Run MacOS Software On Linux Using Darling
We have Wine, a free and open-source compatibility layer that helps us to install and run applications and games developed for Windows on Linux and Unix-like operating systems. We also have an emulator named Dosbox to run good-old MS-DOS games and defunct C++ compilers like Turbo C++ in Linux. What about macOS software? Have you ever wondered how to run applications specifically for mac under Linux? That’s what we are going to do now. This guide explains how to run macOS software on Linux operating systems using Darling runtime environment.
What is Darling?
Darling is a translation layer that allows us to run macOS applications on Linux. It emulates a complete Darwin environment, including Mach, dyld, launchd and everything you’d expect. It lets you to instantly switch to a Bash shell and start running the applications built for macOS in your Linux system. Sounds cool, yeah?
Darling is very similar to Wine. Wine allows you to run Windows apps on Linux. Darling lets you to run macOS software Linux.
Good thing is Darling doesn’t violate Apple’s EULA. Because It only uses the parts of Darwin version that are released as fully free software.
The name «Darling» comes from the combination of “Darwin” and “Linux”. As you probably know, Darwin is the core operating system macOS and iOS are based on.
Darling is free and open-source software released under GPLv3.
Install Darling in Ubuntu Linux
Currently, the Darling developers have provided pre-compiled DEB packages only. Go to the releases page and download the DEB packages are provided for darling and darling-dkms (the kernel module).
$ sudo gdebi darling-dkms_0.1.20200331.testing_amd64.deb
Sample output:
Reading package lists. Done Building dependency tree Reading state information. Done Reading state information. Done Kernel module for Darling Do you want to install the software package? [y/N]:y /usr/bin/gdebi:113: FutureWarning: Possible nested set at position 1 c = findall("[[(](\S+)/\S+[])]", msg)[0].lower() Selecting previously unselected package darling-dkms. (Reading database . 269719 files and directories currently installed.) Preparing to unpack darling-dkms_0.1.20200331.testing_amd64.deb . Unpacking darling-dkms (0.1.20200331~testing) . Setting up darling-dkms (0.1.20200331~testing) . >>> DKMS: Module add, build, and install Creating symlink /var/lib/dkms/darling-mach/0.1/source -> /usr/src/darling-mach-0.1 DKMS: add completed. Kernel preparation unnecessary for this kernel. Skipping. Building module: cleaning build area. 'make' -C lkm/ MIGDIR=/usr/src/darling-mach-0.1/miggen MIGDIR_REL=../miggen KERNELVERSION=5.4.0-48-generic. cleaning build area. DKMS: build completed. darling-mach.ko: Running module version sanity check. - Original module - No original module exists within this kernel - Installation - Installing to /lib/modules/5.4.0-48-generic/updates/dkms/ depmod. DKMS: install completed. After installing darling-dkms package, install darling using command:
$ sudo gdebi darling_0.1.20200331.testing_amd64.deb
Sample output:
Reading package lists. Done Building dependency tree Reading state information. Done Reading state information. Done Requires the installation of the following packages: libc6-i386 Darling macOS emulation layer for Linux Do you want to install the software package? [y/N]:y /usr/bin/gdebi:113: FutureWarning: Possible nested set at position 1 c = findall("[[(](\S+)/\S+[])]", msg)[0].lower() Get:1 http://ny-mirrors.evowise.com/ubuntu focal-updates/main amd64 libc6-i386 amd64 2.31-0ubuntu9.1 [2721 kB] Fetched 2721 kB in 0s (0 B/s) Selecting previously unselected package libc6-i386. (Reading database . 274071 files and directories currently installed.) Preparing to unpack . /libc6-i386_2.31-0ubuntu9.1_amd64.deb . Unpacking libc6-i386 (2.31-0ubuntu9.1) . Setting up libc6-i386 (2.31-0ubuntu9.1) . Processing triggers for libc-bin (2.31-0ubuntu9.1) . Selecting previously unselected package darling. (Reading database . 274374 files and directories currently installed.) Preparing to unpack darling_0.1.20200331.testing_amd64.deb . Unpacking darling (0.1.20200331~testing) . Setting up darling (0.1.20200331~testing) . >>> Shutting down old instances of Darling Seeing if Darling is currently running No instances running now The reason I prefer to install .deb packages with Gdebi is it will automatically resolve the required dependencies and install them for me. If you prefer to use dpkg package manager, you need to first install the Darling DEB packages and then install the missing dependencies like below.
