6 ms·
Can it run Linux?
by enopod_ 6mo ago
Can it run Linux?
- jagged-chisel 6mo agoIn a VM, definitely. Just like other Macs.
- stuxnet79 6mo agoIf the A18 Pro has the same ISA as the M-series chips then this may not be so straightforward. I am still hanging on to my 2020 Intel MBP for dear life because it is the only Apple device I own that allows me to run Ubuntu and Windows 11 on a VirtualBox VM.
- Retr0id 6mo agoAs long as you're ok with arm64 guests, you can absolutely run both Ubuntu and Win11 VMs on M-series CPUs. Parallels also supports x86 guests via emulation.
- stuxnet79 6mo agoHow is the performance when emulating the x86 architecture via parallels? Also is it possible to convert an existing x86 VM to arm64 or do I just have to rebuild all of my software from scratch? I always had the perception that the arm64 versions of Windows & Ubuntu have inferior support both in terms of userland software and device drivers.
- alwillis 6mo ago> As long as you're ok with arm64 guests I've run amd64 guests on M-series CPUs using Quem. Apple's Rosetta 2 is still a thing [1] for now. [1]: https://support.apple.com/en-us/102527 https://support.apple.com/en-us/102527 [2]: https://mac.getutm.app https://mac.getutm.app
- garblegarble 6mo agoWould you elaborate what you mean by saying Linux on an M-series chip isn't straightforward? That's not been my experience, I (and lots of other devs) use it every day, Apple supports Linux via [0], and provides the ability to use Rosetta 2 within VMs to run legacy x86 binaries? 0: https://github.com/apple/container https://github.com/apple/container
- stuxnet79 6mo agoClearly I'm not as knowledgable about this as I thought I was. I already have a Ubuntu x86 VM running on an Intel Mac (inside VirtualBox). Same with Windows 11. Can this tool allow me to run both VMs in an Apple Silicon device in a performant way? Last I checked VirtualBox on Apple Silicon only permits the running of ARM64 guests. While I have a preference for VirtualBox I'd say I'm hypervisor agnostic. Really any way I can get this to work would be super intriguing to me.
- argsnd 6mo agoRun ARM64 Linux and install Rosetta inside it. Even on the MacBook Neo it'll be faster than your 2020 Intel Mac.
- js2 6mo ago> Can this tool allow me to run both VMs in an Apple Silicon device in a performant way? I use VMWare Fusion on an M1 Air to run ARM Windows. Windows is then able to run Windows x86-64 executables I believe through it's own Rosetta 2 like implementation. The main limitation is that you cannot use x86-64 drivers. Similarly, ARM Linux VMs can use Rosetta 2 to run x86-64 binaries with excellent performance. For that I mostly use Rancher or podman which setup the Linux VM automatically and then use it to run Linux ARM containers. I don't recall if I've tried to run x86-64 Linux binaries inside an Linux ARM container. It might be a little trickier to get Rosetta 2 to work. It's been a long time since I tried to run a Linux x86-64 container.
- MBCook 6mo agoPossible catch: Rosetta 2 goes away next year in macOS 27. I don’t know what the story for VMs is. I’d really like to know as it affects me. Sure you can go QEMU, but there’s a real performance hit there.
- muricula 6mo agoSame Armv8 ISA. And it's the same ISA Android Linux has run on for over a decade.
- ChocolateGod 6mo agoThe instruction set is not the issue, the issue is on ARM there's no standardized way like on x86 to talk to specialized hardware, so drivers must be reimplemented with very little documentation.
- wtallis 6mo agoThat has nothing to do with running VMs.
- w10-1 6mo agoHas anyone verified that the Virtualization framework indeed works on the Neo/A18, since the framework requires chip-level support?
- hu3 6mo agoNative, no. That would cannibalise Apple services which is a huge source of revenue for them.
- dymk 6mo agoNobody is moving to Linux because there’s an iCloud replacement waiting for them over there…
- Retr0id 6mo agoHave you confirmed this? I haven't seen anyone concretely describe the boot policy of the Neo yet (it should be an easy enough check for anyone who has one in-hand).
- alwillis 6mo agoLike any other Apple Silicon Mac, you can't currently boot into Linux but Apple has native container support that Linux works on [1]. [1]: https://github.com/apple/container https://github.com/apple/container
- Retr0id 6mo agoI'm writing this from Linux running natively (not virtualized) on an Apple Silicon mac (M1 Pro)
- Retr0id 6mo agoLikely yes, eventually
- alwillis 6mo agoYes; macOS has native container support for Linux [1]. [1]: https://github.com/apple/container https://github.com/apple/container
- okanat 6mo agoUmm that's a lightweight VM just like WSL2, not native Linux.
- moffkalast 6mo agoIt's funny that we're not even considering native but like, at all.
- jayknight 6mo agoJust run WSL inside of Windows.
- bram98 6mo agoIn a vm, I don't see why not.
- jaredcwhite 6mo agoAs others have said, should be fine to run Linux in a VM. Running natively from boot, the only potential option would be Asahi Linux, but my understanding is that the A18 Pro chip has certain internal attributes which are akin to an M3, and Asahi has only gotten full support in place for the M1/M2 generations. Perhaps once they get M3+ fully working, A18 Pro would also be an option. (I'm also super interested in a Neo running Linux.)
- int_19h 6mo agoLima is more or less the equivalent of WSL for Macs. https://lima-vm.io https://lima-vm.io
- DesiLurker 6mo agooh you'll be able to run a vm but they'll screwup support for anything that matters like graphics or gpu-compute stack.