I went down a deep but entertaining rabbit hole in the other direction for fun: <a href="https://github.com/ayourtch-llm/fakelinux" rel="nofollow">https://github.com/ayourtch-llm/fakelinux</a> - initially with the idea “just replace the syscalls in the executable with some sort of a trap and handle that”.<p>It almost worked, unfortunately MacOS reserves x18 for platform purposes and Linux doesn’t.<p>The result is some sort of pretty mad contraption which works sufficiently often to compile aarch64 Linux VPP and its dependencies on the Mac using Linux gcc :)<p>I suppose with some polish it might be useful for something..
Recently, Apple has made it so with a special entitlement, com.apple.private.custom-x18-abi iirc, you can actually use the x18 register, mainly so ARM64 versions of WINE/CrossOver can run outside of Rosetta, since they'll be partially killing Rosetta in macOS 28.<p>I believe you can find slightly more info on how to use it in some XNU (macOS kernel) tests, namely this one: <a href="https://github.com/apple-oss-distributions/xnu/blob/main/tests/x18_entitled.c" rel="nofollow">https://github.com/apple-oss-distributions/xnu/blob/main/tes...</a>
In theory, running Apple Silicon apps on ARM64 linux machines would be really nice. But we are still far from having a performant and feature-complete implementation of doing so.<p>Darling only targets x86_64 stuff. Still, it's a cool project.<p>Kinda sad that there are very few updates though [1]<p>[1] <a href="https://blog.darlinghq.org/" rel="nofollow">https://blog.darlinghq.org/</a>
Mac OS X binaries are the most susceptible to bit rot of any major OS. There's constant platform churn, all of it closed source, and there's nowhere near the community that exists around emulating older Windows.<p>You can reliably run DOS, Win, Linux applications of almost any vintage with the right translation layer / emulator, but there's a black hole of MacOS apps circa 2002-2012 that just no longer runs on anything, even later Intel Macs.<p>I used to enjoy a cute little Pacman clone called Pac the Man X, for example, and I just don't know how I could run this today. Seems to reliably take down any emulator I've thrown at it - presumably it's using some kind of graphics acceleration that's not emulated. (Suggestions welcome.)
<i>> Do you know about opensource.apple.com, GNUstep, The Cocotron and other projects?</i><p><i>> We do, and in fact, Darling is largely based on the original Darwin source code published by Apple. We use The Cocotron as a basis for our Cocoa implementation, along with the Apportable Foundation and various bits of GNUstep.</i><p>Apportable (<3) was a YC startup <a href="https://www.ycombinator.com/companies/apportable">https://www.ycombinator.com/companies/apportable</a> from 2011 - the Foundation repo last update was Dec 2014.
Cool that it exists, but I honestly don't even know which mac exclusive program I would want to install.
Why can't we just be satisfied with wayy old mac versions in VMs on linux, ones where you played prince or persia or oregon trail, the fun looking black and white versions and some later ones their steel windows UIs, the theming, the file explorer, the note taker app.<p>Isn't that level of fun one gets from looking at that enough?
Quibble: it'll run anything that runs on open source <i>Darwin</i>. You won't be running anything needing macOS frameworks.
Very neat.<p>All I want for Christmas is Logic on Linux. But then you’d still need a Mac to legally download it from the App Store and DRM checks would probably only work on Macs
Agh that's one of my biggest Linux regrets! Logic Pro is probably my favorite DAW, it feels so smooth to use, and that's likely connected to me using GarageBand extensively when I was a child. (I still remember "composing" multiple memorial songs in honor of Steve Jobs, as weird as that sounds!)<p>The strategy Apple has figured out with GarageBand pre-installed (or at least very low friction to install) seems really really smart in hindsight, give complete beginners a highly simplified but functional version of your professional utility, and provide an on-ramp to your professional programs. I imagine if Microsoft had some professional version of Windows Movie Maker it would've taken over a big chunk of the video editing market via the same method.<p>Anyway, regarding Linux DAWs, I am trying to get used to Ableton in Wine, but it's just not the same, and making it work in Wine is troublesome enough that I end up giving up before finishing anything of interest. Is there any DAW that feels like it actually belongs on Linux and doesn't either feel like you're maintaining a package by yourself, or has an awfully bad UI/UX like all FOSS DAWs I tried so far? I think in 2026 there's really a good opportunity here, with user interest genuinely rising for Linux on desktop.
