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Darling is a free and open source runtime compatibility layer—akin to Wine—for Linux that allows native macOS (Darwin) applications to run directly without hardware emulation. It implements macOS libraries and frameworks, enabling macOS binaries to execute on Linux. Darling has support for DPREFIXes, which are very similar to WINEPREFIXes. They are virtual “chroot” environments with an macOS-like filesystem structure, where you can install software safely. The default DPREFIX location is ~/.darling, but this can be changed by exporting an identically named environment variable. A prefix is automatically created and initialized on first use. Please note that we use overlayfs for creating prefixes, and so we cannot support putting prefix on a filesystem like NFS or eCryptfs. In particular, the default prefix location won't work if you have an encrypted home directory.
Features
- Provides native-like execution of macOS binaries on Linux via Darwin-based compatibility
- Implements critical macOS subsystems: Mach kernel APIs, dyld loader, launchd environments
- Supports console applications well; GUI support for Cocoa apps is experimental and limited
- Uses overlayfs-based DPREFIX “chroot” environments for isolation and simulating file systems
- No hardware emulation—native performance of supported binaries
- Built using open-source parts from Darwin, GNUstep, Cocotron, and licensed under GPLv3
Project Samples
