Running OSX apps in linux

ivanova · Posted: Mon Jul 24, 2006 7:00 pm Post subject: Running OSX apps in linux

Is there an emulator for running OSX apps on a x86 cpu? As far as I understand, MOL only works for PPC cpu's.
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sternklang · Posted: Mon Jul 24, 2006 7:34 pm Post subject:

Yes, check out pearpc. There's also sheepshaver and basiliskII, but I think those are limited to classic MacOS. All three are in portage, and all require you get your own copy of the OS. Someone posted on the forums about a OSX ABI implementation (similar to Wine for Windows), but I think that project is far away from completion.

AaronPPC · Guru Joined: 29 May 2005 Posts: 522 Location: Tucson, AZ

I have not researched it, but I have to think that an x86 version of MOL is in work.
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sternklang · Posted: Mon Jul 24, 2006 9:07 pm Post subject:

AaronPPC · Guru Joined: 29 May 2005 Posts: 522 Location: Tucson, AZ

I guess that would be a bad sign.

On the other hand, MOL would perform better on the x86 arch than PPC. There might be some reason for hope.
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avieth · Veteran Joined: 17 Sep 2004 Posts: 1945 Location: Canada

Can't Qemu do mac os?

iTux · Guru Joined: 07 Sep 2004 Posts: 586 Location: Toronto

Hello,

BTW, mol is quite a nice software. I'm not using it anymore because my Mac OS X got old and I'm not using it anymore. But I used it for some time and it works great.

My opinions.

1) Mol will be ported to x86

Well, Mol as any virtualization software is very architecture specific. So, it will require quite some work. It might be less work to had OS X support to x86 virtualization software than to port it? But then I don't know.

The Mol project is still active but has been a little bit more quiet in the last year or two.

And I don't remember hearing about plan to port it to x86. I remember seeing a lot of emails of people asking shortly after Apple switch. But I don't remind any commitment made.

2) Mol will be faster on x86

Well, maybe with the new virtualization instructions from Intel / AMD...

But to make a general statement, the PowerPC architecture is easier to virtualize than the x86. Just think about it. There is mol, an open source virtualizer for PowerPC. On x86, before Xen, only commercial apps were available. It has to do with the fact that on the x86 architecture the system registers can be read by code running in user-mode. And there is some hacks that needs to be done -- I think part of the kernel code of the guest OS needs to be rewritten at run-time or something like that.

The new instructions from AMD and Intel are likely to help. But I doubt that the PC hardware will reach the level of IBM's POWER servers on that side. The POWER servers have hardware specially designed for virtualization (not only CPU support). But it should still be good enough for PCs.

iTux