8 ms·

They have already stated they won’t: “We’re not direct booting an alternate operating system,” says Craig Federighi, Apple’s senior vice president of software

They have already stated they won’t: “We’re not direct booting an alternate operating system,” says Craig Federighi, Apple’s senior vice president of software engineering. “Purely virtualization is the route. [...]” https://www.theverge.com/2020/6/24/21302213/apple-silicon-mac-arm-windows-support-boot-camp https://www.theverge.com/2020/6/24/21302213/apple-silicon-ma...

qz2 6y ago
Another item added to the list of why I'm not buying one of these.
- foldr 6y ago
  It doesn't make a huge amount of sense to buy a Mac if you're not going to use Mac OS as your daily driver. A lot of the benefits (e.g. battery life, touchpad quality) are dependent on software as well as hardware, and are greatly diminished on Windows or Linux.
  - abainbridge 6y ago
    I've never been that impressed with the Mac Mini's battery life or touchpad :-)
    - deleted 6y ago
      [deleted]
    - qz2 6y ago
      Actually I had a Mac mini with the touchpad and the damn thing disconnected three times a day. All my input devices have wires now and the stick out of the right places.
    - foldr 6y ago
      Touché. But seriously, most people who want to run Linux on Mac want to do it because they like Apple's laptop hardware. If you want a compact Linux desktop then a NUC should probably serve you just as well. Or at least, this was the case while Apple was still using Intel chips. If Apple Silicon lives up to expectations then I suppose there could finally be a compelling reason for running Linux on a Mac desktop. To be clear, I'm not saying that there couldn't possibly be any good reason for wanting to run Linux on a Mac desktop. But desktops are already a niche product for Apple, and people who want to run Linux on Mac desktops are arguably a tiny niche within a niche.
  - tonyhb 6y ago
    libinput's touchpad support is pretty great recently. working on an xps 17, and the touchpad is - no joke - just like the touchpad on my previous MBP.
  - postalrat 6y ago
    You can speculate but we will never know for certain.
  - JAlexoid 6y ago
    Mac Mini doesn't raise those issues.
- tachyonbeam 6y ago
  I feel kind of grossed out, as a developer (and tinkerer) by how locked down Mac products are. It's not really your computer, you're just renting. Apple has decided that they know what you want and need better than you.
  - jb1991 6y ago
    Just because it is locked down, why is that the same as "renting"? Those are two very different concepts.
    - AsyncAwait 6y ago
      Because you are not the ultimate decider of what to do with the machine. If you owned it, you could do anything outside of harm.
      - coldtea 6y ago
        The whole concept of the machine is to be bought and optimized for running macOS.
        AsyncAwait 6y ago
        Right, the point is that it didn't use to be that way exclusively and now it is, so the new machines are more restrictive than previous Macs, which also ran macOS. In fact macOS itself is more restrictive nowdays than it used to be.
        yjftsjthsd-h 6y ago
        I guess, but the "whole concept of the machine" that I'm typing this on was to run Windows... 7 (I think?); that's a completely artificial limitation, as shown by running Ubuntu on it years after the hardware went out of support.
        sixstringtheory 6y ago
        I'm not sure what the problem is, then. You have a device that does what you (or the GP) want, which is to install any operating system, tinker, etc. Is the worry that Apple and its practices will dominate the industry to the point that you literally will not be able to turn on your current machine and use it?
- ramraj07 6y ago
  Hopefully it's not just secret apple sauce that makes these powerhouses, and other chip makers make arm based processors soon enough giving us the choice we deseeve. (given gravitons similar performance bump this is likely the case)
dshpala 6y ago
Challenge accepted :)
js2 6y ago
I realize Federighi's reply seems to rule out Linux, but the context of the question seemed to be with respect to Boot Camp and Windows. My take is that Apple doesn't want to continue to invest in Boot Camp, especially since Microsoft apparently isn't willing to license ARM Windows for this use case. It's not clear to me that the new Macs won't allow booting Linux if the Linux community can figure out how to do it. The number of folks booting Linux on Mac via Boot Camp has to be really tiny.
- Synaesthesia 6y ago
  Getting drivers to work will be hard without Apple's help or blessing. And there are a lot of drivers. For comparison you can check the progress of Linux on iPhones (which is actually a thing!)
  - js2 6y ago
    Yeah, agreed, but my take isn't that Apple is going out of their way to prevent it, just that they have no interest in spending any resources on it. Some conjecture here about what will be possible: https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/running-linux-on-apple-silicon.2257865/ https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/running-linux-on-apple-...
- heavyset_go 6y ago
  > It's not clear to me that the new Macs won't allow booting Linux if the Linux community can figure out how to do it. Mainline Linux support requires a lot of work from vendors. Check out the ARM SoC Linux market for an abundance of examples of this problem. Many of the devices will be forever stuck an old kernel fork and will never run a mainline kernel.
- fomine3 6y ago
  Proprietary original GPU must be a problem.
ravetcofx 6y ago
This researcher has said it may be possible with PongoOS and kernel signing https://mobile.twitter.com/never_released/status/1327398102983176192 https://mobile.twitter.com/never_released/status/13273981029... https://mobile.twitter.com/never_released/status/1327394634272813057 https://mobile.twitter.com/never_released/status/13273946342...
easton 6y ago
But you can disable Secure Boot and boot whatever OS you want, so unless there's some other hardware gotcha it's not like someone couldn't get Linux running if they wanted to put the time in (which is a big if, considering there's no UEFI-ish helper like on the Windows ARM devices). https://support.apple.com/guide/mac-help/macos-recovery-a-mac-apple-silicon-mchl82829c17/11.0/mac/11.0#mchl9b13cbdc https://support.apple.com/guide/mac-help/macos-recovery-a-ma...
- heavyset_go 6y ago
  There are quite literally millions of ARM devices out there that will never have Linux support, and millions more are being produced each year. When it comes to ARM SoCs, Linux requires vendor support to get it running. If you want mainline kernel support, that requires even more work that many vendors just aren't providing. A locked bootloader is just one issue to overcome for Linux support. A lot of the real issues come down to the lack of an enumerable bus on ARM SoCs, along with a lack of drivers. Without vendor support from Apple to support Linux, these devices will be like the millions of iPhones and iPads that don't run Linux and will never run Linux. Most ARM SoCs that are sold explicitly as mini Linux computers also have this problem. Many of them are stuck on old kernel forks, because vendors didn't give the proper support their SoCs needed to run a mainline Linux kernel. tl;dr: For Linux to be a viable option on Apple's SoCs, Apple needs to put in a lot of work to explicitly support Linux. Without that vendor support, you will never be able to download a Linux ISO and install it like you can on an x86 Mac.
  - saagarjha 6y ago
    Millions of iPhones and iPads that don’t do what now? https://projectsandcastle.org/ https://projectsandcastle.org/
    - heavyset_go 6y ago
      There's a gulf between getting a kernel fork to run on an ARM SoC and getting mainline Linux support for it.
saagarjha 6y ago
You’re misunderstanding that quote. Apple has never claimed they won’t support booting something else (in fact, there are ways to enable this by removing signature checks); they were just explaining how their demo works.

