Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

OpenBSD boots multi-user on Apple M1 hardware

marc.info

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

81–90 of 204 posts

Re: OpenBSD boots multi-user on Apple M1 hardware

#81

Post by ogre_codes »

rgovostes wrote: post #66
amatecha wrote: post #60

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.)

I think most people would prefer not having an extra OS underneath when possible.

Also, the G4 iMac is a special piece of hardware in my book. I'd love to Frankenstein an M1 G4 iMac.

Re: OpenBSD boots multi-user on Apple M1 hardware

#82

Post by ogre_codes »

zepto wrote: post #77
ogre_codes wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The Mac is not by anyone’s definition. Seems to me like a whole lot of arguments about Apple involve changing accepted definitions of things or using different standards for Apple versus others. Apple does enough things wrong and I'm perfectly willing to accept those things and understand when people are frustrated by those things. No need to invent whole new things or shift definitions just so you can complain abo…

> No need to invent whole new things or shift definitions just so you can complain about them. Since I agree with you, I assume this is aimed at the comment I’m responding to it, and those like it, rather than me.

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.

Re: OpenBSD boots multi-user on Apple M1 hardware

#83

Post by tluyben2 »

Wowfunhappy wrote: post #59
kitsunesoba wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> On the other hand, virtualization _already_ lets you run whatever arm64 BSD, Linux, or Windows that you want. The trackpad and everything else will work flawlessly thanks to guest additions. Yes, you make some tradeoffs -- you sacrifice a core, a few GB of RAM, some disk space for an OS you don't _really_ want to be running. But I'm skeptical that these are not better tradeoffs than constantly using a hacked-togeth…

Really, that goes for any guest OS other than maybe Windows, and Windows is different only because VM developers have poured an enormous amount of time and money into it. You can get rid of the sluggishness with GPU passthrough... but then the guest OS would still need GPU drivers.

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?

Re: OpenBSD boots multi-user on Apple M1 hardware

#84

Post by pushrax »

Wowfunhappy wrote: post #59
kitsunesoba wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> On the other hand, virtualization _already_ lets you run whatever arm64 BSD, Linux, or Windows that you want. The trackpad and everything else will work flawlessly thanks to guest additions. Yes, you make some tradeoffs -- you sacrifice a core, a few GB of RAM, some disk space for an OS you don't _really_ want to be running. But I'm skeptical that these are not better tradeoffs than constantly using a hacked-togeth…

Really, that goes for any guest OS other than maybe Windows, and Windows is different only because VM developers have poured an enormous amount of time and money into it. You can get rid of the sluggishness with GPU passthrough... but then the guest OS would still need GPU drivers.

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.

Re: OpenBSD boots multi-user on Apple M1 hardware

#85

Post by 1vuio0pswjnm7 »

rgovostes wrote: post #51

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…

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 "flawlessly".

It's a computer. As the purchaser, I should get to decide how it is used. Using Apple software should be optional.

Re: OpenBSD boots multi-user on Apple M1 hardware

#86

Post by pushrax »

tluyben2 wrote: post #83
Wowfunhappy wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Really, that goes for any guest OS other than maybe Windows, and Windows is different only because VM developers have poured an enormous amount of time and money into it. You can get rid of the sluggishness with GPU passthrough... but then the guest OS would still need GPU drivers.

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?

Apple also tends to prefer pushing their users to their closed software ecosystem. Given the likely low demand for passthrough on these devices, I kind of doubt they'll implement it in the foreseeable future.

Re: OpenBSD boots multi-user on Apple M1 hardware

#87

Post by pjmlp »

1vuio0pswjnm7 wrote: post #85
rgovostes wrote: post #51

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…

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...

Re: OpenBSD boots multi-user on Apple M1 hardware

#88

Post by fulafel »

rgovostes wrote: post #66
amatecha wrote: post #60

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.)

It's a PowerPC architecture CPU so from hardware POV it supports virtualization out of the box[1].

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Popek_and_Goldberg_virtualizat....

Re: OpenBSD boots multi-user on Apple M1 hardware

#89

Post by soheil »

1vuio0pswjnm7 wrote: post #85
rgovostes wrote: post #51

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…

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 with any degree of ease since it requires nanoscale tools.

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

Re: OpenBSD boots multi-user on Apple M1 hardware

#90

Post by [deleted] »

endgame wrote: post #35
ogre_codes wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> but does it not leave a bad taste in your mouth that Apple charge the best part of 2 thousand dollars for a laptop with a basically brand-new (so not rotted) stack but utterly refuse to document anything beyond the absolute basics Computers are tools to get a job done. I buy a computer so I can write software on it. While I am happy that we can get Linux and OpenBSD on a Mac, it's not a deal breaker. Regardless of…

> I buy a computer so I can write software on it. And I use Free Software operating systems to ensure that I can continue to do so.

[deleted]
Post reply on HN