Live data from Hacker News

OpenBSD boots multi-user on Apple M1 hardware

marc.info

181–190 of 204 posts

Re: OpenBSD boots multi-user on Apple M1 hardware

#181

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Apple _is_ a walled garden ecosystem. iOS is a walled garden. (as are it's cousins for Apple TV, & HomePod. MacOS is not. If MacOS was a walled garden, I wouldn't be able to do my job with it.

> iOS is a walled garden ... MacOS is not. Technically, that is true. But it is getting there. Apple makes more money, and importantly recurring revenue, from its services now than selling its hardware. The move to ARM processors is one of their strategic moves to further "close" their desktop platforms too. The only reason they don't do it outright right now is because they know people like you and me will immediate…

> But it is getting there.

Yes, the line I've been hearing for the past 15 years or so.

Meanwhile Homebrew still works, I can still install non-App Store Apps, and Apple is publishing directions on how to install non-MacOS operating systems.

Literally the single difference their "Closing the platform" has made in my life has been getting prompted for permission to open various directories and services on the platform and much of that can be disabled.

> But we would be fools to ignore that the noose is tightening and, with M1 you are now stuck with macOS (unlike the older Macs).

Are we on the same conversation here? Did you read the article? Or the similar ones about people loading Linux on the M1? This is literally a thread about people who followed Apple's documentation on how to install a different OS on the M1 Macs.

Re: OpenBSD boots multi-user on Apple M1 hardware

#182

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not you. Just frustrated by the seeming religious fervor some Apple-haters have. Seems like sometimes people are willing to go through great contortions to figure out how whatever Apple did is wrong. Totally understand why people might prefer Linux/ Windows/ Amiga/ whatever. People should just enjoy what they want.

> Just frustrated by the seeming religious fervor some Apple-haters have. It goes both ways. I'd add that atleast the "Apple-haters" have more of a standing in defending open computing standards and demanding Apple be open too.

> more of a standing

So you think ignoring facts and making nonsense gives you credibility so long as you hate the right people?

Maybe in your own head.

Re: OpenBSD boots multi-user on Apple M1 hardware

#183

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I guess we could fairly call it a undocumented or obscure garden? But there's no real designed wall there. Apple aren't preventing anything, they're just not helping us out either. Agree it would be nice for them to help out a little, but it's really not the same thing.

> Apple aren't preventing anything, they're just not helping us out either. It's the same thing. (And the only reason they aren't yet outright preventing it is because it would be bad PR - nobody wants their desktop computer to be like the iPhone or iPad. But it will happen.)

Apple has a computer with a locked down OS, it's the iPad. Apple sells the iPad as a locked down system because some users prefer a less flexible, more predictable, and secure system.

Apple has a computer which isn't locked down, it's the Mac. Apple maintains MacOS as a flexible/ pro platform because if they didn't, they wouldn't be able to sell $2000-8000 Macs to pro users who need that power and flexibility to do their jobs.

For Apple there is zero profit in neutering the Mac. Whatever profits you think Apple could make by forcing people to use the Mac App Store, would be dwarfed by the sales lost due to pro & power users leaving the system en-masse.

Re: OpenBSD boots multi-user on Apple M1 hardware

#184
post #104
post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm don't think you can do GPU or PCI passthrough on macOS. Not sure if/when Apple would consider adding that. I'm glad the things I want to do on Linux are all terminal based. I used a tiling WM for years on Arch and don't miss it much with all the macOS WM extensions available now (Magnet, Rectangle, Moom, Hammerspoon, etc). Less themeable but perfectly functional.

> I'm don't think you can do GPU or PCI passthrough on macOS. Not sure if/when Apple would consider adding that. With Big Sur, Apple now has paravirtualization support. It exposes Metal API to manipulate virtual display devices. See https://developer.apple.com/documentation/paravirtualizedgra... I doubt Apple has any intention of publishing hardware documentation for someone to write a native driver, but there are be…

Very nice. An advantage of paravirtualization is that compositing across the guest and host will work, unlike passthrough. Any rough indication of the level of performance?

Re: OpenBSD boots multi-user on Apple M1 hardware

#185

Earlier quoted context omitted.

literally just installed OpenBSD on my iMac G4 last week, haha (oh yeah, everything works flawlessly btw, including graphics acceleration)

The iMac G4 didn't support virtualization, so booting an alternative OS is more attractive. And the Nvidia GPU is probably easier to find cross-platform drivers for. New drivers or some sort of IOKit compatibility layer need to be developed for the M1 GPU (which is orders of magnitude more complex). (I can run OpenBSD on any modern piece of hardware, though; the novelty and nostalgia are in running Mac OS 9 on that.)

