Mac Apps on Cutefish Linux

Cutefish’s Reef compatibility layer has reached a milestone: several real Mac applications now install and run on Linux, using the same downloaded .dmg files as on a Mac. Users open a disk image in Files, drag the app into Applications, and can then launch it from the app launcher or Dock, remove it by dragging it to Trash, or open supported files with it. Working examples include NetNewsWire, with its full feed-reading interface and web-rendered articles; Ghostty, using its Metal renderer and custom shaders; Keka, which handles ZIP and tar.gz archives; Speedtest, which completes and saves test results; and CotEditor, which restores unsaved documents and supports tabs and full-screen mode. When an app needs an unsupported feature, Reef displays a warning rather than failing silently.

Supporting these applications required adding WebKit, Core Data, Metal translation over OpenGL, networking, window restoration, autosave, and Mac-like scrolling. Reef now comprises about 460,000 lines of project code across more than 80 frameworks, up from 300,000 lines ten days earlier. The team also reports measurable performance gains: CotEditor handles 100,000-line files without freezing, uses less memory, and displays keystrokes in about 70 milliseconds; Ghostty resizes faster and releases resources when tabs close. Mac apps still lag behind native Cutefish apps in some rendering tasks, but Reef is intended to ship in Cutefish soon so users can test the compatibility work themselves.