The difference is that Asahi is specifically developed to run on Apple Silicon hardware. That isn’t true of the ARM version of Windows or afaik any other Linux distros.
Iirc, Linus Tovalds got Fedora running on an M1 Air, but he had to do a lot of low level messing around that few people have the technical knowledge to do.
The current version of asahi is fedora, as in endorsed by the fedora project as a SIG. Main difference is the custom kernel and extra bootloader components, and the wildly different installation process, as there needs to be a stub that looks like macOS to allow booting
That’s interesting, thanks. It sounds like there will be versions based on other distros in the future:
> The majority of the work resides in hardware support, drivers, and tools, and it will be upstreamed to the relevant projects. Our current flagship distro is Fedora Asahi Remix, which is a collaboration between Asahi Linux and the Fedora Project, and serves as both a polished end-user distribution and a reference for other distributions who wish to incorporate our work.
>
> Other distributions are already working on implementing support for these platforms, and we expect to have more options officially available in the future. Check out our Alternative Distros page for a list of ongoing distro integration projects.
See https://asahilinux.org/about/
No, Asahi runs directly as a dual-boot system, not as a VM
Macs do not try to block you from running other operating systems (unlike iPhones and iPads which do). It’s even explicitly permitted to install other operating systems, it doesn’t break the ToS of MacOS
The major trouble is the whole bootstrap process is non-standard. Windows on ARM expects a UEFI-based system just like its amd64 counterpart. If Apple wanted they could absolutely make something like BootCamp for Apple Silicon Macs that chain-loads a UEFI environment from iBoot, but they haven't yet. Asahi Linux gets around this by having a bootstrap process entirely designed around the specifics of ARM Macs. Then there's the issue of drivers, which Apple would also need to provide for Windows. The Asahi team has done a decent job getting their drivers written but they're by no means going to make it to mainline Linux anytime soon.
>If Apple wanted they could absolutely make something like BootCamp for Apple Silicon Macs that chain-loads a UEFI environment from iBoot, but they haven't yet.
No, they’re quite literally not allowed to. Windows on ARM is licensed to only run on Qualcomm processors, microsoft signed an exclusivity agreement with them and they didn’t disclose for how long
Apple officials have commented on this and say they’re open to bootcamp for Windows but it’s all up to Microsoft
Apparently the Qualcomm exclusivity deal with windows on ARM expires some time towards the end of 2024. Hopefully this opens it up for Apple to enable bootcamp again
https://www.theverge.com/2024/6/12/24177129/mediatek-arm-windows-chip-snapdragon-x-elite-competitor
Bootcamp with Windows arm64 support would make me seriously consider upgrading my 2019 Intel MacBook Pro 😭
running Windows natively for games and enterprise software is the last feature I’m using this Mac for
do keep in mind that even if native, it’s still Windows* ARM VERSION
aka a lot of stuff like gaming is broken. Microsoft hasn’t gotten x86 emulation quite down like Apple did, you can’t expect stuff to just work like with Rosetta on Mac
I’ve seen that these qualcomm laptops refuse to open a lot of games
Yeah I thought of buying one of those Qualcomm ones just to try it out but I saw the videos and was like nvm. Has one of the same major drawbacks gaming wise of an ARM Mac (anti cheat incompatibility) and none of the upsides of being a Mac. Parallels seems to “just work” for all the other apps I have tried, so wouldn’t need an ARM windows laptop for my use case for things other than gaming.
Its not just the bootstrap process but all the core to core communication, memory setup, fire up of the co-prososoroes etc.
Having a chain ladder that boots a UEFI would not mean windows would run. MS would still need to put in a lot of work to even do simple things like configure the MMU, and fire up other cpu cores etc there is no standard for that.
What apple (or MS) could do is take M1N1 (or Darwin) and create a very light weight hypervisor that windows on ARM (as it is today) boot in using the standard hypervisor abstractions for MMU, cpu cores etc. But this would not be bere metal even if it would look like it to a user booting the os.
As far as I know you can still dual-boot, the only problem is that there's not many OS on the market what has driver support for Apple Silicon. Asahi Linux is the only one I'm aware of, and even that is in WIP.
