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digitalmars.D - Intel Based Macs and DMD?

reply John Reimer <terminal.node gmail.com> writes:
Walter, with the Intel Macs out now, is there a chance we could see a 
DMD version for them?  You did it for Linux a couple of years ago; can 
you do it for Mac (Darwin is a FreeBSD derivative)?  Can the DMD backend 
handle that platform?

I know you are loaded with tons of things to do... but I think this 
could be quite useful eventually.

First answer would be to know if there were a linux compatibility layer 
available for Mac OS X (Intel edition).

-JJR
Feb 23 2006
parent reply Mike Parker <aldacron71 yahoo.com> writes:
John Reimer wrote:

 Walter, with the Intel Macs out now, is there a chance we could see a 
 DMD version for them?  You did it for Linux a couple of years ago; can 
 you do it for Mac (Darwin is a FreeBSD derivative)?  Can the DMD backend 
 handle that platform?


This would be an awesome thing for me. It would bring me much, much 
closer to actually using D for a commercial project.
Feb 24 2006
parent reply =?ISO-8859-1?Q?Anders_F_Bj=F6rklund?= <afb algonet.se> writes:
Mike Parker wrote:


 Walter, with the Intel Macs out now, is there a chance we could see a 
 DMD version for them?  You did it for Linux a couple of years ago; can 
 you do it for Mac (Darwin is a FreeBSD derivative)?  Can the DMD 
 backend handle that platform?


 
 This would be an awesome thing for me. It would bring me much, much 
 closer to actually using D for a commercial project.


Feel free to use GDC in the meantime, though. Perhaps not as "tight"
or fast as the DMD compiler, but it *is* available (since last year):

http://prdownloads.sourceforge.net/gdcmac/gdc-0.17-mac-universal.dmg
(see http://www.apple.com/universal/, means: "both powerpc and i686")

--anders
Feb 24 2006
parent reply John Reimer <terminal.node gmail.com> writes:
Anders F Björklund wrote:

 Mike Parker wrote:
 

 Walter, with the Intel Macs out now, is there a chance we could see a 
 DMD version for them?  You did it for Linux a couple of years ago; 
 can you do it for Mac (Darwin is a FreeBSD derivative)?  Can the DMD 
 backend handle that platform?


 This would be an awesome thing for me. It would bring me much, much 
 closer to actually using D for a commercial project.


 
 Feel free to use GDC in the meantime, though. Perhaps not as "tight"
 or fast as the DMD compiler, but it *is* available (since last year):
 
 http://prdownloads.sourceforge.net/gdcmac/gdc-0.17-mac-universal.dmg
 (see http://www.apple.com/universal/, means: "both powerpc and i686")
 
 --anders



But doesn't Darwin have a Linux compatibility layer equivalent to 
FreeBSD?  It may be easier to get DMD working on Darwin then we realize 
now that Intel is the processor base.  GDC is good, but DMD would be 
better for this machine for a number of reasons.

I have a Darwin 8.01 virtual machine installed in my vmware workstation, 
but I'm not sure how to get DMD in there and tested.  I don't know how 
to get the linux compatibility layer installed and set up either.

-JJR
Feb 24 2006
next sibling parent reply =?ISO-8859-1?Q?Anders_F_Bj=F6rklund?= <afb algonet.se> writes:
John Reimer wrote:


 But doesn't Darwin have a Linux compatibility layer equivalent to 
 FreeBSD?  It may be easier to get DMD working on Darwin then we realize 
 now that Intel is the processor base.  GDC is good, but DMD would be 
 better for this machine for a number of reasons.


Not that I know of*, but NetBSD could run Darwin binaries I think ?
(i.e. the other way around) I don't have any Intel Mac yet though...

