Linux on Apple Silicon M1

[DiTBho]

After only 2 years, it's already usable.
See here 

[DiTBho]

Also a good occasion to see a driver written in Rust!

[brucehoult]

After only 2 years, it's already usable.
See here 

It's been usable as a headless server for at least a year now. By far the highest performance ARM Linux machine you can get. Especially if you get a Mac Studio! (ok, I don't know whether that's supported yet)

I've been running Linux in a VM on my M1 Mac since late November 2020 (geez, more than two years) with great performance. On the initial 8 GB machines shipped it was pretty tight for serious work because you couldn't really give more than 4 GB to Linux, but once the 16 GB machines shipped in early 2021 it's been fine.

Here's a page I put up on 2020-11-23 that includes arm64 Ubuntu in a VM results ("minivm"):

https://hoult.org/arm64_mini.html

[DiTBho]

They wrote an hypervisor to reverse engineering the Mac os m1 GPU driver.
The Vulkan support keeps getting better.

I have been using my ppcg4 since 2004, with nothing but mwm.
The ati128 has less support than the m1 GPU.
That's amazing!!!

[DiTBho]

p.s.
The best ARM platform is the Ampere Altra Max with 128-cores on chip!!!

[brucehoult]

p.s.
The best ARM platform is the Ampere Altra Max with 128-cores on chip!!!

What does it cost, and where can I get one?

Apple will sell you a 20 core M1 (16 performance + 4 economy) with 64 GB very very fast in-package RAM and 1 TB SSD for $3999. If you want 128 GB in-package RAM that's an extra $800.

Last I checked, a comparable x86 will cost you $2k+ just for the CPU.

So how much for that Ampere?

[DiTBho]

Dunno who?why? But last week somehow one of those crazy irons (rack version) got delivered to my boss as dev-sample-something, and she parked it on my colleague's desk with just a paper note on a little piece of paper "have fun"

Thanks God not on my desk 

I think it's enough for me 

[DiTBho]

Anyhow, I'd like to meet in person that nice hacker girl.
On her YouTube channel she looks like Sailor Moon,
but she wrote the first world Rust driver for Linux/m1 !!!!

Appeal-=10
Apeal+=10000

Happy hacking.

[brucehoult]

Anyhow, I'd like to meet in person that nice hacker girl.
On her YouTube channel she looks like Sailor Moon,
but she wrote the first world Rust driver for Linux/m1 !!!!

Asahi Lina. The voice on YouTube seems altered to sound female. Does good work.

[DiTBho]

Yup. May be I will date and interview a string of A.I. 
(exciting and terrifying at the same time)

I am going to buy a second M1 laptop.
The older one will be dedicated to Gentoo/M1.

Scheduled Linux kernel v6.*/M1-stage{1-3,4}-2023->=5 (importing stuff from archlinux).

Dream: Haiku/M1, I mean natively rather than inside a vm-x86 emulator.
One day ... in the far far future ...

[BrianHG]

It's sad that the corporate generated public brainwashing has created an environment where this actually needs to be said on their website.

Is this legal?

As long as no code is taken from macOS to build the Linux support, the result is completely legal to distribute and for end-users to use, as it would not be a derivative work of macOS. Please see our Copyright & Reverse Engineering Policy for more information.

[DiTBho]

well it's not an hack, Apple left the door open from the bootloader up, so ... it's 100% legal.
Ummm, still I have to understand *?WHY?* there is also an u-boot repo in their Git 

[Mechatrommer]

p.s.
The best ARM platform is the Ampere Altra Max with 128-cores on chip!!!

What does it cost, and where can I get one?

Apple will sell you a 20 core M1 (16 performance + 4 economy) with 64 GB very very fast in-package RAM and 1 TB SSD for $3999. If you want 128 GB in-package RAM that's an extra $800.

Last I checked, a comparable x86 will cost you $2k+ just for the CPU.

So how much for that Ampere?

its cheap... just about $45/core... https://www.tomshardware.com/news/ampere-altra-max-128-core-priced dont forget to buy big psu and heatsink as well...

[brucehoult]

its cheap... just about $45/core... https://www.tomshardware.com/news/ampere-altra-max-128-core-priced dont forget to buy big psu and heatsink as well...

Comments on that story:

"Cost a fraction? Its almost 80+% of the X86 processors."

"8/10 is a fraction."

That's only the CPU but yeah a full system will work out cheaper than Apple, but considerably lower single-threaded performance.

[Karel]

For work & running Linux, I prefer to buy a workstation that is guranteed to work with Linux by the manufacturer (e.g. Dell, Fujitsu-Siemens, etc.).
I don't like surprises...

[DiTBho]

Certain stuff is only for brave hearts 
(Haiku on risc-v + hacked and GPU)

[DiTBho]

Linux/M1 will fix, once for ever, all the Alsa/OSS/pulse/&C problems.
That's great! It's non only the kernel, it's also the rootfs, patches pushed upstream.

Great guys and girls!

Respect 

[magic]

By lacking audio hardware drivers in the first place?
By the SoC not having audio hardware in the first place?

Not sure what you mean

[Mechatrommer]

anyway since i replied.... why it always come down to audio and display? how about... Epson/Canon/Nikon printers/scanners/cameras. another vast numbers of vendors of specialized devices... Pen Stylus, Colori and Spectro meters to name a few... because.... games! my colleague has to bring my old Epson printer at the office home because her new Epson printer cant be installed in her mac machine.

[Karel]

my colleague has to bring my old Epson printer at the office home because her new Epson printer cant be installed in her mac machine.

Why did she buy a printer that can't be installed in her mac machine?

[Mechatrommer]

because new printers are trendy... besides, who wants to buy older model? esp if its not available anymore.

[Karel]

because new printers are trendy... besides, who wants to buy older model? esp if its not available anymore.

Other new printers that can be installed in her mac machine were sold out?

[brucehoult]

because new printers are trendy... besides, who wants to buy older model? esp if its not available anymore.

Other new printers than can be installed in her mac machine were sold out?

What kind of recent (last 15 years, if not 25) Epson printer doesn't work on a Mac?

[DiTBho]

By lacking audio hardware drivers in the first place?
By the SoC not having audio hardware in the first place?

Not sure what you mean

The sound infrastructure on GNU/Linux sucks at both kernel and usetland sides.
Those M1 guys and girls are willing to fix stuff, add new stuff, and upload everything main stream.

[Monkeh]

By lacking audio hardware drivers in the first place?
By the SoC not having audio hardware in the first place?

Not sure what you mean

The sound infrastructure on GNU/Linux sucks at both kernel and usetland sides.
Those M1 guys and girls are willing to fix stuff, add new stuff, and upload everything main stream.

I don't think rewriting an entire kernel subsystem is one of their current plans.