$ sudo gdebi darling-dkms_0.1.20200331.testing_amd64.deb
$ sudo gdebi darling_0.1.20200331.testing_amd64.deb
On other Linux distributions, you may need to manually compile and install Darling from the source as described here.
Run MacOS Software On Linux Using Darling
The developers of Darling are planning to build a nice and user-friendly GUI for interacting with Darling. But for now, we can interact with Darling via command line only.
To enter into Darling shell, simply run the following command as normal user:
$ darling shell Loaded the kernel module Setting up a new Darling prefix at /home/sk/.darling Bootstrapping the container with launchd. Darling [/Volumes/SystemRoot/home/sk/Downloads/darling]$
This command will start a virtual root directory (i.e. container) or connect to an already running container and spawn the shell inside.
It will also automatically load the kernel module and initialize the prefix contents if required. The Darling prefixes are called DPREFIXes , which are very similar to WINEPREFIXes . A prefix is nothing but a virtual “chroot” environment with an macOS-like filesystem structure, where we can install software safely.
The current shell running inside the container is Bash and it’s version is 3.2.
$ bash --version GNU bash, version 3.2.57(1)-release (x86_64-apple-darwin14) Copyright (C) 2007 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
Now, we are inside the emulated macOS-like environment. Since macOS is an Unix variant, many Linux and Unix commands should work in the Darling shell.
For example, print operating system’s name using command:
$ uname Darwin
List the contents of root (/) directory:
Sample output:
total 120 drwxr-xr-x 2 sk sk 4096 Oct 5 09:54 Applications drwxr-xr-x 1 sk sk 4096 Oct 5 07:19 Library drwxr-xr-x 1 sk sk 4096 Oct 5 07:19 System drwxrwxr-x 4 sk sk 4096 Oct 5 09:54 Users drwxr-xr-x 1 sk sk 4096 Oct 5 09:54 Volumes drwxr-xr-x 1 sk sk 4096 Oct 5 07:20 bin lrwxrwxrwx 1 sk sk 23 Mar 31 2020 dev -> /Volumes/SystemRoot/dev lrwxrwxrwx 1 sk sk 11 Mar 31 2020 etc -> private/etc drwxr-xr-x 1 sk sk 4096 Oct 5 09:54 private dr-xr-xr-x 292 sk sk 0 Oct 5 09:54 proc drwxr-xr-x 1 sk sk 4096 Oct 5 07:20 sbin lrwxrwxrwx 1 sk sk 11 Mar 31 2020 tmp -> private/tmp drwxr-xr-x 1 sk sk 4096 Oct 5 09:54 usr drwxr-xr-x 5 sk sk 4096 Oct 5 09:54 var
Similarly, use any macOS-specific commands to explore the emulated environment.
Darling filesystem layout
If you are already familiar with macOS filesystem, you will notice that the filesystem layout inside the container is similar to that of macOS, including the the top level directories such as /Applications , /Users , and /System etc.
The original Linux filesystem is visible as a separate partition that’s mounted on /Volumes/SystemRoot . You can verify it by running any Linux command with full path name like below:
$ /Volumes/SystemRoot/bin/uname Linux
As you see in the above output, It lists my actual host system’s name, not the container’s name. If you don’t specify the pull path (i.e. /Volumes/SystemRoot/bin/uname ), it will list the container’s name.
When running macOS programs under Darling, you may want them to access the files in your home folder. To make this convenient, there is a LinuxHome symlink in your Darling home folder that points to your Linux home folder, as seen from inside the container. Additionally, standard directories such as Downloads in your Darling home folder are symlinked to the corresponding folders in your Linux home folder.
List of things you can currently do with Darling
Please note that most GUI applications will not work at the moment. Currently, you can only run some simple graphical applications and many command line programs. Don’t get disappointed. The GUI applications doesn’t work out of the box just yet. The developers are working on this to fully integrate apps running under Darling into the Linux desktop just like the native apps. They even have plans for supporting iOS apps in the long run.
