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Asahi Linux?
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> I really wish this Linux variant is optimized for the M1 chips
Luckily that is precisely the goal! This tweet is an important step on the way there.
More info: https://asahilinux.org/
And also, long term this project is not meant to be a “Linux variant”, the goal is to get M1 support for most Linux distributions by contributing M1 patches into the upstream Kernel and other projects.
There's already a way to get native Linux running on M1 (though without a lot of drivers). I can fully see within the next 2 years something similar to boot camp happening.
Kinda fascinating watching some of the livestream build videos, though I have no idea what he's doing:
Linux doesn't really run on M1 Macs yet - but there is a project to write the missing drivers and create a distro for it, it is even based on arch: asahi linux
It'll take a while still, I'm also waiting to get rid of macOS on my macbook air.
Apple has actually designed the new M1 with features to support installing other operating systems than MacOS.
They're not officially providing support or documentation for that, but doing this at all presents a risk and complication for the very lowest levels of the device's security. They didn't have to do that. They could have locked the new Apple Silicon Macs to MacOS as tightly as iPhones are linked to iOS.
I'm pretty excited about Asahi Linux both as an actual project and as a sign that Apple is still seeing value in hobbyists and enthusiasts.
It’s not ready for broad use yet, but some determined devs are working on a Linux “distro” for M1 called Asahi Linux. They’re reverse engineering M1 GPUs for drivers, goal is to upstream everything to make M1 usable for Linux. Not a solution right now but hopefully will be one soon
I'm amazed that no one mentioned amazing work that asahi Linux guys are doing.(https://asahilinux.org/). They are basically reverse engineering apple hardware APIs bit by bit and adding support for them in linux kernel. I'm sure linux is fully capable to run on ARM chips soon and you can follow tweets from asahi developers to learn more.
yeah I did and it says this.
Does Apple allow this? Don’t you need a jailbreak?
Apple allows booting unsigned/custom kernels on Apple Silicon Macs without a jailbreak! This isn’t a hack or an omission, but an actual feature that Apple built into these devices. That means that, unlike iOS devices, Apple does not intend to lock down what OS you can use on Macs (though they probably won’t help with the development).
https://asahilinux.org/about/
M1 Mac needs a special bootloader, drivers for everything from pcie to GPU to be written.
If you want linux support, Apple is the last company to buy from.
That said, luckily, some people are working on it. https://asahilinux.org/
Short answer: You can't, at least not yet.
Long answer: A group of programmers formed the Asahi Linux project in order to port and maintain Linux on the M1 Apple devices. Recently, one of the programmers managed to run Debian 11 with the Gnome Shell on a M1 Mac mini, but the experience is not optimal. However, their progress has been pretty impressive, and I believe they are aiming to get an accelerated Linux desktop by the end of the year.
Linux is already a much better gaming experience than Mac os anyway. If apple supported Vulkan dxvk and proton would just work on Mac OS just like it does on Linux. There is currently a project trying to get Linux working on apple silicon but it's far from working well https://asahilinux.org/about/
The hypervisor they are using for intercepting the GPU calls (running the bare metal as a guest!) is some truly next level shiz. Been a long time since I've seen software that made me think "wow is that even possible?!"
They are trying to get linux working https://asahilinux.org/ so perhaps Microsoft and Apple can make Windows 11 work as well
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Stuff that needs to be supported : https://github.com/AsahiLinux/docs/wiki/Tasks
Asahi Linux is getting there surprisingly fast. The whole desktop environment is up, it works and runs with software-emulated graphics.
The userspace graphics now pass 90% of the GLSE2 graphics test suite (or rather, that's where they stood a month ago) and the kernelspace is arguably the easier part.
Just judging by the rate of progress, it's looking like it'll be about a year from launch to the first "full" release with everything implemented, and you can play around with it now if you want, it generally works already and it's just the graphics holding it back.
https://www.theregister.com/2021/10/06/asahi_linux_m1_progress_report/
https://asahilinux.org/2021/10/progress-report-september-2021/
Linux for the M1 Macs is still a work in progress, it's moving fast but not there yet. AFAIK it's a messy manual install, GPU acceleration is not there yet, audio doesn't work, no TB/USB 3 only USB 2...although apparently it can be used as a basic desktop environment if you don't need those things.. More support is being merged into the Linux kernel with each release though. My *guess* is that in 6-12 months some of the more leading edge distros may support M1 installation, with good but not full hardware support.