qz2 6y ago

Another item added to the list of why I'm not buying one of these.

foldr 6y ago
It doesn't make a huge amount of sense to buy a Mac if you're not going to use Mac OS as your daily driver. A lot of the benefits (e.g. battery life, touchpad quality) are dependent on software as well as hardware, and are greatly diminished on Windows or Linux.
- abainbridge 6y ago
  I've never been that impressed with the Mac Mini's battery life or touchpad :-)
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
  - qz2 6y ago
    Actually I had a Mac mini with the touchpad and the damn thing disconnected three times a day. All my input devices have wires now and the stick out of the right places.
  - foldr 6y ago
    Touché. But seriously, most people who want to run Linux on Mac want to do it because they like Apple's laptop hardware. If you want a compact Linux desktop then a NUC should probably serve you just as well. Or at least, this was the case while Apple was still using Intel chips. If Apple Silicon lives up to expectations then I suppose there could finally be a compelling reason for running Linux on a Mac desktop. To be clear, I'm not saying that there couldn't possibly be any good reason for wanting to run Linux on a Mac desktop. But desktops are already a niche product for Apple, and people who want to run Linux on Mac desktops are arguably a tiny niche within a niche.
- tonyhb 6y ago
  libinput's touchpad support is pretty great recently. working on an xps 17, and the touchpad is - no joke - just like the touchpad on my previous MBP.
- postalrat 6y ago
  You can speculate but we will never know for certain.
- JAlexoid 6y ago
  Mac Mini doesn't raise those issues.
tachyonbeam 6y ago
I feel kind of grossed out, as a developer (and tinkerer) by how locked down Mac products are. It's not really your computer, you're just renting. Apple has decided that they know what you want and need better than you.
- jb1991 6y ago
  Just because it is locked down, why is that the same as "renting"? Those are two very different concepts.
  - AsyncAwait 6y ago
    Because you are not the ultimate decider of what to do with the machine. If you owned it, you could do anything outside of harm.
    - coldtea 6y ago
      The whole concept of the machine is to be bought and optimized for running macOS.
      - AsyncAwait 6y ago
        Right, the point is that it didn't use to be that way exclusively and now it is, so the new machines are more restrictive than previous Macs, which also ran macOS. In fact macOS itself is more restrictive nowdays than it used to be.
      - yjftsjthsd-h 6y ago
        I guess, but the "whole concept of the machine" that I'm typing this on was to run Windows... 7 (I think?); that's a completely artificial limitation, as shown by running Ubuntu on it years after the hardware went out of support.
        sixstringtheory 6y ago
        I'm not sure what the problem is, then. You have a device that does what you (or the GP) want, which is to install any operating system, tinker, etc. Is the worry that Apple and its practices will dominate the industry to the point that you literally will not be able to turn on your current machine and use it?
ramraj07 6y ago
Hopefully it's not just secret apple sauce that makes these powerhouses, and other chip makers make arm based processors soon enough giving us the choice we deseeve. (given gravitons similar performance bump this is likely the case)

