Most of the functionality is present but many important bits are still being developed.
One of the real downsides of ARM is, it seems, the relative lack of standardization. An x64 kernel? It’ll run on most anything from the last ten years at least. And as for boot process, it’s probably one of two options (and in many cases one computer can boot either legacy or EFI).
ARM, on the other hand…my raspberry pi collection does one thing, my Orange Pi does something else, and God help you if you want to try swapping the Orange kernel for the Raspberry (or vice versa)!
Arm:
Somehow, the kernel has been loaded and we have transferred control into it.
If the system is SystemReady then the EFI boot chain is fairly straightforward now. My current workstation just booted off the Debian usb installer like any other pc.
Faith in standards temporarily restored
i’m glad to find out this exists.
But we still need a hundred blobs and if the kernel needs to do something it has to make a call to the firmware.
This is what we get when you use Broadcom
Somehow, the kernel returned. -Poe dameron
A standard called SystemReady exists. For the systems that actually follow its standards, you can have a single ARM OS installation image that you copy to a USB drive and can then boot through UEFI and run with no problems on an Ampere server, an NXP device, an Nvidia Jetson system, and more.
Unfortunately it’s a pretty new standard, only since 2020, and Qualcomm in particular is a major holdout who hasn’t been using it.
Just like x86, you still need the OS to have drivers for the particular device you’re installing on, but this standard at least lets you have a unified image, and many ARM vendors have been getting better about upstreaming open-source drivers in the Linux kernel.
I’m hoping RISC-V will start showing up in consumer products soon. Hopefully the first ones will be Linux laptops. Windows doesn’t have RISC-V support yet, does it? This might be the opportunity for Linux to become the default for RISC-V.
Sad android already dropped RISC-V support
Woah. Got a source for that?
Thanks for the link.
a potential reason might be the very fragmentary nature of the RISC-V ISA, which makes a standard RISC-V kernel very complicated if you want to support more than a (barebones) profile. This is also supported by a RISC-V mailing list thread, where ‘expensive maintenance’ is mentioned for why Google doesn’t want to support RISC-V.
That might change. It wouldn’t be surprising if Google jumped back onto the train once RISC-V became popular again. But that might take a while.
wouldn’t risk-v be worse in terms of standardisation? At least for advanced functionality
Pine64 has a few Risc-V boards
I think a lot of the problem is how proprietary some of the hardware is. For instance, the Raspberry pi only runs the raspberry pi kernel which has a lot of proprietary blobs.
Meanwhile boards from Pine64 don’t need proprietary software to boot. The achieve this by being selective with the hardware and hardware vendors.
I don’t think this is as much of a problem, proprietary hardware is a thing on x86 too. The two big problems are a lack of boot standardization, and vendors not upstreaming their device drivers. A lack of standardization means it is difficult or impossible to use a single image to boot across different devices, and the lack of upstream drivers means even if you solved the boot process, you won’t be able to interface with peripherals without using a very custom kernel.
True, one of the issues of Android is also cost and development time. Manufacturers want to develop a product as cheap and fast as possible to keep up with demand.
That’s true for all commercial development. No company wants to invest more than they have to. Upstreaming does save time in the long run, but not in the short term.
Technically Google could of made upstreaming easier or even the default but they instead modified the kernel a bunch and then encouraged bad practices in development.
There are of course trade offs to everything though. For instance, Qualcomm could do better.
I mean, you can get the Pi to use EFI and just boot generic images.
It needs proprietary software to boot
Most x86 EFIs are, so the comparison is not really fair.
That is only sort of true. You don’t need proprietary software on a live USB to boot x86. That’s not the case with the Raspberry Pi as it boots from its GPU
“So far, Qualcomm has most of the critical functions working inside Linux, specifically version Linux 6.9 that was released not too long ago. These critical functions include UEFI-based boot support along with all the standard bootloaders like Grub and system-d.”
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The actual downside is, that you can’t have generalized drivers.
That is actually really good news
Any hardware vendor taking Linux support seriously is good news!
