linuxfan66 Posted March 28, 2007 Share Posted March 28, 2007 Mac OS X gui + linux kernel could it be workable? I think it would work if apple supported it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cmdshft Posted March 28, 2007 Share Posted March 28, 2007 OS X doesn't use X Server. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
(MoC) Posted April 4, 2007 Share Posted April 4, 2007 Not only the X server but basically drivers, kernel and almost everything would have to be rescripted if you would like to do this. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lactobacillus P Posted April 4, 2007 Share Posted April 4, 2007 Unix/BSD and Linux are different beasts although quite alike on the surface. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Christoph Pfisterer Posted April 8, 2007 Share Posted April 8, 2007 There are quite a few things that would make it difficult even for Apple to change the kernel from underneath Mac OS X: The hardware driver model in Darwin is completely unlike any other Unix on the planet. It actually uses a restricted subset of C++. Various parts of Mac OS X, including the Cocoa framework and third party applications, use Mach ports explicitly to bootstrap and run inter-process communication. These APIs are not available on Linux. Apple's graphics system (CoreGraphics / Quartz) is pretty unique, and I'm sure it is tightly coupled with the OpenGL subsystem, the graphics card drivers, and the kernel's memory management to make it fast. Darwin not only fully supports the HFS+ file system (including journalling plus hot resize for Boot Camp nowadays), it also exposes special private APIs to make the Carbon API work at all and work fast. The differences between *BSD and Linux are minor compared to these. The above items are just as valid if Apple were to move to a plain FreeBSD kernel instead of a Linux kernel. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
track09 Posted April 8, 2007 Share Posted April 8, 2007 My man above me says it pretty well. Besides, should you be able to somehow "port" the binary (As you dont have the source), it'd be virtually impossible to get Apps to run, as there's still no Cocoa API. The only thing that may be off is that I'm not so sure Quartz Compositor is "integrated", with the kernel like Windows, but perhaps it's surely optimized to make specific system calls. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
teatime Posted April 11, 2007 Share Posted April 11, 2007 4DWM > every other WM Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
moridinbg Posted April 11, 2007 Share Posted April 11, 2007 If it's only for the GUI it's possible to almost complitely mimic MAC OS interface. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
aquanutz Posted April 11, 2007 Share Posted April 11, 2007 haha 4DWM Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
gnubeard Posted April 20, 2007 Share Posted April 20, 2007 There are quite a few things that would make it difficult even for Apple to change the kernel from underneath Mac OS X: The hardware driver model in Darwin is completely unlike any other Unix on the planet. It actually uses a restricted subset of C++. Various parts of Mac OS X, including the Cocoa framework and third party applications, use Mach ports explicitly to bootstrap and run inter-process communication. These APIs are not available on Linux. Apple's graphics system (CoreGraphics / Quartz) is pretty unique, and I'm sure it is tightly coupled with the OpenGL subsystem, the graphics card drivers, and the kernel's memory management to make it fast. Darwin not only fully supports the HFS+ file system (including journalling plus hot resize for Boot Camp nowadays), it also exposes special private APIs to make the Carbon API work at all and work fast. The differences between *BSD and Linux are minor compared to these. The above items are just as valid if Apple were to move to a plain FreeBSD kernel instead of a Linux kernel. I suppose it depends on what you mean, exactly, by 'hard' .. and what you're looking to achieve. I'll respond to your points in order: Linux doesn't necessarily need Apple drivers, so this may be largely irrelevant. The Mach APIs are available via Mklinux. It is easy to speculate about Apple code that we haven't seen. Surely it wouldn't be difficult for Apple to rewrite the Linux kernel's HFS support These problems are nearly intractable for a solitary programmer. For Apple, I'd bet they could make the switch and get some beta code together in less than a year given the proper motivation. There is not, and probably never will be, motivation to do this. The GPL would require that the 'private APIs' in say, HFS+ be exposed. It would mean that Apple would no longer be able to exert any control over their kernel. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lord_muad_dib Posted April 20, 2007 Share Posted April 20, 2007 mimic - yes port - no there are a lot of different libs and framework that simply aren't available in linux. off course if the project starts from Apple all is possible Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
