Share on other sites More sharing options...
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