Porting Darwin to Intel Platforms?

The Liquid Plumber asks: "I was wondering if anyone had any luck porting (or any information on porting) Apple's open source "Darwin OS" to Intel platforms? I have glanced at the code, and there is a little architecture-specific code that I'm really not familiar with. If anyone has any information on this, I'd love to have it. Thanks. "

I can see this may be somewhat usefulll

[lubricated]

I've compiled X on darwin and just about every other x application. so It may be somwhat usefull, but there are better unixes out there for x86 right now and I just don't see darwin mattering all that much.

Re:I can see this may be somewhat useful

[lubricated]

If you are going to hack then don't waste your time. You should do something constructive. Help out with the linux kernel. help out with gnome/kde. help out XFree 4.0. There are many projects both high and low level that need help. You can do something more productive with your time.

Re:I can see this may be somewhat useful

[lubricated]

he did work on minix. he turned it into linux. If he worked on bsd then I would be typing this on a bsd right now.

Re:I can see this may be somewhat useful

[Cy Guy]

Actually Linus has said that had he been aware of open source x86 BSD efforts he might never have tried to create Linux.

On the other hand, I agree with your main point. I think Darwin on x86 is a worthy effort. It might one day lead to OS-X on x86 which certainly would be the final nail in M$'s coffin.

Re:I can see this may be somewhat usefulll

[shub]

Thing is, Darwin [apple.com] is basically FreeBSD [freebsd.org] on top of a Mach kernel -- it even says so on the Inside MacOS X [apple.com] page. Apple has also committed to continue to keep the appropriate parts of Darwin in sync with FreeBSD. So porting Darwin doesn't buy you much of anything -- you've got FreeBSD (and other implementations of BSD) on x86 anyway.

What I suspect you really want is MacOS X on x86, and that is something that only Apple can port, if they choose to do so.
--
Brad Knowles

Re:I can see this may be somewhat useful

[Dandy]

Who cares if there are better x86 Unixes out there? Porting Darwin would be worth it just for the hack value.

Re:I can see this may be somewhat useful

[poink]

Waste time? What if Linus hadn't "wasted his time", and instead worked on Minix or 386BSD, where would you be now?

People do this as a hobby, because they find it fun. It may not benefit anyone else but them, but who cares?