Here's the latest blog post:
https://asahilinux.org/2021/10/progress-report-september-2021/
Note that, as they say Asahi is not a distro as such. They are looking to create a version of Arch Linux for M1 so that will be the first distro to support it properly; I expect (e.g.) Fedora to support it soon after.
No idea, the Asahi blog doesn't make any mention of the T2 chip.
The boot process is described under "Bridging two worlds" in the January blog.
Well consider your fears (mostly) unfounded then since the arm macs aren’t any more locked down than any other recent macs. The bootloader can be unlocked and secure boot disabled. Only thing that’s changing wrt installing a different OS is losing the decades of standardisation across vendors that X86 or UEFI have provided, but that’ll be replaced in due time with custom solutions like corelliums Linux builds for M1 or Asahi Linux
Non-issue. In fact, Linux is capable on running on the M1 natively through the work by the Asahi Linux project. Ubuntu, Debian and whole host of other Distros can run on top of these hardware, in fact, I'd say that Linux has the upper hand compared to Windows here as Linux has been running on Mobile SOCs for quite some time now.
Of course, the closed down Apple specific parts will only run on macOS/iOS though as long as Apple keeps them locked down/the community doesn't figure them out. ARM in general though? Linux will be fine.
The M1 Macs has been designed to boot unsigned third party kernels, its even in their official documentation, wth are you talking about? The Corellium hack is old news, and doesn't event have any kind of video acceleration, so it isn't useful for many use cases. Asahi Linux is a proper port attempt, which are also working on writing a driver for the M1 GPU, Corellium is just a bunch of dirty hacks, that will probably never get upstreamed.
Follow the discussions at Asahi Linux and their github for details of where the status is currently... It is not daily driver usable yet, likely not for a while. I gave up following the project on a regular basis due to the long delays, although they are making great strides it will likely be a while before it is usable as a daily driver, maybe by next summer (just a guess). There is a lot of guesswork and trial and error involved especially in the graphics stack as nothing as documented and the deeper they go the more complex it gets with layers of firmware on top of layers of firmware...
Honestly, if you are looking for a Linux PC, I don't think I would look at the M1 hardware at this time, or in the near (3-6 months) future.
You'll want to check out the Asahi Linux project, which is working towards getting Linux working on Apple Silicon.
IIRC it's still in development but they've made an insane amount of progress so hopefully the wait won't be too long!
Because you can boot the kernel with official support doesn't mean it's usable... It's not yet. This would be Asahi Linux and it's not even close to usable yet, maybe in another 6 months or so.
Yeah that guide is not going to work on M1. The m1 ks very specialized hardware. Not only is Linux basically unusable on m1, but you'll also need a custom bootloader and drivers which are nowhere near fully functional yet.
To quote these guys: asahilinux.org
>Doing this requires a tremendous amount of work, as Apple Silicon is an entirely undocumented platform. In particular, we will be reverse engineering the Apple GPU architecture and developing an open-source driver for it.
Doing so much for so little IMO.
They're better off just waiting for a better standardized RISC/ARM SOC.
I'm kind of in the same boat. I have a 2013 MBP 13" that dual boots "Arch". The Retina display and trackpad are next to impossible to match up with other devices. I miss a right CTRL key though.
The hyper threaded dual core isn't enough to use dynamic backgrounds in Zoom, so I've been closely watching Asahi Linux development that's currently targetting the M1 Mini. They're still working on the bootloader at the moment so there's been no news on package management.
You can always get one and use the qemu hacks to install alarm or manjaro arm.
Not Windows, but at least people are starting to get bare metal Linux working on the M1 platform.
Not sure if there is anything new about the Windows side. You can run parallels and boot Windows in VM. Idk if it's enough for a lot of people, though.
There is an option. M1 based Macs can boot unsigned or custom kernels (for the sibling comment, see https://asahilinux.org), the OS vendor/developer needs to support M1. That’s not for Apple to develop a M1 version of Windows, Microsoft need to do it.
Not currently on M1 chips, but the Asahi Linux project is making good progress on reverse engineering the necessary drivers. It’ll probably be another several months to a year though before it’s stable.
It appears that Linux development is progressing fairly well, too. So FOSS support might push the laptops further if you're interested in moving off of proprietary software (or in addition to).
