Run macOS Apps on Linux with Darling

Ever found yourself wishing you could run that one macOS-only app on your Linux machine? Maybe it's a niche development tool, a creative suite, or just an app you're comfortable with. Dual-booting or maintaining a separate Mac just for a few applications feels heavy. What if you could run them directly on your Linux system?

That's exactly what Darling aims to do. It's not an emulator, and it's not a full virtualization solution. It's something much more integrated and, frankly, pretty clever.

What It Does

In simple terms, Darling is a translation layer that allows you to run macOS binaries on Linux. Think of it like Wine (which runs Windows apps on Linux), but for the macOS ecosystem. Its name is a portmanteau of "Darwin" (the core of macOS) and "Linux."

It's an open-source project that re-implements the core macOS environment—the Darwin kernel APIs, frameworks like Cocoa and CoreFoundation, and other subsystems—so that macOS applications believe they're running on a real Mac.

Why It's Cool

The "magic" of Darling isn't in emulation. Emulators like QEMU simulate the entire hardware, which is slow. Virtualization is faster but still requires a full copy of the macOS operating system to be installed.

Darling is different. It's a compatibility layer that translates macOS system calls into Linux kernel calls on the fly. The app runs directly on your Linux kernel, alongside your native Linux applications. This makes it far more lightweight and performant than the alternatives.

Some of the key features that make it stand out:

• No macOS License Needed: Since it's not running macOS itself, you don't need to worry about Apple's licensing.
• Filesystem Integration: Darling apps can access your Linux home directory, so sharing files between your Linux apps and your "mac" apps is seamless.
• Native Performance: Because it's not virtualizing hardware, the performance overhead is significantly lower.
• A Massive Undertaking: The project is a testament to reverse engineering and understanding complex system internals. It's a huge technical achievement.

How to Try It

Ready to give it a spin? The best way to get started is to check the official documentation, but here's the general idea.

Darling is available as a package for several major distributions, including Fedora, Ubuntu, and Arch Linux. You can often install it directly from your package manager.

For example, on Ubuntu/Debian-based systems, you can often use:

sudo apt install darling

Once installed, you can run a macOS executable (a .app bundle or a command-line binary) from your terminal using the darling command.

# For a command-line tool
darling /path/to/macos_binary

# To shell into the Darling environment
darling shell

Important Note: Darling is still under heavy development. It's a "work-in-progress," so not every macOS app will run perfectly—or at all. It's best suited for command-line tools and simpler GUI applications at this stage. The project's GitHub page has a comprehensive list of what works and what doesn't.

Final Thoughts

Darling is one of those ambitious open-source projects that feels like it's bending reality. While it's not yet a drop-in replacement for a Mac, its progress is seriously impressive. For developers, it opens up possibilities for testing, for running specific build tools, or just for breaking down the walls between operating systems.

It's a project worth watching, and if you're curious about systems programming, it's a fascinating codebase to explore. Give it a try with a simple app and see for yourself.

—

Follow us for more cool projects: @githubprojects