Which is most of them (Linux is great)
Why is this surprising? Qualcomm releases Linux BSPs for all their mobile SoCs.
That’s Android not mainline. You can’t easily upstream the changes and you are stuck with a single kernel version.
They regularly uplevel the kernel, and not all Android Linux code is inherently incompatible with mainline.
Tell that to my phone. Its possible some are worse than others but for Android devices the track level isn’t good. Just check out the mainline status of PostmarketOS devices.
the age of the linux phone is approaching. People keeping saying it isn’t they’re wrong, i don’t know why they think otherwise.
? the age of the Linux phone has been here for years with Android
android is not the linux phone.
The chromebook would the desktop linux workstation if that were true.
Go install blender on a chromebook, i’ll wait.
cons:
- has to enable linux containers
- can’t use native filesystem for emulated applications because it’s a completely different environment
- potential for performance issues given that it’s literally a non standard environment
- wastes a bunch of disk space
- requires an entire secondary system to be maintained and updated
pros:
- can technically run linux applications
Bad examples. Just running some program is not an argument. Even Windows can run most Linux programs in WSL, but does not mean it’s Linux.
Bad example because you can. With the linux container you can install any linux app and it works on a Chromebook. Appears in the app search too. But I definitely get what you mean, Chrome OS and Android may use the Linux kernel but they’ll never be Linux
you say bad example, yet you literally have to jump through hoops to do it. I think it’s a bad fucking distro of linux, if it requires you to setup and configure and entire fucking container system in order to run non google approved applications, specifically those that debian hosts, because i’m not sure it lets you run other containers.
Chrome OS and Android may use the Linux kernel but they’ll never be Linux
yes, my point here is that android is linux in the same way that you can install blender on chromeos using an entire secondary system, and bullshit containerization, while i can just tell my package manager to install it, and it fucking installs it. And then i can just fucking open it.
By this logic windows is also a fucking linux system because you can use WSL on it.
By this logic windows is also a fucking linux system because you can use WSL on it.
Okay I never thought of it this way and I actually completely understand your point now.
exactly! It’s such a loose definition, even though it fits none of the standard modes of operation for linux. If something that broadly not linux counts as linux, we might as well count BSD as a subset of linux, even though it’s completely different.
WSL runs Linux in a VM. They have made it easier but it is by no means native.
By contrast, while the other poster thinks Blender is too hard to install on ChromeOS, it is nevertheless running right on the Linux kernel. The only reason you have to jump through hoops is because Google wants to make it hard.
The same is true when you run Android apps on Linux. They run natively on the kernel. There is really not much difference between running. Android on Linux and running actual Linux apps via Docker or Podman. Running Blender on ChromeOS is the same.
yeah and technically containers aren’t native either? They do run natively on the kernel of the existing machine, but the environment around them is entirely manufactured.
ChromeOS itself isn’t even clear about whether it’s a VM or a container, it says it’s both.
My problem here isn’t that you can run android apps on linux, or vice versa, my problem here is that android and linux are two fundamentally different systems, this is like putting a 13inch tire on a car that normally uses 21s. It’ll “technically” work, but good luck getting around at any effective pace.
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Ugh, that’s because MacOS is built on top of Unix, but Apple doesn’t provide official support for Linux or any drivers. Asahi Linux to my knowledge is a community led project which is trying to reverse engineer the hardware blobs to make it compatible with Linux.
Plus Apple with their consistent policy of gatekeeping is everything but open source champion.
EDIT: I’m not here to defend Apples shitbag practices. How could anyone? But, like it or not, they DO contribute to FOSS a lot, and have a solid record of doing so for decades. So, hate them honestly, but they do deserve some very real credit in some important places.
[Original comment]
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i deleted that comment 12 seconds after I posted it. How are you seeing it?
