On: Darling: Run macOS Software on Linux

[vinniepukh]

Seems like GUI application support is not there yet. In that case, what command-line software for MacOS is actually useful for?

[fuzzy2 → vinniepukh]

Last I tried Darling, my goal was to make a proprietary printer driver run on Linux. It was available for Windows and macOS (CUPS). So that’s one use case.

[notRobot → fuzzy2]

Did it work?

[fuzzy2 → notRobot]

No, unfortunately I could not get Darling to compile back then and gave up. (I don't have that printer anymore either.)

[j45 → fuzzy2]

Depending on your printer

You may be able to print directly to port 9100 of the printer using netcat

[hiatus → fuzzy2]

Why this over Wine with the Windows executable?

[fuzzy2 → hiatus]

The Windows driver wouldn't work with CUPS. Or is there something like ndiswrapper for printer drivers?

[lathiat → fuzzy2]

Similarly I was hoping to run the Bonjour Conformance Test on Linux in CI for Avahi. Which is CLI as well.

[LoganDark → vinniepukh]

Xcode build tools. Right now you practically need a macOS machine to compile applications for macOS or iOS.

[IshKebab → LoganDark]

For command line apps you can cross-compile from Linux. IIRC it does require building Clang from source, and obtaining a Mac SDK (which is probably against their T&C's) but there are pre-made scripts to do it (there's a good GitHub Actions one).

That said, I only do that for free projects. For commercial stuff I'd just buy a Mac Mini.

[LoganDark → IshKebab]

> For command line apps you can cross-compile from Linux.

You technically can, but this has various issues. The lack of UI frameworks is one. I don't remember the others since I have a real Mac, but it's only an Intel Mac.

[maxloh → IshKebab]

Any links?

[roblabla → maxloh]

Here you go: https://github.com/tpoechtrager/osxcross

[IshKebab → maxloh]

https://github.com/mbround18/setup-osxcross

[ptspts → LoganDark]

On a Linux host, use pts-osxcross (https://github.com/pts/pts-osxcross) to target macOS, it contains Clang and other build tools precompiled for Linux amd64.

[whalesalad → vinniepukh]

Honestly my feelings exactly. Any cli software that’s available for Mac is also available for any other Unix. Seems entirely pointless to me.

[fevangelou → vinniepukh]

Spot on ;)