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Linux Running on Apple M1

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Re: Linux Running on Apple M1

#91
post #84

Linux might run, but good luck with the drivers. And good luck with it keeping working with future upgrades of both, hardware and software. Heck, even today it is pretty difficult to get things working reliably unless it is a thinkpad or some other Linux friendly brand. A Mac with subpar support for a webcam, energy saving, suspend/resume, the trackpad, brightness/volume controls, etc is not a laptop, it's an expensi…

No one should be purchasing a brand new M1 Mac with the expectation of perfect Linux support any time soon.

However, I’m optimistic that these will be mostly usable on Linux before they’re too obsolete or outdated. The platform is so popular and iconic that it’s drawing a lot of attention from Linux devs and reverse engineering crowds.

Re: Linux Running on Apple M1

#92
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.

But patches have already been submitted upstream https://lore.kernel.org/linux-arm-kernel/20210120132717.3958...

Everyone can submit, doesn't mean it'll be included.

Re: Linux Running on Apple M1

#94
post #60

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 ho…

>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.

I think it raised their eyebrows a bit, but don't agree that they need some time to play catch-up. Bottom line is the vast majority of Intel and AMD chips are running Windows. You can't even buy Windows 10 for an ARM processor. Microsoft flirted with the idea at one point, but has pretty much abandoned it. So why would Intel or AMD market ARM chips at all when Microsoft isn't supporting them at all?

If you are talking about servers that is a different story (since lots of servers run Linux). AMD already made a server with an ARM processor, the latest "Opteron" series was ARM https://www.amd.com/en/amd-opteron-a1100 These came out in 2016 and don't think they sold nearly as well as Epyc has. Taking a second look at offering ARM for the datacenter in the fture might not be a bad idea for AMD though.

Re: Linux Running on Apple M1

#95
post #84

Linux might run, but good luck with the drivers. And good luck with it keeping working with future upgrades of both, hardware and software. Heck, even today it is pretty difficult to get things working reliably unless it is a thinkpad or some other Linux friendly brand. A Mac with subpar support for a webcam, energy saving, suspend/resume, the trackpad, brightness/volume controls, etc is not a laptop, it's an expensi…

On the contrary, this could be fantastic for a headless server running on an M1 Mini to build and test ARM code before deploying to AWS Graviton. It doesn't all have to be about laptops.

Re: Linux Running on Apple M1

#96
post #84

Linux might run, but good luck with the drivers. And good luck with it keeping working with future upgrades of both, hardware and software. Heck, even today it is pretty difficult to get things working reliably unless it is a thinkpad or some other Linux friendly brand. A Mac with subpar support for a webcam, energy saving, suspend/resume, the trackpad, brightness/volume controls, etc is not a laptop, it's an expensi…

Yeah, other than an experimental exercises I don't get why anyone would ever want to do this. You will spend WAY more money for the Apple hardware, you will struggle to get things to stay consistent. If your goal is to run linux then don't buy a Mac.

> You will spend WAY more money for the Apple hardware

I think right now the new M1 machines are actually priced pretty reasonable. If they'd run Linux, I would buy them in an instant.

I mean, try to match the Air with a Thinkpad, especially if you consider the screen. I think there is not even one recent AMD Thinkpad with a > FHD screen. And who wants a 2020 Intel machine?

Edit: To make this clear: No Linux, no Mac for me (as I don't believe in MacOS's future at all). But even considering the horrible keyboard, I think the M1 macs are totally worth it just for the hardware. That's a first. And I am the kind of person who feels all warm and fuzzy over ejecting an ultrabay hard drive, or changing RAM/display in < 5 minutes in a laptop.

Re: Linux Running on Apple M1

#97
post #84

Linux might run, but good luck with the drivers. And good luck with it keeping working with future upgrades of both, hardware and software. Heck, even today it is pretty difficult to get things working reliably unless it is a thinkpad or some other Linux friendly brand. A Mac with subpar support for a webcam, energy saving, suspend/resume, the trackpad, brightness/volume controls, etc is not a laptop, it's an expensi…

Even on old + modern thinkpads it feels like a lottery which hardware feature will stop working at a particular time, with the distros i've worked myself through.

Ethernet, waking up from sleep mode, brightness adjustment... take your pick.

Re: Linux Running on Apple M1

#98

marcan, who is working on AsahiLinux, is streaming at this time of writing and just got the framebuffer working, this is one of the most interesting live-code-streams I have seen. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GxnWuXgj3JI

> Started streaming 8 hours ago

WTF.

Re: Linux Running on Apple M1

#99
post #97
post #84

Linux might run, but good luck with the drivers. And good luck with it keeping working with future upgrades of both, hardware and software. Heck, even today it is pretty difficult to get things working reliably unless it is a thinkpad or some other Linux friendly brand. A Mac with subpar support for a webcam, energy saving, suspend/resume, the trackpad, brightness/volume controls, etc is not a laptop, it's an expensi…

Even on old + modern thinkpads it feels like a lottery which hardware feature will stop working at a particular time, with the distros i've worked myself through. Ethernet, waking up from sleep mode, brightness adjustment... take your pick.

I discovered last week, to my chagrin, that the RAM on my x1 carbon Stinkpad was starting to fail--memtest x86+ confirmed it. Memory corruption is insidious, so I rushed to the internet to buy new DIMMs, opened the sucker up...and there's no DIMM. The RAM is just soldered into the motherboard. No upgrade, no fix. This is now a pile of unreliable junk that randomly flips bits in memory. So data evac commences, with MD5 hashes and double, trip-checking everything.

A reminder that not only software bitrots, but hardware too. Make sure not to buy a Stinkpad (or any hardware) with non-replaceable parts!

(and I just bought an M1 Macbook Pro...)

Re: Linux Running on Apple M1

#100
Qemu is also several kinds of broken on M1.

I was able to get qemu to boot an x86 Linux after applying a huge pile of patches I found on a forum.

If you are expecting to get up and running instantly with a VM to put all of your comfy old software in, not so fast!

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