Original author(s) Operating system License GPL 3 | Development status Active Website www.darlinghq.org | |
Darling is a free and open source software application that aims to allow applications designed for macOS to run on the Linux operating system.
Darling is a compatibility layer, like Wine. It duplicates functions of macOS by providing alternative implementations of the libraries and frameworks that macOS programs call. This method of duplication differs from other methods that might also be considered emulation, where macOS programs run in a virtual machine.
The project started in Summer 2012 and builds on a previous project, named maloader, which was discontinued due to a lack of time. The developer is testing applications, such as Midnight Commander or The Unarchiver on the layer. So far, the layer has been shown to work with many console apps and some simple GUI apps.
The project relies on GNUstep for the implementation of certain frameworks and provides wrappers on top of common Linux libraries to reuse as much existing open source code as possible.
The project may also support iOS applications in the future.