The release of the ravynOS 0.6 project has been published, which develops an operating system based on FreeBSD aimed at achieving compatibility with macOS applications and providing a macOS-style user interface. The project’s developments are distributed under the BSD license. The size of the bootable ISO image is 760 MB (x86_64).
The project's goals include achieving compatibility with macOS applications at the source code and executable file levels. The former implies the ability to recompile macOS application code to run on ravynOS, while the latter involves integrating changes into the kernel and tooling to run Mach-O executable files compiled for x86-64 and arm64 architectures.
Supported file systems include ZFS and the HFS+ and APFS filesystems used in macOS. In addition to the standard FreeBSD hierarchies /usr and /usr/local, macOS-specific directories /Library, /System, and /Volumes are created. User home directories are located in the /Users hierarchy. Each home directory contains a subdirectory ~/Library for applications using the Apple Cocoa API.
For compatibility with macOS, a partial implementation of the Cocoa API and Objective-C runtime is provided (located in the /System/Library/Frameworks directory), along with compilers and linkers modified to support them. In addition to the layer for macOS compatibility, ravynOS also offers the ability to run Linux applications based on the Linux environment emulation infrastructure provided in FreeBSD (Linuxulator).
Applications can be formatted as self-contained app packages (App Bundle) in the AppImage format, placed in the /Applications or ~/Applications directories. Programs do not require installation or a package manager; simply dragging and launching the AppImage file is sufficient. Traditional FreeBSD package support is also retained.
The graphical environment is built on a custom windowing system. server, using a stripped-down composite server labwc (server-side window decoration support and themes removed), wlroots, and the Wayland protocol. Graphical applications can utilize frameworks such as Qt and Cocoa. The interface employs typical macOS concepts, such as a top panel with a global menu, identical menu structure, keyboard shortcuts, a file manager called Filer similar in style, and support for commands like launchctl and open.
Among the changes compared to release 0.5:
- The base system has been updated to FreeBSD 15-STABLE.
- A minimalist graphical interface has been introduced featuring a new SystemUIServer top panel and a bottom Dock panel.
- Included is a prototype of the Terminal.app terminal emulator.
- The LoginWindow login manager is ensured to launch immediately after boot. In live mode, users can log into the system without a password using the login liveuser.
- Added the ability to log out of the graphical session using the keyboard shortcut Win-Shift-Q.
Source: opennet.ru