UGH
And it’s not “built on top of” anything (unless you consider OS X being built on top of NeXTSEP - although it was really a port/evolution, but they’re both BSD derivatives, like BSD was based on System V). It’s certified UNIX and has been since 2001. A BSD variant, specifically, using a Mach microkernel descendant called Darwin. And a BSD microkernel! in the 1980s! Still not seeing that in linux! It would be revolutionary!
but Apple doesn’t provide official support for Linux or any drivers
So? Why should they? It’s a major competitor. Should they provide windows support too? Lol. (They don’t anymore, btw)
Plus Apple with their consistent policy of gatekeeping is everything but open source champion.
“Oh, boo hoo! They protect copyrights! Certainly they can’t also contribute to FOSS!”
WRONG!
Their current FOSS projects, including their brand new on-device ML/LLM (what the idiots call “AI”) models which aren’t even in iOS yet…
Their GitHub archive, including some older stuff:
A bunch of older repos:
And this is just a taste. Let’s not forget that they, basically, single-handedly ran OpenGL for 12 years and totally invented OpenCL and immediately open-sourced that. and a lot more (oh, you like multicore processors? Thank Apple for the fact you can effectively use them without paying intel or Microsoft for licensing rights!) For over three decades, Apple has been, very quietly, one of the biggest corporate contributors to the open-source communities in history.
Before you keep taking a shit on them, I suggest you do a little bit of educating yourself.
Edit 2: hate apple, fine. But they are HUGE FOSS contributors for over 30 years to landmark projects and have even been historic takers-over over some projects (like OpenGL) when they would, otherwise, have died. And, again OpenCL was 100% Apple. The multicore processing world would be nowhere today without that without it. Thanks Apple!
So hate Apple all you like for the shitty things they do, but give the, credit for the great things they have given us all - and how the Linux world - has benefitted for free.
If Apple really care Asahi wouldn’t be reversed engineered, and instead would be implementing from docs.
No. Apple cares as much about FOSS as they care about privacy. They only care when it suits them.
If Apple really care Asahi
They don’t and they shouldn’t. I clearly explained why. Did you even read my comment? Lmao (I wish they did, but it’s perfectly understandable why they don’t)
Edit: and when it comes to being hostile, they’re not even being hostile to the quasi-FOSS OCLP which enables outdated versions of macOS to run on older Mac hardware— a valiant project!
Apple cares as much about FOSS…
As over 30 years of their multi-billion-dollar contributions prove they do. Ignore the facts, but that doesn’t change the truth.
¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Like I said: you don’t have to like Apple in order to acknowledge the facts of their massive (and critical) contributions to FOSS
I really don’t get which critical contributions they do. On their own website https://opensource.apple.com/projects/ they seem to list basically tools and frameworks for building apps, which is on their interest first and foremost that developers have. I don’t know what “Community projects” mean, and how big contributions they do there.
Also I don’t really like your argument “why they should provide Linux support, they are a competitor”. Well, this is what happens when a single company does both the hardware and the software AND doesn’t care about the “freedom” part of Foss.
To be fair though most companies can’t care less, open source is just a practice that some companies do to pursue their own interest. Microsoft does huge contributions to OSS (including the Linux kernel), same for Google, and yet I would not really say that those companies care about FOSS. Apple is even worse than them considering how they want to have the complete monopoly of what can run on their hardware, which is completely antithetical to the core idea of FOSS. Despite you paid already the 2.5k for your hardware and their OS, they can’t just let you run whatever you want on it.
I really don’t get
I really understand that. Because you went to a great deal of effort to explain how you also went to a great deal of effort, not to understand what I went through a great deal of effort to explain. You also went to a great deal of effort to explain how you have ignored multiple sources of information, explaining what you don’t understand.
I really understand that. Because you went to a great deal of effort to explain how you also went to a great deal of effort, not to understand what I went through a great deal of effort to explain. You also went to a great deal of effort to explain how you have ignored multiple sources of information, explaining what you don’t understand.
You’ve gone to a great deal of effort to explain that you don’t understand what I said, because you ignored everything I said, and the services I provided to explain it. I can only recommend at this point that you revisit the comment you replied to two, because it provides everything to explain everything you claim to not understand.
