SheepShaver is a MacOS run-time environment for BeOS and Linux that allows you to run classic MacOS applications inside the BeOS/Linux multitasking environment. This means that both BeOS/Linux and MacOS applications can run at the same time (usually in a window on the BeOS/Linux desktop) and data can be exchanged between them. If you are using a PowerPC-based system, applications will run at native speed (i.e. with no emulation involved). There is also a built-in PowerPC emulator for non-PowerPC systems.
SheepShaver is distributed under the terms of the GNU General Public License (GPL). However, you still need a copy of MacOS and a PowerMac ROM image to use SheepShaver. If you're planning to run SheepShaver on a PowerMac, you probably already have these two items.
SheepShaver runs with varying degree of functionality on the following systems:
For announcements of prebuilt binaries for Linux, Mac OS X, and Windows, head over to the E-Maculation Forums.
The source code of SheepShaver (and Basilisk II) is hosted in a Git repository on GitHub:
To download the current version of the repository via Git:
$ git clone https://github.com/cebix/macemu.git $ cd macemu/SheepShaver $ make links
The last command creates links inside the "SheepShaver" source tree to files in the "BasiliskII" tree which are shared between both emulators.
After downloading and setting up the repository you can, for example, try to compile the Unix version of SheepShaver:
$ cd macemu/SheepShaver/src/Unix $ ./autogen.sh $ make
Yes, SheepShaver originally appeared for BeOS in 1998 as a commercial application (first as shareware, then via the now long-defunct BeDepot). Due to the demise of Be, it has been re-released in 2002 as Open Source software under the GPL.
No, MacOS X doesn't run under SheepShaver.
It's a pun on “ShapeShifter”.