"Mac on Linux" for Mac?
 

I know that you can run Mac OS X in MOL in Linux, but I'm wondering if there is a product that will do the same for Mac OS X, or if MOL will run in Apple's X11. Something like the way that Virtual PC works (using disk images to store the "drive") would be ideal.

Quite often I want to test something in various systems, and keeping multiple partitions on my PowerBook and rebooting is undesirable.

Any suggestions would be welcomed.

thanks!

hey duo...

thought i'd bump your thread and say that i've always wanted to know the same thing.

sorry i can't help though. but i'll be glued to this thread...

I'm not exactly sure what it is you are looking for.

If you are running Linux and want to emulate OS9 or OSX, run MOL.
If you are running OSX and need OS9, use classic.
If you are running OSX/OS9 and need PC or Linux emulation, use Virutal PC.

Maybe I'm just missing something.

Sorry for the confusion. I'm running 10.3.3 and am wanting to run other versions of Mac OS X temporarily for testing purposes.

The only way I can see that being feasible is getting MOL to work on OSX ... and then installing the various other flavors of OSX within that.

From my experience, the only way that I know of is with partitions and/or multiple machines ... both of which are relatively impractical.

Kinda strange to wrap thought around ...
MacOSX running MOL running MacOSX
but I do "get it"


Good luck and I look forward to hearing anything you find out.

Another possibility
 

Have you tried Bochs ?

It's open source but not very easy to configure ...
(And not to forget : It's slow ...)

I don't remember where but I know that there is a package for OSX somewhere ...

BTW : http://bochs.sourceforge.net/

Well, Bochs is an x86 emulator, so that isn't what he's asking about.

What he wants is an OS X virtual machine running inside of OS X. I don't think that's possible with the current kernel, but it would be a very handy feature. Another one of those things that might come to pass with a true 64 bit system.

I don't see what's so annoying / hard about a separate bootable partition myself. I do it that way despite being on an elderly WallStreet, which means it can't boot from external FireWire and can't boot from a parition beyond the first eight gigs of HD even on the main internal. So I swap them back and forth.

On a modern PowerBook I'd think it would be child's play to format a big internal HD into two bootable partitions and put one version of X on one and a different version on the other.

Be that as it may, I agree that it would be cool as hell to have VirtualMac available to us, to run 10.3.4 on a trial basis, -- or10.1.5 or MacOS 8.6, or Yellow Dog Linux or Macintosh System 6.0.8 for that matter -- just select your processor type, RAM allocation, ROM type, and bootup .dmg or .img file and click "Run".

I know I'd rather run MacOS 9 that way when I want 9, rather than fool around with Classic.

Two good examples are when I'm working on server stuff, or programming. I want to test a setting in Mac OS X Server while keeping my powerbook up, because they usually come to me at odd times. Testing, recoding, and recompiling apps on various systems would be easier if I could keep the code open on my PowerBook, and test the app in various systems as I make changes, without rebooting.

I have vMac, which emulates a Mac plus, but I only use that for old games. I think part of my desire is feature envy (there is VPC for PCs, why isn't there VPM for Macs?) ;)

Hmm, OK, I see your point.

::realizes he was about to express hope that Connectix might someday release such a product::

Hmm.

Well...

There's a variant on BasiliskII called Sheep_Net which appears to be available as Unix source code, and which will enable the emulation of a PowerPC Macintosh -- i.e., with the right ROM you can run MacOS 8.6 on it. (The people I've read posting about it are PC Unix users, btw, so it's a full-fledged emulator).

The biggest barrier until recently in the world of Macintosh emulation has been the fact that all emulators emulated the 68K processor family. So they're pretty ecstatic about this as a breakthrough.

It's still in its infancy though, and as owners of 7100s will testify being able to run other PPC-based MacOSs doesn't necessarily give you the ability to run OS X. (In fact were it not for XPostFacto, I would not be in Panther right now).

The whole project is still in its toddlerhood, if not infancy, but it's promising, and would probably ultimately result in a VirtualMac that will run OS X.

Of course, we'd like it better if we could have the emulator pass CPU instructions directly to our dual G5s instead of re-inventing the instruction-set wheel, since otherwise we'd take a major speed hit, same as we do with VirtualPC.

