Gentoo with a Darwin kernel?

[montin]

This is just an idea. Maybe it's heading to a dead end, but here it goes;

I've been researching a bit for the possibility for building a alternative Mac OS X system with Mach and Darwin (and I/O Kit modules). Then instead of installing the Apples answer to X; Quartz and Aqua, I whould compile X with KDE. So in short words a Mac OS X system with X instead of Quartz.

My idea was to create a system with full support for my hardware (a Powerbook G4) but still with my common Linux-based software. And purely built after my needs and not through the ordenary Mac OS X with there X11-server witch runs on top of Aqua.

Though, I didn't get far enough to try this by a lack of *nix competens. I've alwas been building my system through a distribution with guides to go by. This whould sertainly make me walking by a unknown path.

But then I got an idea; how is the possibilities to compile and run a Darwin kernel with Apples own modules within my currently Gentoo system? How can I merge these two systems into one? Imagine a system like Gentoo with a perfect portage system and all the Linux-compability there is (becouse it is a Linux system) but with a Mac-compatible kernel with the right modules and on top of that a X with whatever you want: KDE, Gnome...

Does this sounds totally lost or might this be possible?

[zhenlin]

You can't run Aqua and XF86 (native) at the same time on the same hardware - they will fight for control of the video card.

Then, you can't run Linux and Darwin at the same time on the same hardware - they will fight for control of everything -- MMU, PCI cards, HDD...

Sorry, can't be done so easily.

The best you can do is use Fink, it has a good repetoire of *nix-y software.

Alternatively, install Linux, and use Mac-On-Linux to run Mac OS X within virtual Mac hardware, ala VMware on x86.

[boojummy]

If you're willing to wait a little bit, the Gentoo Portage team has been planning, at least since June to my knowledge, to port Portage to MacOS.

http://www.gentoo.org/proj/en/gentoo-alt/macos-1.xml

If I understand this correctly, there is at least some basic functionality on MacOS, but if you don't mind waiting a bit, it should happen eventually. That should make your idea considerably easier, plus you'll still actually get to run all those nifty Aqua apps.

Maybe a Portage developer can be a little more specific...

Anyhow, fink is a good alternative in the meantime for a Portage-like system on MacOS. Fink should work with Darwin, too...

-b

[Forty-Two]

You want to run osX with KDE instead of quartz?I dug around a little, and if you have a dual boot gentoo/osx, and you don't mind risking borking os X, you might try this:

Taken from Racoon Fink
____________
July 01, 2003
Cool OSX Trick

If, for some godforsaken reason, you want to run KDE in X11 as your GUI instead of the MacOSX Finder, it's possible!

gecko2 gave me this tip on IRC, I haven't tried it yet but I plan to when I get the chance.

First, the current Fink packages don't make a "kdm" file for pam, so copy /etc/pam.d/login to /etc/pam.d/kdm (this will be fixed in a future release).

Next, edit /etc/ttys and change the console line to:

console "/usr/X11R6/bin/xinit /etc/X11/xinit/xinitrc" vt100 on secure window=/sw/bin/kdm

You'll also need to turn on verbose booting, otherwise SystemStarter leaves the window server open when it finishes, and KDM can't get a login. To do so, run "sudo nvram boot-args=-v". That will update your OpenFirmware to boot in verbose mode (to do it just once, hold down command-v while booting).

Then, reboot, and (in theory), you should have the KDE login manager asking for your username and password, instead of the normal desktop or login prompt from OSX.

Update: it didn't work for me. I rather like my Mac interface, so I'm not terribly interested in digging into it and finding out why, but I'm sure there's some way to make it work...
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[ange]

check :
- http://www.gnu-darwin.org/
- http://www.opendarwin.org/

I've made some research about this but didn't try ...

[silian87]

Remember that your hardware works on macosX, no on Darwin..... Apple's darwin is differnet from native darwin... Infact that version of darwin has got a lot of proprietary modules to support your hardware, because BSD'S licences does not require that the sources of the kernel remain free..... So I think that you should try darwin only first, and check if your hardware works!
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[watersb]

I have been playing with my new PowerBook 15" for two days, and intend to use it as my primary platform for the next round. But I intend to use Gentoo.

I will use Mac OSX natively, and probably use Gentoo package management, participating in the port of Gentoo to Mac OS X.

- Apple X Windows FAQ
- http://www.metapkg.org
- Apple Technical Links for Unix people

I installed some things using fink, and I was impressed right up until I was disappointed; it encountered circular dependencies and was not able to complete an installation of a package. Fink is basically a port of Debian apt, and I am not yet familiar with Debian, so I cannot fix things that I could fix if it were using portage.

That is to say, Portage is better, IMHO.

And as much as I have loved what Linux has taught me, I am very happy with my Mac so far. I think that Portage can add something.

That said, some people are running Linux _natively_, and running Mac OS X as an emulation layer _inside_ it. You would *lose device-driver support* such as power management on the laptop computers, so I am not going this route for now. But it is an option you could try:
- Mac on Linux

[dizzey]

i dont like running x11 applications in quartz (aqua) mode
so i used to login ass console and then start xfree + kde.

to bad the xfree server was realy slow in console mode so i gave it upp
and im now dualbooting linux insted.

i found the easist way to get to console to switch user in osx and then give
console as username then qartz will shutdown and give you a standard console prompt

[@alexander]

We now have a page where we are collaborating on the Gentoo/Darwin system:

http://penguincluster.com/cgi-bin/wiki.pl

Kito is the guy who is really doing all the work on this, but it'd be nice to have some help.

[NewBlackDak]

I though it would be cool if portage was ported to several arch/systems.
Then you could have:
Gentoo-Linux
Gentoo-BSD
Gentoo-Darwin
Gentoo-[Insert open source kernel of coice here]



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[Rawn027]

all i want to say is if you want to see gentoo on many diff arch and kernels START DONATING...we need to give gentoo the resources to be able to invest time and people into these excited new steps into technology. We all love open source and the free community but we also need to realize that we want these open sources communities to thrive and for this amazing gentoo community to thrive we need to see donations and support all over the place. Better and more arch specific install guides are very simple to help with and are not that hard to make. Lets all put our many hands together and make it that much easier for gentoo to keep releasing top quality services and there awsome operating system. Reach into your pockets and give gentoo 5 dollars. 5 dollars to one person is very little but when 5 dollars is donated to gentoo from its very large user-base they recieve much support and trust me they will "repay" us very generously.
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