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OpenBSD boots multi-user on Apple M1 hardware

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Re: OpenBSD boots multi-user on Apple M1 hardware

#151

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It would be to Apple's advantage somewhat to make that happen right? Apple wants to sell hardware and does not mind people running virtualised Windows or Linux on it?

They also sell services though, and their products reinforce one another so that once you’re bought into their ecosystem it ties you to Apple products in perpetuity. I know because it happened to me; doesn’t happen if you’re not actually using the OS.

>so that once you’re bought into their ecosystem it ties you to Apple products in perpetuity.

Only because of the seamlessness (within reason) of the experience.

Otherwise, there's nothing to switching to another OS for all or any part of it.

Many (most?) apps people use everyday are web- or Electron based, so they can switch to any other Windows or Linux with e.g. Chrome.

Their music is in some streaming service (Spotify, Apple Music, Google Play, etc) all of which play on other OSes (and in any case, they can change subscription and they haven't lost anything). Or, for the fussier, it's mp3 or flac files, they can easily move. Even bought music (aac) from the iTunes Store is playable in other platform (since Apple has removed the DRM for a decade or so).

Ditto for movies. It's all streaming nowadays, and you can just switch to another streaming service (and all play everywhere anyway).

As for professional apps, most heavy ones (MS Office, Adobe Suite, Cubase, Live, Resolve, etc) run just fine in both OSX and Windows, and come with dual installers, so you can switch if you like (some even allow for multiple computers at the same time).

(If you're using Logic or FCPX, then sure, you'll need to find another program, and go through the pain of migrating your projects).

For mobile it's the same thing. E.g. you can sync just fine with an Android phone (you just don't get niceties like Handoff, Scan-to-Notes, etc).

So there's nothing special to "tie you to Apple products in perpetuity" except "I might lose the use of some apps that are Mac Only" (so same thing that would have tied you to Windows or Linux in perpetuity).

Re: OpenBSD boots multi-user on Apple M1 hardware

#152
post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nah, I want to choose the kernel. This statement is a bit presumptuous: "It's almost guaranteed you will never fully get Wi-Fi, audio, graphics acceleration, the trackpad, etc. working flawlessly." Maybe I do not want all those things every time I boot. Apple used an "alternative OS" for their Airport routers: NetBSD. Kernel was around 6.x if I recall correctly. Seemed like Wi-Fi worked preety good, maybe even "flawl…

You can also decide to give the money to other computer vendors that actually care about BSD. I don't know, like Tuxedo, https://www.tuxedocomputers.com/en/Infos/News/OpenBSD-6-3-cu...

[deleted]

Re: OpenBSD boots multi-user on Apple M1 hardware

#153

Running an alternative OS "natively" on a Mac doesn't seem very appealing to me. It's almost guaranteed you will never fully get Wi-Fi, audio, graphics acceleration, the trackpad, etc. working flawlessly, especially on the M1 where almost every component is Apple proprietary and it's not a matter of loading, say, some common Intel graphics driver. On the other hand, virtualization _already_ lets you run whatever arm6…

> It's almost guaranteed you will never fully get Wi-Fi, audio, graphics acceleration, the trackpad, etc. working flawlessly And yet people have done it with Linux just fine... Linus himself run a G5 as his desktop (circa 2003-2005) and later a Macbook Air as his daily driver laptop (circa 2011-2013...)

But this was not on an M1.

This was on an AMD64 system that was far less Apple-specific as far as I know.

Re: OpenBSD boots multi-user on Apple M1 hardware

#154

Running an alternative OS "natively" on a Mac doesn't seem very appealing to me. It's almost guaranteed you will never fully get Wi-Fi, audio, graphics acceleration, the trackpad, etc. working flawlessly, especially on the M1 where almost every component is Apple proprietary and it's not a matter of loading, say, some common Intel graphics driver. On the other hand, virtualization _already_ lets you run whatever arm6…

I run Linux natively on a MacBook just fine. In fact I had to, when High Sierra went out of support not that long after I’d upgraded my RAM and HDD to SDD. It now flies and honestly I don’t know why I waited until High Sierra went end of life as I feel Mac OS X has got worse and worse. Also the hardware has got less and less upgradable/fixable in that time too.