All I've seen for Mac OS X are *source-level* compatibility layers.
Not like http://www.freebsd.org/doc/en/books/handbook/linuxemu.html


BTW:
Darwin has been "universal" from the beginning, and even before that.
(OS X hasn't, offically) http://www.opensource.apple.com/darwinsource/

--anders


* there are some wild such rumors flying around for Mac OS X 10.5,
   possibly even including Windows support (like the WINE project)
Feb 24 2006
parent reply John Reimer <terminal.node gmail.com> writes:
Anders F Björklund wrote:

 John Reimer wrote:
 

 But doesn't Darwin have a Linux compatibility layer equivalent to 
 FreeBSD?  It may be easier to get DMD working on Darwin then we 
 realize now that Intel is the processor base.  GDC is good, but DMD 
 would be better for this machine for a number of reasons.


 
 Not that I know of*, but NetBSD could run Darwin binaries I think ?
 (i.e. the other way around) I don't have any Intel Mac yet though...
 
 All I've seen for Mac OS X are *source-level* compatibility layers.
 Not like http://www.freebsd.org/doc/en/books/handbook/linuxemu.html
 
 



That was the case when Mac OS X was on PowerPC for sure.  But I was 
hoping the linux-compat package would be popularized/fixed with the 
release of Intel Macs.  From the googling I've done, though, it appears 
that you are right about this.



 BTW:
 Darwin has been "universal" from the beginning, and even before that.
 (OS X hasn't, offically) http://www.opensource.apple.com/darwinsource/
 



Yes, I know this, Anders. But it's not until Intel Macs came out that 
this had any relevance for most people.  Darwin on Intel, as far as I 
know, wasn't extremely popular.  Now it has raison d'être.




 --anders
 
 
 * there are some wild such rumors flying around for Mac OS X 10.5,
   possibly even including Windows support (like the WINE project)



You mean something like this?

http://darwine.opendarwin.org
Feb 24 2006
parent =?ISO-8859-1?Q?Anders_F_Bj=F6rklund?= <afb algonet.se> writes:
John Reimer wrote:


 All I've seen for Mac OS X are *source-level* compatibility layers.
 Not like http://www.freebsd.org/doc/en/books/handbook/linuxemu.html


 
 That was the case when Mac OS X was on PowerPC for sure.  But I was 
 hoping the linux-compat package would be popularized/fixed with the 
 release of Intel Macs.  From the googling I've done, though, it appears 
 that you are right about this.


I wish I wasn't. Such a FreeBSD-ish compatibility layer would have been
useful, now I have to dual-boot for running Linux on this Mac. (PowerPC)

Heck, I can't even access the ext2/3 *partition* in a stable manner...
(just experimental ways, like http://sourceforge.net/projects/ext2fsx/)


 Yes, I know this, Anders. But it's not until Intel Macs came out that 
 this had any relevance for most people.  Darwin on Intel, as far as I 
 know, wasn't extremely popular.  Now it has raison d'être.


Darwin on PowerPC isn't extremely popular either, but having access to
the source code to (at least parts of) operating system is very useful.

Interestingly, Darwin on PowerPC always came with universal/fat tools
for cross-compiling to Intel, but tools on Mac OS X on PowerPC do not...

Well, didn't until Mac OS X 10.4 - which does have compilers for both.


 * there are some wild such rumors flying around for Mac OS X 10.5,
   possibly even including Windows support (like the WINE project)


 
 You mean something like this?
 http://darwine.opendarwin.org


Yes, but less buggy and more integrated :-)

Having Linux ABI *and* Win32 ABI for Intel macs, would be pretty neat ?
(i.e. without having to go through a "box" mode like VMWare/VirtualPC)

--anders
Feb 24 2006
prev sibling parent reply =?ISO-8859-1?Q?Anders_F_Bj=F6rklund?= <afb algonet.se> writes:
John Reimer wrote:


 I have a Darwin 8.01 virtual machine installed in my vmware workstation, 
 but I'm not sure how to get DMD in there and tested.  I don't know how 
 to get the linux compatibility layer installed and set up either.


Would you care for downloading GDC and give it a whirl on Darwin 8/X86 ?

