Asahi Linux's Apple M1/M2 Gallium3D Driver Now OpenGL ES 3.1 Conformant

[gnattu]

Can any part of this Rust driver be used by someone who would like to make another Rust graphics driver?
Example if someone wanted to make a graphics device driver written in Rust for AMD, Intel or Nvidia?

As long as the other driver is also GPL licensed it would be fine? The question is how much of the code is useful for other GPUs.

[BenTheTechGuy]

I think it would be better to shift focus and resources to Vulkan instead because of DXVK, VKD3D and of course Zink.

They are working on both; according to this blog post, their work on OpenGL ES helps them get closer to Vulkan since the requirements for OpenGL ES 3.1 and Vulkan 1.0 are similar.

[sophisticles]

I think it's wonderful that not only do these people have a hobby but they also have this delusional view of the importance of their hobby to the history of computing at large.

Quote from the blog:

https://rosenzweig.io/blog/first-conformant-m1-gpu-driver.html

Our reverse-engineered, free and open source graphics drivers are the world’s only conformant OpenGL ES 3.1 implementation for M1- and M2-family graphics hardware. That means our driver passed tens of thousands of tests to demonstrate correctness and is now recognized by the industry.

I wonder when OGL ES 3.1 was released. It turns out 9 1/2 years ago:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OpenGL_ES

I can not thank the Asahi people enough, I was thinking about spending about 10 grand on a top of the line M2 Max, but before finalizing my order i really wanted to know if i could run a script that would allow me to install Linux as a dual boot with Mac OS, in the process give up the ability to run any modern software but gain the ability to run subpar software from a decade ago, all in the name of some silly ideal.

Thank God that I ran across this article and my mind has been put to ease.

[BenTheTechGuy]

Your interpretation of that quote is the complete opposite of what it really means. This is the only OpenGL ES 3.1 conformant driver in existence for Apple Silicon Macs. That means that macOS is incapable of running your "subpar software from a decade ago" because it doesn't support these graphics standards, only Apple's Metal API. This means that to run any modern software not specifically designed for macOS you need to rely on a compatibility layer like MoltenVK that won't work completely correctly. Versus on Linux, with this driver, you can run that software and know that it will work because the driver supports open standards like OpenGL ES. This point exists in the blog post you quoted, if you would've read that far.

Also, even though OpenGL ES 3.1 was released over 9 years ago, the driver has gotten to this point after only two years of reverse engineering with no documentation of the GPU architecture available. The nouveau driver, as a contrasting example, has been in development for much longer and only reached OpenGL ES 3.1 compliance in 2021, and only for select 200 series cards that were already 11 years old at that point.

[citral]

I would like to see the people mocking it and calling it "little hacks" do 1/1000th of what has been achieved here before opening their useless mouth.

This is absolutely incredible work in record time...

[kpedersen]

calling it "little hacks"

A limited number of generations from a single hardware vendor is why it is "little". Perhaps niche was more suitable.

Hah, don't get me wrong, it *is* impressive. But just like jailbreaking tablets, games consoles, etc, it will fizzle out. Getting i.e Linux running on the first Xbox was also impressive but ultimately, it *is* a hack and the vendor will soon undermine their work.

Their obvious aim for "standards" is almost a direct contradiction to their choice of non-standard / single-vendor locked hardware. Then suggesting that Apple should "follow their lead" is just a little bizarre.

[mdedetrich]

A limited number of generations from a single hardware vendor is why it is "little". Perhaps niche was more suitable.

Hah, don't get me wrong, it *is* impressive. But just like jailbreaking tablets, games consoles, etc, it will fizzle out. Getting i.e Linux running on the first Xbox was also impressive but ultimately, it *is* a hack and the vendor will soon undermine their work.

Their obvious aim for "standards" is almost a direct contradiction to their choice of non-standard / single-vendor locked hardware. Then suggesting that Apple should "follow their lead" is just a little bizarre.

I don't think the comparison to jail'breaked consoles has much merit, because Apple actually changed their bootloader so that you can boot untrusted images. In other words this was an explicit decision they did to allow things like Linux on their laptops, otherwise they wouldn't have done it. The decision also left the floodgates open, because once you allow a machine to boot anything you can't revert that. That is a very stark difference compared to consoles, where in some cases you actually have to go out of your way to buy a console that isn't fully updated in order to jailbreak it.

I honestly wouldn't be surprised if in half a decade, installing Linux on Mac wouldn't be any less or more difficult compared to any other laptop. Its not going to be as good as Linux supported laptops (i.e. thinkpad/lenovo) but not much worse than your run of the mill laptop.

There is however one outstanding issue and that is updating firmware which I don't think is easily solvable. Currently nothing is stopping you from wiping your disk and having a complete Linux installation, its just that you can't get firmware updates for your machine and I don't see something like fwupd supporting this anytime soon.

[jeisom]

A lot of people on this forum think it is a great idea to send these devices to land fills once apple stops updating them in 8ish years.

This is great work they have done, even finding instructions that even apple’s drivers don’t use. This kind of reverse engineering is experience that we need more people able to do for the future, not just apple or nvidia products. I fear for a future where this is forgotten knowledge.

[sophisticles]

A lot of people on this forum think it is a great idea to send these devices to land fills once apple stops updating them in 8ish years.

I only own 4 Macs, 2 iLamps (G4 iMacs) and 2 G5 iMacs and i was not aware that they stopped working over a decade ago.

Thank you, I'm one of these delusional people that bought these for a few bucks at a garage sale years ago and still use them from time to time so I was under the erroneous idea that they could still be used even if there were no more updates.

After reading your post I realize I have to throw them away along with my Pentium 3 powered Dell laptop from 20+ years ago that runs Win 2k, my Sony laptop from 15 years ago that is running an old 32-bit build of Slackware.

Further, your stance strongly implies that people should buy an M2 powered Mac today and install a less capable OS today, just so in 8 years or so from now that Apple stops updating the current version of Mac OS, they will in theory be in good shape, running a still less capable OS than what the Macs with today.

Impeccable reasoning.

[Sonadow]

I only own 4 Macs, 2 iLamps (G4 iMacs) and 2 G5 iMacs and i was not aware that they stopped working over a decade ago.

Thank you, I'm one of these delusional people that bought these for a few bucks at a garage sale years ago and still use them from time to time so I was under the erroneous idea that they could still be used even if there were no more updates.

After reading your post I realize I have to throw them away along with my Pentium 3 powered Dell laptop from 20+ years ago that runs Win 2k, my Sony laptop from 15 years ago that is running an old 32-bit build of Slackware.

Further, your stance strongly implies that people should buy an M2 powered Mac today and install a less capable OS today, just so in 8 years or so from now that Apple stops updating the current version of Mac OS, they will in theory be in good shape, running a still less capable OS than what the Macs with today.

Impeccable reasoning.

genuinely curious: what can you actually do with the G4 and the G5, especially with the PPC version of Mac OS X today?

They can't even run most applications or software today since they are all built for x64 and ARM64.