You can probably run it in emulation mode using UTM or Parallels. However you won't get very good performance.
There is an Apple Silicon M1 build of Linux though. It is Asahi Linux. Not exactly the same as CentOS but you can still start learning. https://asahilinux.org/
The other option would be to get a Linode or Digital Ocean VM running CentOS and just run remotely.
You actually can! No hardware acceleration for your GPU yet, but it's still incredibly impressive how far it's come. I bought an M1 hoping that'd I'd be able to daily drive it on Linux within 6 months of my purchase, which is looking likely. https://asahilinux.org/
for running linux natively: iirc corellium’s port has most things except graphics acceleration, touchbar, touch id and bluetooth working https://www.corellium.com/blog/linux-m1
there’s also the work by asahi linux https://asahilinux.org
There are a few things to respond to here.
The VM approach works by emulating the original target x86 architecture on ARM, with virtual hardware for everything needed to boot macOS. Leopard is selected because it's not too demanding, and comes in both 32b and 64b versions. You can also run Windows XP and do some retro PC gaming. If you can access hardware virtualization acceleration a VM is viable, but on iOS your options are very limited. IIRC a jailbreak is necessary on iOS 14+ to be able to use virtualization instructions.
For native booting the situation is different. As you observe, the hardware is pretty much the same on M1 macs and M1 iPads. However, the bootloader on iOS devices is locked down. On Mac hardware you can register alternative kernels to boot into, thus with the appropriate second stage loader you can even launch Linux. See the Asahi Linux blog and wiki for more technical details, the reverse engineering is a wild ride to read about. In theory, a bootloader exploit could get you the same kind of functionality on i-devices. From there, sure, you could plausibly boot the same version of macOS on an iPad and a Mac.
Yep, there's already a project underway called Asahi Linux to bring Linux to the M1. The eventual goal is to support every M1 Mac at some point or another but as of right now I believe it only has support for the M1 Mac mini. Initial kernel support was merged in kernel version 5.12, however as of right now, only the CPU, serial port, and framebuffer are supported.
To add on about Linux on M1 in general, one of the umbrella projects to improve Linux compatibility on the M1 processor is hosted at https://asahilinux.org/ ... OP should consult wikis and timelines there as well.
"Lenovo yoga c630 WOS" not to be confused with the "Lenovo yoga c630 chromebook" which has nearly the same model name and an Intel processor.
It's not perfect and linux support is experimental, but of the options it has the best driver support. Probably partially because it uses the slower snapdragon 845 rather than the newer 8cx.
There is a debian cd image which had almost every working out of the box (audio, wifi, bluetooth, 3d accelerated graphics), you can find it here: https://github.com/aarch64-laptops/debian-cdimage
TBH, right now I'd recommend waiting for asahi linux to be booting on Apple's M1 Macs. The M1 is a much better CPU and with marcan working full time on it, it shouldn't take long.
But if you happen to need a linux compatible linux laptop right now, the c630 is your best bet.
> Is this a Linux distribution? Asahi Linux is an overall project to develop support for these Macs. We will eventually release a remix of Arch Linux ARM, packaged for installation by end-users, as a distribution of the same name. The majority of the work resides in hardware support, drivers, and tools, and it will be upstreamed to the relevant projects. The distribution will be a convenient package for easy installation by end-users and give them access to bleeding-edge versions of the software we develop.
> We expect that support will eventually trickle up and back down to other distributions. Advanced users will always be free to use the distribution of their choice and add the necessary patches/software themselves before this happens.
2020 was the last year with intel chips in the MBPs. I bought a new "leftover" one off ebay for relatively cheap.
The asahi folks are working on linux for the apple chips, but it's not quite there yet.
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I think that distro is trying to change that. There are ARM-based distros and I do think the software side will get better as time goes on.
To clarify, is the M1 Air is your personal machine or your work machine?
If you are willing to wait for a while, there is a project that is working on getting Linux to run on Apple Silicon devices.
Might be a good option for battery life, but you may not get the best app support compared to an x86 device.
>Linux won't run on a new Mac with an M1 or later Apple processor
Linux already does run on M1 Macs. It doesn't run very well- lots of fundamental functionality still doesn't work. But it's coming along at a surprising pace.