I'm pretty curious if it works, since it's crosscompiled and untested...
(it shouldn't link to any Mac OS X-specific libraries, as far as I know)

--anders
Feb 24 2006
parent reply John Reimer <terminal.node gmail.com> writes:
Anders F Björklund wrote:

 John Reimer wrote:
 

 I have a Darwin 8.01 virtual machine installed in my vmware 
 workstation, but I'm not sure how to get DMD in there and tested.  I 
 don't know how to get the linux compatibility layer installed and set 
 up either.


 
 Would you care for downloading GDC and give it a whirl on Darwin 8/X86 ?
 
 I'm pretty curious if it works, since it's crosscompiled and untested...
 (it shouldn't link to any Mac OS X-specific libraries, as far as I know)
 
 --anders



I know you asked me to do this before.  But this isn't so easy.

Darwin boots in the virtual machine, but I don't really know much more 
on how to use it:  I don't know how to get more packages; I don't know 
if I need more packages; I don't know how to download them into the 
Darwin console (no X server on this one).  Furthermore I'm on dialup, so 
src packages are typically huge and slow to download for me.  Absolutely 
no fun there.

All this takes a fair bit of time and research.  At the moment, I'm not 
sure if I want to go to the trouble of trying all this with a system I'm 
unfamiliar with. I've got a number of other priorities over this one.

If you had access to an intel machine (not a mac), you could just get 
the vmplayer and try it yourself, no?

-JJR
Feb 24 2006
next sibling parent =?ISO-8859-1?Q?Anders_F_Bj=F6rklund?= <afb algonet.se> writes:
John Reimer wrote:


 I know you asked me to do this before.  But this isn't so easy.
 
 Darwin boots in the virtual machine, but I don't really know much more 
 on how to use it:  I don't know how to get more packages; I don't know 
 if I need more packages; I don't know how to download them into the 
 Darwin console (no X server on this one).  Furthermore I'm on dialup, so 
 src packages are typically huge and slow to download for me.  Absolutely 
 no fun there.


Ah, OK. I thought you had it up and running and on broadband. Sorry.

Also remembered that I didn't do a ZIP for the Universal, just a DMG.
(DMG and PKG are propriatary formats, so they only work on Mac OS X)


 All this takes a fair bit of time and research.  At the moment, I'm not 
 sure if I want to go to the trouble of trying all this with a system I'm 
 unfamiliar with. I've got a number of other priorities over this one.


I don't blame you at all, just figured if it was a 5 minute thing...

There are plenty of Intel Macs now, so you don't need to bother.
If no-one else has one, I'll just have to go to the Apple Store :-)


 If you had access to an intel machine (not a mac), you could just get 
 the vmplayer and try it yourself, no?


I do have an Intel machine again since a while back, but for reasons
such as the ones you give above I haven't gotten Darwin 8 to run yet.

Oh well, if this takes off I just have to get a real Intel Mac...

--anders
Feb 24 2006
prev sibling parent reply =?ISO-8859-1?Q?Anders_F_Bj=F6rklund?= <afb algonet.se> writes:
John Reimer wrote:


 If you had access to an intel machine (not a mac), you could just get 
 the vmplayer and try it yourself, no?


Thanks for this suggestion! This "VMWare Player" is really nice with
premade images, might even consider getting VMWare Workstation now...
(still using Virtual PC, I'm afraid, which didn't want to run Darwin)

However, new Darwin 8 is *much* less polished than what Darwin 7 was.
This is probably because OpenDarwin has run into some "troubles"...
(see the recent story http://ezine.daemonnews.org/200602/apple.html)


I'm just going to quote some starter commands here, rest is off-topic:
ifconfig en1 192.168.13.100
route add default 192.168.13.2
echo 'nameserver 192.168.13.2' > /etc/resolv.conf

So I see why you had problems with it, I can't even get DNS to work!
(above *should* do the trick, but only works with dig - not curl ?)
But playing with the /etc/hosts file, I at least got DarwinPorts up.


DarwinPorts is at http://darwinports.opendarwin.org/, it has X11:
http://darwinports.opendarwin.org/downloads/DarwinPorts-1.2.tar.gz
port -d selfupdate && port install xorg

Setting up the rest of Darwin/X86 is not really interesting here,
so I will just post later on if I get GDC 0.17 tried out on it...
But it won't really be useful for any Mac OS X testing, it seems.

