![Can Linux Run Mac Apps Can Linux Run Mac Apps](/uploads/1/3/3/9/133906391/205641939.png)
When Apple released MacOS Majove in 2018, the minimum hardware requirements abandon lots of great hardware. While the hardware is still usable, macOS and Apple software cannot be updated to their current releases. That sucks.
This free-to-use-but-don’t-ask-me-if-Apple-approve version of Mac OS 8 runs like a champ on Windows, macOS and Linux (I tested it on the latter). It runs as a standalone app that boots to the OS directly, i.e. There’s no need to fuss around with installers, partitions, or set up dialogs). Linux has wine, if installed, to run some of MS window's programs and windows has cygwin, if installed, to run linux apps. Since Apple uses Darwin which I believe is a unix-like operating system, can linux run Apple programs using some kind of program? After switching to Linux, this computer can run the latest operating system and applications available on Linux. I did this upgrade for my friend, Chris. I look forward to see what experience he has in the classroom with Elementary OS. (It took me 3x longer to write this post than it did to save that Mac mini).
This post outlines the process of moving a Mac Mini (mid-2011) to Linux.
Can Linux Run Mac Apps Mac
Mac Mini
The Mac Mini I’m rescuing is a mid-2011 with i5-2415M, 2GB RAM and 500GB HDD, running macOS High Sierra (version 10.13). It’s dreadfully slow. The goal is to use this machine as a general purpose computer in a classroom for high school students.
In addition to changing the operating system from macOS to Linux, the RAM will be upgraded to 8MB and 550GB hard drive replaced with 128GB SSD.
Steps
The overall steps:
- Order new hardware
- Upgrade RAM and Hard disk drive (HDD)
- Install Linux
Upgrade
I use Crucial’s website to help determine the parts I can upgrade. Using the model of the computer you’re working on, Crucial will show you the options for memory, hard drive, and SSD upgrades. I often buy the parts on Amazon.
For this upgrade, I used: Text messaging app not working on mac air.
- Memory : Crucial – 8GB Kit (2x4GB) DDR3L – 1333 SODIMM ~$60 USD
- Solid State Drive (SSD) : Crucial – BX500 2.5 SSD 120GB ~$22 USD
Upgrading this Mac mini is straight-forward. It was built in the days when ‘upgrade-ability’ was built into the hardware design. Finding a YouTube video to guide you through the steps of taking the Mac Mini apart is very helpful. I used this video from MacSales.
The parts inside the Mac mini fit just right. The first time I did one of these upgrades, the SSD wasn’t aligned properly which prevented the wifi from fitting, and the screw holes did not align. Take your time and don’t force anything.
Installing Linux
I’ve been using Elementary OS for a few weeks, and I’m impressed. I appears to be a good distribution choice for someone coming from MAC. While my day-to-day distribution is currently Pop_OS!, I’m going to give Elementary a try with this upgrade.
Installing Linux is the same basic process for any distribution.
- Download .iso file from the distribution’s website.
- Create a bootable USB Drive with the .iso. There are utilities to do that with; I use Etcher.
- Boot the target computer from the USB Drive and follow the prompts.
Elementary OS has the details of these steps outlined on the installation page of their website.
Wifi
I expected to have issues with wifi. In my experience, when installing Linux on Macs from this era, wifi does not work out of the box. I was pleasantly surprised the Elementary install screen recognized the wifi card and connected to it, and downloaded the latest software update. After the installation was complete and the computer rebooted, the wifi card was no longer recognized. I needed to install drivers. As in the past, running the following command from the terminal fixes the issue:
Up and running
This upgrade was simple and straight-forward. It’s a fun project for someone that has no experience with hardware upgrades or Linux.
Benchmarks
This is my first experience running any type of benchmark. I used GeekBench on the Mac Mini before and after the upgrade. I don’t have much insight into what these numbers mean; I expect to in the future. But my hands-on benchmark tells me this computer runs as fast as much newer hardware and is totally usable.
Before – MacOS w/2GB RAM and HDD
After – Elementary OS w/8GB RAM and SSD
Conclusion
The performance of this Mac Mini would have improved with only the hardware upgrades (without switching to Linux). But on Linux, the performance is really good.
https://advisorentrancement.weebly.com/game-editor-for-mac.html. A more important point is that Apple abandoned this Mac Mini. When Mojave was released in 2018, the minimum hardware requirements are:
- MacBook: Early 2015 or newer
- MacBook Air: Mid 2012 or newer
- MacBook Pro: 2012 or newer, Retina display not needed
- Mac Mini: Late 2012 or newer
- iMac: Late 2012 or newer
Struck at High-Sierra, this computer would only receive security updates, moving forward. Many software applications cannot be updated either. After switching to Linux, this computer can run the latest operating system and applications available on Linux.
I did this upgrade for my friend, Chris. I look forward to see what experience he has in the classroom with Elementary OS.
![Can linux run mac apps mac Can linux run mac apps mac](/uploads/1/3/3/9/133906391/517918920.jpg)
(It took me 3x longer to write this post than it did to save that Mac mini)
Linux users who want to run Windows applications without switching operating systems have been able to do so for years with Wine, software that lets apps designed for Windows run on Unix-like systems.