If you're taking about running Mac OS X on a Macintosh, you really don't need to emulate much of anything. :)

You just need to provide a protected memory space and pass device driver calls on to (or through) the host OS. That's pretty much how MoL (and Classic) work. That's what a virtual machine is.

The reason I think a 64 bit OS will clean this up is that it will be a lot easier to manage the multiple 36 bit address spaces used by the current Mac OS X.

Well, actually, you could run MOL on Red Hat or something, and run OSX under that, and the whole thing would be under VPC. Or, you could use a 2nd HDm or you could run MOL in Yellow Dog Linux. (Yes, you can.) :cool:

Actually, if you grab a rsync-ed version of MOL, and play with a few settings and tweak a bit (as I did) you CAN infact get MOL running on OSX. Its just not official yet cause its buggy.

:eek: I know what I'm tackling soon then. :D

Could you go into a few more details, or at least give a pointer to some? I've been waiting for MOL to work in OSX for months now!

Sorry to bump the thread, but I'm very curious about this as well. I'd like to run MOL in OS X, and have a linux running inside of it, instead of the other way around. Has anyone gotten this to work? Maniac1590, if you see this, please give us some tips.

Thanks!
Fred

Very curious about this too since it would prevent me from having to restart every time I have to switch to a different OSX version.
Would also like to know if some one knows of an emulator besides VPC (cause its too expensive for the poor product you get(btw: the first reviews for VPC 7 are not good for those who have not read about it and/or are waiting for it)) that will run Win2k or WinXP, idealy open source, either in X or X11... I looked at Bosch but its as stated before in the thread not easy of use and only emulates a PII 400, which is not enough for what I need to run... Plus win2k and Xp are not supported in Bosch... Any ideas ?

In the MOL news page http://www.maconlinux.org/news.html under the Technical highlights for March 21st it says that MOL will soon run under OS X. Hopefully that means the next release... which looking at the update cycle looks like it coould still be several months away.

There is an open-source project called Darwine http://darwine.opendarwin.org/ that may be what you're looking for. It is a port of WINE with an x86 emulator (QEMU), and runs in X11 but eventually will run in Aqua. It is still being worked on, but it shows great promise. Maybe in a few months or a year it will be far enough along to do the things you want.

Thanks for the replies. staypuft: I've looked at Darwine, I'm interested in it but it doesn't really pertain to my situation here; I specifically would like to run PPC linuxes, since no emulation is needed. I have Virtual PC for any x86 OSes I might like to run. Thanks for the note about the upcoming release maybe running on OS X, that's good to know.

Any recent news on MOL on OS X??
 

I've been wishing for this ever since I bought bought my new AlBook (Aluminum PowerBook) instead of and older TiBook. (I was expecting to able to continue running Mac OS 9.2 as my production enviornment while I gradually migrated to OS X.

Imagine how pissed-off I was when I discovered:

1) My new $1700 PowerBook was *ALUMINUM* (instead of Titianum)!
2) My new $1700 PowerBook COULD **NOT** boot to 9.2!!!!!

ARGGGGGG!!!!! (I *should* have done better research before buying a computer that cost more than my car!)

It's been a couple of months since the last post.

Does anyone know the status of the MOL on OS X???

I *WANT* IT.

I **NEED** IT

-Elsio

I'm pretty sure there is, as of yet, no way to run a second copy of some OTHER MacOS X while booted in X.

You can run MacOS 8.6 or 9 (at least 9.0.x) using the emulator SheepShaver, which has indeed been ported to the Mac and runs as full-speed (uses the native Mac processor instead of having it emulate an older PowerPC processor).

You can, of course, boot MacOS 9.2.2 in Classic, which will let you run most MacOS 9 software, but you'll be in the MacOS X Finder environment.

Mostly, though, make MacOS X your own. It's a good OS.

Just a question about SheepShaver... on the official page it states that it is available for Darwin... not OS X... Is it just that the version for Darwin will run native in OS X with no mods ? (aking as I've had bad surprises about this in the past...)

No, there's an Aqua port. Doesn't mean you can't run the Darwin port, but the Aqua port doesn't require X11 at all.

Cow Pie
 

Hmm. The future naming has potential... MOOSX. :D