If you're interested, the Progress Report blog on the Asahi Linux website (they're the project spearheading the work on it) makes for an interesting and relatively accessible read:
https://asahilinux.org/blog/
Not for a while yet.
You can read the latest update here on Asahi
https://asahilinux.org/2021/12/progress-report-oct-nov-2021/
Tldr: they only made an official kernel branch in November. drivers are also slowly coming upstream.
Would love to see this too, but I think first we need better ARM Linux hardware. It won't make business sense for Valve if good enough hardware isn't available, and most people running Linux on ARM are doing so on things like the Raspberry Pi line which definitely can't handle even previous generation AAA titles.
I'm pretty hopeful on the on-going effort to port Linux natively to Apple's M1 (especially the Pro / Max) line of Macs, given how good they are on both the CPU and GPU front. But one hardware manufacture isn't going to cut it.
>indeed. see: https://github.com/CaffeineMC/sodium-fabric/issues/1100, an issue i opened on this debacle
I fully understand why Sodium is dropping support for old OpenGL versions. (for various reasons) However, I support the continued support of macOS by Sodium or a Sodium fork (oldium xD), especially if the new Sodium version (next) can be used through this translation layer.
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this seems to not be making OpenGL drivers for macOS but rather getting linux to work on Apple Silicon. (If I wanted to use a different OS, all of which have better OpenGL support than macOS, I would do so.)
Should be reliable enough. It's not emulated, so performance should be good, but you won't have GPU acceleration.
Check out https://asahilinux.org. Bare metal GNU/Linux is 100% usable right now with a graphical desktop environment, but without GPU acceleration.
read the asahilinux blog, its really easily explained and intresting if you wanna know how they are bringing linux support to m1
read the october update to know what is working , they also added support for wifi last week
Check out the Asahi Linux project, trying to develop all drivers needed and creating an Arch Image running on M1. No ISO published yet but they managed to run a stable Arch with Gnome without GPU acceleration already. I expect an beta release in 2022 :)
There are also some drivers available for *BSD already, you might be able to run OpenBSD but I didn't try it out myself so no guarantee
> If you turn off system integrity protection on M1, you can no longer run any iOS apps downloaded from the app store. This is the first time Apple is actually penalizing people for running without SIP. Before, no features were locked out.
Seeing that Intel Mac can't run iOS apps in the first place this isn't the definition of "more restrictive".
> With M1, your mac must contact Apple’s servers in order to reset or reinstall macOS, or install a secondary operating system, meaning you are never fully in control of your own computer.
You can boot unsigned kernels otherwise projects like Asahi Linux wouldn't exist.
https://twitter.com/marcan42/status/1471799568807636994
Anyway you listed edge cases where things are more complicated but you failed to show actual things that are locked down compared to Intel.
Arch is a x86_64 only distro.
There is no distro (yet) supporting the M1 architecture.
The M1 architecture is proprietary so this might take a while and it will be a cat-and-mouse kind of game.
Asahi Linux has a working desktop on the M1, tho tons of drivers are missing (e.g., graphics acceleration). Apparently there's a ton of extra stuff Apple did beyond typical ARM device features, but it's nonstandard and lacks good public documentation.
I have no idea which will happen first between Asahi getting Linux support up to par or someone besides Apple making a comparable machine but with better documentation for Linux driver devs. Hopefully either happens faster than upstreaming all the kernel changes Google made for Android.
Asahi Linux is a project aimed at getting Linux running in bare metal on Apple Silicon, and then submitting the patches and drivers upstream so that all ARM64 Linux distros will be able to support it. This extends the useful life of the hardware, because it means that when Apple releases their last system update for a given Apple Silicon machine, users will have the option to install a different OS and thereby continue receiving updates (including security fixes).
It's the project that has been working to bring Linux to Apple Silicon for over a year now. It's quite well known in Mac developer circles and it has already committed a lot of changes to upstream Linux to add support for the M1. They're pretty far along at this point.
- I would not worry about Windows for a CS degree. You will do best to work in a Unix environment, and macOS provides that out of the box. Your classes will assume a Unix model of operating systems, not a Windows one. In the unlikely event that you need Windows for something, you will have access to a lab. I've had some luck using cross-platform UI toolkits and cross compiling for Windows in the past, though.
