Apple Announces Its New M2 Processor

[mdedetrich]

By that theory, any Linux distro would have been installable on day one.
Windows must face atleast the same hurdles and additionally a lawsuit by Apple for reverse engineering.

I am not an expert on this, but from what I have read at least on the hardware level Apple actually made things deliberately by design easy to work with (this is mainly paraphrasing what Asahi reports on). One area for example (iirc) is that the bootloader was designed to be easy to work with.

With Windows there is a deliberate software lock that prevents it from running on anything thats not a Qualcomm chip (i.e. M1) and Apple has actually said that this is the case (they were asked why Windows doesn't run on ARM and they said Microsoft deliberately did it this way) and the exclusivity deal is the apparent reason why.

[sinepgib]

There’s over 40 million ChromeOS devices used in the education system. Those kids are growing up and learning to use ChromeOS for their daily use. I know a decent amount of people that use their iPads/Android tablets as their PC. That market is small but it could grow if Google pushed to make a desktop experience. I bet if Google or Apple created a desktop experience similar to Samsung DeX they would easily take over the PC market.

OT, but I find it quite funny how our experiences differ from country to country. In my country there's like a big gap between company issued computers, which can be Mac or middle-end Lenovos/Dells, higher class consumers that tend to have some ultrabook or sometimes Macs and the rest of the country having low end regular laptops, most often not older than 3-6 years. Chromebooks are so uncommon here that I constantly forget they even exist. I haven't seen one ever. There's pretty much no middle ground between the very expensive and the very cheap. There's also a multi-year delay in models that affects pretty much everyone except those who buy smuggled computers to someone who traveled to Europe or the US (which is a common way to cover part of the cost ot those expensive vacations by the middle class).

[Anux]

... Apple actually made things deliberately by design easy to work with (this is mainly paraphrasing what Asahi reports on).

Does this mean there is some kind of official documentation that helps with writing drivers and bootloaders?

With Windows there is a deliberate software lock that prevents it from running on anything thats not a Qualcomm chip ...

I believe that instantly, they also block Win 11 from older x86 CPUs just for profit I guess. But even if they diddn't do that, who writes the drivers? Without these there is no desktop, network or SSD access. Apple would have to write those drivers and we all know how Apple thinks about other OSs on their hardware.

[qarium]

Does this mean there is some kind of official documentation that helps with writing drivers and bootloaders?

they mean it in the meaning of: Waldorf education
this means you write your own documentation.

easy to work with means it is by design made in a way that you can without problems make your own documentation.

Apple would have to write those drivers and we all know how Apple thinks about other OSs on their hardware.

its not normal that apple make advertisement for linux but at thr M1 presentation they did it they showed linux in the presentation. it was only in the virtual machine but still free ad for linux.

for a company like apple this is as much attention and love as you can get as a linux community.

because get this: they showed linux in the virtual machine but no microsoft windows...

[sinepgib]

its not normal that apple make advertisement for linux but at thr M1 presentation they did it they showed linux in the presentation. it was only in the virtual machine but still free ad for linux.

for a company like apple this is as much attention and love as you can get as a linux community.

because get this: they showed linux in the virtual machine but no microsoft windows...

Because it makes sense commercially for Apple: a fraction of their market is web developers, most of their code will run on Linux, they need Linux VMs (in particular, most use Docker Desktop). Mac is interested in keeping these customers, so it needs to advertise how well that virtualization works. On the contrary, Windows is only competition for the most part.

[qarium]

Because it makes sense commercially for Apple: a fraction of their market is web developers, most of their code will run on Linux, they need Linux VMs (in particular, most use Docker Desktop). Mac is interested in keeping these customers, so it needs to advertise how well that virtualization works. On the contrary, Windows is only competition for the most part.

thats not bad at all. maybe we see this kind of alliance grow bigger over time.

just imagine this: a linux powered valve steam gamig smartphone with apple m2 hardware...

sounds crazy right ? but to be honest steam deck with zen2+RDNA2 has only limited battery run time.

with apple M2 hardware the battery run time would be much better

[Anux]

they mean it in the meaning of: Waldorf education
this means you write your own documentation.

Ha, I would have thought that they dance their documentation.

easy to work with means it is by design made in a way that you can without problems make your own documentation.

