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Welcome to the M1 Windows project

amarioguy.github.io

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Re: Welcome to the M1 Windows project

#91

Post by Arnavion »

oneplane wrote: post #63
Arnavion wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, there is a public stable API for Windows drivers. Even the built-in drivers are dynamically loaded. Windows on ARM isn't new. The oldest Windows on ARM was Windows 8 RT (ARM32 only, I believe). Right now it seems Windows 10 and Windows 11 have ARM64 versions, but there was also Windows IoT Core from the Windows IoT OS branch a few years ago.

Windows CE on ARM and Windows PocketPC on ARM is older than that. But all of it has the same issue: you nearly always need a specific rebuild for a different ARM-machine because there isn't a single "ARM PC". Just like x86 pre-ACPI where you need different HALs and bringups for different systems. The problem here is twofold: firstly windows is closed so you can't actually add/modify components and rebuild it, only bi…

Haha, yes, I completely forgot about PocketPC.

Re: Welcome to the M1 Windows project

#92

Post by FireBeyond »

wolpoli wrote: post #81
TheNewsIsHere wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It does. Officially there is an ARM build of Windows that Microsoft licenses to OEMs, and there is (or maybe was?) Windows IoT Core which has a build for ARM. If I recall (grain of salt then) a while after the first M1 Mac came out one of Apple’s VPs had said something on the record about Apple having tried to get Microsoft to sell retail licenses of a Windows 10 for ARM build, because they didn’t want to deprecate B…

It seem a bit disingenuous for Apple to shift blames to Microsoft. Microsoft does not sell retail licenses of Windows for ARM devices and what Apple proposed isn't the way Microsoft currently does business for ARM hardware. Yes, Microsoft could change how they do business to accommodate, but so too could Apple. If Microsoft turn around and ask Apple to license Windows and provide the OS as an option to buyers, or ask…

Yeah. "Well Microsoft has Windows running on Surface ARM tablets, so..."

Maybe Apple can offer to run Windows on iPad? No...?

I agree with you.

Re: Welcome to the M1 Windows project

#93

Post by monocasa »

AshamedCaptain wrote: post #54
roblabla wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's only true up to a certain point. ARM is a very weird target, because a lot of standardized stuff we take for granted in x86/PC land aren't standardized on ARM. In particular, take the Interrupt Controller: x86 has a standard for it (well, technically has two, the PIC and APIC). The "standard" in ARM-land is the GICv3 or GICv4, but many different CPU vendors have their own. Apple has the "Apple Interrupt Contro…

Actually you might be surprised. Windows NT is _older_ than many of the "standards we take for granted in x86/PC land", and for example it does support multiple types of pre-ACPI ways of bringing up multiprocessor systems and specifically multiple types of interrupt controllers. Heck, x86 Windows even supports non-PC servers from Compaq and others; ever tried to press F5 during (old) Windows NT setup ? As the OP said…

ReactOS has written their own HALs.

Re: Welcome to the M1 Windows project

#94

Post by diffeomorphism »

sumy23 wrote: post #75
boardwaalk wrote: post #52

I’d frankly be surprised if you were able to muster the talent/willpower for something like this. 1. Most of the people able to do this sort of thing probably work in Linux/FreeBSD/etc land. 2. You’re really working doubly against the tide here. You have proprietary stuff on the Mac and on the Windows side. 3. (Personal opinion) Dear God that sounds like a lot of work for something that is a fairly unfriendly experie…

I feel like there should be a common etiquette rule on HN where if you don't care about a particular project / technology / initiative that you skip commenting and move on. For example, your comment says that this initiative will not work out. Should there be a debate whether or not it's theoretically possibly for this to work out logistically? What is the value in that? Even if there is a convincing argument that th…

I feel that this is "rule" would be either incredibly harmful or effectively empty.

The post you are criticizing is quite obviously not an example of "don't care", nor is your "summary" anywhere close to accurate. Yet you want to remove such posts? Do you want to remove all constructive criticism or debate while you are at it? Only echo chambers allowed?

