Linus Torvalds wants Apple’s new M1-powered Macs to run Linux | Hacker News Reader

Linus Torvalds wants Apple’s new M1-powered Macs to run Linux

thenextweb.com

23 pointslaktak13 comments

In the article, Linus Torvalds is quoted saying:

"I’ve been waiting for an ARM laptop that can run Linux for a long time. The new Air would be almost perfect, except for the OS. And I don’t have the time to tinker with it, or the inclination to fight companies that don’t want to help."

The last sentence is in my opinion a great summary of the current state of Linux on Apple M1 machines. It would probably take months, maybe years before it will be possible for regular user to natively run Linux there. Until then, many enthusiasts would probably spend a lot of time reverse-engineering the hardware, the firmware, etc. while trying to make it work with Linux.

I believe that in the end they will succeed. But all the effort which will lead to it can easily be avoided if Apple provides them a tiny bit of assistance.

Linus' name bears power but I am afraid Apple won't ever budge.

What exactly are you expecting Apple to do here?

What is it you think Apple did that makes Linux “work” on Intel and PPC Macs?

To not impede the efforts of the people trying to install Linux on MacBooks. You could always argue the Apple's measures are for the non-tech users' safety and I'm inclined to agree but they aren't helping the libre OS scene either.

It's, to me at least, clearly visible that Linux isn't welcome on MacBooks.

Can you give some actual specific examples though?

Claiming that "Linux isn't welcome on Macs" suggests that Apple made deliberate decisions to prevent something. A far more likely scenario to me, is that they just don't even consider it at all.

Apple makes money selling hardware, and services, and writes/distributes software to facilitate those two things.

I would be happy with a clone of the Windows WSL1.0 or WSL2.0 system on MacOS. It would seem like it would be even easier to do than windows because much of the Posix stuff is there. Yes I know brew supports much of the MacOS ecosystem, but what if you didn't need brew and you could just install normal linux packages and libraries in a containerized system.

... WSL2.0 isn't "containerised". It's a virtual machine, and if you use it, you're running Windows in a virtual machine too.

So if you want a Linux VM: great news. They literally demoed a linux VM during the Arm Mac introduction back at WWDC. They provide the basics of a Hypervisor at the OS level, and Parallels at least, already has a working user land VM tool that can make use of said Hypervisor. They've also confirmed they're working on a new version of their app to run on Arm Macs.

I get not wanting Homebrew - I refuse to install it, and will always find another alternative. I'm told macports is a better approach to the same basic idea (a 3rd party package manager for Mac utilities) but more often than not if I need something I just end up downloading a tar, and do the regular configure/make/make install.

Don't we all!

Well, it runs Darwin, I’m sure. So, as far as an open-source OS is concerned, we should be all set, right?

Vin works fine in 80 X 25 text mode so yes.

I mean, iPhones run Darwin, too, and yet Apple considers any successful attempt to run something other than its own builds of a specific Darwin derivative to be a "security bug" rather than, you know, people using the hardware they bought and ostensibly own as they see fit.

“Water is wet.”

Water isn't wet. Water wets things.

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