--anders
Feb 26 2006
parent reply John Reimer <terminal.node gmail.com> writes:
Anders F Björklund wrote:

 John Reimer wrote:
 

 If you had access to an intel machine (not a mac), you could just get 
 the vmplayer and try it yourself, no?


 
 Thanks for this suggestion! This "VMWare Player" is really nice with
 premade images, might even consider getting VMWare Workstation now...
 (still using Virtual PC, I'm afraid, which didn't want to run Darwin)
 



It is a great tool.  I purchased VMWare Workstation a year or two ago 
and have not regretted the purchase.  You can even boot OS's off a real 
drive from inside a virtual machine.  I love the USB support too. 
Inside Linux, if you plug a USB drive into a USB port while the vm is in 
focus, that drive gets automatically detected and mounted within the VM 
client.



 However, new Darwin 8 is *much* less polished than what Darwin 7 was.
 This is probably because OpenDarwin has run into some "troubles"...
 (see the recent story http://ezine.daemonnews.org/200602/apple.html)
 



8 is much less polished?  Wow, that's strange. I'll have to read the 
story behind that.  Thanks for the link.



 I'm just going to quote some starter commands here, rest is off-topic:
 ifconfig en1 192.168.13.100
 route add default 192.168.13.2
 echo 'nameserver 192.168.13.2' > /etc/resolv.conf
 
 So I see why you had problems with it, I can't even get DNS to work!
 (above *should* do the trick, but only works with dig - not curl ?)
 But playing with the /etc/hosts file, I at least got DarwinPorts up.
 
 



Well, I hadn't much of a clue how to set these things up.  I know very 
little of Darwin and the BSD's (although I've played a little with 
FreeBSD in the past).  I imagine there are wikis or tutorials online 
somewhere for setting things up, but it doesn't look at all easy.



 DarwinPorts is at http://darwinports.opendarwin.org/, it has X11:
 http://darwinports.opendarwin.org/downloads/DarwinPorts-1.2.tar.gz
 port -d selfupdate && port install xorg



Hmm... Interesting.  Good to know. I may actually try this eventually. 
Thank you.



 Setting up the rest of Darwin/X86 is not really interesting here,
 so I will just post later on if I get GDC 0.17 tried out on it...
 But it won't really be useful for any Mac OS X testing, it seems.
 
 --anders



Yes, please tell me if you are successful.

-JJR
Feb 26 2006
next sibling parent =?ISO-8859-1?Q?Anders_F_Bj=F6rklund?= <afb algonet.se> writes:
John Reimer wrote:


 However, new Darwin 8 is *much* less polished than what Darwin 7 was.
 This is probably because OpenDarwin has run into some "troubles"...
 (see the recent story http://ezine.daemonnews.org/200602/apple.html)


 
 8 is much less polished?  Wow, that's strange. I'll have to read the 
 story behind that.  Thanks for the link.


Well, I should clearify that...

Darwin 8.0.1 is about as polished as Darwin 7.0.1 was. (i.e. not at all)
These are Apple releases, and their efforts go into Mac OS X instead...

http://www.opensource.apple.com/darwinsource/

The difference lies in how much support can be found in the OpenDarwin
project, and they are currently offering OpenDarwin 7.2.1 (but not 8.x)

http://www.opendarwin.org/

And some of the reasons for *that*, can be found in the story above and
at the personal pages of Rob Braun: http://www.opendarwin.org/~bbraun/

--anders

BTW;
I find Mac OS X 10.3 better than Mac OS X 10.4 too, but that's just me.
Feb 26 2006
prev sibling next sibling parent reply =?ISO-8859-1?Q?Anders_F_Bj=F6rklund?= <afb algonet.se> writes:
John Reimer wrote:


 DarwinPorts is at http://darwinports.opendarwin.org/, it has X11:
 http://darwinports.opendarwin.org/downloads/DarwinPorts-1.2.tar.gz
 port -d selfupdate && port install xorg


 
 Hmm... Interesting.  Good to know. I may actually try this eventually. 
 Thank you.


