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Apple needs to give a little here. I think it's patently ridiculous that we have to enlist the assistance of console hackers in order to have a chance at porti

Apple needs to give a little here. I think it's patently ridiculous that we have to enlist the assistance of console hackers in order to have a chance at porting the most used operating system in the entire world to run on hardware that in all likelihood already happily runs it inside of Apple's labs. > In particular, we will be reverse engineering the Apple GPU architecture and developing an open source driver for it. This is all a noble goal, but I can't see this as being anything other than a complete and total non-starter with zero cooperation from Apple. After the street cred of getting a marginally usable OS up and running evaporates, why continue to take the effort of great engineers and waste it developing an ecosystem that doesn't care? It makes no sense to me.

monocasa 6y ago
> This is all a noble goal, but I can't see this as being anything other than a complete and total non-starter with zero cooperation from Apple. I think marcan has proven he has the chops for pieces like that. The ps4 linux port had him reverse engineering the ISA for the custom risc cores that are some of the deepest firmware of a pretty modern AMD GPU. Like even the open source drivers just treat this stuff as blobs and moves on with their life, but he had to port a fix over and showed off more publicly than anyone else had. This Apple stuff is for sure more work, but it all seems within his wheelhouse. Hence the patreon I think, attacking the size of the problem with some funding to make it more viable than a side project.
- ed25519FUUU 6y ago
  Also, it sounds like he just loves doing this. Everyone is treating him like a martyr but he’s doing what he’s good at and we’re all benefiting.
paulryanrogers 6y ago
Apple sells hardware and now services. Software seems to be a cost center. So I doubt a third party OS like Linux will ever be a priority for them in their consumer products.
- jimktrains2 6y ago
  They don't necessarily need to _support_ it, but that doesn't preclude being open enough to let others do the work.
  - SulfurHexaFluri 6y ago
    They could simply release the specification documents that they obviously already have.
- ttflee 6y ago
  Software is an essential supportive pillar which stands between its hardware and lucrative value-added services.
  - anonymouse008 6y ago
    Otherwise you have a shiny brick
    - shepherdjerred 6y ago
      My shiny brick is in space gray
- vaxman 6y ago
  This project is obviously a farce, but I would not say Apple is against Linux insofar as supporting it on the backend. Their own backends are designed for raytracing/render farms and will probably always run macOS though.
  - shp0ngle 6y ago
    Why is it a farce? I don't get what you mean. Hector Martin is really good. Of course it might not actually go anywhere, it doesn't even have a commit yet, literally just a logo and webpage, but let's see.
bluepizza 6y ago
> This is all a noble goal, but I can't see this as being anything other than a complete and total non-starter with zero cooperation from Apple. Why? There have been several success cases of reverse engineering in the past, for all sorts of popular and fringe hardware.
- hashkb 6y ago
  See: the state of nvidia support on Linux today.
- gorkish 6y ago
  I am all about the hacker cred here, but you need only take a look at the most directly comparable project, Nouveau to get an idea of how ridiculous the thought is that greenfield reverse engineering of apple's custom GPU will result in something that is desktop-class usable and reliable. Please remember that Nouveau can't even do better than a framebuffer on anything newer than a geforce 10 series card. GPU development is just too eratic and fast paced to even try to keep up the effort. Anyone willing to devote that kind of time and expense into the project would be better off engineering a GPU from scratch.
  - deaddodo 6y ago
    The problem with nouveau is more that it's trying to replicate the Nvidia blob driver (and then some), in that it supports multiple disparate architectures and at different levels (three generations might be a similar uarch, for instance). Replicating a single GPU driver would be significantly easier, albeit still a Herculean task. Especially if your main goal out of the gate is simply framebuffer support and maybe some 2D acceleration. At least, this is from my experience dealing with the Tegra X1 on a Jetson board for hobby osdev.
    - boardwaalk 6y ago
      Sounds like a fun project, honestly. I wonder how much 2D-only “legacy” functionality even exists on the thing. I expect not much. Going for something like Vulkan right off with a mind for it probably being built to accelerate Metal might be a viable angle. Total spitballing though. Once they come out with the 16” MBP I may have fun poking at it.
smoldesu 6y ago
Well put, it's very confusing that Apple is willing to reduce the matter of Windows on M1 to a matter of licensing, but Linux on M1 is somehow seen as competition. I was gonna buy an M1 Mac Mini to replace my aging desktop, but Apple can forget my patronage if I can't control the hardware I own.
wmf 6y ago
Several mobile GPUs have been reverse-engineered so it's not as hard as you think. As for the ecosystem, if users care enough to pay for it then it doesn't matter how little Apple cares.
- gorkish 6y ago
  Small variants/extensions of mobile GPUs have been shoehorned to work with existing drivers or provide very basic framebuffer capability. This isn't exactly vulkan running on Apple-silicon level of functionality. Maybe Apple's implementation isn't so alien after all and these great folks will pull it off. I hope they do, but I'm still tempering my expectations.
  - wmf 6y ago
    Dissecting the Apple M1 GPU, part I: https://rosenzweig.io/blog/asahi-gpu-part-1.html https://rosenzweig.io/blog/asahi-gpu-part-1.html
zepto 6y ago
I don’t think there is any rush at all for Apple to do anything to support Linux on macs that are only a couple of months old. However I absolutely think they should produce a Bootcamp equivalent designed to support Linux on all Macs and iOS devices that Apple no longer supports with MacOS.
- ageofwant 6y ago
  I don't think they have to do anything but publish the specs. That's not 'support' as far as I'm concerned. In fact its easy to argue that Apple will benefit from motivated top tier hacker feedback on their designs.
ece 6y ago
They could offer an equivalent to Nvidia's PTX ISA for compute, and possibly documentation like Intel and AMD offer for their GPUs. Offcourse, the first thing the latter would do is undermine Metal, so I don't think that's likely. Nvidia PTX-level openness for GPU-compute would be nice though.
vbezhenar 6y ago
It was not different for PC for many years. Most of drivers were reverse-engineered, including GPU ones. That said, hardware was simpler back then. Implementing drivers for modern GPU is a hard task, may be an impossible one. It’s like writing a second OS.