Re: OpenBSD boots multi-user on Apple M1 hardware

#155
post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nah, I want to choose the kernel. This statement is a bit presumptuous: "It's almost guaranteed you will never fully get Wi-Fi, audio, graphics acceleration, the trackpad, etc. working flawlessly." Maybe I do not want all those things every time I boot. Apple used an "alternative OS" for their Airport routers: NetBSD. Kernel was around 6.x if I recall correctly. Seemed like Wi-Fi worked preety good, maybe even "flawl…

I'm just really curious and don't have a dog in this fight against/for ability to do as you will with a product you purchase. A) a hypothetical device, let's not call it a computer, but similar, exists that asks you politely by means of something like a license not to modify it even though it would be possible to do so pretty easily. B) another device, this time a hypothetical CPU that is next to impossible to modify…

>Why should there be a fundamental difference in a person's ability to modify one of the above, but not the other?

Because one could trivially modify the first, and people do all the time (and screw the law), whereas the second is, as you said, "next to impossible" to modify even if you want it.

>Just because the laws of Physics don't allow mere mortals to so (not at least without a highly sophisticated nano fabrication lab) doesn't seem like a very convincing principled answer

In what universe do "the laws of physics prevent this to be done easily without millions of dollars" is not a convincing answer?

Re: OpenBSD boots multi-user on Apple M1 hardware

#156
post #141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not all laptops. Regular stock Intel components, for example, have solid Linux support because Intel nowadays hire kernel developers to support them. Some even have upstream drivers before the hardware is even commercially available.

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?

Re: OpenBSD boots multi-user on Apple M1 hardware

#157

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not sure I understand what Apple contributed here. It's not supported, helped, or encouraged by Apple. And Apple does not document their H/W in ways that allow reuse. Hence these are all reverse engineering projects. Apple _is_ a walled garden ecosystem. That has many obvious advantages, things just work, etc. Personally I happen to not like it, but it's a choice folks have to make by themselves. I buy my H/W fro…

What would Apple even have to lose by proving the specification and documentation needed to boot alternative operating systems? People would still need to by the hardware from Apple and the number of people who even consider this option is so small that the PR it would bring easily outweight any potential cost. How many bought the Intel Macs initially because: If it doesn’t workout, I just install Windows. Linux user…

>What would Apple even have to lose by proving the specification and documentation needed to boot alternative operating systems?

They already describe how to do so, and the specification to merely boot is trivial anyway. Linux, OpenBSD (as in TFA), and others have booted already.

It's the details of the GPU and other such stuff that needs drivers (touchpad, etc) that are missing. And those are rarely well documented on the Intel side, by AMD and NVIDIA either, anyway.

Re: OpenBSD boots multi-user on Apple M1 hardware

#158

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.)

>nobody wants their desktop computer to be like the iPhone or iPad

You'd be surprised.

(Also, this exactly has been the proposition and allure of the Chromebooks - a computer that you can just wipe and restart again and it's like a phone or tablet device, and your data are synced in the cloud).

Re: OpenBSD boots multi-user on Apple M1 hardware

#159

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I took what Craig said more as “we aren’t doing Bootcamp, run Windows in a VM”. Apple never really supported the efforts to run Linux/BSD on their hardware in Intel, why would they start with the M1?

They support it about well as they did in Intel, which is to say that they left the door open to it. At the volume that Macs ship at, and the interest they garner, this is mostly enough to get people willing to put in the effort to make it work.

Yeah, I agree they “left the door open”, but the point I was making is that Apple provides zero resources (docs, data sheets, people to help, etc) that I’ve seen to those who are trying to reverse engineer the components in their machines to get them to work with an open source OS. Like an internal engineer tasked with working on an A series processor gets a tens of thousands of page PDF on the processor alone, not including similar PDFs for the GPU, but good luck ever getting that from Apple to port say Linux to it.

Re: OpenBSD boots multi-user on Apple M1 hardware

#160

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It's almost guaranteed you will never fully get Wi-Fi, audio, graphics acceleration, the trackpad, etc. working flawlessly And yet people have done it with Linux just fine... Linus himself run a G5 as his desktop (circa 2003-2005) and later a Macbook Air as his daily driver laptop (circa 2011-2013...)

But this was not on an M1 . This was on an AMD64 system that was far less Apple-specific as far as I know.

Yes, but the parent comment said " especially on the M1", implying that that was the case on Intel too...
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