Re: Welcome to the M1 Windows project

#95

Post by frostwarrior »

zeusk wrote: post #80
boardwaalk wrote: post #52

I’d frankly be surprised if you were able to muster the talent/willpower for something like this. 1. Most of the people able to do this sort of thing probably work in Linux/FreeBSD/etc land. 2. You’re really working doubly against the tide here. You have proprietary stuff on the Mac and on the Windows side. 3. (Personal opinion) Dear God that sounds like a lot of work for something that is a fairly unfriendly experie…

I work on the NT kernel and DirectX, I'll definitely take a look at this over the weekend.

Did you start working since the Windows NT era? I'm curious.

IMHO, windows things aside, the NT kernel is an impressive feat of engineering and I'm surprised it's still going after so many years.

Re: Welcome to the M1 Windows project

#96

Post by newaccount2021 »

boardwaalk wrote: post #52

I’d frankly be surprised if you were able to muster the talent/willpower for something like this. 1. Most of the people able to do this sort of thing probably work in Linux/FreeBSD/etc land. 2. You’re really working doubly against the tide here. You have proprietary stuff on the Mac and on the Windows side. 3. (Personal opinion) Dear God that sounds like a lot of work for something that is a fairly unfriendly experie…

No post body was provided.

Re: Welcome to the M1 Windows project

#97

Post by yazaddaruvala »

boardwaalk wrote: post #52

I’d frankly be surprised if you were able to muster the talent/willpower for something like this. 1. Most of the people able to do this sort of thing probably work in Linux/FreeBSD/etc land. 2. You’re really working doubly against the tide here. You have proprietary stuff on the Mac and on the Windows side. 3. (Personal opinion) Dear God that sounds like a lot of work for something that is a fairly unfriendly experie…

Fortunately, Microsoft seems to be moving towards: Windows as "just another Linux distribution" with a backwards compatibility layer.

Previous Step: Linux compatibility layer on Windows. https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/wsl/install

Current Step: Get DirectX to be first-class on Linux. https://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=Microsof...

Next Steps: Get the Windows GUI + Win32 APIs + backwards compatibility layer to run on WSL2. Port the best parts of NT to the Linux kernel.

Final Step: Replace NT+WSL2, with the Linux kernel. Use the current devs/tests/etc working on NT for better ROI (from a business customer perspective the NT kernel is no longer a positive differentiation).

Re: Welcome to the M1 Windows project

#98

Post by noveltyaccount »

amarioguy wrote: post #87

hey, OP here, figured i'd clarify some things about this project: 1) yes, I realize this is going to be way harder than it seems, but I'm actually going to do my best to hopefully get a good user experience out of this and I'm easily preparing for this to be a multi-year effort, but I'm not going to give up right at the gate 2) Custom HALs were actually an option, up until very recently, since as of Windows 10, versi…

Good on you for this ambitious project. Wishing you success.

Re: Welcome to the M1 Windows project

#99

Post by f311a »

58028641 wrote: post #51
f311a wrote: post #28

I think it’s very hard to reverse engineer all the parts of m1. Such projects are fun research, but they won’t be able to use the full m1 potential. The software must be optimized as well.

Hector Martin and others have had decent success with reverse engineering so far.

Only the CPU part, GPU is much harder.

Re: Welcome to the M1 Windows project

#100

Post by noveltyaccount »

yazaddaruvala wrote: post #97
boardwaalk wrote: post #52

I’d frankly be surprised if you were able to muster the talent/willpower for something like this. 1. Most of the people able to do this sort of thing probably work in Linux/FreeBSD/etc land. 2. You’re really working doubly against the tide here. You have proprietary stuff on the Mac and on the Windows side. 3. (Personal opinion) Dear God that sounds like a lot of work for something that is a fairly unfriendly experie…

Fortunately, Microsoft seems to be moving towards: Windows as "just another Linux distribution" with a backwards compatibility layer. Previous Step: Linux compatibility layer on Windows. https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/wsl/install Current Step: Get DirectX to be first-class on Linux. https://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=Microsof... Next Steps: Get the Windows GUI + Win32 APIs + backwards compa…

Are those final two steps (next, final) pure speculation on your part? I'd be surprised if Windows threw out NT and moved to Linux kernel, and yet at the same time, it sounds like a great idea IMO (WSL2 + Docker is already a great experience for software development).
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