There has been no robust equivalent allowing Mac applications to run on Linux, perhaps no surprise given that Windows is far and away the world's most widely used desktop operating system. A developer from Prague named Luboš Doležel is trying to change that with 'Darling,' an emulation layer for OS X.
'The aim is to achieve binary compatible support for Darwin/OS X applications on Linux, plus provide useful tools that will aid especially in application installation,' Doležel's project page states. Darwin is Apple's open source operating system, which provides some of the backend technology in OS X and iOS. The name 'Darling' combines Darwin and Linux. Darling works by 'pars[ing] executable files for the Darwin kernel. load[ing] them into the memory. and execut[ing] them.'
But there is a ways to go. How to find mac address on wireless device app. 'Darling needs to provide an ABI-compatible [application binary interface] set of libraries and frameworks as available on OS X. by either directly mapping functions to those available on Linux, wrapping native functions to bridge the ABI incompatibility, or providing a re-implementation on top of other native APIs,' the project page notes.
Download adobe premiere pro cc 2018 for mac. Doležel, who started Darling a year ago, described the project and its progress in an e-mail interview with Ars. Darling is in the early stages, able to run numerous console applications but not much else. 'These are indeed the easiest ones to get working, albeit 'easy' is not the right word to describe the amount of work required to achieve that,' Doležel said. 'Such applications include: Midnight Commander, Bash, VIM, or Apple's GCC [GNU Compiler Collection]. I know it doesn't sound all that great, but it proves that Darling provides a solid base for further work.'
Advertisement Users must compile Darling from the source code and then 'use the 'dyld' command to run an OS X executable,' Doležel said. One roadblock is actually getting Mac .dmg and .pkg application files working on a Linux system. Because doing so isn't that straightforward, Doležel said, 'I've written a FUSE module that enables users to mount .dmg files under Linux directly and without root privileges. An installer for .pkg files is underway.'
Unix/Linux synergy
The fact that OS X is a Unix operating system provides advantages in the development process. 'This saved me a lot of work,' Doležel explained. 'Instead of implementing all the 'system' APIs, it was sufficient to create simple wrappers around the ones available on Linux. I had to check every function for ABI compatibility and then test whether my wrapper works, so it wasn't as easy as it may sound.'
Another lucky break not available to Wine developers is that Apple releases some of the low-level components of OS X as open source code, 'which helped a lot with the dynamic loader and Objective-C runtime support code,' Doležel noted.
But of course, the project is an extremely difficult one. Doležel isn't the first to try it, as Darling was initially based on a separate project called 'maloader.' Doležel said he heard from another group of people 'who started a similar project before but abandoned the idea due to lack of time.'
https://canadianyola.weebly.com/acronis-true-image-download-mac.html. Doležel was actually a novice to OS X development when he started Darling, being more familiar with OS X from a user's perspective than a developer's perspective. 'I have personally looked for something like Darling before, before I realized I would have to start working on it myself,' he said.
Darling relies heavily on GNUstep, an open source implementation of Apple's Cocoa API. GNUstep provides several core frameworks to Darling, and 'the answer to 'can it run this GUI app?' heavily depends on GNUstep,' Doležel said. Doležel is the only developer of Darling, using up all his spare time on the project.
Advertisement No reverse-engineering
Doležel isn't reverse-engineering Apple code, noting that it could be problematic in terms of licensing and also that 'disassembling Apple's frameworks wouldn't be helpful at all because Darling and the environment it's running in is layered differently than OS X.'
The development process is a painstaking one, done one application at a time. Doležel explains:
To improve Darling, I first take or write an application I'd like to have running. If it is someone else's application, I first examine it with one of the tools that come with Darling to see what frameworks and APIs it requires. I look up the APIs that are missing in Apple's documentation; then I create stub functions for them and possibly for the rest of the framework, too. (Stub functions only print a warning when they are called but don't do any real work.)
Can Linux Run Mac Apps Without
The next step is to implement all the APIs according to the documentation and then see how the application reacts. I also add trace statements into important functions to have an insight into what's happening. I believe this is very much like what Wine developers do.
When things go wrong, I have to use GDB [GNU Debugger] to debug the original application.
It is rather unfortunate that Apple's documentation is often so poorly written; sometimes I have to experiment to figure out what the function really does. Many OS X applications seem to contain complete pieces of example code from Apple's documentation, presumably because one would have to spend a lot of time getting to understand how the APIs interact. This is why I appreciate open source so much—when the documentation is sketchy, you can always look into the code.
Years of development are needed. Similar to Wine, 'Having a list of applications known to be working is probably the best way to go,' Doležel said.
Darling should work on all Linux distributions, he said, with the catch that 'many apps for OS X are 32-bit only, and installing 32-bit packages on a 64-bit Linux system could be tricky depending on your distribution. I personally use Gentoo Linux, so I'm gradually creating a Portage overlay that would compile Darling and all dependencies for both 32-bit and 64-bit applications.'
Doležel would like to bring Angry Birds, other games, and multimedia applications to Linux. Darling could potentially 'be used to run applications compiled for iOS,' he writes on the project site. This will also be a challenge. 'The intention is to support the ARM platform on the lowest levels (the dynamic loader and the Objective-C runtime),' he writes. 'Rewriting the frameworks used on iOS is a whole different story, though.'