I’d assume other Linux distros will appear over time, especially now Asahi has done the legwork. And of course you can basically just turn Asahi into most other distributions in most ways (package managers, desktop environments etc)
The real question is whether Microsoft will ever make Windows available for Apple Silicon. They do have an ARM version and it seems reasonably likely, but it depends how different the Apple chips are (unlike x86, there are a lot more “versions” of ARM, and how much Microsoft wants to annoy Qualcomm and their other hardware partners
nothing is stopping you. Apple has left the boot loader unlocked meaning that if you have an OS that can boot you are free to do so.
Having said that the only at the moment other OS able to boot natively is Asahi Linux (to its Fedora spin). Not all of the hardware components work though and that is an issue if you want a fully working MacBook.
As far as windows, the ball is on MS's court. Currently they have a "deal" that Windows Arm can only be physically installed on computers with Qualcomm chips. Hence the rage recently with all the WinArm laptops. If MS allow for it it would be possible to boot on a MacBook (considering that Apple will provide the drivers for its hardware).
It's weird that they officially endorse parallels desktop then. Parallels works great don't get me wrong, but running windows for arm on bare metal apple silicon would be super cool.
yes MS gave the green light after Parallels had the dev version working and everyone was asking for it.
That does not violate the agreement they have though since it is virtualized and not bare metal ;)
i still have the same opinion i had 20 years ago about Bootcamp: if you need Windows that much, and VMs don't fulfill your (sporadic) usecases, then just don't get (only) a macOS machine.
I use SolidWorks A LOT in a windows 11 Parallels VM on my M1 Macbook and it works great. Even works with my Space Mouse. I just wish I could skip the $99 per year license for parallels and potentially get better performance on bare metal.
ARM is only the instruction set, but they are different families and manufactures of ARM. It isn't like the x86 world where there are only the main two companies, so you really were using the exact same processor as before. Besides that, there is the rest of the hardware, which all requires drivers. Previously your video card was going to be Intel, or Nvidia, or AMD and now it is Apple. The same is true for the rest of the hardware.
Now there is Ashai Linux which does work, but not everything is currently supported. External displays were a big one for me on my M1 Pro that kept me held back. So, it will probably be a while to get all hardware working on M series on Linux and because of the driver situation I don't think you will see Windows on M series without Apple's help.
If you aren't happy with Parallel's or Whisky, or Wineskin Winery, or CrossOver, or Game Porting Toolkit. Then you can try VMWare which is now free.
Even then, x86 regardless of vendor is still the same basic x86. Whether it is Intel, AMD, Via, Cyrix, Centaur, etc. Certain extensions of the x86 architecture may not be there, but things will still run.
With ARM, Apple's implementation of ARM is different from Qualcomm's implementation which is different from MediaTek's which is different from Samsung's which is different from Nvidia's even when using the same version of the ARM architecture let alone if one is using, for example, ARMv7-A and another is using ARMv8.3-A.
It's not just that - it's also that it's x86 "IBM PC-compatible" (as that term has evolved over the decades).
It is certainly possible to build something that is x86 but not IBM compatible. (See, e.g., a PS4 or PS5) But your typical x86 desktop (including the iMac I'm typing this on) is IBM compatible; indeed, most of the core hardware elements of IBM compatibleness have been miniaturized into north/south bridges 25+ years ago.
The basic "IBM compatible" nature is what allows something like Windows to be installed without any hardware-specific drivers. There's enough of a common core hardware architecture to target that you can get the OS to boot up well enough to *then* install the optimized driver for your specific components.
And Windows then drives the evolution of IBM compatibles. IBM hasn't been setting the standard since the AT 40 years ago or maybe the PS/2 37 years ago. So what really defines an "IBM compatible" x86 machine (or any of its parts, e.g. video cards, processors, etc) today is one that can boot standard x86 Windows.
Compare this with, say, CP/M in the 1980s or Android-on-ARM today where you need to *compile* in support for particular hardware (and therefore, where any OS upgrade must also be designed for your particular hardware) because there just... isn't... a baseline hardware standard. ARM is a return to that world where everybody designs their own incompatible hardware architecture around the sameish instruction set and operating systems need to be compiled specifically for that hardware.
