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OpenBSD/arm64 on Apple M1 systems
- qualudeheart 5y agoIs openbsd support for puri.sm laptops any good? I don’t want to buy a macbook.
- jamal-kumar 5y agoThe best tested so far happens to be the huawei matebook X and certain lenovo laptops This guy does a lot of testing https://jcs.org/ https://jcs.org/ I'd be really interested to hear if any arm64 or other RISC architecture laptops are useable! M1 is a step in that direction, it would be really surprising to me if it worked well beyond basic support yet however. Asahi linux took like over a year to get to that point but it sounds from reading that link that they're pretty gung ho on getting it working for 7.1 which is amazing to hear. It sounds like other hardware support in those laptops is the big thing. Fun miscellaneous stuff: SMP on intel architecture is disabled on openbsd for security reasons, so looking at alternatives to make things go fast with guarantees for that is big right now.
- brynet 5y agoHyperthreading (SMT) is disabled by default, SMP works just fine.
- messe 5y agoTo add to that, if you need the (max ~30%) performance boost (less on OpenBSD as a some parts of the kernel are still poorly performant in SMP scenarios, it's improving but still noticeable), it's possible to enable hyperthreading temporarily via doas sysctl hw.smt=1 I do this occasionally when running larger compilations (LLVM or similar). If you want it enabled permanently you can add hw.smt=1 to /etc/sysctl.conf
- jamal-kumar 5y agoCorrect thanks
- kop316 5y agoYou could probably ask their support, they are very good at responding. That being said, they use coreboot and hardware with open/well known drivers. I actually bought a Librem 14 and installed Windows on it for my spouse, and surprisingly, everything on it worked out of the box.
- keewee7 5y agoHow does M1 differ from arm64? Why is all this work needed to run Linux or OpenBSD on M1?
- oneplane 5y agoBecause arm64 is an architecture, not a definition of an entire SoC. When you want to run on a SoC with all sorts of connected peripherals you must support those in your OS in order to use them. Some peripherals are required to run at all. To run on any SoC you'll have to implement software to work on it.
- messe 5y ago^This. We've been so spoiled by several decades of relatively compatibility between x86(_64) PC-based systems, that it's easy to forget that that's not the norm for most architectures.
- sys_64738 5y agoWe need when macOS is intentionally obsoleted and keep that hardware running a secure OS with current updates.
- jjtheblunt 5y agoNaive question: why bother with OpenBSD over the highly hardware-optimized BSD-derivation macOS?
- heavyset_go 5y agoThe *BSD parts of macOS are really old.
- messe 5y agoPlus *BSD isn't a single OS. The main ones are OpenBSD, FreeBSD, NetBSD and DragonflyBSD. All with their own divergent philosophies and incompatibilities.
- Melatonic 5y agoNew marketing release from Apple claims the M1 Air is the fastest portable Netflix content distribution server /s
- amatecha 5y agoHappy to see this! I run OpenBSD/arm64 on a Pi 4 and am posting this from OpenBSD on an old ThinkPad. Great OS all around, and it's always nice to see the current version running on both old stuff (this laptop from 2012) and cutting-edge stuff simultaneously :)
- carlosrg 5y agoAt this point it seems M1 Macs have better Linux/other unixes support than Intel Macs with a T2 chip. At least from my experience and what I’m seeing with Asahi Linux.
- kaladin-jasnah 5y agoWell... the GPU works in Intel Macs, I think. Which is pretty big.
- morganvachon 5y agoThe forthcoming GPU and sound support are all I'm waiting for to move my daily OpenBSD workstation to my M1 mini. I tested Asahi Linux on it earlier this morning and it was mind-bogglingly fast. My fastest AMD64 based system is a Ryzen 5 3600 with a NVMe main storage drive, and Linux on the M1 makes it feel like a 10 year old i3 with a spinning drive in comparison. Everything is just instant, file transfers are faster than they are on macOS on the same machine, and even without GPU acceleration, KDE Plasma is quick and fluid. I ran out of time to try OpenBSD today but I'll jump on that this week and see if the performance carries over to it.