Here is the list of commands that you can currently run with Darling.
Print the Mac OS X operating system details using command:
This command will display the Mac OS name, product version and build version:
ProductName: Mac OS X ProductVersion: 10.14 BuildVersion: Darling
Print something cool on the standard output using echo command:
$ echo Welcome To OSTechNix Welcome To OSTechNix
Display the name of the operating system:
Explore the Darling filesystem:
$ ls -l /Library/ total 56 drwxr-xr-x 1 sk sk 4096 Oct 5 07:19 Developer drwxr-xr-x 1 sk sk 4096 Oct 5 07:20 Documentation drwxr-xr-x 1 sk sk 4096 Mar 31 2020 LaunchAgents drwxr-xr-x 1 sk sk 4096 Mar 31 2020 LaunchDaemons drwxr-xr-x 1 sk sk 4096 Oct 5 07:19 Python
$ ls -l /Volumes/ total 8 lrwxrwxrwx 1 sk sk 1 Mar 31 2020 DarlingEmulatedDrive -> / drwxr-xr-x 25 sk sk 4096 Oct 5 07:19 SystemRoot
$ ls -l /System/Library/ total 120 drwxr-xr-x 1 sk sk 4096 Oct 5 07:19 Components drwxr-xr-x 1 sk sk 4096 Oct 5 07:20 CoreServices drwxr-xr-x 1 sk sk 4096 Oct 5 07:20 Frameworks drwxr-xr-x 1 sk sk 4096 Oct 5 07:20 LaunchDaemons drwxr-xr-x 1 sk sk 4096 Oct 5 07:19 OpenSSL drwxr-xr-x 1 sk sk 4096 Oct 5 07:19 Perl drwxr-xr-x 1 sk sk 4096 Oct 5 07:19 PrivateFrameworks drwxr-xr-x 1 sk sk 4096 Mar 31 2020 Security drwxr-xr-x 1 sk sk 4096 Oct 5 07:19 User Template
Display currently running processes:
$ ps aux USER PID %CPU %MEM VSZ RSS TT STAT STARTED TIME COMMAND sk 127 0.0 0.1 4226308 8760 ?? R 1Jan70 0:00.02 nps aux sk 19 0.0 0.1 4219692 5944 ?? R 1Jan70 0:00.03 o/usr/libexec/shellspawn sk 20 0.0 0.1 4342428 9236 ?? R 1Jan70 0:00.06 s/usr/sbin/syslogd sk 21 0.0 0.1 4224292 8956 ?? R 1Jan70 0:00.03 s/usr/sbin/memberd -x sk 22 0.0 0.2 4355536 15544 ?? R 1Jan70 0:00.06 /usr/sbin/iokitd sk 23 0.0 0.1 4423744 9400 ?? R 1Jan70 0:00.14 //usr/sbin/notifyd sk 33 0.0 0.1 4480688 8576 ?? R 1Jan70 0:00.06 oaslmanager sk 39 0.0 0.0 4227884 3952 ?? RN 1Jan70 0:00.01 s/usr/libexec/shellspawn sk 40 0.0 0.1 4226028 10084 ?? R 1Jan70 0:00.38 e/bin/bash --login sk 1 0.0 0.1 4260676 9536 ?? R 1Jan70 0:01.06 n/sbin/launchd
You can do more. Everything is given under the section titled «What to try» in the official documentation linked at the end.
Terminate Darling
One you are done with exploring the Mac OS, simply exit from the Darling shell and shutdown the container using commands:
You will not see any notification when the container is being shutdown. Run that command again and you will see the following output:
Darling container is not running
Conclusion
Unlike Wine, Darling is not a mature project. Using Wine, you can run so many windows applications, even some high-end games, under Linux. Unfortunately, Darling do not help much. It can only run a handful of command line programs at the moment. It is still in alpha-stage. You can use it for basic learning and testing purposes.
Give it a try and let us know how’d go in the comment section below.
sk
Senthilkumar Palani (aka SK) is the Founder and Editor in chief of OSTechNix. He is a Linux/Unix enthusiast and FOSS supporter. He lives in Tamilnadu, India.