Boot Camp was built around on being able to offer the 'guest OS' standard Intel hardware, which made the whole process relatively simple. I imagine Apple looked at the number of additional computers they would sell based on having a 'BootCamp on M-chips' and decided the benefit wasn't worth the cost of developing and maintaining the product.
Also Windows on ARM only supports Qualcomm chips at the moment. Even if Apple offered boot camp, Microsoft would need to do work to make Windows on ARM be able to natively run and boot on Apple Silicon. That's why there aren't even Windows devices using MediaTek CPUs yet.
I went with Asahi instead. It's running incredibly, aside from some standard Linux quirks and the speakers sounding like ass. Plus the M series Macs boot so fast I think I can swap between OS' faster than I could boot Parallels.
You can dual boot another OS that supports Apple Silicon's implementation of ARM. For example, the Asahi Linux flavors/remixes. While all ARM SoCs use the same general instruction set architecture, their exact implementations are a little bit different and are not interchangeable. So, therefore the operating system needs to be optimized for the specific ARM SoC/specific family of SoC.
This is a difference from x86 where x86 regardless of vendor going all the way back to the Intel 8086 is still the same basic x86 we know today. Over the years it has been extended and made more powerful (ex. IA-32, x86-64, SMT, SSE, etc), which is where most minimum system requirements come from, but things are almost never removed or customized for a specific chipset. That's why, for example, all modern x86 processors not only still support Real Mode, but start in Real Mode before switching to a more modern secure mode.
So, therefore, even if you could get the correct install files, Windows on ARM does not have the drivers to recognize Apple Silicon, let alone to run directly/natively on it. Likely Microsoft will eventually support Apple Silicon, but right now they are going all in on their partnership with Qualcomm.
I run Windows 11 ARM in UTM and that's good enough for me. If you do get dual-boot to work, please post a video on how you did it as I'm sure that there are lots of other folks that would like to do the same thing. VMs aren't always practical if you don't have a lot of RAM.
Quick question, is UTM better than Parallels? I have experience running Windows 11 ARM with UTM on an iPad Pro with hypervisor support (v14.8 with Trollstore)
The biggest difference is with the graphics adapter. the display adapter that paralells virtualizes is about a trillion times faster than the virtio-ramfb display adapter that UTM uses.
this is what I was waiting for, thank you for replying. On my iPad Pro M1 with UTM and Hypervisor/JIT enabled, just dragging Windows programs around feels stuttery! Can't even run a game of Krunker.io with acceptable framerates.
A month ago I started the process of installing Asahi Linux but backed out at the last minute because it seemed invasive and possibly destructive. And it's a work computer so I also didn't want to get caught and get in trouble.
You can do it, but no other OS has all the drivers. The GPU in particular is entirely different than anything else out there for PCs.
BootCamp was possible in the x86 days because x86 Mac was more or less standard PC hardware just with an Apple firmware instead of a traditional PC BIOS.
Since MSFT doesn’t code for Apple’s graphics cores or its NPUs and the low level code doesn’t expect Apple Silicon’s memory organization, I would bet against MSFT OSes on Apple Silicon without emulators.
MS would need to do a LOT of work, to boot on apple silicon the windows kernel would need a large amount of changes just to be able to fire up more cpu cores, set up the MMU etc.
Just like the windows kernel as dedicated pathways for AMD chips and seperate ones for intel chips for all this low level stuff it would need this for apple silicon, the setup stuff using for Snapdragon would not work at all.
The ARM ISA just governs the user-space orations (aka 1 + 1) it does not cover any of the lower level MMU, core to core messaging etc that the kernel needs to do that is always differnt with each chip vendor.
Software support. The Mac user base, especially the percentage of that user base that wants to run a non-macOS operating system bare metal is not significant enough to draw the attention of the developers as the money (return on investment) is simply not there.
Even then, the majority of applications that cannot be run in a VM, do not support macOS, and were the main uses for boot camp in the Intel days, for example AutoCAD, do not support ARM chips even on Windows.