WINE doesn’t work well with DAWs.<p>Most DAWs barely work on the platforms they support.<p>I can’t see Linux as being a viable market since most Linux users except software to generally be free.<p>Vs OSX which lets you enter a credit card number and buy stuff right from the built in store.<p>If I recall Ubuntu might of once attempted paid applications on its built in store and it didn’t really work.<p>Logic is probably made at below cost, but it keeps you in the OSX ecosystem.<p>Need a 32GB OSX box with a 2TB drive, only one place to get it.
Bitwig natively supports Linux. I bought a license a while ago and while the cost is steep, I don't regret it at all.<p>The downsides are going to be the bland cross-platform UI and the general lack of plugin support on Linux. But the upside is native PipeWire support for application-specific channel audio and complex output routing options. The pack-in plugins are pretty good too, The Grid can replace a lot of your subtractive synths: <a href="https://www.bitwig.com/the-grid/" rel="nofollow">https://www.bitwig.com/the-grid/</a>
Give Reaper a try, it works very well on linux and you can even use VSTs.
> All I want for Christmas is Logic on Linux.<p>Linux has a terrible audio subsystem. First you'd have to write CoreAudio for Linux, which would not be easy.
Finally, I can run Calculator.app and TextEdit on NixOS without buying a $3,000 aluminum cheese grater. Next up: emulating the spinning beach ball of death for authentic nostalgic immersion.
Unfortunately you may never see the beach ball
> Next up: emulating the spinning beach ball of death for authentic nostalgic immersion.<p>It looks more like a Magneto-Optical Drive, not a beach ball
A few years back, I would have dreamt to run Photoshop on Linux.
But this and the mandatory utilities that come with it became so bloated that even if it was officially offered on Linux I am not sure I would be using it.
Is there some really amazing Mac only software that would justify the effort ?<p>I genuiniely can't see why I would want to run Mac software on my Arch box.<p>I have used Linux since the 1990's and used the Mac back in 1988.
There are lots of amazing Mac only apps, but I'm not sure simply running them on Linux would be worth it. Without the cohesiveness of the UI as a whole you'd be losing a lot.
For me it’s mostly media apps - Fireworks CS 6, Reason 10, maybe some version of Garage Band. There’s alternatives but these apps hit a sweet spot that I could camp out on for decades if the tech treadmill didn’t like to make software an exercise in seeing shifting shapes in the clouds.
Or better yet. Dont!
This is the Darling project which aims to run macOS software on Linux for both Intel and ARM64.<p>But you are probably looking for this:<p><pre><code> > Does it support GUI apps?
> Almost! This took us a lot of time and effort, but we finally have basic experimental support for running simple graphical applications.
</code></pre>
It is still far away from running your favorite mac GUI apps like Logic Pro or Xcode, but it is a work in progress but can still run command line tools.
Will it run xcode build tools?
From the FAQ on the Discord:<p>*Does Xcode work?*<p>Yes and no. The Xcode GUI definitely doesn't work yet; see *Will <<Insert_Random_GUI_Application>> Work?* above. However, the Xcode CLI tools like Clang, LLDB, Git, the Metal compiler, the Swift compiler, and more <i>do</i> work.<p>*What about `xcodebuild`?*<p>Some versions of `xcodebuild` (e.g. 11.7) are known to work for <i>extremely</i> basic XIB-based macOS apps. However, the vast majority of projects do not qualify as extremely basic and aren't supported yet.
For me its a shame to make the Mac apps look like linux.
Would be nice to run Final Cut Pro on Linux without having to pay an arm and a leg for the actual machine. It's a really expensive toy :(
The real/final test is running applications like Final Cut Pro using `darling`
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