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Would you be willing to fund a Linux port to Apple Silicon?

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Re: Would you be willing to fund a Linux port to Apple Silicon?

#91

Post by lumost »

delroth wrote: post #79
lumost wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I could be mistaken, but I’m unaware of any kernel capabilities/optimizations for heterogeneous cores with differing power requirements. System memory for both gpu and cpu workloads would also be a new requirement requiring some thought. I’d expect it to be difficult for amd/intel to match performance without similar software capabilities.

Aren't you basically describing big.LITTLE, which has been standard in most mobile SoCs for years now? (And was probably introduced in Android before iOS.)

ahh you are correct! I see support was added in kernel 3.11

Re: Would you be willing to fund a Linux port to Apple Silicon?

#92

Post by The_Colonel »

toper-centage wrote: post #81
devwastaken wrote: post #54

Apple won't support it, therefore support and maintenance will be working around apples proprietary hardware and special drivers. Linux is not meant to live in that environment, I'd argue bettering support for other OEM's is a more fruitfull goal.

On the other hand, we have basically one single model per year to support. That hardware is used by millions and usually users keep it for 5 or more years.

That's not too big advantage - e.g. the major problems with GPU drivers don't seem to be caused by too many companies producing them (2 or 3 depending on how you count) or too many models (new architecture appears only once every couple of years).

(I won't trust myself to speculate on what is making GPU drivers so difficult to get right)

Re: Would you be willing to fund a Linux port to Apple Silicon?

#94

Post by squarefoot »

No, I wouldn't, not even if I could print billions in a snap.

I'd rather help funding the port to a 10 times slower but open platform, rather to a technically superior but proprietary close one whose owner would make it incompatible two seconds after they would smell competition from Linux in any of their core business fields. No thanks, I'll send my small quid to whomever appears to be really in favor of openness, no strings attached, which is neither the case with Apple as it is not with Google or Microsoft.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2019/09/05/how-app...

Re: Would you be willing to fund a Linux port to Apple Silicon?

#95

Post by deaddodo »

m00x wrote: post #64
devwastaken wrote: post #54

Apple won't support it, therefore support and maintenance will be working around apples proprietary hardware and special drivers. Linux is not meant to live in that environment, I'd argue bettering support for other OEM's is a more fruitfull goal.

If anyone has been following nvidia/linux story, this nails it on the head. Apple has never played well with FOSS and aren't going to start now. Apple's implementation will always be ahead, better, less bugs, and the linux port will always be a shitty experience that takes up several weeks to get working properly, and then it'll be slower than expected. Get yourself a laptop with an nvidia card and Ubuntu. Even today…

I have a Dell XPS 9500 (the 2020 model) with an nVidia driver. I run PopOS! as my daily driver and it works with the GPU just fine.

Re: Would you be willing to fund a Linux port to Apple Silicon?

#96

Post by doctor_eval »

mondoshawan wrote: post #89
robin_reala wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Apple have a FOSS kernel, one of the three remaining web renderers, CUPS, and a bunch more smaller things. They’re not the most religious of FOSS companies, but it’s a bit unfair to say they don’t play well in the places that they play. If you take FOSS to mean only GPL, then yes, I get your point.

XNU is not FOSS, and 99% of the foundation classes, Aqua, and drivers are all proprietary.

Why is XNU not FOSS? Has something changed? Is Wikipedia wrong? It says that XNU is APSL which is approved by OSI and FSF.

While I agree that much of the good stuff is proprietary (but certainly not all, eg WebKit), that doesn’t mean that the free stuff isn’t free.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apple_Public_Source_License

Re: Would you be willing to fund a Linux port to Apple Silicon?

#97

Post by heavyset_go »

ndesaulniers wrote: post #73
heavyset_go wrote: post #12

If I thought there was a good chance of having the work upstreamed so that a mainline Linux kernel would eventually work on these computers, maybe. In my experience, there are not many ARM SoCs that have mainline support, even some of the Raspberry Pi boards don't, and they're some of the most popular ARM SoCs used for Linux. A lot of these projects get to the stage where a forked kernel will run on the SoC, but then…

I'd be curious if you had a rough outline of what are the steps involved in porting Linux to a new target? In particular, I see folks working on a downstream port the the 3DS: https://github.com/xerpi/linux_3ds . I'm kind of curious where do people even start?

Here's an outline for getting Linux running on ARM SoCs: https://elinux.org/images/a/ad/Arm-soc-checklist.pdf

Re: Would you be willing to fund a Linux port to Apple Silicon?

#98

Post by mdellabitta »

pengaru wrote: post #78
lumost wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I could be mistaken, but I’m unaware of any kernel capabilities/optimizations for heterogeneous cores with differing power requirements. System memory for both gpu and cpu workloads would also be a new requirement requiring some thought. I’d expect it to be difficult for amd/intel to match performance without similar software capabilities.

Without any independent actual measurements of the same stack running on the same hardware with those optimizations turned off, we can't draw any conclusions regarding their significance. Considering Apple has been so adamant about misrepresenting what's really TSMC silicon as "Apple Silicon", I'm viewing everything they say through "PR oozing with insecurity about not actually controlling access to their chip's manu…

Based on your qualification of who's silicon it is, AMD, Broadcom, Marvell, MediaTek, Nvidia, STMicroelectronics, and Qualcomm do not manufacture chips... Even IBM uses TSMC. That's a lot of the CPU silicon shipping right now.

The market has changed, and most CPU vendors don't fab their own chips anymore. The IP is in the chip design. Are you saying TSMC designed the M1?

Re: Would you be willing to fund a Linux port to Apple Silicon?

#99

Post by Uptrenda »

I'd rather crowd fund a 100% open mobile chip. We've got 'open phones' already. But they're all still using qualcomm blobs. I think that is a huge vuln in our communications system. It's like if one company controlled the entire internet... Every piece of data being passed in and out of the same chip right down to the way radio channels are chosen, ciphers used, transports checked, and control messages processed... all hidden. Using so much insecure crap. How many people use phones for sensitive info? this stuff is swiss-cheese, nightmare material

Re: Would you be willing to fund a Linux port to Apple Silicon?

#100

Post by Shared404 »

qwerty456127 wrote: post #62
pengaru wrote: post #51

Most of what makes the M1 interesting is TSMC's 5nm process, why wouldn't we expect similar results from future x86 CPUs on 5nm or smaller. At least AMD is supporting upstream Linux development for GPU support, if you care about Free software and control over your computers, throw your money at companies better aligned with those goals. Don't reward Apple for being assholes. <=5nm AMD Zen SoCs will be fantastic as we…

Do the companies better aligned make full-metal laptops challenging MacBookAir durability and design while being 100% Linux-compatible?

My understanding is that some of the newer ThinkPad's fit that bill.
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