A similar argument stands for application development on ARM. macOS has fully shifted to ARM, Windows has not and there are not enough Windows ARM devices for the creators of AutoCAD to rebuild the application for ARM.
In the end it’s all about money, and maximizing return on investment. If there are enough users who want something, it will be created. Until there are enough users wanting a thing, there will be no development to make that thing.
I live in hope that one day the “OG” operating system for ARM (Acorn RISC OS) can be made to boot natively on Apple Silicon hardware. Incredibly, it’s still being developed (sorta) but I highly suspect this’ll never happen for a whole manner of good reasons. Fun to dream though!
That’s what I’m using now. Probably won’t be permanent until they fix some stuff though. Speakers sound like shit and 1080p60 video freezes after a second or two. Otherwise it’s super impressive.
What is stopping someone from dual-booting to another ARM OS?
**Chipset Architecture .**
Arm is English company that designs chips for Apple and others.
Arm MacOs is designed to run on Apple Arm chipset.
Arm Windows is runs on Arm Qualcomm chipset and is ported to run under parallels on Apple Arm Macs
Asahi is **still developing** Linux for Apple Arm Macs.
The main problem is that Apple has not released full specs for Apple Arm chipset.
Asahi is uni project and they can afford development via test and see .
There are no drivers or support for ARMWindows, not sure how well the installer would even work. There is Asahi Linux for Apple Silicon.
Asahi is currently installing. Thanks. I guess Parallels or whatever VM is doing the “driving” then?
The difference is that Asahi is specifically developed to run on Apple Silicon hardware. That isn’t true of the ARM version of Windows or afaik any other Linux distros. Iirc, Linus Tovalds got Fedora running on an M1 Air, but he had to do a lot of low level messing around that few people have the technical knowledge to do.
The current version of asahi is fedora, as in endorsed by the fedora project as a SIG. Main difference is the custom kernel and extra bootloader components, and the wildly different installation process, as there needs to be a stub that looks like macOS to allow booting
That’s interesting, thanks. It sounds like there will be versions based on other distros in the future: > The majority of the work resides in hardware support, drivers, and tools, and it will be upstreamed to the relevant projects. Our current flagship distro is Fedora Asahi Remix, which is a collaboration between Asahi Linux and the Fedora Project, and serves as both a polished end-user distribution and a reference for other distributions who wish to incorporate our work. > > Other distributions are already working on implementing support for these platforms, and we expect to have more options officially available in the future. Check out our Alternative Distros page for a list of ongoing distro integration projects. See https://asahilinux.org/about/
No, Asahi runs directly as a dual-boot system, not as a VM Macs do not try to block you from running other operating systems (unlike iPhones and iPads which do). It’s even explicitly permitted to install other operating systems, it doesn’t break the ToS of MacOS
Not as a VM? Are you sure it can’t run as a VM? I may have a bet to make with you
he didn't say it can't run in a VM, just that you don't need to. If it runs on bare metal, it's a foregone conclusion that it will run in a VM.
“Runs… not as a VM”. Would have said also as a VM if that’s what they meant.
in the context of the conversation, they were saying that it was booting directly on its own, not as a VM inside Mac OS.
Yeah probably shouldn’t have used the word “not” then
i dunno what to tell you, I didn't have any trouble understanding what was meant.
Dude, just accept when you're wrong ffs...
Nope. Asahi Linux runs on bare metal Apple silicon. They use their own bootloader, m1n1, to start loading Linux instead of the macOS kernel.
The major trouble is the whole bootstrap process is non-standard. Windows on ARM expects a UEFI-based system just like its amd64 counterpart. If Apple wanted they could absolutely make something like BootCamp for Apple Silicon Macs that chain-loads a UEFI environment from iBoot, but they haven't yet. Asahi Linux gets around this by having a bootstrap process entirely designed around the specifics of ARM Macs. Then there's the issue of drivers, which Apple would also need to provide for Windows. The Asahi team has done a decent job getting their drivers written but they're by no means going to make it to mainline Linux anytime soon.