monocasa 6y ago

> This is all a noble goal, but I can't see this as being anything other than a complete and total non-starter with zero cooperation from Apple. I think marcan has proven he has the chops for pieces like that. The ps4 linux port had him reverse engineering the ISA for the custom risc cores that are some of the deepest firmware of a pretty modern AMD GPU. Like even the open source drivers just treat this stuff as blobs and moves on with their life, but he had to port a fix over and showed off more publicly than anyone else had. This Apple stuff is for sure more work, but it all seems within his wheelhouse. Hence the patreon I think, attacking the size of the problem with some funding to make it more viable than a side project.

ed25519FUUU 6y ago
Also, it sounds like he just loves doing this. Everyone is treating him like a martyr but he’s doing what he’s good at and we’re all benefiting.

paulryanrogers 6y ago

Apple sells hardware and now services. Software seems to be a cost center. So I doubt a third party OS like Linux will ever be a priority for them in their consumer products.

jimktrains2 6y ago
They don't necessarily need to _support_ it, but that doesn't preclude being open enough to let others do the work.
- SulfurHexaFluri 6y ago
  They could simply release the specification documents that they obviously already have.
ttflee 6y ago
Software is an essential supportive pillar which stands between its hardware and lucrative value-added services.
- anonymouse008 6y ago
  Otherwise you have a shiny brick
  - shepherdjerred 6y ago
    My shiny brick is in space gray
vaxman 6y ago
This project is obviously a farce, but I would not say Apple is against Linux insofar as supporting it on the backend. Their own backends are designed for raytracing/render farms and will probably always run macOS though.
- shp0ngle 6y ago
  Why is it a farce? I don't get what you mean. Hector Martin is really good. Of course it might not actually go anywhere, it doesn't even have a commit yet, literally just a logo and webpage, but let's see.