- The current state of Linux on M1 is constantly evolving. Go check out the Asahi Linux project, which is all about the Linux port to Apple Silicon processors. There's also the option of virtualizing AArch64 Linux distros, which are increasingly common. Linux is widely ported, and you won't need an x86 processor to use it. But again, why are you putting Linux on a Mac? Your Mac is already a commercial Unix workstation. You can use it as is without significant disruption to your workflow. If you really want GNU coreutils, you can install them with Homebrew.
> in order to benefit us it needs to be available on Linux
Fortunately, there’s actually an active project working on running Linux on Apple silicon, with decent progress already being made! Check out Asahi Linux
Similar situation on my end. I used the Mac for over a decade, but I switched to Linux full-time in 2018. I ran Linux on Apple hardware for a while (Mac Pro 5,1 with Debian, MacBook Air 11' 2014 with Ubuntu, 2015 Retina MacBook Pro with Ubuntu), but eventually upgraded hardware, but Linux on newer Macs is a very incomplete experience, so I have other OEM hardware now.
My work laptop is a high-end Dell Precision mobile workstation, my personal laptop is a Thinkpad, and I built my desktop. They're okay, and the Thinkpad keyboard is second-to-none in the laptop world (arguable but a popular opinion), but I still miss Apple hardware.
So, I just ordered an M1 MacBook Air. I want a thin, light, quiet, efficient laptop, and the new Air fits the bill perfectly, and is somehow the value leader in its market segment. I know I'll be relegated to macOS for a while, but I'm very optimistic about Asahi Linux, which I will install it the day it becomes viable for daily use.
On an Intel Mac, Linux and Windows can run natively. On an M1 MacBook Air, Linux nor Windows runs natively.
But Linux is in open development at Asahi Linux where they are working to port Linux to M1 Macs.
That is accurate. Linux runs in heaps of architecture including several types of ARM. And still there's a guy working full time with donated money to make it run on the M1, this has been going on for a while now:
https://asahilinux.org/2021/10/progress-report-september-2021/
So m1 is coming along on linux, but of course its not fully there as of yet. Check out asahi linux for more info https://asahilinux.org/. Tbh your windows laptop sounds perfectly fine for college, play around with changing its operating system and tinkering with it. Like most others have said here cyber security is an enormous field, and each individual might have their respective equipment preference, but in most cases hardware is irrelevant. Focus on learning concepts, everything else then becomes secondary
If you can live with arm linux pick the latest air and install it into a vm using vmware or parallels. In the settings give to the vm all the hardware that you can and use it in fullscreen.
You will get perfect support for your drivers, good battery life, true tone, touch id, etc
Eventually after this project https://asahilinux.org/ meets their goal of bringing linux to the m1 you will be able to use linux natively
I think what happens is that most of the linux on mac community is outside of this subreddit
Each mac has different hardware so its a mix between things that you will solve separately like in a normal PC and then some specific things that will depend on the mac model you have
For example check this "macbook pro 2016" github page with info about the support of the hardware https://github.com/Dunedan/mbp-2016-linux
On my own experience there is always small things like power management, audio speaker equalization, drivers, etc that don't work 100% well, just good enough. So in the end it's better to just install linux into a VM, you can put it at fullscreen and you still get support for things like true tone, multitouch trackpad gestures, instant awake from sleep, touch id, etc
Though for the m1 macs it seems like there is a project that is trying to get a really good support matching the macos level, see this page for more info https://asahilinux.org/
Interesting. The 9to5 articles seem to get a lot from the Asahi blog here:
https://asahilinux.org/2021/10/progress-report-september-2021/
Pretty interesting. My son has an M1 mac and I'm just in awe of the battery life, I'm sure Linux running on it would be even better.
This talks about Linux in a VM, but giving a closer to native option than a regular VM: https://9to5mac.com/2021/11/09/ubuntu-publisher-brings-linux-support-to-m1-mac-with-multipass/
Another link: https://9to5mac.com/2021/10/07/linux-is-now-usable-as-a-basic-desktop-for-m1-macs/
The Linux distro project to get Linux running on M1 Macs: https://asahilinux.org/2021/10/progress-report-september-2021/
You might wanna look at https://asahilinux.org
They are trying to port Linux directly to the M1 (and M1 Max) hardware. Linux already boots, and desktop is already possible with software rendering, currently they are working on getting the drivers up to speed.
lmao thats quite true
im probably going to be an early adopter of https://asahilinux.org/ when it finally launches; fun fact - one of the Apple Silicon GPU reverse-engineering leads is a trans woman (who is really cool and you should follow on the cursed bird app if you like that sorta thing)
you can: https://asahilinux.org/about/
though I wasn't impressed and would advise everybody except for the tinkerer to wait. more distributions are working on this (or maybe it's just my preference for something Arch- or debian-based).