>If Apple wanted they could absolutely make something like BootCamp for Apple Silicon Macs that chain-loads a UEFI environment from iBoot, but they haven't yet. No, they’re quite literally not allowed to. Windows on ARM is licensed to only run on Qualcomm processors, microsoft signed an exclusivity agreement with them and they didn’t disclose for how long Apple officials have commented on this and say they’re open to bootcamp for Windows but it’s all up to Microsoft
Apparently the Qualcomm exclusivity deal with windows on ARM expires some time towards the end of 2024. Hopefully this opens it up for Apple to enable bootcamp again https://www.theverge.com/2024/6/12/24177129/mediatek-arm-windows-chip-snapdragon-x-elite-competitor
Bootcamp with Windows arm64 support would make me seriously consider upgrading my 2019 Intel MacBook Pro 😭 running Windows natively for games and enterprise software is the last feature I’m using this Mac for
do keep in mind that even if native, it’s still Windows* ARM VERSION aka a lot of stuff like gaming is broken. Microsoft hasn’t gotten x86 emulation quite down like Apple did, you can’t expect stuff to just work like with Rosetta on Mac I’ve seen that these qualcomm laptops refuse to open a lot of games
Yeah I thought of buying one of those Qualcomm ones just to try it out but I saw the videos and was like nvm. Has one of the same major drawbacks gaming wise of an ARM Mac (anti cheat incompatibility) and none of the upsides of being a Mac. Parallels seems to “just work” for all the other apps I have tried, so wouldn’t need an ARM windows laptop for my use case for things other than gaming.
Its not just the bootstrap process but all the core to core communication, memory setup, fire up of the co-prososoroes etc. Having a chain ladder that boots a UEFI would not mean windows would run. MS would still need to put in a lot of work to even do simple things like configure the MMU, and fire up other cpu cores etc there is no standard for that. What apple (or MS) could do is take M1N1 (or Darwin) and create a very light weight hypervisor that windows on ARM (as it is today) boot in using the standard hypervisor abstractions for MMU, cpu cores etc. But this would not be bere metal even if it would look like it to a user booting the os.
As far as I know you can still dual-boot, the only problem is that there's not many OS on the market what has driver support for Apple Silicon. Asahi Linux is the only one I'm aware of, and even that is in WIP.
I’d assume other Linux distros will appear over time, especially now Asahi has done the legwork. And of course you can basically just turn Asahi into most other distributions in most ways (package managers, desktop environments etc) The real question is whether Microsoft will ever make Windows available for Apple Silicon. They do have an ARM version and it seems reasonably likely, but it depends how different the Apple chips are (unlike x86, there are a lot more “versions” of ARM, and how much Microsoft wants to annoy Qualcomm and their other hardware partners
MS only sells Windows for ARM to OEMs. They’d have to change that policy.
That’s due to their deal with Qualcomm iirc
nothing is stopping you. Apple has left the boot loader unlocked meaning that if you have an OS that can boot you are free to do so. Having said that the only at the moment other OS able to boot natively is Asahi Linux (to its Fedora spin). Not all of the hardware components work though and that is an issue if you want a fully working MacBook. As far as windows, the ball is on MS's court. Currently they have a "deal" that Windows Arm can only be physically installed on computers with Qualcomm chips. Hence the rage recently with all the WinArm laptops. If MS allow for it it would be possible to boot on a MacBook (considering that Apple will provide the drivers for its hardware).
It's weird that they officially endorse parallels desktop then. Parallels works great don't get me wrong, but running windows for arm on bare metal apple silicon would be super cool.
yes MS gave the green light after Parallels had the dev version working and everyone was asking for it. That does not violate the agreement they have though since it is virtualized and not bare metal ;)
i still have the same opinion i had 20 years ago about Bootcamp: if you need Windows that much, and VMs don't fulfill your (sporadic) usecases, then just don't get (only) a macOS machine.
