After 11 days, I'm back with an update about Kakehashi. I want to thank you for your support! Thank you for all your stars, comments. I didn't expect you to be so interested in the project.

What's new:

I managed to significantly accelerate the implementation process. Now, 7zip lags by just 1.24x compared to native Linux performance, and the Lua build differs literally by 1.5 to 2 seconds from a native launch. The Lua build fails to compile via kh run make due to Linux-specific flags, which mirrors its behavior on native macOS. However, if it is built using kh run gcc -- -Wall -O2 -DLUA_USE_MACOSX -std=c99 onelua.c -lreadline -o /tmp/lua-onelua, everything compiles, builds, and runs perfectly. Overall, I am currently actively working on the following binaries: git, clang, make, xcrun, otool, gcc, curl, 7zip, rm, ls, sh, csh, zsh, bash, and the Rust installation script. Please note that you currently need to manually port the /bin, /sbin, /usr/bin, and /usr/lib/zsh folders from a macOS installation into the guest environment ("bottle") located at ~/.local/share/kakehashi/bottle/, since the entire setup won't work without these core dependencies.

As for the known problems: right now, xcodebuild hits a SIGSEGV, and the Rust installer still fails to work correctly (it exits with error 1, and I haven't been able to pinpoint the exact root cause yet). Additionally, zsh has some bugs with localization and encodings, which surprisingly don't occur in other similar utilities. And, of course, you can still encounter unimplemented symbols and various other errors across different binaries or untested edge cases. It is still far from a finished product, but compared to what it was just 11 days ago, it's in a completely different state.

I would be incredibly grateful for any help with testing, finding edge cases, and uncovering execution bottlenecks—especially in non-standard configurations (such as running the environment from an external drive). Pull requests are also highly welcome. It is simply impossible for me to keep track of everything on my own. Thank you all once again!

Link: https://github.com/wie-project/kakehashi

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49299613

Points: 3

# Comments: 0

By the way, has anyone checked if the utility works on Asahi Linux (or on real non-Mac hardware)?

As for the AI assistant, I used Grok 4.5 in Build (Medium, no sub-agents, just standard chats and Plan Mode). I can't track the exact hours, but I spent several full days hyper-focused on this. Naturally, I hit the weekly usage limits all the time and had to sit around waiting for the cooldowns (like now :).

Thanks for the question!

My previous project had a more traditional name: WIE (Wie is Emulator), which was an attempt to run PE64 binaries on macOS via Cranelift JIT. It was an ironic joke nod to WINE (and it still survives in the GitHub organization name).

For this one, I wanted something more conceptual. Kakehashi (掛け橋) means "bridge" or "go-between" in Japanese. Plus, I just really liked how it sounds and harmonizes with Asahi Linux.

By "proprietary components," I meant that in my prompts, I explicitly forbade the copying or direct implementation of private Apple code. Of course, since LLMs are a bit of a black box, it's hard to be 100% certain about everything it synthesized under the hood, but the clear intent was to stick to public ABI definitions and standard open specs.

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49145937

Points: 254

# Comments: 64

Points: 1

# Comments: 0