Eventually, this was supposed to happen anyway. An experienced reverse engineering professional launched a Patreon project to bring Linux to the Apple M1 macs ARM devices.
Apple M1 macs
Apple M1 macs are the new range of ARM device offerings from Apple, launched a while back. There has been a huge interest across the technology space in Apple’s take on ARM devices. The reason primarily is the performance of the Apple M1 devices in all criteria.
It has been widely reported across the world that Apple M1 mac devices are simply too powerful ARM devices when compared to similar offerings from other vendors. Not only that, some reports coming about the battery life which can go on for days with a single charge on these fan-less Apple M1 devices.
The device runs macOS, but people wondered how Linux will perform on the device. Not in VM, rather a native installation. Linus Torvalds – the creator of Linux Kernel, recently told that he is also impressed by the Apple M1 performance and wondered about running Linux on it.
Linux on Apple M1
Hector Martin a.k.a “marcan” recently launched a Patreon project to rever engineer the Apple M1 mac devices to run Linux natively. He has a wide range of prior experience on reverse engineering devices to run Linux natively.
The goal is to bring Linux support on Apple Silicon macs to the point where it is not merely a tech demo but is an OS you would want to use on a daily driver device. To do this, there is a huge amount of work to be done. Running Linux on things is easy, but making it work well is hard. Drivers need to be written for all devices. The driver for the completely custom Apple GPU is the most complicated component, which is necessary to have a good desktop experience. The power management needs to work well too, for your battery life to be reasonable.
Hector Martin
It is indeed a massive project taken by Martin for the community as a whole, and eventually, Linux would run natively on these devices. There will be blockers for sure, considering this is an Apple device and the project may take years to reach a tech demo level.
Contribute
So, if you want to read more or contribute to his goal of $4000 monthly pledge amount, visit the link below for further information. In case you are wondering whether it is Legal, or how the modified Linux code will be released, etc – all are present in the FAQ section on the below page.
via AppleInsider
