5 ms·

> Eh, the Asahi linux people already have linux running on this chip More specifically, people are running Linux on the CPu cores. The M1 is a system-on-chip,

> Eh, the Asahi linux people already have linux running on this chip More specifically, people are running Linux on the CPu cores. The M1 is a system-on-chip, and according to the floorplan [1], the CPUs are maybe 1/5th of the chip. There are many other features that aren't unlocked, such as GPU (which is a brand new architecture) or power management. The latter is key to exploiting the chip to its full performance envelope. I don't expect Asahi to get anywhere further than proof-of-concept before it becomes obsolete by the march of the silicon industry. [1] https://images.anandtech.com/doci/16226/M1.png https://images.anandtech.com/doci/16226/M1.png

gpm 6y ago
I think it depends on how much changes between generations. So far it seems like most of this isn't really new, but almost exactly what's been on the iDevices for a long time. If they don't re-architect substantially between generations I can see the Asahi project keeping up. The GPU stuff is new, but it seems like good progress is being made: https://rosenzweig.io/blog/asahi-gpu-part-3.html https://rosenzweig.io/blog/asahi-gpu-part-3.html For data centers, it helps that GPU and so on is just less important. It's wasted Silicon, but the CPU is competitive even before considering the added features so that's not the end of the world. There's a good chance that Apple can use that to their advantage too, by using chips with broken GPUs/NNPUs in the DC... or designing a smaller chip for data centers... or one with more cores... or so on.