Linux Running on Apple M1 • Hacker News Board

Re: Linux Running on Apple M1

#251

Post by kelnos » Thu, Jan 21, 2021, 8:56 AM UTC

bangonkeyboard wrote: post #211

kelnos wrote: post #203

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yup. The last Mac I ran Linux on was a 2016 MBP. And even then, audio and suspend/resume didn't work (well, suspend was fine, resume... not so much), and battery life was terrible. When I first installed it, the keyboard and touchpad required an out-of-tree driver. That driver has been upstreamed, but I hear the 2017 and onward touchbar MBPs still require and out-of-tree driver, and a similar level of things don't wo…

> And even then, audio and suspend/resume didn't work (well, suspend was fine, resume... not so much) The computer never woke and needed to be hard-rebooted if it was ever allowed to suspend? I ran into this after installing Linux on a MacBook, downgrading the kernel to an old LTS release eventually worked.

Yep. The issue was that the NVMe controller wouldn't wake up properly. Downgrading the kernel wouldn't have helped, as support for that NVMe controller itself had just recently been added.

Re: Linux Running on Apple M1

#252

Post by floatboth » Thu, Jan 21, 2021, 9:38 AM UTC

duskwuff wrote: post #239

floatboth wrote: post #225

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Both amdgpu and nouveau work absolutely fine on ARM devices, why wouldn't they?! In fact I made the FreeBSD port of amdgpu work on my Macchiatobin :) Absolutely smooth experience btw, video output works even in UEFI (it actually runs the GOP driver from the card in QEMU), amdgpu works perfectly (played vkquake, supertuxkart, openmw, etc.)

The results reported at [1] had led me to believe that the AMD/NV ARM drivers were still unready. Am I mistaken? Are those issues specific to BCM283x? [1]: https://www.jeffgeerling.com/blog/2020/external-gpus-and-ras...

Yes, the BCMwhatever's weird PCIe controller literally returns corrupted data when the driver tries to read from the card, possibly due to not supporting some kind of 64 bit read.

Re: Linux Running on Apple M1

#253

Post by arghwhat » Thu, Jan 21, 2021, 9:42 AM UTC

brigade wrote: post #238

danudey wrote: post #201

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'll do you one better: macOS does support MST! It actually does! But it only supports it for splitting one display image over multiple streams, to overcome bandwidth limits on Displayport streams. For providing a signal to very-high-pixel-count displays, macOS uses MST. For providing multiple displayport signals to multiple displays? Nope, not implemented. Imagine my frustration after a day of googling and finding o…

You're mostly wrong; MST does not increase bandwidth, it splits the bandwidth of a single DisplayPort link. To increase raw bandwidth for 5k/6k they combine multiple HBR2/HBR3 links (over Thunderbolt or with multiple cables), which is the opposite of MST. MST is supported specifically for early 4k displays that had scalers that couldn't handle 4k60, but could handle half the resolution, so they sent two streams. But…

I believe they meant increases bandwidth utilization.

MSTs primary usecase today is multiple displays, by "daisy-chaining" through built-in MST bridges, dual DP dongles or docks.

Support for hacky displays is less interesting, and hopefully not relevant today.

Re: Linux Running on Apple M1

#254

Post by maratc » Thu, Jan 21, 2021, 9:48 AM UTC

colechristensen wrote: post #68

maratc wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The interesting thing here is that now, when they own the CPU and GPU, and when MacOS is free, they probably might be more open to letting anyone install any OS on it. You want a Linux/BSD/Windows on M1, and you're not hurting any of their possible revenue streams, so why the hell not let you buy their hardware and throw whatever OS on it. Somebody wants to copy the hardware over and sell it for half price? Yeah, goo…

Were they ever opposed to running a different OS on their hardware? They released bootcamp, to help you do it for windows at least. They don’t want you installing their OS on other hardware, not the reverse.

FreeBSD that didn't have a trillion-dollar company behind it never got such a treatment. They _might_ get it now.

Re: Linux Running on Apple M1

#255

Post by oblio » Thu, Jan 21, 2021, 9:48 AM UTC

arghwhat wrote: post #247

oblio wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The thing is, many more people are using Windows, than Macs and many more people are using Macs, than desktop Linuxes. So your anecdata goes against a mountain of anecdata from people using those platforms.

