Would you be willing to fund a Linux port to Apple Silicon?
1–10 of 548 posts
Re: Would you be willing to fund a Linux port to Apple Silicon?
#2I'm assuming this is for the kernel itself. After that, does the distro matter?
Re: Would you be willing to fund a Linux port to Apple Silicon?
#3If there’s anyone in the community I’d trust to do this, it would be marcan, who, among countless other things, got Linux working with GPU acceleration on the PS4. https://media.ccc.de/v/33c3-7946-console_hacking_2016
Re: Would you be willing to fund a Linux port to Apple Silicon?
#4Not sure. As long as Apple are hostile to running anything else on their hardware, reverse engineering it (for all the drivers and etc.) might be simply a waste of time and resources which could be better applied to something useful and actually friendly to openness.
Especially since such reverse engineering will require constant chasing after changes to stay relevant.
Re: Would you be willing to fund a Linux port to Apple Silicon?
#5Wait, did Apple actually add an option for unsigned boot on M1? I remember their WWDC overview saying they were only going to have either iPhone-style latest-version-only or any-version options, and them later saying they'd only be supporting virtualization. If they have an owner override for the secure boot on M1, then that's absolutely fantastic, and I suppose puts more support around Apple's assertions that Microsoft needs to license Windows on ARM for M1 before we can have Boot Camp back.
Re: Would you be willing to fund a Linux port to Apple Silicon?
#6I'm assuming this is for the kernel itself. After that, does the distro matter?
Not really; all the distros use the same low-level components. There would be work on a per-distro basis to use the right #defines and patches though.
Re: Would you be willing to fund a Linux port to Apple Silicon?
#7Not sure. As long as Apple are hostile to running anything else on their hardware, reverse engineering it (for all the drivers and etc.) might be simply a waste of time and resources which could be better applied to something useful and actually friendly to openness. Especially since such reverse engineering will require constant chasing after changes to stay relevant.
False. Respectfully it seems you didn’t read much of the thread.
From the thread Apple have actively left the door open so other (currently non existent) OS could be booted, but as the author said, they’ve left it open but have not provided documentation.
From the thread:
“Linus himself has said he'd love to see Linux running on M1 macs, but doesn't think it'll happen. Not because they're locked down, but because Apple won't help us with documentation.
But they at least did this:
https://mobile.twitter.com/marcan42/status/13331260180689551...
The fact that Apple allows this in their secureboot policy is critical. Linux ports to game consoles / iPhones / etc are all fun and games, but you're always at the mercy of exploits, and the resulting cat and mouse game.
That means all effort is wasted unless exploits keep up, and regular users would never want to do this and severely limit their access to official upgrades and such. But this isn't an issue with M1 macs.”
Continues to discussions of limitations..
Re: Would you be willing to fund a Linux port to Apple Silicon?
#8Wait, did Apple actually add an option for unsigned boot on M1? I remember their WWDC overview saying they were only going to have either iPhone-style latest-version-only or any-version options, and them later saying they'd only be supporting virtualization. If they have an owner override for the secure boot on M1, then that's absolutely fantastic, and I suppose puts more support around Apple's assertions that Micros…
Yes, you can turn off all of the secure boot features. Booting other OSs is most likely coming.
Re: Would you be willing to fund a Linux port to Apple Silicon?
#9Wait, did Apple actually add an option for unsigned boot on M1? I remember their WWDC overview saying they were only going to have either iPhone-style latest-version-only or any-version options, and them later saying they'd only be supporting virtualization. If they have an owner override for the secure boot on M1, then that's absolutely fantastic, and I suppose puts more support around Apple's assertions that Micros…
Yes, you can turn off all of the secure boot features. Booting other OSs is most likely coming.
Well, from what I understand its less "turn off secure boot features" and more "create/add a signature for your custom code to secure boot". https://mobile.twitter.com/never_released/status/13263157410...
I can't find a primary source for the comment in the tweet, but it seems widely regarded as true at this point, so fingers crossed it pans out that way.
Re: Would you be willing to fund a Linux port to Apple Silicon?
#10Not sure. As long as Apple are hostile to running anything else on their hardware, reverse engineering it (for all the drivers and etc.) might be simply a waste of time and resources which could be better applied to something useful and actually friendly to openness. Especially since such reverse engineering will require constant chasing after changes to stay relevant.
> As long as Apple are hostile to running anything else on their hardware
Are they? Apple isn't only iOS. Macs have always had unlockable bootloaders.