XQuartz VS Docker-OSX

brew install --cask xquartz

Or install from the project homepage [1]. Then just launch the X11 app. Note that it does require the application to be built for Mac - it’s not an emulator, just an implementation of the X11 APIs.

[1] https://www.xquartz.org/

I’ve recently spent some time working with terminal emulators in raw mode on macOS. While I chose to handle key events using escape codes, and found it seriously difficult (even gave up) to process the shift modifier key. However, I came across xquartz [1], which seems to do similar things as mentioned in the article. Would detecting shift key state have been trivial using such a library?

[1] https://github.com/XQuartz/XQuartz

The contents are rendered through gtk/cairo which not only goes through https://www.xquartz.org/ but also doesn't use GPU rendering (it was experimental 3 years ago, maybe better now). The main issue seems to be that neither Inkscape nor gtk people have much low level Darwin experts or time available to invest in debugging the whole rendering stack. See for example https://gitlab.com/inkscape/inkscape/-/issues/1614 and all the other referenced issues for all the gory details.

I live in a mezzanine studio using a M1 macbook for a workstation (writing/editing) and my old laptop with openbsd as a local server. I play music from that obsd server upstairs, which thus fills the whole room down to my desktop through the plugged-in speakers. My hosted library plays fine with mpd and ncmpcpp, and I just figured out it's not so difficult to use mpv to play streamed youtube videos, since firefox in XQuartz streaming from xenocara is way too slow anyhow.

There is an alternative: I ended up using Xquartz to give me an X11 environment and then running StumpWM as my tiling window manager. I used this for all my productive stuff, running full screen in MacOS, then a quick keypress got me back to the Mac environment.

I also used Xquartz. Emacs was better for me though because capturing text output and documenting what I captured was so much easier than X-window.

Link

I used a Mac for router software testing for over 20 years. I ran a shell on my mac either through Emacs (on occasion) or X-quartz with terminal connections to a dozen or more routers, linux and or Windows systems. In all that time, I opened the terminal on my mac maybe 5 times.

Running macOS legally requires real mac servers and a bespoke storage solution: https://www.datacenterdynamics.com/en/analysis/not-just-stac...

A self-hosted macOS runner will be more economical in the long-run, if you have a spot you can hook it up at, or if you're fine doing things less than legally, you can use https://github.com/sickcodes/Docker-OSX.

Repositório Docker-OSX - Guidelines, troubleshooting, comandos

> What's the licensing situation on this?

1. This project didn't take explicit permission from Apple to redistribute binaries

2. There are multiple jurisdictions where you don't need to explicitly have such permission, it is implied by law

3. Usage of this software implies you already have macOS system. I'm not a lawyer, but it looks to be covered by section 3 of macOS EULA.

4. There are existing precedents of redistribution of macOS binaries for multiple years aready:

- https://github.com/cirruslabs/macos-image-templates/pkgs/con...

- https://hub.docker.com/r/sickcodes/docker-osx

- https://app.vagrantup.com/jhcook/boxes/macos-sierra

And so on.

Google is “friendlier”, because they run some automated scans on the apk and you’re good. Apple has humans run your app to confirm it does what you claim, as well as a battery of automated scans and since they are using the app I’d imagine they look at network traffic as much as possible. I know iOS isn’t shielded from malicious apps, but there’s malware and viruses all over the play store. That’s because it’s free and “friendlier”.

> At Apple things have gotten way worse. Trying to automate release building is practically impossible and will require hours or CI pipeline debugging with error messages that don't mean what they say.

This isn’t Apple’s fault… every build system sucks up a decent amount of time during initial setup. You can cut down massive amounts of time between iterations by adding some common optimizations:

1. Cache artifacts when that step or job succeeds, so if a subsequent step/job fails, you can adjust it and start up where you left off, using the caches artifact to restore the workspace state. This complicates debugging efforts and I personally don’t do any optimization until the pipeline is reliably green each time. I just deal with slow builds and switch to other stuff or work ahead while they run.

2. Fail fast. The CI run should bail out if any critical steps don’t pass, so anything further down doesn’t run for no reason, burning compute time and delaying queued jobs waiting for a runner. While developing the pipeline, watch the logs and when you see something you don’t like, slap the cancel button, or collect a couple things you need to change and iterate with passes with 2-3 changes.

3. Use adequately spec’s hardware. Xcode is resource heavy and compiles need plenty of memory and cpu cores. Play around with what is a good compromise between power and cost. See if your project builds faster with more cpu cores, or faster cpu cores, etc.

> At least Googles process is quite simple and can be dockerized.

One man’s simple is another man’s “practically impossible”. Simple comes from familiarity and confidence. Anyway, you can totally run your builds in docker if you want to, and many do, but I’d personally not introduce more complexity until you have your pipelines running the slow way with the least amount of mental modeling to do. Once you know it all works, then have a go at running the build you know is good, inside a docker container (which in this case is just packing up kvm/qemu/libvirt to facilitate the running of a vm back on the host, but it means you can run mac containers on Linux runners, which will be much cheaper than Mac runners since those are usually Mac hardware)

https://github.com/sickcodes/Docker-OSX

> Also why do I have to pay Apple $125 a year when it costs $100 in the US? The exchange rate from CHF to USD should be in my favor.

Couple theories. 1. They have additional processing or tax expenses when dealing with your currency which they aren’t going to eat the cost of. 2. The higher price could be to deter abuse if for some reason there is an abnormal amount originating from accounts who pay with that currency.

You can use qemu/libvirt/kvm on any Linux host to run macOS pretty easily these days[1]. I run Ventura on unraid with nvidea gpu passthrough and it’s been fairly painless.

You can also run macOS in docker, but it’s ultimately running through qemu/kvm as well[2]

1. https://github.com/kholia/OSX-KVM

2. https://github.com/sickcodes/Docker-OSX

It would be a better idea to setup bluebubbles if you really want imessages while you wait, if you have an old laptop that you can use as a macos server. https://github.com/sickcodes/Docker-OSX is a brilliant solution for macos vm as a docker container. mac hardware not required