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Linux Running on Apple M1

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Re: Linux Running on Apple M1

#51

Post by geerlingguy »

flyinghamster wrote: post #30
thomasfl wrote: post #10

A Raspberry Pi powered by something similar to the M1 or A14 bionic processor would be something. The Broadcom 1.5 GHz 64-bit quad-core ARM Cortex-A72 that powers the latest raspberry pi, is nothing compared to the new processor beasts from Apple.

We already have the Mac Mini, but an A14-based SBC would be less of a stretch than an M1. A picoMac, so to speak? That would almost inevitably run MacOS by default rather than Linux, though. The GPU is make or break for Linux. No GPU means it's just another server in a different form factor.

That's basically the Apple TV.

Let that thing have more standard IO, and run Linux, and it'd be a heck of a fanless machine.

Re: Linux Running on Apple M1

#52

Post by saagarjha »

geerlingguy wrote: post #51
flyinghamster wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We already have the Mac Mini, but an A14-based SBC would be less of a stretch than an M1. A picoMac, so to speak? That would almost inevitably run MacOS by default rather than Linux, though. The GPU is make or break for Linux. No GPU means it's just another server in a different form factor.

That's basically the Apple TV. Let that thing have more standard IO, and run Linux, and it'd be a heck of a fanless machine.

The latest Apple TV has a fan :(

Re: Linux Running on Apple M1

#53

Post by kevinbowman »

cillian64 wrote: post #37
saagarjha wrote: post #4

This was quite fast considering that Apple opened up booting custom objects sometime last week…it seems to still be software rendering for now, but it's good to see this progressing so quickly. It seems that there is effort being put into upstreaming this too (despite a couple of unfortunately hitches :/) so we might be seeing this ready for general-purpose use quite soon!

Apple officially opened up booting custom images on the M1? Do you have any more information about this? I had a quick search and couldn’t find any news stories.

This is probably what was being referenced: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25772462

"macOS Big Sur 11.2 beta 2 is out with full custom kernel support" ... "The OS now finally includes the firmware and bootloaders and tools necessary to replace Big Sur with not-Big-Sur. That was previously not possible."

Re: Linux Running on Apple M1

#54

Post by saagarjha »

cillian64 wrote: post #37
saagarjha wrote: post #4

This was quite fast considering that Apple opened up booting custom objects sometime last week…it seems to still be software rendering for now, but it's good to see this progressing so quickly. It seems that there is effort being put into upstreaming this too (despite a couple of unfortunately hitches :/) so we might be seeing this ready for general-purpose use quite soon!

Apple officially opened up booting custom images on the M1? Do you have any more information about this? I had a quick search and couldn’t find any news stories.

It’s not something that would probably get reported widely, but the bputil command (which manages boot policy, as the name suggests) and kmutil now work as of the second beta of 11.2 and allow for you to provide your own code to run.

Re: Linux Running on Apple M1

#55

Post by izacus »

mschuster91 wrote: post #43
arafsheikh wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A good number of comments here mention dealing with the GPU is going to be a major hurdle. What makes porting GPU drivers significantly more challenging than everything else?

> What makes porting GPU drivers significantly more challenging than everything else? Multiple reasons: 1) GPU manufacturers are notorious for not publishing documentation out of IP/patent concerns. Worst offender is NVIDIA here. 2) For embedded GPUs there isn't much interest in open source drivers... the big customers (think Samsung and the likes) have direct support from the chip design vendor and get drop-in drive…

> GPU manufacturers are notorious for not publishing documentation out of IP/patent concerns. Worst offender is NVIDIA here.

I think easily Apple takes the cake from nVidia - they don't even provide drivers for anything but their platforms (that is for their proprietary GPU core). The GPU core that's actually in the M1.

Re: Linux Running on Apple M1

#56

Post by Geminidog »

saagarjha wrote: post #31
viraptor wrote: post #7

There's a bit of competition now going between asahi and corellium. While most of the spicy tweets have been removed, there's a summary https://twitter.com/AsahiLinux/status/1350547056679477250 Essentially, while this project may be quicker to get visible results, they may not be able to release all the code kosher for merging upstream. It will be interesting to see the next steps.

Competition is fine, but the "spiciness" was really just drama+pettiness on both sides :/ I'm hoping they're both past that now, as they should know better, but having two competing projects unable to assume good faith from each other is generally not healthy at all.

The more spiciness and completive things are the better the overall results. We all like to think that collaboration, harmony and love drives innovation but much of innovation is built around intense rivalry and competition as well. Don't be idealistic to a fault, much of the qualities we view as petty exist because they passed millions of years of natural selection. Those who compete, thrive.

Winner takes all.

Re: Linux Running on Apple M1

#57

Post by jtbayly »

mschuster91 wrote: post #43
arafsheikh wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A good number of comments here mention dealing with the GPU is going to be a major hurdle. What makes porting GPU drivers significantly more challenging than everything else?

> What makes porting GPU drivers significantly more challenging than everything else? Multiple reasons: 1) GPU manufacturers are notorious for not publishing documentation out of IP/patent concerns. Worst offender is NVIDIA here. 2) For embedded GPUs there isn't much interest in open source drivers... the big customers (think Samsung and the likes) have direct support from the chip design vendor and get drop-in drive…

A lot of this comment I don't understand how it applies to the Apple M1. I'm not saying it doesn't. I'm completely ignorant of these things. Am I just missing it?

Re: Linux Running on Apple M1

#58

Post by jug »

giomasce wrote: post #42
jcstryker wrote: post #12

Love to see the competition between the projects trying to get linux running on the m1. Though I think they will hit a wall trying to enable GPU support. I think opening up just enough to enable this effort also serves as some good nerd marketing for Apple. This race keeps the m1 in the news regularly, giving hope to those who want a low-power and performant ARM machine that wouldn't otherwise consider an apple machi…

Someone has begun digging the GPU. https://rosenzweig.io/blog/asahi-gpu-part-1.html

Nice, that was a HN worthy article by itself.

Re: Linux Running on Apple M1

#59

Post by gumby »

Geminidog wrote: post #56
saagarjha wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Competition is fine, but the "spiciness" was really just drama+pettiness on both sides :/ I'm hoping they're both past that now, as they should know better, but having two competing projects unable to assume good faith from each other is generally not healthy at all.

The more spiciness and completive things are the better the overall results. We all like to think that collaboration, harmony and love drives innovation but much of innovation is built around intense rivalry and competition as well. Don't be idealistic to a fault, much of the qualities we view as petty exist because they passed millions of years of natural selection. Those who compete, thrive. Winner takes all.

I think that's a bit zero sum. The world needs both to advance.

Re: Linux Running on Apple M1

#60

Post by iSnow »

acomjean wrote: post #38

I understand there is a thing with trying to run Linux everywhere, and it’s a fun exercise. Even if Apple does do some open source support, Even if that hardware isn’t quite as nice, I prefer to buy/support hardware and vendors that support Linux at this point.

Understandable and I was ready to buy a Dell XPS as I like the "small and light" form factor. I was just waiting for the COVID buy spike to subside and see how my financial situation would evolve.

But I have pushed the decision back to see how Linux will be running on the M1. From first reports, it is simply tailor-made for a laptop computer that doesn't get burning hot or dog slow because of thermal throttling.

I hope intel and to a lesser extend AMD are looking at this thing red-faced. But they will need some time to play catch-up.

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