dudley Posted March 10, 2004 Share Posted March 10, 2004 hey all, sorry if this has been posted elsewhere, i couldn't find anything on this - is there a GPL/GNU Mac-type OS out there for x86 architecture? or should i just go with BSD? as i understand it, Mac OS X, for example, is based on BSD - could be wrong though. (not a regular Mac user, but i'd like to get more into it without dropping big cash on a Mac box) suggestions? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
aristotle-dude Posted March 10, 2004 Share Posted March 10, 2004 Well there is a window manager which supports objective-c for linux called GNU-Step. It supports much of the Openstep/Nextstep specification which OS X is based on. There are a few apps that compile cleanly for both OS X and GNU-Step. Be warned though, it looks like NeXT Step rather than OS X and it does not support newer APIs used in a lot of programs of OS X. OS X runs on a xnu kernel called Darwin which is based on Mach with some BSD bits thrown in. A BSD personality runs on top of the Darwin kernel (if you install it) along with regular OS X and Classic (if you install OS 9). The OS X native part of the OS is based largely on NeXT. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dudley Posted March 10, 2004 Author Share Posted March 10, 2004 thanks! i'll check out gnu-step - anything else public license that i could use to facilitate? i take it that the darwin kernel is proprietary... do you know if there is a 'meta-distribution' i could build from? the analogy i'm thinking of is gentoo linux. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Si Veteran Posted March 10, 2004 Veteran Share Posted March 10, 2004 I think you can get Darwin for x86 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Fred Derf Veteran Posted March 10, 2004 Veteran Share Posted March 10, 2004 I think you can get Darwin for x86 Just as long as he doen't expect to be able to take Darwin for x86 or GNU-Step and run his favourite Macintosh applications on his x86 box. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
danbalsh Posted March 10, 2004 Share Posted March 10, 2004 You can download Darwin for free from http://developer.apple.com/darwin/ But be aware, there is not a lot you can do in it, it has no Aqua or anything else like that. You'd be better off with FreeBSD for the x86 platform (Y) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tim Dorr Veteran Posted March 10, 2004 Veteran Share Posted March 10, 2004 The Darwin kernel is open-sourced under the Apple Public Source License. You can get it and any of their other open source products here: http://www.apple.com/opensource/ Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dudley Posted March 10, 2004 Author Share Posted March 10, 2004 thanks all. true, i probably wouldn't be able to run much. i'd like to familiarize myself from the ground up, if possible, but i'll have to put off downloading the 400-some megabyte darwin source for now. i'll look into freebsd. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Si Veteran Posted March 10, 2004 Veteran Share Posted March 10, 2004 Just as long as he doen't expect to be able to take Darwin for x86 or GNU-Step and run his favourite Macintosh applications on his x86 box. :laugh: Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Southern Patriot Posted March 11, 2004 Share Posted March 11, 2004 thanks all. true, i probably wouldn't be able to run much. i'd like to familiarize myself from the ground up, if possible, but i'll have to put off downloading the 400-some megabyte darwin source for now. i'll look into freebsd. What makes you think FreeBSD is going to be any smaller download than Darwin? FreeBSD is currently 2 full CD's, Darwin is only one. However FreeBSD does have better hardware support than Darwin does. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
the evn show Posted March 11, 2004 Share Posted March 11, 2004 Darwin on x86 really isn't worth the time and effort unless you really want the "I run a strange OS" geek-points. You'd be better off with FreeBSD if you want the feel and function of the BSD core of OS X. GCC compiles objective-C just fine, and you could get your feet wet with GNUStep to get a feel for cocoa (which is heavily based on OpenStep which is what GNUStep is based on). This coming from a current OS X/BSD user and someone with a decade of Linux experience (wow: It's been that long!). Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dudley Posted March 11, 2004 Author Share Posted March 11, 2004 thanks evn show! i'm not into the geek-points, i just wanted to see if it were possible to run that on x86 - i may try darwin, for learning's sake. [roadwarrior, i think rsync'ing freebsd is possible; anyway, it's more compatible for the effort] evn, i just installed gentoo. so far, so good... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
