It’s been a busy month! We’ve had a lot of movement in kernel land, as well as some tooling improvements and reverse engineering sessions. At this point, Asahi Linux is usable as a basic Linux desktop (without GPU acceleration)! The ground had been shifting until now, but we’re seeing drivers settle down. Let’s take a look at what’s been going on.
Linux on Apple’s M1 Macs is making progress, but I would never buy an Apple computer to run Linux on it. It’s always going to be a moving target without any documentation or support – official or tacit – meaning you’re basically running a perpetual reverse-engineering effort. To make matters worse, Apple can flip the switch and block any non-macOS operating system at any time.
The M1 is impressive, but only if you’re into macOS.
Thom Holwerda,
I concur, if the M1 macs weren’t so proprietary they could make nice linux laptops. I wouldn’t mind having an ARM system in a laptop form factor with those kinds of specs. It hits a good balance for mobile in particular, although IMHO the M1 is not as impressive as a desktop or workstation replacement because there’s no upgrade path for the RAM, GPU, multicore SMP performance, or even SSD. We’ll have to see how much of an improvement the upcoming M1X/M2 can deliver for power users. With any luck we’ll get 3rd party benchmarks possibly this month or next. Although I suspect that non-upgradable features will end up being a permanent feature of macs going forward.
https://www.cnet.com/tech/computing/macbook-pro-2021-release-date-price-m1x-and-all-the-other-rumors-weve-heard/
Another thing to lookout for is apple’s tendency to engineer products to be deliberately less repairable, going so far as to program their software to break functionality when 3rd party repair shops make repairs using authentic parts. I naturally have similar concerns over their mac products…
“iPhone 13 A Repair Nightmare – Teardown and Repair Assessment”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8s7NmMl_-yg
Louis Rossman always has an informative analysis on mac repair-ability, it will be interesting to see what he has to say about the next generation.
If Apple sabotage their own products so you cannot even swap components from brand new and similar phones, then you know what they are up to.
Because this is way beyond planned obsolescence at this point.
Not for me.
I’m a huge fan of my 11″ 2015 Macbook Air, but with keyboards with next-to-no travel, soldered on SSD’s, and components tied to the serial number of the computer, i have very little interest in buying a newer Mac. I expect my next laptop will be a lenovo Hackintosh, otherwise i’m seriously thinking of moving to Linux or another FOSS *NIX.
“I concur, if the M1 macs weren’t so proprietary they could make nice linux laptops. I wouldn’t mind having an ARM system in a laptop form factor with those kinds of specs. ”
I think it’s important to mention: they are focussing on the M1 Mac Mini first. I looked at the list posted and I’m pretty impressed how fast they’ve been able to bring up the whole system to a usable state. I guess when Linux already has so many drivers built in and platforms to support then it’s easier.
It’s even funny to see what’s in there: “The M1 borrows its I²C hardware from… none other than the PA Semi PWRficient PA6T-1682M, used in the AmigaOne X1000! Turns out there is some clear PA Semi legacy in these chips! Linux already has a driver for this hardware, but on the PowerPC chips it is a PCI device, while on the M1 it is a platform device. Sven has submitted a patch series to decouple the existing driver from the PCI part and add platform device support. It’s currently being tested by the folks with AmigaOne hardware to make sure nothing broke along the way, and should be ready to merge after that. This hardware is used to talk to things like the audio amplifier chips and the USB-C port controllers.”
Lennie,
Good point. I wonder how much hardware they share.
Yea, it’s pretty common to buy hardware or license “IP” rather than engineering it in house, but it is funny. The person who built it probably had (has?) no idea his work would make it into apple products.
Apple bought PA Semi a few years ago, it makes sense they’d reuse it.
Those blocks, like the I2C are generic 3rd party IP that you just synthesize. Highly doubtful the original PA-Semi team did any of that design whatsoever.
javiercero1,
I’m kind of skeptical that apple would be using a clone of PA-Semi I2C hardware that was not designed by PA-Semi, although it’s possible. Do you have data that proves it one way or the other?
Thom, you and I tend to agree on most things, but on this I have a more optimistic outlook. The work the Asahi team is doing is not for nothing, if anything we’re getting some great info on how the M1 Macs work on a component level. Who would have thought they use the same UART as the OG iPhone from 2007? I think it’s a noble effort and I’m itching to try out the installer on my M1 mini once they release it. In my experience, Linux running in a Parallels VM on the M1 mini is sometimes more performant than bare metal on my 6-core Ryzen workstation.
Sure they could, but I don’t think they will. I see it one of two ways: Either they don’t even pay attention to the open source efforts surrounding the M1 machines, or they know about it and see no harm in it. After all, it hurts them not one bit to sell M1 Macs to experimenters, they still get the same amount of money from the sale either way. Maybe the day will come where macOS and iPadOS merge into some ungodly, locked down behemoth on desktops and laptops, but I doubt it. You still need third party developers to make apps for mobile devices, and that cannot be done on the locked down mobile OSes, even on the iPad Pro with the same M1 SoC.
Morgan,
I think it’s great work too. And while it’s a damn shame apple isn’t going to buck the trend for ARM systems being highly proprietary, I do have faith in the linux community’s abilities to reverse engineer their systems. Given apple’s popularity, it’s an important milestone for linux to run there.
Regarding Apple requiring a mac to develop IOS applications, I don’t think that will change. However I think both apple and microsoft are itching to impose walled gardens on personal computers much like IOS. it’s just too lucrative if they can pull it off successfully with fees likely totaling many billions per year. The question is whether and how they can get there without incurring antitrust scrutiny and/or customer defections. We know developers hate being pushed around, but when push comes to shove they do cave to monopoly tactics when they have no choice but to deal with the gate keepers who control access to customers. Both apple and microsoft are in a good position to control consumers, usurping the free market for apps. Clearly Apple and MS could be more aggressive but if they transition too quickly the outrage may be unmanageable, after all there’s already criticism over their monopoly tactics as is. But the strategy of chipping away consumer access & control slowly seems to be working. Unless we somehow manage to stop it, I think 10 years from now a lot of the things we’re debating will happen and become normalized 🙁
“Who would have thought they use the same UART as the OG iPhone from 2007?”
Well, what about this part below ? 🙂
“The M1 borrows its I²C hardware from… none other than the PA Semi PWRficient PA6T-1682M, used in the AmigaOne X1000! Turns out there is some clear PA Semi legacy in these chips! Linux already has a driver for this hardware, but on the PowerPC chips it is a PCI device, while on the M1 it is a platform device. Sven has submitted a patch series to decouple the existing driver from the PCI part and add platform device support. It’s currently being tested by the folks with AmigaOne hardware to make sure nothing broke along the way, and should be ready to merge after that. This hardware is used to talk to things like the audio amplifier chips and the USB-C port controllers.”
Yep I was still reading the source post when I stopped to comment here, that’s even more intriguing! Say what you will about Apple, but sometimes they just blow me away with their unique design choices.
I have zero interest in this project but like others say if it turns a potential locked down paperweight into something useful that’s a plus.