Notable Developer Starts Patreon to Fund Apple Silicon Linux Port

[torncanvas]

where’s the business case for Apple?

There is a sizable customer base that runs OSes other than just macOS on their Macs, but appreciate the reliability and/or design of Apple hardware.

From my experience, this base is mostly developers, especially web and server software developers, along with consumers that want to game on the side plus some business folks.

Apple mentioning publicly that it’s up to MS to support Windows on macOS suggests it’s at least a big enough base for them to notice. Not sure beyond that tho.

EDIT: I wouldn’t be surprised if Intel licensing fees comprise at least 5% of the cost of (low-to-mid range) Apple hardware, if not closer to 10%. So now there’s an even greater incentive for Apple to sell hardware to these folks since they get much more profit.

 

[Mr. Dee]

I wish him all the best, but this will be pretty much like OS X for Hackintosh, but in reverse where Apple breaks it with each update. What Linus Torvald should do is liaison with Apple considering his stature as a respected developer. I’m sure he could get both Tim and Craig in the same room without much trouble, be respectful and discuss the merits of making this possible. Apple should listen, its boot camp support for Windows that really made Intel MacBooks pretty much a success. When hackers unofficially got Windows XP to dual boot with the Intel Tiger betas, they eventually relented and released the Boot Camp beta.

Apple needs to stop thinking of developers a bozos so much. I agree with Steve Jobs, a lot of them are, but when you think about the fact that your entire services infrastructure runs on Linux, it would be respectful to offer support. Most software development outside of Apples own platform is taking place through Open Source and Linux.

Just Macs were seen at want point as the premier platform for web development and even software development, this could actually create some serious loyalty and revenue drive. Remember, even Steve Jobs described OS X as being like Linux. He even tried to hire Torvald at one point, which only suggested he saw the benefits of what Linux has to offer.

 

[CarlJ]

FreeBSD or as the statement reads "Copyright 1979, 1980, 1983, 1986, 1988, 1989, 1991, 1992, 1993, 1994 The Regents of the University of California. All rights reserved." As seen when booting in verbose mode on a macOS system. The copyright BS over it during that time was epic with group after group trying to lock up the code. But it was the FreeBSD variant of it Apple used as their base alnog with the code they got from Xerox for the GUI..

macOS is based on a FreeBSD userland and a Mach kernel, with a lot of the GUI coming from NextStep. They never took any code from Xerox for the GUI, rather, back in the pre-Mac days, they did a deal with Xerox where they got to visit the labs and look at all their projects and get ideas. But Apple wrote all the actual GUI code for the Mac from the ground up, based on their own ideas and things they’d seen at Xerox.

 

[Yebubbleman]

The project is not sanctioned by Apple, but so long as Martin does not use code from macOS to build Linux support, he says it is legal for him to distribute to users. Apple also allows for the booting of custom kernels on Apple Silicon, which paves the way for Linux support, but Martin will need to reverse engineer Apple drivers.

I didn't know that one. I thought Apple, at least currently, only allowed their own kernels to run. This does sort of change everything.

 

[techfirth]

Wow. That’s the computer equivalent of buying a Lamborghini and instead of driving it, just filling it up with hot trash straight out of the compactor. 🤢

 

[macbookfan]

Without proper documentation, it's very-likely NOT possible !

You think Sony gave him documentation?

 

[macbookfan]

Funny enough, Linux is also better than macOS for games since Steam Proton only exists for Linux, but idc about games.

Guess who makes Proton for Valve? CodeWeavers. Guess what they also make for Mac...Crossover. Guess what Crossover is... just another version of Proton / Wine only with MoltenVK support.

 

[macbookfan]

KHTML and CUPS off the top of my head are clear examples of apple using Open Source code in their macOS operating system. Safari would never have gotten off the ground without the KDE projects code to render web pages.

You are confused GNU/Linux. It’s a common thing.

GNU/Linux = something like Ubuntu aka a distro.
Linux = the Linux kernel.

 

[macbookfan]

This topic should be marked as political

 

[MacLC]

This topic should be marked as political

Ha! Well it seems the majority of people here are either very tribal to Apple or (like me) enjoy their Macs and have minor experience working with Linux and understand enough to mix up the vocabulary.

The point should be that this developer in question is extremely talented and attempting to try something really cool. People here claim it's useless but they're missing the point. He's an artist who uses a keyboard as his paintbrush and code as his paint.