dshpala 6y ago

Challenge accepted :)

js2 6y ago

I realize Federighi's reply seems to rule out Linux, but the context of the question seemed to be with respect to Boot Camp and Windows. My take is that Apple doesn't want to continue to invest in Boot Camp, especially since Microsoft apparently isn't willing to license ARM Windows for this use case. It's not clear to me that the new Macs won't allow booting Linux if the Linux community can figure out how to do it. The number of folks booting Linux on Mac via Boot Camp has to be really tiny.

Synaesthesia 6y ago
Getting drivers to work will be hard without Apple's help or blessing. And there are a lot of drivers. For comparison you can check the progress of Linux on iPhones (which is actually a thing!)
- js2 6y ago
  Yeah, agreed, but my take isn't that Apple is going out of their way to prevent it, just that they have no interest in spending any resources on it. Some conjecture here about what will be possible: https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/running-linux-on-apple-silicon.2257865/ https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/running-linux-on-apple-...
heavyset_go 6y ago
> It's not clear to me that the new Macs won't allow booting Linux if the Linux community can figure out how to do it. Mainline Linux support requires a lot of work from vendors. Check out the ARM SoC Linux market for an abundance of examples of this problem. Many of the devices will be forever stuck an old kernel fork and will never run a mainline kernel.
fomine3 6y ago
Proprietary original GPU must be a problem.

ravetcofx 6y ago

This researcher has said it may be possible with PongoOS and kernel signing https://mobile.twitter.com/never_released/status/1327398102983176192 https://mobile.twitter.com/never_released/status/13273981029... https://mobile.twitter.com/never_released/status/1327394634272813057 https://mobile.twitter.com/never_released/status/13273946342...

easton 6y ago

But you can disable Secure Boot and boot whatever OS you want, so unless there's some other hardware gotcha it's not like someone couldn't get Linux running if they wanted to put the time in (which is a big if, considering there's no UEFI-ish helper like on the Windows ARM devices). https://support.apple.com/guide/mac-help/macos-recovery-a-mac-apple-silicon-mchl82829c17/11.0/mac/11.0#mchl9b13cbdc https://support.apple.com/guide/mac-help/macos-recovery-a-ma...

heavyset_go 6y ago
There are quite literally millions of ARM devices out there that will never have Linux support, and millions more are being produced each year. When it comes to ARM SoCs, Linux requires vendor support to get it running. If you want mainline kernel support, that requires even more work that many vendors just aren't providing. A locked bootloader is just one issue to overcome for Linux support. A lot of the real issues come down to the lack of an enumerable bus on ARM SoCs, along with a lack of drivers. Without vendor support from Apple to support Linux, these devices will be like the millions of iPhones and iPads that don't run Linux and will never run Linux. Most ARM SoCs that are sold explicitly as mini Linux computers also have this problem. Many of them are stuck on old kernel forks, because vendors didn't give the proper support their SoCs needed to run a mainline Linux kernel. tl;dr: For Linux to be a viable option on Apple's SoCs, Apple needs to put in a lot of work to explicitly support Linux. Without that vendor support, you will never be able to download a Linux ISO and install it like you can on an x86 Mac.
- saagarjha 6y ago
  Millions of iPhones and iPads that don’t do what now? https://projectsandcastle.org/ https://projectsandcastle.org/
  - heavyset_go 6y ago
    There's a gulf between getting a kernel fork to run on an ARM SoC and getting mainline Linux support for it.

saagarjha 6y ago

You’re misunderstanding that quote. Apple has never claimed they won’t support booting something else (in fact, there are ways to enable this by removing signature checks); they were just explaining how their demo works.