The xorg port did compile, but did not bring an X server... <duh>
But the XFree86 version ("port install XFree86"), from XDarwin did:

http://www.algonet.se/~afb/darwin/darwin8-xfree86.png

Two minor "gotchas" were: /usr/X11R6/bin was not in the PATH and the
need to add http://xdarwin.org/USA.keymapping to /Library/Keyboards/

--anders
Feb 26 2006
parent John Reimer <terminal.node gmail.com> writes:
Anders F Björklund wrote:

 John Reimer wrote:
 

 DarwinPorts is at http://darwinports.opendarwin.org/, it has X11:
 http://darwinports.opendarwin.org/downloads/DarwinPorts-1.2.tar.gz
 port -d selfupdate && port install xorg


 Hmm... Interesting.  Good to know. I may actually try this eventually. 
 Thank you.


 
 The xorg port did compile, but did not bring an X server... <duh>
 But the XFree86 version ("port install XFree86"), from XDarwin did:
 
 http://www.algonet.se/~afb/darwin/darwin8-xfree86.png
 
 Two minor "gotchas" were: /usr/X11R6/bin was not in the PATH and the
 need to add http://xdarwin.org/USA.keymapping to /Library/Keyboards/
 
 --anders


Wow!  Nice!

-JJR
Feb 26 2006
prev sibling parent reply =?ISO-8859-1?Q?Anders_F_Bj=F6rklund?= <afb algonet.se> writes:
John Reimer wrote:


 Setting up the rest of Darwin/X86 is not really interesting here,
 so I will just post later on if I get GDC 0.17 tried out on it...
 But it won't really be useful for any Mac OS X testing, it seems.


 
 Yes, please tell me if you are successful.


Well, the bad news is that GCC and Libm are broken "out-of-the-box"
(too old: GCC 4.0.0 and Libm-92), so GDC won't compile/work as it is.

All version details at http://www.opensource.apple.com/darwinsource/

Mac OS X 10.4.4+ works, but for Darwin 8.0.1 you need to upgrade the
packages using the source code tarballs, which is something of a drag.


The good news is that they just released: http://www.apple.com/macmini
(and that GDC works OK on Darwin 8 ppc, and will on x86 after fixing...)

--anders

PS. That was GDC. No DMD news, I take it ?
Feb 28 2006
parent reply John Reimer <terminal.node gmail.com> writes:
Anders F Björklund wrote:

 John Reimer wrote:
 

 Setting up the rest of Darwin/X86 is not really interesting here,
 so I will just post later on if I get GDC 0.17 tried out on it...
 But it won't really be useful for any Mac OS X testing, it seems.


 Yes, please tell me if you are successful.


 
 Well, the bad news is that GCC and Libm are broken "out-of-the-box"
 (too old: GCC 4.0.0 and Libm-92), so GDC won't compile/work as it is.
 
 All version details at http://www.opensource.apple.com/darwinsource/
 
 Mac OS X 10.4.4+ works, but for Darwin 8.0.1 you need to upgrade the
 packages using the source code tarballs, which is something of a drag.
 



Major drag!!



 The good news is that they just released: http://www.apple.com/macmini
 (and that GDC works OK on Darwin 8 ppc, and will on x86 after fixing...)
 
 --anders
 
 PS. That was GDC. No DMD news, I take it ?



Ohhh!! Drool... I've been waiting for something like that x86 bases mac 
mini.

-JJR
Feb 28 2006
parent =?ISO-8859-1?Q?Anders_F_Bj=F6rklund?= <afb algonet.se> writes:
John Reimer wrote:


 Mac OS X 10.4.4+ works, but for Darwin 8.0.1 you need to upgrade the
 packages using the source code tarballs, which is something of a drag.


 
 Major drag!!


It can be done, using http://opendarwin.org/projects/darwinbuild/
(DarwinBuild to build the system, while DarwinPorts is for add-ons)

Just is somewhat off-topic here... Rest of GDC news went in D.gnu.

--anders
Feb 28 2006