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Building a Linux GPU Driver for the M4 Mac Mini in One Month

codyho.dev

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Re: Building a Linux GPU Driver for the M4 Mac Mini in One Month

#81

Post by SXX »

thrwy19940314 wrote: post #20

All this work is tainted since the poster is ex-Apple[1]. There is no way Linux will take that code, since people from Apple also contribute to Linux and this creates a major conflict. There's also ongoing issues around Codex for this sort of thing, given Apple is suing OpenAI over stolen trade secrets[2]. And nobody knows whether training data in other models is similarly tainted. [1]: https://codyho.dev/documents/c…

> There is no way Linux will take that code, since people from Apple also contribute to Linux and this creates a major conflict.

I guess author can cleanup the code and try upstream it themself. Then let's see what Linus thinks of it.

Re: Building a Linux GPU Driver for the M4 Mac Mini in One Month

#82

Post by SXX »

ADevWithAnIdea wrote: post #76
SXX wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thanks for the post and answering here, but for someone to follow in your steps there really need to be more information: how did you handle physical hardware? Did it got stuck / frozen / whatever? How did you managed reset / etc? What is your actual step-by-step process other then just telling codex / claude code "do X"? What else had to be solved along the way? I just think one good part of Marcan's work is that th…

I detail most of the development process in part 1: https://codyho.dev/blog/hypervisor-macbook-neo/ tl;dr you reboot the device with `macvdmtool`, you install m1n1 as the boot object, you talk to the m1n1 proxy over a python shell. I'm documenting the process as I go also (see: the blog posts, also my github repos) both so others can do it and as record of the clean room nature, but this really is just GPT go brrrrr

> but this really is just GPT go brrrrr

I guess its a good reason to try it with M6 mac mini or Vision Pro then (yeah I know AVP has locked bootloader). Thanks.

Re: Building a Linux GPU Driver for the M4 Mac Mini in One Month

#83

Post by outworlder »

thrwy19940314 wrote: post #20

All this work is tainted since the poster is ex-Apple[1]. There is no way Linux will take that code, since people from Apple also contribute to Linux and this creates a major conflict. There's also ongoing issues around Codex for this sort of thing, given Apple is suing OpenAI over stolen trade secrets[2]. And nobody knows whether training data in other models is similarly tainted. [1]: https://codyho.dev/documents/c…

Resume says : "Machine Learning Engineer".

Exactly how does that equate to knowing details of Apple's GPU implementation? Apple is a massive company.

Re: Building a Linux GPU Driver for the M4 Mac Mini in One Month

#84

Post by outworlder »

kmeisthax wrote: post #21

Clean room is not 100% legally necessary for RE, but I would never touch an LLM to do RE work when there's even a chance the models have been trained on the thing I ultimately plan to reimplement. Furthermore, given that Asahi Linux, the biggest game in town when it comes to running Linux on Apple silicon, is trying to be cleanroom, it is incredibly rude of you to not mention LLMs until after showing a page full of L…

> when there's even a chance the models have been trained on the thing I ultimately plan to reimplement.

Are you claiming models were trained on proprietary Apple code? How would that even be possible?

Re: Building a Linux GPU Driver for the M4 Mac Mini in One Month

#85

Post by thrwy19940314 »

ADevWithAnIdea wrote: post #18
AKSF_Ackermann wrote: post #17

I am not by any means a copyright lawyer, so can anyone enlighten me on if it is a good idea for upstream projects to accept such kind of code from an ex-Apple employee, especially since Apple is currently suing OpenAI.

Great observation, two things: - During my time at Apple I never saw any of the macOS source code, at all, even for userspace components. I had not even heard of things like SPTM. - I have not worked there since June 2025 I don't believe that there's any risk due to my former Apple employment. As another example, WINE does not ban all former Microsoft employees, they just ban anyone who has ever looked at the Windows…

At least according to your own accounts on the Asahi IRC rooms, you were very aware of SPTM (which is part of the AS platform) and knew the people working on it: https://oftc.catirclogs.org/asahi-dev/2026-06-04#35383763

Re: Building a Linux GPU Driver for the M4 Mac Mini in One Month

#86

Post by thrwy19940314 »

ADevWithAnIdea wrote: post #61
MoltenMonster wrote: post #25

https://www.reddit.com/r/AsahiLinux/comments/1whecn1/comment... > The author was banned from Asahi Linux for hiding his extensive use of LLMs from us in another attempted contribution, and (more importantly) for concealing that he is a former Apple engineer with direct contacts to the people involved in Apple Silicon development. Make of this what you will.

