Linus Torvalds doubts Linux will be ported to Apple M1 hardware

In a recent article on the Real World Technologies forum – one of the few public websites that Linux founder Linus Torvalds is known to visit regularly – a user by the name of Paul asked Torvalds: “What do you think of the new one? Apple laptop? “

“I would absolutely love to have one, if it just worked on Linux,” Torvalds replied. “I was waiting for an ARM laptop capable of running Linux for a long time. New [Macbook] It would look almost perfect, except for the operating system. ”

Torvalds, of course, can already have an ARM-based Linux laptop if they want – for example, the Pinebook Pro. The part not said here is that he would like a high-performance ARM-based laptop, rather than a budget-friendly but extremely performance-constrained design like found in the Pinebook Pro, Raspberry Pi, or a legion of. other cheap gadgets.

Apple’s M1 is exactly that: a high-performance, desktop and laptop-oriented system that delivers world-class performance while retaining the power and highly efficient thermal characteristics needed in the world of phones and tablets. On paper, an M1-powered Macbook Air would make a fantastic laptop for Linux or even Windows users – but it seems unlikely Apple would share it.

In an interview with ZDNet, Torvalds explained the problem:

The main issue with the M1 for me is the GPU and the other devices around it, as that’s probably what would hold me back from using it as it wouldn’t have Linux support unless Apple did. open … [that] seems unlikely, but hey, you can always hope.

Torvalds is almost certainly right that Apple won’t provide enough details about the M1 system on a chip (SoC) for Linux kernel developers to create first-class support. Even in the much better understood Intel world, Macs haven’t been a good choice for Linux enthusiasts for several years, and for the same reason. As Apple increasingly brings its own hardware stack in-house, open source developers are getting less and less information to port operating systems and write hardware drivers for the platform.

We strongly suspect that by the time enthusiasts can reverse-engineer the M1 SoC enough for first-class Linux support, other vendors will have seen the value of bringing high-performance ARM systems to the desktop market. laptops – and it will be considerably easier to work with the more open designs that many will use.

Until now, ARM-based laptops and miniature PCs have tried to disrupt the market by shooting on a budget rather than high performance. Examples include, but are not limited to: the $ 200 Pinebook Pro laptop, the $ 100 Raspberry Pi Model 400, and the $ 99 Nvidia Jetson.

Now that Apple has proven ARM’s value in terms of performance and budget space, we largely expect competing systems using high-end Snapdragons and similar processors to hit the market in the next few years. Such systems would not need to beat – or even match – the outstanding performance of the M1; they would simply need to compete strongly with more traditional x86_64 systems in terms of performance and price, while dominating them in terms of power consumption and thermal efficiency.

It’s also worth noting that while the M1 is shameless, it’s not the last word in System on Chip desktop or laptop designs. Torvalds mentions that, if given a choice, he would prefer more and more powerful hearts – which is certainly possible and seems a request that is likely to be granted soon.