Re: cross compile to MacOS

[Dale Smith]

Hello all,

Yes, in fact, Apple is moving from the x86_64 architecture to its own silicon, based on ARM.

https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2020/11/we-are-giddy-interviewing-apple-about-its-mac-silicon-revolution/

I'm now in the market for a Mac mini.

https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2020/11/mac-mini-and-apple-silicon-m1-review-not-so-crazy-after-all/

Happy Thursday, whether you are in the U.S. or not.

Dale Smith

On 11/22/20 2:37 PM, Robert Heller wrote:

> At Sun, 22 Nov 2020 19:16:27 +0100 Volker Diels-Grabsch <v@njh.eu> wrote:
>
> > Dear All,
> >
> > Thanks to Robert and Zack for explaining the situation so well, I
> > don't have much to add here from a technical point of view.
> >
> > So instead let me add a more "historical" point of view: When I
> > started mingw-cross-env and renamed it to "MXE", which stands for
> > "M cross environment", I always had two "M"s in mind: MinGW and
> > MacOSX.
> >
> > Moreover, I did have an actual software project (written in Qt) which
> > I needed to port to Windows as well as Mac.
> >
> > But setting up cross compiling on Mac was so cumbersome that I only
> > cross-built the Windows version on a Debian system with MXE, and
> > compiled the Mac version natively.
> >
> > On the other hand, there have been promising approaches at that time,
> > extracting stuff from the XCode packages and whatnot.  Perhaps there
> > are still people out there having some (limited) success with that.
> > But the amount of time to get into that stuff, and to make it working
> > - this was to much time for myself at that time, and for all others
> > who tried later as well.
> >
> > So if you think you have enough spare time and would like to break
> > that nut, feel encouraged to try!  Extending MXE to MacOSX would be a
> > huge achievement.  Just be warned that this might be a lot harder than
> > it may seem, and that it might even turn out to be impossible to keep
> > working in the long run.
> >       
> Just to add another monkey wrench: *I* have heard vauge rumors that Apple 
> might be thinking of moving away from x86_64 flavor processors (likely 
> ARM64). (I believe that iPads, iPhones, and iPods are all ARM based.)
>
> > Regards,
> > Volker
> >
> >
> > Robert Heller wrote:
> > > At Sat, 21 Nov 2020 14:48:16 -0500 Zach Bacon <wowzaman12@gmail.com> wrote:
> > >
> > > > In theory, yes it's possible but like what Robert mention, it's a 
> > > > different beast than targeting windows platforms and to be honest I 
> > > > don't think it would be beneficial to work on such a solution, 
> > > > especially where you run into issues where you need to ensure the binary 
> > > > can work and without a working macOS platform to test that sort of 
> > > > thing, honestly I think a lot of compilation tests could potentially 
> > > > fail because of that. At least targeting windows platforms using mxe you 
> > > > have things like wine to test your binaries on.
> > > >           
> > > A major problem (as I mentioned) is that Apple has put *special* effort into
> > > making it hard to coss-build for MacOSX and hard to even run MacOSX on
> > > anything other then a genuine Macintosh, both at the bare level or as a vm.
> > > Apple makes money selling their hardware. They pretty much give their software
> > > away, but with the gotcha: you gotta buy the hardware to actually run the
> > > software.
> > >
> > > > On 2020-11-21 2:18 p.m., Robert Heller wrote:
> > > > > 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,
> > > > > >               
> > > > >             
> > > >                                                                              
> > > >
> > > >           
> > > -- 
> > > Robert Heller             -- Cell: 413-658-7953 GV: 978-633-5364
> > > Deepwoods Software        -- Custom Software Services
> > > http://www.deepsoft.com/  -- Linux Administration Services
> > > heller@deepsoft.com       -- Webhosting Services
> > >                 
> > >
> > >         
> >       
>

--
Thanks,

Dale Smith, Ph.D.

Co-Founder, Chief Research Officer

Vallum Software