Re: cross compile to MacOS

[Robert Heller]

At Sat, 21 Nov 2020 19:58:23 +0100 Valerio Messina <efa@iol.it> wrote:

> 
> hi,
> I'm using MXE with satisfaction and can generate for Win32 and 64.
> 
> I want to cross compile my CLI, SDL and GTK applications for MacOS too.
> I looked around and found some cross-compiler for MacOS, but all require 
> to download and install the Apple SDK (many GB), and some are not 
> maintained anymore.
> 
> Reading the MXE Introduction say it can cross compile for various target 
> platforms, but as now seem only Win32 and Win64 are supported.
> Since CLI, SDL and GTK are natively cross-platform, and MacOS is quite 
> similar to Linux (it is already supported as host), I hope no Apple SDK 
> is needed.

MacOSX is layered on BSD (a variant called Darwin), which is POSIX (like
Linux).  Apple is rather protective of MacOSX, patitularly the non-free 
parts.  

> 
> Are there any chance that MXE will extended to support MacOS as target?

Highly unlikely -- MacOSX is a very different animal from Win32 and Win64. To
have any chance of properly supporting MacOSX, partularly the current version,
you will have to get an actual Mac -- most likely you option is get a MacMini,
which can be networked and ssh'ed into from a Linux machine (shell / CLI
access) and/or use a VNCViewer if you need to use the MacOSX GUI (eg testing
GTK apps). And running MacOSX in a virtual machine is a very tricky business 
-- said to be possible, but you need to first create a virtual "Hackintosh", 
which is somewhat non-tivial.

The build tools for MacOSX are freely available from Apple, but they are only 
meant to run on an actual Mac.  

> 
> thank you for this good software,

-- 
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