- tcmart14 5y agoHope to see a write up on it somewhere! I bought my M1 air specifically to run a powerful arm computer with Linux/BSD once it is decent enough! I am in my last semester and don't want to tamper with my machine until that is over, so once I graduate in a month, I have plans to look into doing this. If OpenBSD is in a usable state, that'll be what gets loaded on sometime in may.
- morganvachon 5y agoDefinitely! I don't have much of an online presence beyond here, OSNews, Ars Technica, and Reddit, but I have been wanting to start a blog about my tech hobbies (OpenBSD primarily) and this would be a good start for it. I'll be sure to add it to my profile here once I've started it.
- eatonphil 5y agoThat's really neat, so you install Asahi Linux first and then after that it's easier/possible to install OpenBSD.
- generalizations 5y agoI don't understand the details, but it looks like you use the uefi-only option in the installer to install the UEFI 'firmware', which then lets you boot the openbsd installer.
- brynet 5y agoYes, there's an "UEFI environment only" option that only installs m1n1+u-boot (not Linux), OpenBSD/arm64 uses the EFI implementation provided by u-boot. Mark Kettenis' from the OpenBSD project is responsible for upstreaming Apple M1 support for u-boot, and has been collaborating with the Asahi Linux team.
- messe 5y agoDamn, that’s awesome. If I wasn’t using my M1 air as a daily driver at the moment, I’d already be attempting an install. I guess I’ll keep an eye out for a second hand M1 mini, or wait for a refurbished mini to show up on the Apple online store (in Ireland). Would love to add another RISC system to my home fleet of machines running OpenBSD (and a couple of FreeBSD).
- Yanker 5y agoI was quite literally trying to install OpenBSD on my M1 air yesterday. How about that?
- spockz 5y agoWhat are the benefits of running (open)BSD on a workstation? Especially a laptop? Edit: this could of course also be used for running a server on a M1 mini!
- messe 5y agoHonestly, the biggest advantage OpenBSD has always had for me was its internal consistency and excellent documentation. If you’re a heavy command line user, you can usually figure out either what command you need to run or what you need to look up in the man pages. It’s also great for C development, as it has far better docs for libc than glibc does. If you have supported hardware (and that’s a bit if and caveat; smaller than it used to be, but still quite large), then everything just works. Even little things like the built-in screen brightness buttons, just work regardless of if you’re in x11 or a terminal (same with volume buttons), because it’s designed as a complete system rather than a distribution of otherwise unrelated open source projects.
- brundolf 5y agoSounds like it might address a lot of the misgivings I have with using Linux as a workstation; maybe I'll play with it some time
- messe 5y agoIt’s not a perfect OS, but it’s definitely pleasant to use. These days I’m on macOS, mainly because of the hardware but also a few pieces of software that I have hard time replacing (Scrivener and Mathematica).
- ILMostro7 5y agoI know that Mathematica is available on Linux. I wonder how much more would be needed for Wolfram to make a FreeBSD release.
- 5y ago
- barelyusable 5y agoWhat's the battery life like?
- jasoneckert 5y agoDo you mean to ask what the battery management functionality is like (i.e. does the battery drain noticeably faster using OpenBSD)? If so, I don't know what it's like on the MacBook or MacBook Pro, but on my Mac Mini, I can reliably say that the battery life is dismal ;-)
- lolpython 5y ago> but on my Mac Mini, the battery life is dismal. Possible typo? The Mac Mini does not have a battery.
- SSLy 5y agoThat mac /is/ going to run off the power stored in the PSU capacitors for a few (hundred?) ms after you unplug it.
- foodstances 5y agoThat's why the battery life is so dismal.
- sroussey 5y agoNo, no, that’s why the battery life is amazing!!!
