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Comment by zucker42 | Hacker News Reader

Is it that much of a problem as long as alternate OSes can be installed by the user? For example, the M1 chip can run Linux. I don't see how Apple and Google producing their own chips is much different as a consumer than the Windows/x86 monoculture that's existed for a long time.

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The M1 can run Linux after an extensive reverse-engineering effort. And Apple didn't take particular active measures to prevent running your own OS on it; they just didn't offer any help. Many Android device manufacturers actively try to prevent that. Apple actively tries to prevent it on iOS devices. Some early Chromebooks actively tried to prevent it, too. (Though not Google's own flagship developer devices.)

> For example, the M1 chip can run Linux.

No, not in any useful form it can’t.

And any architectural changes could require another lengthy reverse engineering process rendering these devices unbootable with non-Apple OSes until then.

I would not be surprised if Apple completely closes off the Mac ARM64 platform for “security” in the next few years. The option to boot third-party OSes seems like a short-term gimme to keep the pitchforks and torches at bay.

I make this distinction because this is precisely the issue being discussed.

>> For example, the M1 chip can run Linux.

> No, not in any useful form it can’t.

Yes, it can? Ex. https://www.tomshardware.com/news/apple-m1-debian-linux - you're welcome to point out that drivers for the rest of the system are a WIP, but the CPU is fine and the rest is coming along.

In other news, Nvidia's support for Linux is "coming along™" and Lenovo says drivers for fingerprint auth for thinkpads is just-around-the-corner®

Nvidia actively prevents open source support through firmware signing.

Try it on a physical Mac Mini machine and tell me it’s useful.

Progress is being made by REs such as marcan and others but it’s not useful, yet. And I speculate that by the time it is solid, the M1X/M2 machines will be out and a bunch of additional REing will be done.

If I remember correctly that's similar what the PS3 did, but that's a different issue and comes with cool discussions

This talk is about the PS4, similar in concept https://youtube.com/watch?v=QMiubC6LdTA

There was too much engineering work put in to make the M1 be still secure by default while allowing you to run other OSes. If Apple wanted to make it so you could only run signed kernels then the best time to make that breaking change would’ve been when the first Apple Silicon macs were released, not three or four years down the road when suddenly they say “throw away that bespoke firmware and all that special security work we did, just load the iPhone bits on there”.

> Is it that much of a problem as long as alternate OSes can be installed by the user? For example, the M1 chip can run Linux.

And yet you can't run alternate OSes on iPhones and iPads because of Apple's efforts to make sure that you can't.

We're relying on the goodwill of companies that have all the financial incentives in the world to lock users out of the hardware they own, and those are the same companies that already lock users out of their mobile devices.

That's precisely the issue.

Alternate OSes can't access all hardware functions.

We already have that problem with Linux support for battery life and hibernate.

It doesn't work in the vast majority of laptops, while with Windows it does.

It also happens with Smartphones, to the point that alternate OSes for Smartphones have trouble doing the most basic functions, like making calls and using GPS.

Just because it can be installed, it doesn't mean that everything will magically work.

> We already have that problem with Linux support for battery life and hibernate.

> It doesn't work in the vast majority of laptops, while with Windows it does.

That's kind of my point. The status quo is already not ideal, this doesn't seem necessarily worse than the status quo, as long as Apple and Google aren't overly restrictive in preventing alternate OSes (which of course is a big if).

> For example, the M1 chip can run Linux.

Can it run native Windows?

Apple said they would do drivers for a new version of Bootcamp if Microsoft had a non OEM version consumers could buy. So the ball is in Microsoft court.

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