Wednesday, January 20th 2021
Linux Gets Ported to Apple's M1-Based Devices
When Apple introduces its lineup of devices based on the custom Apple Silicon, many people have thought that it represents the end for any further device customization and that Apple is effectively locking-up the ecosystem even more. That is not the case we have today. Usually, developers working on Macs are always in need of another operating system to test their software and try it out. It means that they have to run some virtualization software like virtual machines to test another OS like Linux and possibly Windows. However, it would be a lot easier if they could just boot that OS directly on the device and that is exactly why we are here today.
Researchers from Corellium, a startup company based in Florida, working on ARM device virtualization, have pulled off an incredible feat. They have managed to get Linux running on Apple's M1 custom silicon based devices. The CTO of Corellium, Mr. Chris Wade, has announced that Linux is now fully usable on M1 silicon. The port can take full advantage of the CPU, however, there is no GPU acceleration for now, and graphics are set to the software rendering mode. Corellium also promises to take the changes it made upstream to the Linux kernel itself, meaning open-source and permissive license model. Below you can find an image of Apple M1 Mac Mini running the latest Ubuntu OS build.
Source:
Chris Wade (Twitter)
Researchers from Corellium, a startup company based in Florida, working on ARM device virtualization, have pulled off an incredible feat. They have managed to get Linux running on Apple's M1 custom silicon based devices. The CTO of Corellium, Mr. Chris Wade, has announced that Linux is now fully usable on M1 silicon. The port can take full advantage of the CPU, however, there is no GPU acceleration for now, and graphics are set to the software rendering mode. Corellium also promises to take the changes it made upstream to the Linux kernel itself, meaning open-source and permissive license model. Below you can find an image of Apple M1 Mac Mini running the latest Ubuntu OS build.
18 Comments on Linux Gets Ported to Apple's M1-Based Devices
If GPU does not work and there is no word on any additional ASIC support, then "ported" is a strong word.
But it will probably happen, eventually.
Snippet from the article;
As for Windows running natively on the machine, "that's really up to Microsoft," he said. "We have the core technologies for them to do that, to run their ARM version of Windows, which in turn of course supports x86 user mode applications. But that's a decision Microsoft has to make, to bring to license that technology for users to run on these Macs. But the Macs are certainly very capable of it."
MachNEXTSTEP/OPENSTEP, which is itself based on Unix, and has apparently been influenced by Sun's Solaris and BSD? Or so I remember, at least..Ah. Point taken. Though I still expect them to impose some weird requisite like having their code signed by Apple for anything to boot.I hope your prediction is wrong. That will make everything stagnate.Linux ported to M1 should be a surprise to no one.
I also think they will release some more technical specifications over time. Not all but some of it, enough to allow Linux run smoothly and use most of the peripherals and power management.