 

[luvbug]

Not sure why this is such a hot topic. Ubuntu's "Multipass" OSS project (finished and available for a year now) runs on MacOS, Windows, and Linux itself and represents Ub linux in a VM instance (or 2,3, ...) running in any of those guest OS's. On Macos, it uses Apples virtualization .framework, so it's Apple supported. You're running linux virtualized, but processor-native, so the performance screams. I have not doubt it will be supported on the M1 and future Apple ARM silicon. So, ... ??

 

[macbookfan]

Ha! Well it seems the majority of people here are either very tribal to Apple or (like me) enjoy their Macs and have minor experience working with Linux and understand enough to mix up the vocabulary.

The point should be that this developer in question is extremely talented and attempting to try something really cool. People here claim it's useless but they're missing the point. He's an artist who uses a keyboard as his paintbrush and code as his paint.

I didn’t miss that point. He is very talented. But I agree some others miss that. As far a me. I use a Mac for work but it’s only a screen 99% of my job is remote Linux.

 

[macbookfan]

Not sure why this is such a hot topic. Ubuntu's "Multipass" OSS project (finished and available for a year now) runs on MacOS, Windows, and Linux itself and represents Ub linux in a VM instance (or 2,3, ...) running in any of those guest OS's. On Macos, it uses Apples virtualization .framework, so it's Apple supported. You're running linux virtualized, but processor-native, so the performance screams. I have not doubt it will be supported on the M1 and future Apple ARM silicon. So, ... ??

It’s a hot topic because he wants to do native support not a VM.

 

[danielwsmithee]

Craig Federighi said Apple would cooperate with Microsoft on porting Windows to M1 so why not Linux ?

Because it's probably bullshi*.

My guess is Apple would support both Windows and Linux through Virtualization.

I’d prefer to have this developer work on something akin to WSL2 on Mac.

 

[Reason077]

Of course the irony is that Macs ARE running Linux, just a heavily customized version.

No they are not. The open source core of macOS (and iOS, etc) is called Darwin.

Darwin includes code derived from NeXTStep, BSD, and Mach. But not Linux!

 

[Stephen.R]

My guess is Apple would support both Windows and Linux through Virtualization.

I’d prefer to have this developer work on something akin to WSL2 on Mac.

That would be Virtual machines. Except, when you use WSL2, both Linux and Windows are running under a virtual machine, because even Microsoft doesn't think windows itself makes a good host for a hypervisor.

 

[jayducharme]

No they are not. The open source core of macOS (and iOS, etc) is called Darwin.

Darwin includes code derived from NeXTStep, BSD, and Mach. But not Linux!

I guess I’ve been schooled on this. I should have said “Unix” instead of “Linux”. Oops...

 

[Epicepoc]

Interesting.
It is possibly more viable to invest and even create your own hardware like Apple did. Maybe use the design clues of Apple, namely all infrastructure one one chip, extreme fast ram shared (like in the old days).
It is possible nowedays to almost singlehandedly design your own chips (because of the evolved software to do that), like for example the team of two (one) that did Musk FSD chips).

 

[Manzanito]

I guess I’ve been schooled on this. I should have said “Unix” instead of “Linux”. Oops...

It could have been worse. You could have said “vim” instead of “emacs”. The you’ll have known real pain 😂

 

[deputy_doofy]

Of course the irony is that Macs ARE running Linux, just a heavily customized version.

If you meant Unix, and not Linux, you'd be right.

 

[racer1441]

$4k a month. Yeah, pass on this scam.

 

[ruka.snow]

My guess is Apple would support both Windows and Linux through Virtualization.

I’d prefer to have this developer work on something akin to WSL2 on Mac.

No need for WSL2 on Mac. We have a terminal and can run just about everything on that or via Docker, there is no need for most/all developers to run Linux on a Mac unless you want a different UI. Even if you need a Linux, you can launch a EC2 instance or a VM and SSH into it from the terminal.

 

[Stephen.R]

We have a terminal and can run just about everything on that or via Docker

there is no need for most/all developers to run Linux on a Mac

You know that Docker for Mac, is just a Linux VM in the background right? I know you know, because I told you

 

[seek3r]

Running unsigned code is not quite the same as installing and booting another OS.
Even my old 2009 iMac gave me quite a lot of headaches when I installed Lubuntu on it (it was just for the sake of it, a few weeks before the iMac died anyway).
I shudder to think how much more difficult it would be to install Linux on the M1.

It looks like if you disable SIP you can (officially) disable the requirement for signed OSes, still going to require a lot of work on figuring out the boot loader and everything else though

 

[BornAgainMac]

This is the worst part of the transition is having support for multiple OS in a single machine. MacOS on Intel was the only one that can do it all.