I'm not shure how this would work. Is there embedded documentation in the hardware or is it classical reverse engeneering?

its not normal that apple make advertisement for linux but at thr M1 presentation they did it they showed linux in the presentation. it was only in the virtual machine but still free ad for linux.

What has that to do with supporting other OS on their hardware? You can allways run any OS in a VM.

because get this: they showed linux in the virtual machine but no microsoft windows...

And ... ? Reading your posts it somehow sounds as if they support Linux in any way, while in reality non of that is true. The Linux efforts are totally independent and get no help from Apple.

[qarium]

Ha, I would have thought that they dance their documentation.
I'm not shure how this would work. Is there embedded documentation in the hardware or is it classical reverse engeneering?

on modern systems if the hardware company does not want it then reverse engeneering is impossible.
best example for this is Nvidia: they encrypt the hardware internals with the firmware means reverse engeneering without breaking the crypto is impossible.

you unterstand how easy it is to reverse engeneer apple M1 and M2 if you ever try the same on modern X86_64 intel hardware for stuff like intel ME... its very hard and nearly impossible. AMD PSP is the same as intel ME.

compared to thie ME/PSP nightmare reverse engeneer the apple M1/M2 is very easy

the apple M1 and M2 does not even have an ME/PSP on the chip means as soon as your linux kernel runs on the M1/M2 cores it is your computer... on ME/PSP """Satan""" is inside your hardware an can spy on you.

And ... ? Reading your posts it somehow sounds as if they support Linux in any way, while in reality non of that is true. The Linux efforts are totally independent and get no help from Apple.

what you say is nonsense really if it is like you say then the M1 is like apple iphone without the ability to boot any other OS.

apple even fixed bugs in the bootloader who only affected linux on m1 and not macos...

i think apple will enter the linux market with that hardware in the future.

and if you compare 1000€-1200€ laptops from intel and AMD and apple M1/M2 right now apple is very competetive and if you need battery run time apple is superior

[Anux]

compared to thie ME/PSP nightmare reverse engeneer the apple M1/M2 is very easy

I think you have a strange depiction of reverse engineering in your mind.

the apple M1 and M2 does not even have an ME/PSP on the chip

Where did you get that information? Since its based on ARM I would bet there is some form of ARMs CCA/Trustzone implemented. Else they would have a problem with DRM stuff, full disk encryption and secure boot. Have a look at https://support.apple.com/de-de/guid...cac71d5623/web

what you say is nonsense really if it is like you say then the M1 is like apple iphone without the ability to boot any other OS.

No I just said that Apple is not supporting the Linux developement. They also don't sabotage it but thats not something to be praised, it should be the standard.

apple even fixed bugs in the bootloader who only affected linux on m1 and not macos...

Sounds interesting, got a link?

i think apple will enter the linux market with that hardware in the future.

You are pulling stuff outa your ass, thats highly unlikely. I mean Nvidia opensourced their driver so I guess nothing is impossible anymore ...

[smitty3268]

Where did you get that information? Since its based on ARM I would bet there is some form of ARMs CCA/Trustzone implemented. Else they would have a problem with DRM stuff, full disk encryption and secure boot. Have a look at https://support.apple.com/de-de/guid...cac71d5623/web

Not to mention the huge amount of Apple written firmware that's running on these systems, even while the OS on top of that is Linux. They've got co-processors running an entire custom RTOS, sending XML data around, etc. Nobody has any clue what those systems are doing behind the scenes. Yes, it's unlikely it's all full of spyware, but then people will tell you the same thing about ME/PSP too.

Sounds interesting, got a link?

They're referring to something Hector Martin (one of the main Asahi linux devs) hyped up quite a bit. Probably because he's tired of people constantly telling him Apple is just going to screw him over at some point and wanted to put out a counter-narrative, but still. He's massively overhyping a minor issue. Some low-level engineer just spent 30 minutes one day making a fairly obvious change, which may indeed have been for Asahi's benefit, but isn't a sign of any major level of support. I guarantee nobody in a suit at Apple knew anything about it one way or another.

As I recall, it was something like the bootloader originally only loading kernels that were signed with an apple key, which they provide the tools to do. But then they changed the key and so you had to do different signed kernels for different versions of the OSX installs? Or something like that. But they added an option to do non-signed kernels, and he took that as validation they were fixing it for him, since presumably Apple will continue to sign their own code.