Asahi Linux: Linux on Apple Silicon project • Hacker News Board

Re: Asahi Linux: Linux on Apple Silicon project

#111

Post by solarkraft » Tue, Jan 05, 2021, 9:28 PM UTC

tibbydudeza wrote: post #56

_ph_ wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Right, if MS is serious about Windows on ARM, they should support the Mac as a show case and also to allow all future Mac buyers the chance to run Windows. Of course, Apple can't announce much until Microsoft makes an announcement about Windows on AS Macs.

Is MS not busy looking at doing their own ARM silicon for future Windows powered Surface devices after release of M1 and the failure Qualcomm with the Snapdragon 8cx (we just use ARM reference designs) ???. They do have the chops for it since they have done Xbox and Hololens and various other devices in-house.

It's a rumor. If they're starting now I expect results in 2-5 years and in Azure first.

> They do have the chops for it since they have done Xbox and Hololens and various other devices in-house.

Not sure about the Hololens, but the XBox contains an x86 AMD processor.

Re: Asahi Linux: Linux on Apple Silicon project

#112

Post by Klonoar » Tue, Jan 05, 2021, 9:30 PM UTC

turbinerneiter wrote: post #81

Klonoar wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The PixelBook is closer, sure - though still not as great when it comes to, say, the trackpad. Apple also still has a near-monopoly on amazing screens. These might seem inconsequential when you scan them on a list, but the entire package really adds up. Anyway, with that all said, the thread in question is about vendors who explicitly support Linux, which is a very different story. If I had to pick anything in that r…

I'm pretty sure System76 would really love to design an build macbook level laptops with M1 level chips, but how the hell are they ever supposed to get there? It took Apple, what, 13 years from the iPhone to the M1, surfing on the wave of success of the iPhone. There isn't even a processor vendor that is capable of supplying them an M1 level chip.

I didn't say that System76 needs to pump out an M1-comparable laptop off the bat.

In fact, my comment specifically notes "non-rebranded laptop shell" as that would go a long way to turning around the cheap feeling they currently have.

Re: Asahi Linux: Linux on Apple Silicon project

#113

Post by ed25519FUUU » Tue, Jan 05, 2021, 9:30 PM UTC

marmaduke wrote: post #101

pkulak wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Mac hardware is just so damn good though. And everywhere. I absolutely agree with what you're saying... but man, Linux working well on an M1 Mac would be my ideal machine.

Would it be materially different than Linux running in a VM on m1? Because you can have that now

What VM matches the performance of a mac mini?

Re: Asahi Linux: Linux on Apple Silicon project

#114

Post by saagarjha » Tue, Jan 05, 2021, 9:30 PM UTC

flatiron wrote: post #27

nickelcitymario wrote: post #2

> In particular, we will be reverse engineering the Apple GPU architecture and developing an open source driver for it. Well, this is exciting. I suppose it was inevitable that someone would take on this challenge, but it's exciting all the same.

judging by other open source reverse engineerd GPU drivers its a massive undertaking. i also looked at a shot of the chip and see lots of neural networking functionality, i wonder what sort of special drivers stuff like that needs. i just feel like the hardware is so specialized without apples help it would take a lot for it to be a killer linux laptop.

You can't just not use that functionality. But getting the GPU to work is essentially required.

Re: Asahi Linux: Linux on Apple Silicon project

#115

Post by viraptor » Tue, Jan 05, 2021, 9:31 PM UTC

marmaduke wrote: post #101

pkulak wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Mac hardware is just so damn good though. And everywhere. I absolutely agree with what you're saying... but man, Linux working well on an M1 Mac would be my ideal machine.

Would it be materially different than Linux running in a VM on m1? Because you can have that now

Trying to display at native full screen resolution from a VM is not a great experience. Or at least I couldn't achieve that without lag on any hypervisor. On top of that you're paying the battery tax because of virtualisation.

