Re: GPUs and Linux. Most of the drivers are still binary blobs, aren’t they? Unless you want to be tied down to a supported kernel release, I’m not sure the advantage is as cut and dry as that.
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Corellium Releases 'Completely Usable' Version of Linux for M1 Macs
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Of course you have to disable security features. You’re loading a new bootloader and making UEFI level changes (actually, I’m going on a limb and assuming Apple Silicon Macs still use EFI firmware, could be some other firmware flavor). Firmwares should be locked down, otherwise it’s too easy to make potentially malicious changes. I bought an iMac off eBay once with Mac OS X 10.3 on it. It had existing user accounts on it, and I didn’t have the login info, nor did I have startup discs. But I had physical access and enough know how to create a new user account, change the password on the existing admin account (or did I enable the root account, can’t remember, it’s been 10 years), then give my new account admin privileges. If a computer is going to be secure even if a malicious user has physical access, then the firmware needs to be secure, too. Having it locked down by default but able to be unlocked is the sensible behavior, IMO.Looks like you have to disable security features to boot this thing but the fact that Apple still allows one to disable security is a good sign:
GitHub - corellium/preloader-m1: Preloader for Linux on M1
Preloader for Linux on M1. Contribute to corellium/preloader-m1 development by creating an account on GitHub.github.com
I really hope Apple eventually allows third party OSes to be trusted by the hardware.
Like cost, for one thing. Size and power requirements for another. IIRC, you can power all but the newest Raspberry Pi off a 5V, 2A USB power supply, yeah?
LOL. Other Android OEM allows you unlock bootloder to install alternative OS.
Yet, I have not hear Apple offers such.
Apple can technically lock down Macs into level of iOS devices. And I have every reason to believe Apple would do that.
And you know what, Apple will use security as excuse. And you guys will buy that.
I have returned my M1 Macs. I don’t trust Apple in any shape or form. I am going to keep my Intel Mac as long as possible.
And I know my i5 hackintosh will keep me accompanied.
Yeah, I actually just picked up a Raspberry Pi 4 to run as a Homebridge server among other things and it requires a 5V 3A power supply, so 15W max. But at first I was considering a Mac Mini M1 when I saw that it actually maxes out at only 39W.
Homebridge isn’t likely to push the Mac mini to use the full 39W, either. Homebridge is something I’m very interested in and will likely explore in the near future, and it’s time for me to upgrade my main computer anyway (from a specs/performance perspective), but the Raspberry Pi is so much smaller (and roughly a 14th of the price?), and there are some other hobbyist projects I want to do with one. So I’ll probably end up getting a Raspberry Pi 4 at some point in the relatively near future, myself.
I think so. Torvalds was complaining about that. Yes, it's still a dicey game, but I still rate it above Apple's GPU support if you aren't all-in with Metal.
Yes. We know what other OEMs do. But your premise is wrong. There’s a difference between not HELPING you install another OS, and preventing you from doing so.
And those other OEMs you are so in love with are security nightmares - many businesses do not allow the use of android devices by their employees for that reason. And part of the security problem comes from the ability to hack or replace the OS.
Apple went as far as prevent you downgrading iOS, let along running alternative OS...
Yet with other OEM, when update stops, I can load forked version android or other OS, so it does not become paperweight...
By the way, the company I am working for, I can access tons of client information from my phone via BlackBeery works and I am allowed to use, guess what, Android.
Yeah, there's HomeBrew and MacPorts, but they're not built-in and often cause issues. I've been down this road too many times to do it again. Trying to build open-source software on macOS leads you down a rabbit hole of installing deps manually, sometimes from both package managers cause one of them doesn't have something you need, and probably screwing up your dylibs. Brew refuses to run as root, which is usually fine but may eventually land you with screwed up permissions and either hacking brew to run as root anyway or changing root-owned files to be owned by yourself. (Seriously, it lectures me on why I shouldn't use root, but every other package manager runs as root, and idc anyway on my single-user laptop.) Worst was installing PyTorch or TensorFlow with GPU acceleration.