asap18 Posted April 20, 2007 Share Posted April 20, 2007 Its not only the mach APIs, its the whole Quartz framework which Apple would never release. Plus HFS+ is supported on Linux so that would not be a problem. Plus decrypting apps would need to be fixed with the linux kernel. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Panda200x Posted April 21, 2007 Share Posted April 21, 2007 Enlightenment would do the job for me if there was a Tiger or Aqua skin. http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/0..._Screenshot.png A little modification of the source code and you could move the _[]X buttons to the left. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
linuxfan66 Posted April 22, 2007 Author Share Posted April 22, 2007 Enlightenment would do the job for me if there was a Tiger or Aqua skin. http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/0..._Screenshot.png A little modification of the source code and you could move the _[]X buttons to the left. I dare someone to try it (I don't have suitable programming skills). Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Panda200x Posted April 30, 2007 Share Posted April 30, 2007 I'm pretty sure making a skin would be more of a start. Look on Creative Commons for some free icons if you like. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sev7en Posted May 4, 2007 Share Posted May 4, 2007 Look at this: http://forum.insanelymac.com/index.php?showtopic=50106 It's awesome! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
twophive Posted May 15, 2007 Share Posted May 15, 2007 I thought this was the unix forum. Linux, with Aqua? What? Honestly, I wouldn't want linux, over BSD. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
OMX-Knuckles Posted May 16, 2007 Share Posted May 16, 2007 The question is, why do you really want the Aqua GUI on a Linux system? Just get OS x86. It would be nothing more than a curio... If there's apps you really need that are Linux-only then just add a 3rd party GUI to your favourite distro. I'm sure there's some with Dashboard/Expose like features and a similar appearance. 4DWM > every other WM Hark, a believer!!! R10k forever! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
linuxfan66 Posted May 17, 2007 Author Share Posted May 17, 2007 The question is, why do you really want the Aqua GUI on a Linux system? Just get OS x86. It would be nothing more than a curio... If there's apps you really need that are Linux-only then just add a 3rd party GUI to your favourite distro. I'm sure there's some with Dashboard/Expose like features and a similar appearance. I would be more legal to Aqua on linux than to use OSx86! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
OMX-Knuckles Posted May 17, 2007 Share Posted May 17, 2007 That doesn't really answer the question... A platform is driven by it's application support far more than it's GUI. I could see if you had Linux-only apps but really wanted Aqua- but this doesn't sound like it's worth the trouble except as a "what if" project. Playing around with a new GUI can be fun, but not for long. Just get OS X if you want Aqua or a similar GUI if you want Linux. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dr. Heckles Posted May 17, 2007 Share Posted May 17, 2007 I would be more legal to Aqua on linux than to use OSx86!No it wouldn't. Darwin is open source. You can use OS X's kernel and basic userspace completely legally. Throwing "OS X" atop darwin is no more illegal than trying what you are suggesting, and certainly is far easier. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
linuxfan66 Posted May 18, 2007 Author Share Posted May 18, 2007 No it wouldn't. Darwin is open source. You can use OS X's kernel and basic userspace completely legally. Throwing "OS X" atop darwin is no more illegal than trying what you are suggesting, and certainly is far easier. Prove it! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
NeSuKuN Posted May 18, 2007 Share Posted May 18, 2007 He don't need to. It's common sense, Darwin -> free & open source, Mac OS X GUI -> propietary. What you're trying to do to be 'more legal' it's just the opposite of what you should do. using a linux GUI over Darwing -> legal, using MacOS's propietary gui over a linux kernel it's not only illegal but useless, linux apps aren't prepared for the mac gui as mac apps aren't prepared for the linux kernel. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gooly Posted June 11, 2007 Share Posted June 11, 2007 wirte a code to add HFS support to the kernel. Btw, Why cant the GUI alone ported to Linux. ? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
gwprod12 Posted June 11, 2007 Share Posted June 11, 2007 When we say the gui, are we referring to the look and components OS X uses? If so, that's doable. If we're talking about the apple proprietary structures that make up the entire interface, then while not impossible, it is certainly non-trivial. XFree86 is pretty... um... non-good. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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