Kylix is a compiler and integrated development environment formerly sold by Borland but later discontinued. It is a Linux version of the Borland Delphi programming language and C++ Builder, which run under Microsoft Windows. Continuing Delphi's classical Greek theme, Kylix is named for an ancient Greek drinking cup. The closest supported equivalent to Kylix is the free Lazarus package, designed to be code-compatible with Delphi. Some attempts were made to get Delphi (for Windows) to cross-compile Linux applications, but they appear to be discontinued (see below).

Features

Kylix supports application programming using Object Pascal and C++, and is particularly suited to the development of command line utilities, Apache modules, and (especially) GUI applications, but not well suited to low-level programming, such as the development of device drivers or kernel modules.

Though it interacts poorly with many Linux window managers, the IDE is basically a very faithful port of Delphi 5 with a fast native code compiler, and tools for code navigation, auto-completion, parameter-name tooltips, and so on. The debugger is capable, but very slow to load, and can crash the whole IDE.

Kylix features CLX, a Linux version of Borland's VCL [Visual Component Library], which is (mostly) a component-based control library, not unlike Visual Basic or .NET's WinForms. Like other component-oriented libraries, CLX contains both visual components (such as buttons and panels) and non-visual components (such as timers). The IDE makes it easy to select components and place them on a form, editing properties and event handlers with an "Object Inspector".

Delphi's VCL is an object-oriented wrapper over raw Win32 controls, that maps Win32 messages and APIs to properties and events and is thus significantly easier to use than the raw API. As such, VCL is tightly bound to Windows, and Kylix's CLX is built on top of Trolltech's Qt library. CLX is not 100% compatible with VCL, and most Delphi programs require some effort to port to Kylix, even if they stick to the Borland libraries and avoid any direct OS calls. However, Qt is a portable library and, starting with Delphi 6, Borland provided CLX on Windows as well, providing a measure of back-portability.

History

Danny Thorpe seems to have been largely responsible for getting Borland to fund a Linux version of Delphi, and he did a lot of the work necessary to make the Delphi compiler produce Linux executables. While both Delphi and Kylix run on 32-bit Intel processors, Linux uses different register conventions than Windows and, of course, the executable and library file formats are different; see DLL, EXE, ELF for details.

There were three releases of Kylix, all of which were criticized for their relatively low quality . The first version, in particular, struck many users as a beta-quality product which should never have been released. Versions 2 and 3 included bug fixes, and ported the remaining "enterprise" and C++ Builder features of the Delphi 5 model. However, questionable quality and a high price led to poor sales, and Kylix has apparently been abandoned: despite occasional Borland references to Linux there has been no indication that another Kylix version is forthcoming. There is no upgrade path to Delphi 2005 nor Delphi 2006, and neither seems to include support for CLX. Furthermore, the last release of Kylix ran under now outdated versions of Linux: Red Hat Linux 7.2, SUSE Linux 7.3 and Mandrake Linux 8.2. With some tweaking, it is possible to run Kylix on Slackware Linux 8.x and 9.x. Kylix will run under more recent Linux distributions but requires some research and additional configuration (e.g. having an older version of glibc available, and making other changes to the default environment). Alternatively Lazarus, which is updated regularly, can be used.

Attempts to cross-compile Delphi code into Linux executables

• CrossKylix - a third-party toolkit which allows native Linux applications to be compiled in the Windows Delphi IDE; still available, but development discontinued in September 2007.
• CrossFPC - a third-party toolkit under development in 2005, which integrates the Free Pascal compiler into the Windows Delphi IDE. It allows multiple OS compile targets (including Linux) supported by the Free Pascal compiler.
  See more about it from this mailing list discussion.
  
  The "list of recent changes" on the website has the three entries: "0.1.0 28 Feb 2005, 0.2.0 7 May 2005, 0.2.1 8 May 2005". The last posting to the discussion group, as of 11 March 2008, was dated 6 August 2005.

See also

• Delphi programming language
• Borland Delphi
• Free Pascal and Lazarus

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