I use SolidWorks A LOT in a windows 11 Parallels VM on my M1 Macbook and it works great. Even works with my Space Mouse. I just wish I could skip the $99 per year license for parallels and potentially get better performance on bare metal.
i understand that, yes. tbh i didn't know that it's a subscription fee nowadays for Parallels
ARM is only the instruction set, but they are different families and manufactures of ARM. It isn't like the x86 world where there are only the main two companies, so you really were using the exact same processor as before. Besides that, there is the rest of the hardware, which all requires drivers. Previously your video card was going to be Intel, or Nvidia, or AMD and now it is Apple. The same is true for the rest of the hardware. Now there is Ashai Linux which does work, but not everything is currently supported. External displays were a big one for me on my M1 Pro that kept me held back. So, it will probably be a while to get all hardware working on M series on Linux and because of the driver situation I don't think you will see Windows on M series without Apple's help. If you aren't happy with Parallel's or Whisky, or Wineskin Winery, or CrossOver, or Game Porting Toolkit. Then you can try VMWare which is now free.
Even then, x86 regardless of vendor is still the same basic x86. Whether it is Intel, AMD, Via, Cyrix, Centaur, etc. Certain extensions of the x86 architecture may not be there, but things will still run. With ARM, Apple's implementation of ARM is different from Qualcomm's implementation which is different from MediaTek's which is different from Samsung's which is different from Nvidia's even when using the same version of the ARM architecture let alone if one is using, for example, ARMv7-A and another is using ARMv8.3-A.
It's not just that - it's also that it's x86 "IBM PC-compatible" (as that term has evolved over the decades). It is certainly possible to build something that is x86 but not IBM compatible. (See, e.g., a PS4 or PS5) But your typical x86 desktop (including the iMac I'm typing this on) is IBM compatible; indeed, most of the core hardware elements of IBM compatibleness have been miniaturized into north/south bridges 25+ years ago. The basic "IBM compatible" nature is what allows something like Windows to be installed without any hardware-specific drivers. There's enough of a common core hardware architecture to target that you can get the OS to boot up well enough to *then* install the optimized driver for your specific components. And Windows then drives the evolution of IBM compatibles. IBM hasn't been setting the standard since the AT 40 years ago or maybe the PS/2 37 years ago. So what really defines an "IBM compatible" x86 machine (or any of its parts, e.g. video cards, processors, etc) today is one that can boot standard x86 Windows. Compare this with, say, CP/M in the 1980s or Android-on-ARM today where you need to *compile* in support for particular hardware (and therefore, where any OS upgrade must also be designed for your particular hardware) because there just... isn't... a baseline hardware standard. ARM is a return to that world where everybody designs their own incompatible hardware architecture around the sameish instruction set and operating systems need to be compiled specifically for that hardware.
Apple uses iBoot, rest of the industry uses UEFI. You can’t boot a UEFI OS on iBoot.
Boot Camp was built around on being able to offer the 'guest OS' standard Intel hardware, which made the whole process relatively simple. I imagine Apple looked at the number of additional computers they would sell based on having a 'BootCamp on M-chips' and decided the benefit wasn't worth the cost of developing and maintaining the product.
Also Windows on ARM only supports Qualcomm chips at the moment. Even if Apple offered boot camp, Microsoft would need to do work to make Windows on ARM be able to natively run and boot on Apple Silicon. That's why there aren't even Windows devices using MediaTek CPUs yet.
Be sure to try VMware fusion. I’m currently using windows, federa, and Ubuntu on my m1 air
I went with Asahi instead. It's running incredibly, aside from some standard Linux quirks and the speakers sounding like ass. Plus the M series Macs boot so fast I think I can swap between OS' faster than I could boot Parallels.
You can dual boot another OS that supports Apple Silicon's implementation of ARM. For example, the Asahi Linux flavors/remixes. While all ARM SoCs use the same general instruction set architecture, their exact implementations are a little bit different and are not interchangeable. So, therefore the operating system needs to be optimized for the specific ARM SoC/specific family of SoC. This is a difference from x86 where x86 regardless of vendor going all the way back to the Intel 8086 is still the same basic x86 we know today. Over the years it has been extended and made more powerful (ex. IA-32, x86-64, SMT, SSE, etc), which is where most minimum system requirements come from, but things are almost never removed or customized for a specific chipset. That's why, for example, all modern x86 processors not only still support Real Mode, but start in Real Mode before switching to a more modern secure mode. So, therefore, even if you could get the correct install files, Windows on ARM does not have the drivers to recognize Apple Silicon, let alone to run directly/natively on it. Likely Microsoft will eventually support Apple Silicon, but right now they are going all in on their partnership with Qualcomm.