> concealing that he is a former Apple engineer with direct contacts to the people involved in Apple Silicon development This is false. I am a former Apple engineer. I did not conceal it (it's the top item of my resume and my LinkedIn and I made my PR from my public Github with my name attached, as opposed to a pseudonym which is expressly allowed by Asahi policy). I also had no exposure, at all, to any internal info…

At least according to your own accounts on the Asahi IRC rooms, you were very aware of SPTM (which is part of the AS platform) and knew the people working on it: https://oftc.catirclogs.org/asahi-dev/2026-06-04#35383763

Re: Building a Linux GPU Driver for the M4 Mac Mini in One Month

#87

Post by donw »

ADevWithAnIdea wrote: post #61
MoltenMonster wrote: post #25

https://www.reddit.com/r/AsahiLinux/comments/1whecn1/comment... > The author was banned from Asahi Linux for hiding his extensive use of LLMs from us in another attempted contribution, and (more importantly) for concealing that he is a former Apple engineer with direct contacts to the people involved in Apple Silicon development. Make of this what you will.

> concealing that he is a former Apple engineer with direct contacts to the people involved in Apple Silicon development This is false. I am a former Apple engineer. I did not conceal it (it's the top item of my resume and my LinkedIn and I made my PR from my public Github with my name attached, as opposed to a pseudonym which is expressly allowed by Asahi policy). I also had no exposure, at all, to any internal info…

I'm sure Omarchy will appreciate the effort, even if you're snubbed by Asahi -- being able to run Linux flawlessly on Apple Silicon is going to be awesome.

Re: Building a Linux GPU Driver for the M4 Mac Mini in One Month

#88

Post by ivankra »

MoltenMonster wrote: post #25

https://www.reddit.com/r/AsahiLinux/comments/1whecn1/comment... > The author was banned from Asahi Linux for hiding his extensive use of LLMs from us in another attempted contribution, and (more importantly) for concealing that he is a former Apple engineer with direct contacts to the people involved in Apple Silicon development. Make of this what you will.

Apple is a huge company with strong silo culture. I only interviewed with them, but it feels to me like different orgs are run almost like entirely different companies. If his work didn't concern Mac, it's quite unlikely he'd have any special insider knowledge about it.

Re: Building a Linux GPU Driver for the M4 Mac Mini in One Month

#89

Post by danielheath »

ndriscoll wrote: post #70
danielheath wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Person A was under NDA, so we got them to pass their knowledge to person B, then had person B do the work - that's clean-room, right?" Judges, as far as I know, do not generally take kindly to such arguments.

Wouldn't B's publication of the information make it by definition no longer a trade secret? It is now public knowledge, regardless of whether the current or former engineers might be liable for the original leak. Any other interpretation would mean trade secrets have essentially infinite protection/NDAs apply to all of humanity.

> NDAs apply to all of humanity

The NDA doesn't apply to people who haven't signed it, but copyright law does. If you know the material you're receiving is under copyright (eg proprietary source code), and you publish work based on that copyright material, the fact that it's now widely available is not an effective defense against claims of copyright violation.

Person B in this scenario hasn't violated the NDA, but they could be sued for copyright infringement.

Re: Building a Linux GPU Driver for the M4 Mac Mini in One Month

#90

Post by ryandrake »

cromka wrote: post #67
thrwy19940314 wrote: post #20

All this work is tainted since the poster is ex-Apple[1]. There is no way Linux will take that code, since people from Apple also contribute to Linux and this creates a major conflict. There's also ongoing issues around Codex for this sort of thing, given Apple is suing OpenAI over stolen trade secrets[2]. And nobody knows whether training data in other models is similarly tainted. [1]: https://codyho.dev/documents/c…

> All this work is tainted since the poster is ex-Apple[1]. So if I worked as a janitor at Apple, I couldn't contribute anymore?

I’m glad I did my one Linux kernel driver contribution before I worked at Apple. What a surprise to know that I’ll never be able to contribute to it ever again.
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