Hacker News Reader

Comment by fsflover | Hacker News Reader

Even a better time to escape the walled garden and develop for mobile Linux: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30364337

View on HN

What would this look like practically? Say I want to port an iOS app to mobile linux? I know it's early days but what does the toolchain and distribution look like?

Perhaps this page has an answer for you: https://linmobapps.frama.io/.

Thanks

Aside from perhaps using some GNUstep classes for the non-visual parts, you'd need to separate the application's logic from its OS integration and then use whatever library you want to target.

One way to go for it would be to make your app use Qt (which is also available on Linux) instead of iOS-specific functionality and then port that Qt app to Linux. But whatever you do, if your app is made for iOS (or any other specific OS), you'd need first to untangle iOS from it and then make a port.

But FWIW i think fsflover had new applications in mind instead of porting existing ones.

As a user of a GNU/Linux phone, I would be happy to have both, new and ported apps.

Thanks for the info, from a quick look it also seems as if some people have managed to get simple Flutter apps running so that looks promising.

Just write the app for Linux (or even better, build a web page instead.)

You are implying that the walled garden keeps developers in, whereas in reality those walls are for keeping developers out. One does not escape walled garden; one infiltrates it.

I think it's both.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com