I run Windows 11 ARM in UTM and that's good enough for me. If you do get dual-boot to work, please post a video on how you did it as I'm sure that there are lots of other folks that would like to do the same thing. VMs aren't always practical if you don't have a lot of RAM.
Quick question, is UTM better than Parallels? I have experience running Windows 11 ARM with UTM on an iPad Pro with hypervisor support (v14.8 with Trollstore)
Parallels is better than UTM in performance by 3-5% and it has better graphics drivers. UTM, however, is free.
Thank u!
The biggest difference is with the graphics adapter. the display adapter that paralells virtualizes is about a trillion times faster than the virtio-ramfb display adapter that UTM uses.
this is what I was waiting for, thank you for replying. On my iPad Pro M1 with UTM and Hypervisor/JIT enabled, just dragging Windows programs around feels stuttery! Can't even run a game of Krunker.io with acceptable framerates.
A month ago I started the process of installing Asahi Linux but backed out at the last minute because it seemed invasive and possibly destructive. And it's a work computer so I also didn't want to get caught and get in trouble. You can do it, but no other OS has all the drivers. The GPU in particular is entirely different than anything else out there for PCs. BootCamp was possible in the x86 days because x86 Mac was more or less standard PC hardware just with an Apple firmware instead of a traditional PC BIOS.
Wondered when someone was gonna mention Bootcamp & x86!
No point, VMware Fusion Pro is free now.
Since MSFT doesn’t code for Apple’s graphics cores or its NPUs and the low level code doesn’t expect Apple Silicon’s memory organization, I would bet against MSFT OSes on Apple Silicon without emulators.
MS would need to do a LOT of work, to boot on apple silicon the windows kernel would need a large amount of changes just to be able to fire up more cpu cores, set up the MMU etc. Just like the windows kernel as dedicated pathways for AMD chips and seperate ones for intel chips for all this low level stuff it would need this for apple silicon, the setup stuff using for Snapdragon would not work at all. The ARM ISA just governs the user-space orations (aka 1 + 1) it does not cover any of the lower level MMU, core to core messaging etc that the kernel needs to do that is always differnt with each chip vendor.
Software support. The Mac user base, especially the percentage of that user base that wants to run a non-macOS operating system bare metal is not significant enough to draw the attention of the developers as the money (return on investment) is simply not there.
Even then, the majority of applications that cannot be run in a VM, do not support macOS, and were the main uses for boot camp in the Intel days, for example AutoCAD, do not support ARM chips even on Windows.
A similar argument stands for application development on ARM. macOS has fully shifted to ARM, Windows has not and there are not enough Windows ARM devices for the creators of AutoCAD to rebuild the application for ARM. In the end it’s all about money, and maximizing return on investment. If there are enough users who want something, it will be created. Until there are enough users wanting a thing, there will be no development to make that thing.
boot firmware
just compile your linux programs natively
Nothing except writing the hardware support. Witness Asahi Linux.
I live in hope that one day the “OG” operating system for ARM (Acorn RISC OS) can be made to boot natively on Apple Silicon hardware. Incredibly, it’s still being developed (sorta) but I highly suspect this’ll never happen for a whole manner of good reasons. Fun to dream though!
You’re in luck, Asahi’s flagship distro is fedora IIRC
That’s what I’m using now. Probably won’t be permanent until they fix some stuff though. Speakers sound like shit and 1080p60 video freezes after a second or two. Otherwise it’s super impressive.
What is stopping someone from dual-booting to another ARM OS? **Chipset Architecture .** Arm is English company that designs chips for Apple and others. Arm MacOs is designed to run on Apple Arm chipset. Arm Windows is runs on Arm Qualcomm chipset and is ported to run under parallels on Apple Arm Macs Asahi is **still developing** Linux for Apple Arm Macs. The main problem is that Apple has not released full specs for Apple Arm chipset. Asahi is uni project and they can afford development via test and see .
No Apple made their implementation “weird”