- stjohnswarts 5y agoIt always does what I expect when I unplug it...
- geerlingguy 5y agoNot sure on OpenBSD, but Asahi said they could get 6-8 hours without any real energy efficiency features enabled.
- LeoPanthera 5y agoWhatever happened to NetBSD being the version that ran on everything? I discovered the other day that it took them years to even run properly on the Raspberry Pi. Are they short of money or developers, or is the famed portability of it just not as true as it used to be?
- 1500100900 5y agoThe Raspberry Pis are hostile towards non-Linux systems.
- heinternets 5y agoHow so?
- burnte 5y agoThey were designed to run Linux to be cheap so other OSes need drivers.
- Sirened 5y agoA lot of the hardware on the board has vendor support in Linux and only Linux. Vendors will write drivers and upstream them to Linux and then just call it a day. You can't get the manuals for those components except under NDA, which makes open source development for non-Linux operating systems a huge pain in the ass.
- freedomben 5y agoYeah they're even borderline hostile to non raspbian systems. When a new Pi comes out it usually only works for raspbian for quite some time until others put in the work of getting the right stuff together for other distros. I love raspberry pi but they are definitely not as "open" and drop-in compatible as most people think. That seems to be a problem with most ARM devices, so may not be specific or the fault of the Pi people.
- stjohnswarts 5y ago
- wolverine876 5y agoOpenBSD is known for its high quality standards, quality software is resource-intensive to develop, and they are a relatively small team. As a practical / project management matter, how do they manage to support a diversity of hardware? What proportion of their resources is spent just keeping up with hardware?
- vaxman 5y agoMaybe don't boot your Macs into third-party operating systems (high potential for thermal damage or even misconfiguring mainboard components such that it might cause data loss even when rebooted back into macOS ..if the BSP devs at Apple were sloppy in their initialization code or an "unknown state" is created). Linux on Mac, A/UX, etc. was a Thing back in the day when clock rates were lower and component densities were lower and the machines came chalk full of holes to let the heat out, so running the system "out of spec" had less potential for permanent damage. Apple-sanctioned alternative operating systems such as VMware ESXi have also caused problems in the past and should not be used at all anymore because Apple does not seem to play well with others on that level (by releasing uncoordinated firmware updates).
- emptyparadise 5y agoThis website is called Hacker News!
- vaxman 5y agobut not Hacksaw News but point well taken. Unfortunately, the most exotic alternative OS that Macs support is BootCamp and that’s not yet for ARM so hack away while booted into Darwin (macOS) using a VM. I recommend Zephyr for big time hacking fun! :)
- stjohnswarts 5y agolol now that's the spirit of adventure I expect! You're not going to burn up a chip as long as it has a heatsink on it. All modern cpus have thermal trips to reset when it gets too hot. You might scramble your hard drive of course butnothing you can't recover from
- vaxman 5y agoIntel processor yes, Apple processor unknown and what about GPUs and nVME, dried up caps, melted ribbon connectors on the board interconnects causing short circuits…all well known issues that come from the fragile thermal dynamic designs on past Macs and all issues that are pushed to extreme by not knowing when or how to interact with the proprietary firmware from within alternate kernel modules.
- lowrider919 5y ago
- Ophuscado 5y agoInteresting.
- matrix12 5y agoDoes SMP work?
- adastra22 5y ago…there is no SMP Apple silicon hardware?
- noselasd 5y agoSMP applies to multi-core as well.
- adastra22 5y agoSMP is specifically multi-cpu, not multi-core. Normally the distinction doesn’t matter, but when you are talking about kernel support they are entirely different.
- floatboth 5y agoKernel devs typically do use SMP to refer to multicore. Even Wikipedia says: "In the case of multi-core processors, the SMP architecture applies to the cores, treating them as separate processors."
- brynet 5y agoYes, OpenBSD/arm64 supports SMP. M1 included.
- matrix12 5y agoNice!