I just hope that this time, you do it in good faith, rather than an intentional effort to sabotage further intelligent discussion.
You cited a couple of mid-2000 projects (e.g. OpenCL), that Apple opensourced and that anyway hardly apply to the current Apple, since 15+ years passed and the company is under new leadership etc. Then you listed a bunch of links, which I have looked at, and I saw that the vast majority of the OSS projects are related to Swift-ui and other tools that are useful to build app (mostly) in their ecosystem (webKit, careKit, etc.).
So to understand better, your argument fully relies on contributions that happened 15 years ago, to claim that the current company “cares” about FOSS?
Also, you disregard the second part of the argument in order to write your arrogant reply:
Apple is even worse than them considering how they want to have the complete monopoly of what can run on their hardware, which is completely antithetical to the core idea of FOSS.
Which is an answer to your statement:
So? Why should they? It’s a major competitor. Should they provide windows support too? Lol. (They don’t anymore, btw)
Which begs the question: what caring about FOSS means to you? For me caring about FOSS means caring about the freedom of the customers who already paid for their hardware to run whatever they want on it. This freedom Apple opposes in whatever way they can, in basically whatever hardware they make.
So what was the point again? You are contradicting yourself. First you said Asahi is one of the big Apple things and now you are saying it makes sense that they don’t support Linux.
Your argument might be flawed.
You clearly are either having difficulty reading what I said, or did not bother to read what I said. Nothing of what you said reflect accurately my comment. Read my comment again, and perhaps you’ll have a better understanding.
Can you please watch your tone next time you reply to a question. Not everyone is an idiot and your arrogant tone is not contributing to a civilized discussion.
Feel free to exit the conversation of you disapprove of the tone.
I am not your employee. Do not speak to me as if am. You have done nothing, nor have I ever agreed, to be treated as such. Your entitlement is underserved.
If you insist on being treated as an entire and elevated elite, you will be disappointed. I will never do that because you have not earned that level of respect. I doubt you’re capable of it.
Oh man, you do realize that you are digging a deeper hole for yourself, don’t you? And is it too much to ask to treat people with different opinions respectfully and not try to belittle them? Judging by the upvotes/downvotes, the majority of people here agree with me, so maybe it is time for a little bit of self-reflection on your side.
Regarding your arguments:
- Yes, Apple historically supported OpenCL and OpenGL, but since then they migrated to Metal which is not open source.
- If you are talking about OpenElm, I am not familiar with it so much, but historically Apple was notorious for preventing their researchers from even publishing their research, and only relatively recently did they start allowing them after they realized this could be a deciding factor.
- Swift is open-sourced, but it is primarily focused on iOS, macOS, tvOS, and iPadOS app development, not to mention that it requires Mac to compile your source code.
- Webkit in my opinion is the only one that is worth mentioning here.
And yes, we are talking about a multi-trillion dollar company that greatly benefitted from Open Source and yet, in my opinion, did bring very little back to it. Not to mention their continued efforts to gatekeep their ecosystem by introducing closed source standards, that are only supported by their devices, which in my opinion contradicts to the philosophy of open source.
Your personal disapproval of Apple’s direction does not negate their contributions.
Show me on the doll Where Apple hurt you…
Damn, you really can’t lose an argument, can you?
This is why you have no friends. You’re incapable of talking like an adult.
Work out your own problems with a shrink. They have no place here.
If you can’t discuss simple technological issues without having an ego battle, it’s time to check yourself.
Don’t be an Apple fan especially on Lemmy. Apple could kill your dog and you would bend over backwards to justify it.
I know that that is harsh but it is because I am tied of people justifying the actions of companies, people and governments.
I’m not. And if you couldn’t tell that from what I said, then, you obviously didn’t bother to actually read it, you just made a judgment because I said the word Apple.
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Ashai isn’t Apple and has not been helped by Apple
No shit, and I was pretty clear about how I described it in differentiating from what that project is doing from what Apple is doing. Try not to rage hate before you actually read what I said.