I with people who want a Linux box wouldn't buy Apple hardware and then be disappointed. helps neither the Linux crowd, nor the Apple crowd.
Tbh the core issue with running Java Minecraft on Apple Silicon is the lack of official ARM64 support for Java MC, alongside Apple's Metal-OpenGL layer being trash. As a Apple Silicon user myself, I do not recommend getting an Apple Silicon device until either the Asahi Linux project gets Ubuntu or similar running as a primary OS on Apple Silicon, or official ARM64 support happens for Java MC. (See https://asahilinux.org/about/ for said Linux project)
Theoretically when someone gets a better way to run OpenGL-related stuff (and though that, LWJGL 2 and 3) on Apple Silicon ARM64, that could work too, but it probably wouldn't be officially supported.
In terms of running Java itself, Apple ARM64 java is available from Azul's Zulu-OpenJDK branch, found here: https://www.azul.com/downloads/?package=jdk
Finally, Apple Silicon is pretty damn good for the pricepoint right now due to the massive CPU and GPU supply issues caused by shortages and blockchain bullshit; but I expect either x86-64 part prices to fall or a non-Apple ARM64 vendor to release something better in a year or so tops?
> I'm wondering if there is any distro of linux that can run on these M1 Macbooks yet.
The answer is no.
It's all still work in progress, unless you are ready to compile your own kernel with not yet merged drivers this is not for you.
Follow https://asahilinux.org for progress.
From the faq on https://asahilinux.org/about/#faq
>We expect that support will eventually trickle up and back down to other distributions. Advanced users will always be free to use the distribution of their choice and add the necessary patches/software themselves before this happens.
Also, the lead developer is a seasoned Gentoo user, so I assume there will be some interest on his part on porting the work from Asahi to Gentoo.
The Asahi Linux project that is working on porting Linux to M1 Macs looks like it's progressing nicely and they even put out a blog post today: https://asahilinux.org/2021/08/progress-report-august-2021/
Not at this point, there really is only limited support for M1 in the kernel at the moment, so very little around in terms of an actual 'distro'. You could keep an eye on https://asahilinux.org/about/ - but I don't have any M1 silicon to play with, so can't say. Once full support for M1 is in the kernel, then we will probably get a deluge of offerings.
I’ve used Linux on Apple computers throughout the years, so I’d like to give a brief blurb about my experiences to help those considering doing this:
If you have an M1 Mac I would avoid attempting an installation of linux unless you’re very comfortable navigating Linux. This is for several reasons, but primarily because support is just getting started. On top of that, you’ll need to familiarize yourself with compiling so that software can run on the ARM architecture.
Intel computers can run Linux quite well - with some caveats. If your computer does NOT have a T1 or T2 Security chip, then installing linux is a breeze. If you have a computer with the T1 security chip you’ll have a few more hoops but it is doable in this day and age. The T2 security chip has an entire community dedicated to it, and I recommend thorough research before installation.
Most problems you’ll face will pertain to drivers. Because Apple uses proprietary hardware, drivers must be reverse-engineered in order to function on Linux. Most things such as displays, audio, touch bar, and IO Support are well understood and functional on Linux. Wifi support varies model by model. My 2019 MBP, for example, does not have wifi support. But some Macs released after that do have functioning wifi drivers. Again, do thorough research before any attempts.
Links to various resources: - T2 Linus - Asahi Linux (M1 Mac Support) - Arch Linux on Mac - This is distro specific, but a great resource on Intel macs that do not have a security chip
Lastly, if you are seriously considering switching to Linux then I highly recommend investing in a new computer. While Macs have phenomenal designs and hardware, they are messy in regards to Linux. You will have a vastly improved experience investing in hardware that is less proprietary.
I like the build quality, performance and battery life of Apple Silicon macbooks which combined I think blows comparable Windows laptops out of the water. I'm not interested Apple subscription services, the Apple ecosystem or do any video/photo/audio editing which seems like are the main things people use a mac for. I can use macOS but it's not my preferred OS so I'm planning on wiping it to install Asahi Linux in the future.