Any time you want to install something in Ubuntu, you search "how to install ___ in Ubuntu" and usually get an unambiguous "apt-get install" command that works without any fuss. Worst case you have to build the src yourself, and the makefile mostly assumes you're on Linux and tends to work. It's a different world; I don't try to build Mac binaries on Linux either.
Proton is a Wine fork that runs Windows games on Linux very reliably and efficiently, unlike vanilla Wine. There's no Mac version of it at all, allegedly due to macOS lacking the right graphics libs.
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Ok but that would make a Mac, not a Mac. Thus they won't do it. Apple last week allowed people to boot other custom kernels in 11.2 beta 2 and why would they offer a reduced security mode if they are going to lock down in the future.
Does not make sense to me. I guess we see by the end of the year if Apple will not allow booting of other OSs.
Apple treats Mac differently, you can downgrade on M1 Macs . So if have 11.1 installed u can get 11.0 installed again.
On iOS this is not the case if u have 14.3, u can't downgrade to 14.2.
No, they simply stopped SIGNING their old OS. Again, your statements engender a bizarre form of entitlement. “I want XYZ, so Apple should make it easy for me!”
And why do I care what your company allows? Given that they allow “blackbeery works” I can’t imagine it’s all that security-savvy.
VMs are one reason, but not the only one. Some people like Mac hardware but prefer Linux as an OS. Plus I have occasionally (VERY occasionally) run across software that just doesn't compile on macOS (or BSD) for various reasons.
Heck, you could use Linux as your primary OS but keep a VM of High Sierra around for those times you want to play some 32-bit Mac-only games.
Another person who's working on this is Hector Martin. Quite a few people (including myself) are backing him on Patreon.
But would really an ARM/M1 Mac be the ideal environment for some sort of general Linux software that you can't get going in MacOS?
(Outside of RPI/Raspbian I don't have much experience with running Linux on arm. ?)
At this exact moment in time, perhaps not. But I am kind of expecting that Apple's full-scale move to ARM is the harbinger of an industry-wide move away from x86 on personal computers in general, and I'm betting it's going to happen surprisingly quickly. So people who are interested in Linux will be looking at (and solving) a lot of these problems in the very near term.
Plus some of us still like to tinker.
I keep telling myself I'm past that, but then I get the bug again...Honestly, before there's proper T2 support in the open communities, and we get proper dualbooting, I don't think it will have much impact outside of a few extra nerdy groups of people.At this exact moment in time, perhaps not. But I am kind of expecting that Apple's full-scale move to ARM is the harbinger of an industry-wide move away from x86 on personal computers in general, and I'm betting it's going to happen surprisingly quickly. So people who are interested in Linux will be looking at (and solving) a lot of these problems in the very near term.
Plus some of us still like to tinker.
I'd LOVE proper dualbooting (with Debian), but before then it's simply too much of a pain/hobby project for me to bother with; because I always have/require access to servers running Linux anyways, so I get the good stuff without having to deal with the bad.
If anything it was at first MacOS X, and then mosh.org, that was revolutionary for me. Being able to shoehorn linux on to my actual Apple hardware feels more like a future political statement if Apple every turn bad. ?
I very frequently run into software that doesn't compile on/for macOS, at least not without more effort, which is what the VM is for. Wouldn't use Linux as a primary OS, but I know some people would. Torvalds, for starters, has said he'd like to use an M1 MacBook running Linux.
E. g. security updates after Apple stops supporting the (still perfectly fine) hardware.
I applaud the accomplishment, but let's face it, it's the same ole song - Linux on Mac machinery that ends up being about 75% of the available functionality working out of the box and then a slow, measly painful climb towards maybe 80% before its time for the next round of Macs to start the cycle all over again. I certainly love and have a lot of experience using both Linux and Macs over the past two decades, and I have wished and tried very, very hard for a very long time to achieve that utopian synergy that I once found for a few months sometime between 2008-2013, but in my old age, I'm realizing that ... it's just not going to ever happen again, and I've come to terms with that and celebrate both in their own respective optimal realms.
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