the evn show Posted March 11, 2004 Share Posted March 11, 2004 I used gentoo for about two years and I loved it as far as Linux distributions go: you've made a good choice. Gentoo has many of the benefits of BSD (ports system, sane locations for configuration files, etc) with the big plusses from Linux (huge user base, more advanced kernel, etc.) Most of all, it feels much more like BSD - and OS X's BSD core - than many of the other Linux distributions. I tried a stage 3 install in virtual PC recently and it seams like it's gotten a little bloated - or at least it feels bloated compared to the stage 1 installs I was doing with 1.0rc10 back in 2001/2. Now it included ruby, perl, gcc, java, and python...by DEFAULT. Do I really need half-a-dozen development environments installed? Just give me GCC and Perl (the mainstays of *nix) and let me add the rest later. If I were to install FreeBSD I would burn the first CD or make a couple of boot floppies (depending on the system I were installing to) and then do an FTP based install so I'd only download what I want. http://www.freebsd.org/doc/en_US.ISO8859-1...tall-media.html All this Linux/BSD talk makes me want to give Gentoo the shot on my powerbook it never really had... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tim Dorr Veteran Posted March 11, 2004 Veteran Share Posted March 11, 2004 Darwin on x86 really isn't worth the time and effort unless you really want the "I run a strange OS" geek-points. You should talk to my BeOS-loving friends :D Also, one of my roommates (the one with the ssh Mail.app tunnel) was trying out the Gentoo LiveCD the other day. It was slow simply becuase it was coming off the CD, but it was rather cool for the most part. Kind of a nice demo for those who don't want to take the risk of installing over their existing OS :) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
the evn show Posted March 11, 2004 Share Posted March 11, 2004 I love BeOS as much as the next guy (I bought 4.0 and 5.0 Pro back when Be was still a company). But I mean: come on. BeOS is "the new amiga" as far as I'm concerned. Until OpenBeOS finally ships that is. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
NeoMayhem Posted March 11, 2004 Share Posted March 11, 2004 /hijacks thread... Where can you get the gnome Gentoo LiveCD for PPC? I dont see it on any of their mirrors anymore... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dudley Posted March 11, 2004 Author Share Posted March 11, 2004 evn, gentoo is great - i love being able to build up from the basics, choose what i want, etc. and that it's more similar to BSD=excellent. try it again. i'm putting it on my laptop now. with the 2.6.3 kernel, it's tip-top. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Spacedog Posted March 11, 2004 Share Posted March 11, 2004 evn, have you heard about Zeta, the new "incarnation" of BeOS? Looks quite promising... http://www.yellowtab.com/ Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tim Dorr Veteran Posted March 11, 2004 Veteran Share Posted March 11, 2004 /hijacks thread...Where can you get the gnome Gentoo LiveCD for PPC? I dont see it on any of their mirrors anymore... http://www.gtlib.cc.gatech.edu/pub/gentoo/.../2004.0/livecd/ Pick your processor type and go nuts :) And this is yet another reason why I like my school: I've got a linux mirror site on campus so I can download ISOs at 8MB/s :D Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
the evn show Posted March 11, 2004 Share Posted March 11, 2004 evn, have you heard about Zeta, the new "incarnation" of BeOS? Looks quite promising... http://www.yellowtab.com/ Yes, but it doesn't do me a whole lot of good because all of my desktop machines are macintosh and beos stopped running on PPC when the G3 came out. It's still not terribly useful (even on x86) to me these days - the developer community is about as large as the amiga and none of the software I need is available. It might be fun to play with - but OS X does everything I really need with a better library of applications. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
aristotle-dude Posted March 11, 2004 Share Posted March 11, 2004 If anyone is curious, here is an article on the OS X kernel: http://www.kernelthread.com/mac/osx/arch_xnu.html Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dudley Posted March 11, 2004 Author Share Posted March 11, 2004 nice link, dude! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mr_daemon Posted March 13, 2004 Share Posted March 13, 2004 Just a quick word to mention that Gentoo has changed my life. I was always envious of the bsd ports, somehow... And The Evn Show, I beleive Python is installed by default because the "emerge" scripts are mostly written in that very language. From what I gather, nothing is installed on gentoo (from my stage 2 experience) that is not required somehow. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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