Yeah it's a great model for classic Mac gaming as it has pretty good specs, 3d accel, and can run OS 9 and OS X. I've got two of them (among many other Macs) so I figured I'd try OpenBSD on this one, haha :)

Re: OpenBSD boots multi-user on Apple M1 hardware

#186

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> iOS is a walled garden ... MacOS is not. Technically, that is true. But it is getting there. Apple makes more money, and importantly recurring revenue, from its services now than selling its hardware. The move to ARM processors is one of their strategic moves to further "close" their desktop platforms too. The only reason they don't do it outright right now is because they know people like you and me will immediate…

Yes, Apple fans seem to be forgetting that the ones in power at Apple are business people, who care as much about customers as any other company. And being business people they don't have sympathy for developers either and in fact would rather see their power reduced. In their best scenario, all developers become low-wage employees but without the benefit of employees. A bit like Uber drivers.

How on earth does this make "business sense"?

You can't sell $10,000 Mac Pros and $6,000 displays with a neutered operating system. Nobody is buying the 16" MacBook Pro if they can only buy apps in the App Store. Overnight they would lose pretty much every (non-iOS) developer, most video editors, every podcaster and audio engineer, most photographers, every single scientist, most engineers, mathematicians, and many artists...

That would be an absolutely fantastic pitch in a management meeting. Who is left, accountants... teachers? A few schools? Not only would this be a massive hit to the Mac... likely lethal, it would also be a massive blow to iOS. Because much like every other developer on the planet iOS developers lean heavily on tools which cannot ever be found in the App Store like git, Python, Ruby (required for CocoaPods), and a million other Unix tools.

This has to be one of the most bone-headed, yet commonly repeated bits of anti-Mac nonsense out there.

Re: OpenBSD boots multi-user on Apple M1 hardware

#187
post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Like djrogers, I can't honestly say that I've seen a comment like that. I recall ones more like "I'm not interested in running another OS on my Mac" and "if you wanted to run Linux, why would you buy a Mac," but those really aren't the same sentiment.

A comment like that is now the top comment in the thread :) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26210875

Well, it's a comment that says,

> Running an alternative OS "natively" on a Mac doesn't seem very appealing to me.

Which is pretty much exactly the kind of comment that I said I've seen ("I'm not interested in running another OS on my Mac"). Again, not the same as "a free OS will never run on this bespoke Apple product, and shouldn't."

It's the difference between "I bought a Mac because I wanted to run macOS on it" and "I bought a Mac out of vanity and want to separate myself from the plebes." Or, to put it another way, the difference between actual Apple users and Artie MacStrawman.

Re: OpenBSD boots multi-user on Apple M1 hardware

#188
post #179

Earlier quoted context omitted.

By the definition you quoted, Mac OS is also not an open platform. This is exactly what I am saying: in some aspects, it's a walled garden. Depending on your use case, it may be essential.

No. You are simply misreading the definition, or perhaps misunderstanding it. By the definition I quoted MacOS is an open platform. The provider of MacOS (Apple) doesn’t have control over access to applications and content. It is not a walled garden in any aspect, even by the definition you yourself provided. Installing OS itself is restricted by commercial license . But the platform is open. You are trying to make t…

Are you suggesting that the Wikipedia page should not mention Mac OS in the table, because it has nothing to do with the topic? But it comes from the cited paper. You should probably read it.

I cannot access my OS and all my applications after changing the hardware or using a VM. Do you call it “unrestricted access to applications”? How is this unrestricted if there are restrictions? This is not an open platform by the original Wikipedia definition, more so by my definition. One cannot escape from Mac OS after using it, because all apps will not work (without the legal OS). My SSD dies, I cannot event replace it. All I can do is to pay $$$ to Apple to help me.

Re: OpenBSD boots multi-user on Apple M1 hardware

#189
post #141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yup found this remark super weird. Mac users seem to live under a rock or something. Got some weird idea that anything not a Mac must be windows like it's the 90s or something. Both AMD and Intel hardware supports Linux and wouldn't ship without it. NVIDIA is really the only hold out I this space.

> Both AMD and Intel hardware supports Linux and wouldn't ship without it. NVIDIA is really the only hold out I this space. So just the most important graphics vendor huh?

It doesn't matter much for laptops which increasingly seem to depend on Intel/AMD integrated graphics, which are more capable than ever in laptops with more stringent size and power constraints. How many MacBooks sold have discrete graphics cards by any manufacturer? I'd like to see data on this but I couldn't find any relevant statistics after a bit of searching.

Re: OpenBSD boots multi-user on Apple M1 hardware

#190
post #163

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In principle, yes. But at least you can switch to a differently licensed version of the OS if this is your concern.

Sure but the OEM version of Windows is not a walled garden. You are just trying to make a definition of walled garden that isn’t what people generally mean so you can include MacOS within it.

Yes, it is. See the other discussion.
Post reply on HN