Actually, asahi Linux is the same thing but different. All they are doing is the hardware implementation. Their work will then be merged into the Linux kernel and the distribution they make will then be based on arch.
Don't get me wrong, writing drivers for undocumented hardware is an amazing feat, that will require a ton of work from very knowledgeable people. But their end goal is for the generic Linux kernel to have M1 support.
Apple has always desired vertical integration. Part of what makes Apple silicon so promising and performant is the close integration between system components. That comes at the expense of modularity and expandability, but there are always alternative platforms that can offer that as you stated. No one is stopping people from switching.
I think as long as developers need an open system for development on other Apple platforms, the Mac will stay open and things like the Terminal and downloading apps outside the App Store will remain. In regards to dualbooting, Apple has left the door open on M1 machines for the installation of other operating systems. Initial support for M1 has already been mainlined to the Linux kernel through the Asahi Linux project.
MacOS may be slowly closing in, but it is disingenuous to claim that there isn't a way out.
If you get an M1 mac and want to run linux, you can use UTM, which is a free open source VM manager, or install Linux natively, with corellium’s port or asahi linux.
No. The Corellium stuff doesn't support accelerated graphics, for one. Asahi Linux is the project you should be looking at, and the current state of things is not usable either.
Reverse engineering, though the word is Apple didn't make things too difficult. They boot unsigned code and it seems to be good silicon with simple driving software, instead of a bunch of software tricks to make weird hardware performant.
https://asahilinux.org/about/#:~:text=Asahi%20Linux%20is%20a%20project,used%20as%20a%20daily%20OS.
to clarify: the person working on the M1 GPU drivers has written a driver for Mali GPUs that can run some games.
The w.i.p driver for the M1 GPU is not there yet, but they're making good progress! (they got a spinning cube with fully open source code)
you can follow what they're doing at https://asahilinux.org/community/
The fact that you cannot access the hard drive on Intel Macs in Linus is not true anymore as it was only a broken driver that no one bothered to fix for some time. The fix has been in the mainline kernel for over 2 years.
AS Macs do have third party OS support added by Apple but right now it’s a matter of drivers having to be written for the Macs. See https://asahilinux.org
The boot loader is provisioned for booting other OSes, see Asahi Linux. That said there is considerable work in getting it to work as Apple’s architecture is significantly different from other ARM implementations. There are some interesting posts about it on the Asahi site.
Yeah it must be ARM based/supported so normal Windows will not work. Worth noting Boot Camp still exists though and is supported on macOS 11 onward but obviously for Intel Macs only of course.
Linux-based options for ARM were already quite seasoned and working well and the work toward porting things to M1 exists in varying degrees of development such as https://asahilinux.org and https://corellium.com/blog/linux-m1
M1 Macs support (blessed by Apple!) booting other OSes. Here's how to boot Linux natively on your M1 Mac if you are feeling brave: https://corellium.com/blog/linux-m1
There's a full Linux distro in development for Apple Silicon Macs: Asahi Linux
I doubt that we will see Bootcamp-esque drivers provided by Apple for other OSes, though.
It's not going to be seamless for a long while because Apple doesn't provide any specifications for their graphics work.
There's two projects to follow IMO:
Corellium has a version out that boots from an external drive and handles graphics with software rendering. This has been pushed upstream and is a promising start https://www.macrumors.com/2021/01/20/corellium-linux-m1-macs/
Asahi Linux (the patreon crowdfunded project). This one's going straight to trying to understand and reverse engineer Apples graphics cores. The talented Alyssa Rosenzweig has joined to try and 'reverse engineer' what's going on here to hopefully get an open source driver going for graphics https://rosenzweig.io/blog/asahi-gpu-part-2.html
It's a pretty big undertaking because Apple isn't disclosing specifications on a lot of the components of their SoC, but it's possible and I think it'll eventually be a thing. Can't offer any timeline on when that could be expected though.
Apple has this: https://www.apple.com/support/professional/enterprise/
Looks like they use IBM’s Global Technology Services so service should be far ahead of what Lenovo's offering since they're using contractors like Worldwide Tech Services which is terrible.
You can run Linux at the moment but full native support is being worked on by devs. https://asahilinux.org/