Re: Asahi Linux: Linux on Apple Silicon project

#116

Post by saagarjha » Tue, Jan 05, 2021, 9:32 PM UTC

JosephRedfern wrote: post #64

> As long as no code is taken from macOS in order to build the Linux support, the end result is completely legal to distribute and for end users to use, as it would not be a derivative work of macOS. Please see our Copyright & Reverse Engineering Policy for more information. This may be a dumb question, but are any of the Open Source components of macOS [0] useful for this kind of endeavour? Specifically stuff from X…

All the driver stuff is shipped as closed-source kexts, and interesting proprietary hardware features like GXF are missing too from the public sources for the most part.

Re: Asahi Linux: Linux on Apple Silicon project

#117

Post by wyldfire » Tue, Jan 05, 2021, 9:32 PM UTC

actuator wrote: post #40

It seems so amazing to me that Microsoft saw the ARM opportunity with Windows RT, released 8 years back but somehow managed to not succeed with a stellar ARM laptop story. Maybe Qualcomm is more to blame here for never progressing as well as Apple has done on chips but maybe the software experience was just not there. We would probably already have good ARM laptops running linux distros if Windows on ARM had taken of…

> It seems so amazing to me that Microsoft saw the ARM opportunity with Windows RT, released 8 years back but somehow managed to not succeed with a stellar ARM laptop story.

It's definitely not a stellar ARM laptop story, but the ARM laptops have been at market for years prior to the ARM Macbook release. Not porting Chrome for the initial release was a huge blunder IMO. No one wants to use Edge. Having a chip with performance parity targeted at Intel's i5 might have been a mistake, too.

But (while admittedly not as stellar as M1 Macbook) we have options: the Envy X2, Yoga/Flex 5G, Surface Pro X, Galaxy Book S.

The M1 validates Microsoft's strategy to embrace ARM. Hopefully the third-party software devs are able to port their software in order to make this transition easier.

Qualcomm stopped their own CPU design a while back and if they'd have kept that going then perhaps there would be a better competitor to the M1. Or maybe they just need to drop in a better reference design from ARM?

Re: Asahi Linux: Linux on Apple Silicon project

#118

Post by klelatti » Tue, Jan 05, 2021, 9:32 PM UTC

mhh__ wrote: post #23

jasoneckert wrote: post #8

On the About page: "...requires a huge amount of work to be done, as Apple Silicon is a completely undocumented platform" It "is" a well-documented platform. I'm hoping that Apple makes it available to the open source community to make Linux on M1 happen sooner than later.

How is it documented if there is so software developers manual for the ISA, optimisation manual for the uarch, and no documentation at all on how the subsystems like the neural accelerator works let alone how to access it. I assume you mean that Apple have it internally, but I wouldn't assume it's any good. I would also love to see someone (I haven't got and can't afford one) try and fuzz it for undocumented instruct…

There's no software developer's manual for the ISA? Arm don't release any documentation on their ISA?

Re: Asahi Linux: Linux on Apple Silicon project

#119

Post by saagarjha » Tue, Jan 05, 2021, 9:32 PM UTC

NikolaeVarius wrote: post #69

unethical_ban wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why not buy hardware that doesn't suck? I still have a Thinkpad for my primary laptop, but using a mac with retina, 5-10hr batt life, and a nice touchpad for work is such a joy compared to a 1080p matte screen with 3hr battery life.

1440p Matt screen, 24G Ram, i7. Battery life all day. Still cheaper than a weaker specced Mac.

> 1440p

> i7

Surely you're joking?

Re: Asahi Linux: Linux on Apple Silicon project

#120

Post by spurdoman77 » Tue, Jan 05, 2021, 9:33 PM UTC

corytheboyd wrote: post #62

fsflover wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I wonder if System76, for example, has their eyes on being the first to market as “the Linux laptop on ARM”. They are not the first already: https://www.pine64.org/pinebook-pro/

Ah yeah pine64! But how does it compare to the M1 performance? I should have explicitly stated that these ideal computers would match or outperform Apple’s hardware, since that is very much the case with current intel based MacBooks

Pinebook does the typical "as cheap and low-end as possible" linux stuff.

I would love to see ARM linux hardware manufacturer who would aim to create a high-end fanless powerhorse like mac mini.