bluepizza 6y ago

> This is all a noble goal, but I can't see this as being anything other than a complete and total non-starter with zero cooperation from Apple. Why? There have been several success cases of reverse engineering in the past, for all sorts of popular and fringe hardware.

hashkb 6y ago
See: the state of nvidia support on Linux today.
gorkish 6y ago
I am all about the hacker cred here, but you need only take a look at the most directly comparable project, Nouveau to get an idea of how ridiculous the thought is that greenfield reverse engineering of apple's custom GPU will result in something that is desktop-class usable and reliable. Please remember that Nouveau can't even do better than a framebuffer on anything newer than a geforce 10 series card. GPU development is just too eratic and fast paced to even try to keep up the effort. Anyone willing to devote that kind of time and expense into the project would be better off engineering a GPU from scratch.
- deaddodo 6y ago
  The problem with nouveau is more that it's trying to replicate the Nvidia blob driver (and then some), in that it supports multiple disparate architectures and at different levels (three generations might be a similar uarch, for instance). Replicating a single GPU driver would be significantly easier, albeit still a Herculean task. Especially if your main goal out of the gate is simply framebuffer support and maybe some 2D acceleration. At least, this is from my experience dealing with the Tegra X1 on a Jetson board for hobby osdev.
  - boardwaalk 6y ago
    Sounds like a fun project, honestly. I wonder how much 2D-only “legacy” functionality even exists on the thing. I expect not much. Going for something like Vulkan right off with a mind for it probably being built to accelerate Metal might be a viable angle. Total spitballing though. Once they come out with the 16” MBP I may have fun poking at it.

smoldesu 6y ago

Well put, it's very confusing that Apple is willing to reduce the matter of Windows on M1 to a matter of licensing, but Linux on M1 is somehow seen as competition. I was gonna buy an M1 Mac Mini to replace my aging desktop, but Apple can forget my patronage if I can't control the hardware I own.

wmf 6y ago

Several mobile GPUs have been reverse-engineered so it's not as hard as you think. As for the ecosystem, if users care enough to pay for it then it doesn't matter how little Apple cares.

gorkish 6y ago
Small variants/extensions of mobile GPUs have been shoehorned to work with existing drivers or provide very basic framebuffer capability. This isn't exactly vulkan running on Apple-silicon level of functionality. Maybe Apple's implementation isn't so alien after all and these great folks will pull it off. I hope they do, but I'm still tempering my expectations.
- wmf 6y ago
  Dissecting the Apple M1 GPU, part I: https://rosenzweig.io/blog/asahi-gpu-part-1.html https://rosenzweig.io/blog/asahi-gpu-part-1.html

zepto 6y ago

I don’t think there is any rush at all for Apple to do anything to support Linux on macs that are only a couple of months old. However I absolutely think they should produce a Bootcamp equivalent designed to support Linux on all Macs and iOS devices that Apple no longer supports with MacOS.

ageofwant 6y ago
I don't think they have to do anything but publish the specs. That's not 'support' as far as I'm concerned. In fact its easy to argue that Apple will benefit from motivated top tier hacker feedback on their designs.

ece 6y ago

They could offer an equivalent to Nvidia's PTX ISA for compute, and possibly documentation like Intel and AMD offer for their GPUs. Offcourse, the first thing the latter would do is undermine Metal, so I don't think that's likely. Nvidia PTX-level openness for GPU-compute would be nice though.

vbezhenar 6y ago

It was not different for PC for many years. Most of drivers were reverse-engineered, including GPU ones. That said, hardware was simpler back then. Implementing drivers for modern GPU is a hard task, may be an impossible one. It’s like writing a second OS.