Ubuntu Linux now works on M1 Macs

For the first time, Apple Silicon Mac users using Apple’s M1 chip, like the entry-level 13-inch MacBook Pro, Mac mini, and MacBook Air, can now boot and run Linux natively.

The vintage in play here is Ubuntu, and the port was developed by Corellium, which otherwise virtualizes iOS and other ARM-based operating systems to facilitate security testing. It’s also worth noting that Apple has already sued the company for said iOS security testing tool. The lawsuit did not go Apple’s way.

Chris Wade, Chief Technology Office of Corellium, announced the culmination of the team’s work on Twitter yesterday. And in a blog post on the Corellium website, the team behind the port wrote that it was developed in parallel with the group’s efforts to “create a model of the [M1] for our security research part. ”

The blog post has plenty of additional details on the hurdles Corellium had to overcome, including how Apple’s SoC brings in additional processor cores, Apple’s proprietary interrupt controller, and more. Among other things, Corellium added “a preloader that acts as a wrapper for Linux and provides a trampoline to boot the processor cores.”

The post includes a tutorial for installing Ubuntu on M1 Macs, and there is a Github repository (corellium / linux-m1) from which you can download the kernel. By following the steps, you will eventually boot directly from USB. However, we’re a long way from Boot Camp-style dual-booting on multiple operating systems. Even after the work of the Corellium team, the required steps are more complex and technical than most users will want to play with, and it is certainly not recommended to do this as a daily pilot.

Still, enthusiasts or those who want to get a head start now have an option, so if this is your jam, go to town. Wade calls the port “fully usable”, and you will get the fully functional Ubuntu desktop if you follow this process.

There are other efforts to bring Linux to the M1 Macs, and other improvements from each are sure to come, so it’s still early days. And before you ask: doing this with Windows still seems pretty fuzzy. You’ll need to be using the ARM version of Windows, and that’s not an option for most people right now.

When we interviewed Craig Federighi, Apple’s vice president of marketing and asked how to run Windows natively on Apple Silicon Macs, he said: “It really depends on Microsoft … which in turn supports it of course. x86 user mode applications. But it’s a decision Microsoft has to make, to license this technology so that users can run it on these Macs. But Macs certainly can do it.

Ad image by Samuel Axon