New OS aims to provide (some) compatibility with macOS

Original Article ↗ Hacker News Discussion ↗

Project Goals and Motivation

  • Described as a macOS-style OS with FreeBSD/Darwin underpinnings, analogous to ReactOS for Windows rather than just a “Wine for macOS.”
  • Intended for people who like macOS’s UX and bundled apps but dislike Apple’s hardware lock‑in, notarization, ecosystem control, and ads/telemetry.
  • Some see it as a path to “macOS without the closed ecosystem,” others as essentially a hobbyist FOSS mac clone.

Why Not Just Linux, Wine, or Darling?

  • One camp: energy would be better spent improving Linux desktop (GNOME/KDE, stability, a11y).
  • Counterpoint: Linux userland and UI are seen as fragmented, inconsistent, and “crowdsourced”; many want a coherent, opinionated macOS-like environment rather than more configuration.
  • Darling exists as a Wine‑like compatibility layer; ravynOS instead aims at a full OS with native Mach-style messaging, initially on FreeBSD for drivers, with recent discussion of shifting toward Darwin/XNU and Mach‑O.

Technical and Compatibility Challenges

  • macOS compatibility is a moving target: frequent framework deprecations, 32‑bit removal, OpenGL deprecation, Intel→ARM transition.
  • Some argue binary compatibility is only useful if major frameworks (“CoreFoo”) are implemented; otherwise it’s just a Mac‑like UI on BSD.
  • Suggestions include reusing Darwin libraries from Darling, using LLVM to build compatible dylibs, or targeting specific macOS eras rather than “current macOS.”
  • Others question the value of Mach‑O/compatibility at all vs. focusing on a mac‑style UX atop a stable BSD base for native apps and servers/build machines.

UI/UX and Aesthetics

  • Mixed reactions to the UI: front‑page mockups praised as “gorgeous,” but actual screenshots criticized as dated, “uncanny valley macOS,” or reminiscent of early 2000s desktops.
  • Broader debate on macOS vs. KDE/GNOME: some see KDE as superior and more polished; others prefer macOS’s consistency, progressive disclosure, and strong defaults.

Broader Reflections: OS Innovation and AI

  • Several comments note how hard OS development is (drivers, ACPI, GPU docs) and how slow clone projects (ReactOS, Haiku, FreeDOS) progress.
  • Speculation that advanced AI/agents could dramatically accelerate clean‑room reimplementations, but concerns raised about legal risk if AI was trained on proprietary source and about organizational/financial bottlenecks.