You are incorrectly assigning platform popularity as equal to driver maintenance. First, non-desktop uses of Linux significantly outnumber uses of Windows and macOS in general, and a large majority of drivers and functionality is shared there. Second, drivers not made by the usual giants are, as I mentioned earlier and experienced first hand, written and shipped once, maybe with a few updates for obvious issues, but…

I know all of that, but it does not square up with real life.

Go to your favorite computer store. Randomly pick 5 laptops, regardless of the price. So no cherry picking.

Use these laptops with Windows installed on them, for a reasonably long period, for example 1 month, as your daily driver. Perform varied tasks on them, such as printing, connecting to external displays, to projectors, other peripherals, playing modern 3D games on them, etc.

Then do the same with Linux.

I'm willing to bet $100 that on average Windows will run better on them, have a longer lasting battery life, better network connectivity, etc.

And if you're trying to tell me that on average Linux runs better than MacOS on Apple laptops and desktops, then this discussion is not worth continuing, we both probably have better things to do with our time.

Re: Linux Running on Apple M1

#256

Post by floatboth » Thu, Jan 21, 2021, 9:55 AM UTC

fomine3 wrote: post #243

floatboth wrote: post #227

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Microsoft already has a good partner in Ampere, a company fully dedicated to servers and standards. Apple clearly doesn't seem interested. The M1 is just a scaled-up version of the iDevice SoCs. From the reverse engineering we've seen so far, it is extremely clear that not even a single step towards any standardization was taken. It's very much the ad-hoc hodgepodge of embedded crap companies build when they only car…

Interesting details. Is using Synopsys DesignWare problem?

Not necessarily – well, it does work :D and at least it mostly speaks XHCI – but it does require non-standard code for reset and initialization.

Re: Linux Running on Apple M1

#257

Post by iSnow » Thu, Jan 21, 2021, 11:12 AM UTC

oblio wrote: post #158

iSnow wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

If you're planning that device to be your daily driver, I'd definitely get the XPS. A stable Linux distro running on M1 is probably 3-5 years away, at least.

Thanks. I do understand that. I'll probably be running Linux in a VM for the time being and switch to a native installation once it is ready.

I wish Apple would help Linux on their hardware as it won't take away a lot from their software business and they do have the resources, but yeah, they are just a big company like others in that regard.

Re: Linux Running on Apple M1

#258

Post by dis-sys » Thu, Jan 21, 2021, 11:40 AM UTC

heavyset_go wrote: post #163

midrus wrote: 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…

Agreed. Check out the state of Linux support on Intel Macs that were released in and after 2016[1], it's abysmal. Once Apple started adding non-standard hardware, Linux support never caught up. It isn't like the lack of support is Linux developers' fault. Apple doesn't provide datasheets for their hardware, and they don't cooperate with developers writing drivers for their custom hardware. There are hundreds, if not…

Not many people want to run Linux on intel based mac because you can run Linux on a much cheaper intel machine.

Re: Linux Running on Apple M1

#259

Post by diffeomorphism » Thu, Jan 21, 2021, 12:12 PM UTC

kiwijamo wrote: post #240

girvo wrote: post #183

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I last installed drivers on Linux... in 2007? 2008? I last installed drivers on Windows late last year.

I've had to on Linux for a very common wireless networking chip. Also for a scanner from a very common printer brand (that ironically has excellent support for printers on Linux). And this is Debian on a ThinkPad--a very common combination. Almost as good as Windows but given I had to load my wireless drivers via USB I still consider Windows the gold standard when it comes to built in drivers. It at least does well w…

Hm? Debian is famous for not including nonfree wireless firmware on purpose (drivers are an entirely different thing). They also provide an optional installer with these included.

So your example seems to be completely unrelated to the question.

Re: Linux Running on Apple M1

#260

Post by CivBase » Thu, Jan 21, 2021, 1:49 PM UTC

fabianhjr wrote: post #236

CivBase wrote: post #44

I'm excited for Linux support on the M1. I don't even have a Mac Book, but more incentive for Linux apps to support ARM is a good thing.

Most distros have had ARMv8 (AArch64) support for a while now, Apple didn't invent RISC/ARM this year. The most common AArch64 distro usage is on RaspberryPies

Yeah, but there wasn't consistent ARM support like there was for x86. It was only a few months ago that the desktop release of Ubuntu didn't support ARM.