Apple Open Sources iOS Kernel • Hacker News Board

Re: Apple Open Sources iOS Kernel

#11

Post by [deleted] » Sat, Sep 30, 2017, 4:40 AM UTC

kbumsik wrote: post #9

I think this title is misleading. Apple has open XNU for more than 10 years. And AFAIK this kernel does not include ARM compiling option, as the very first paragraph in the README: > XNU runs on I386, X86_64

[deleted]

Re: Apple Open Sources iOS Kernel

#12

Post by ktta » Sat, Sep 30, 2017, 4:46 AM UTC

Title should be "Apple now has a mirror of XNU kernel on Github"

Re: Apple Open Sources iOS Kernel

#13

Post by blargman » Sat, Sep 30, 2017, 4:47 AM UTC

Perhaps this could have something to do with the rumors of ARM Macbooks?

Re: Apple Open Sources iOS Kernel

#14

Post by orbitur » Sat, Sep 30, 2017, 4:52 AM UTC

kbumsik wrote: post #9

I think this title is misleading. Apple has open XNU for more than 10 years. And AFAIK this kernel does not include ARM compiling option, as the very first paragraph in the README: > XNU runs on I386, X86_64

There are people on Twitter saying ARM64 is available on opensource.apple.com but I can't seem to find it.

This guy works on Foundation: https://twitter.com/Catfish_Man/status/913983607777116160

Re: Apple Open Sources iOS Kernel

#15

Post by codehusker » Sat, Sep 30, 2017, 4:55 AM UTC

kbumsik wrote: post #9

I think this title is misleading. Apple has open XNU for more than 10 years. And AFAIK this kernel does not include ARM compiling option, as the very first paragraph in the README: > XNU runs on I386, X86_64

The README also mentions iOS, which AFAIK is only ARM.

There's also some ARM specific code: https://github.com/apple/darwin-xnu/tree/master/pexpert/arm

The Makefile also has ARM/ARM64 options.

Re: Apple Open Sources iOS Kernel

#16

Post by scott_karana » Sat, Sep 30, 2017, 5:06 AM UTC

shams93 wrote: post #4

hardwaresofton wrote: post #2

How long has this been a thing? This seems huge, but I don't spend enough time in the iOS ecosystem to tell if this is just how it's been for months/years

This only dropped 2 days ago

It's been on opensource.apple.com for a decade. This Github repo is just a mirror.

Re: Apple Open Sources iOS Kernel

#17

Post by aurora72 » Sat, Sep 30, 2017, 6:25 AM UTC

blargman wrote: post #13

Perhaps this could have something to do with the rumors of ARM Macbooks?

Likely.

Re: Apple Open Sources iOS Kernel

#18

Post by ngcc_hk » Sat, Sep 30, 2017, 6:34 AM UTC

LeoNatan25 wrote: post #8

XNU has always been open source, but not the iOS specific changes. There have been private efforts to compile it for ARM, but this is now officially supported in the public Apple source code.

But is this compilable and usable for a bare iron iphone or mac? Or even vm?

Re: Apple Open Sources iOS Kernel

#19

Post by LeoNatan25 » Sat, Sep 30, 2017, 7:19 AM UTC

ngcc_hk wrote: post #18

LeoNatan25 wrote: post #8

XNU has always been open source, but not the iOS specific changes. There have been private efforts to compile it for ARM, but this is now officially supported in the public Apple source code.

But is this compilable and usable for a bare iron iphone or mac? Or even vm?

No, because the bootrom only boots signed software. For an emulator, this could be very interesting; if the bootrom is reproduced and drivers are compatible, it could theoretically work.

Re: Apple Open Sources iOS Kernel

#20

Post by LeoNatan25 » Sat, Sep 30, 2017, 7:20 AM UTC

kbumsik wrote: post #9

I think this title is misleading. Apple has open XNU for more than 10 years. And AFAIK this kernel does not include ARM compiling option, as the very first paragraph in the README: > XNU runs on I386, X86_64

That’s what's newsworthy here—the code now includes the ARM codepaths as well.