[HN Gopher] Asahi Linux: Linux on Apple Silicon project
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Asahi Linux: Linux on Apple Silicon project
Author : jackhalford
Score : 286 points
Date : 2021-01-05 19:18 UTC (3 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (asahilinux.org)
(TXT) w3m dump (asahilinux.org)
| depablo wrote:
| Awesome project. Also, nice logo.
|
| Given the seemingly unbeatable performance of Apple Silicon
| (judging by reviews), this would remove one of the bigger pain
| points of having a Mac. Some projects just don't run on macOS -
| either due to a community lack, or due to political reasons (e.g.
| CUDA). I wonder why Apple does not seek to support projects like
| this.
|
| Will be interesting to see how hard it is to bring this to a
| useable state. Thanks for the effort and looking forward to
| hearing more about the project!
| marcan_42 wrote:
| Credit for the logo and website goes to soundflora* ! She's at
| https://soundflora.tokyo/ and she also makes some really
| awesome music.
|
| I was going to say I don't think you'll see CUDA any time soon
| on M1 machines but... apparently Nvidia _does_ have a beta
| AArch64 driver these days. TIL.
|
| I wouldn't hold my breath on that working well given that it's,
| well, the Nvidia blob... but it might (once we get Thunderbolt
| working, with an eGPU). I avoid Nvidia GPUs these days, so if
| an eGPU demo does happen, it'll more likely be an RX 5700XT
| running the open source amdgpu drivers, which I do happen to
| have lying around :-)
| ogre_codes wrote:
| Just a reminder, the Patreon is not fully funded. If people
| really want to see this happen, dropping a couple dollars a month
| to help support the project is the best way.
|
| https://www.patreon.com/marcan
| my123 wrote:
| With https://github.com/sponsors/marcan also present as an
| option.
| [deleted]
| blinkingled wrote:
| This is good of course but it's an uphill battle - just reverse
| engineering the Apple GPU and making a decent driver for it in
| itself is going to be a huge problem. Look at nouveau - we still
| don't have any way to reclock NVidia GPUs. Getting good
| experience and good battery life with reverse engineered hardware
| is impossible.
|
| Then there's going to be new gen hardware and firmware updates
| for existing ones to keep up with.
| SXX wrote:
| On top of what Marcan posted: keep in mind that back when
| Nouveau development started Linux open source graphics stack
| was young and had no mature drivers to look at. Only in last 4
| years graphics stack feature and performance parity thanks to
| Intel, AMD and Valve.
|
| Today LLVM is well-developed for GPU drivers and there is tons
| of other ready-to-use code for OpenGL and Vulkan
| implementation. E.g RADV was initially created by two
| developers only and now it is better than AMD official Vulkan
| implementation.
|
| On top of this modern GPUs are now less complex to develop
| drivers because they'e decoupled from display controllers and
| hardware no longer have fixed pipelines.
| marcan_42 wrote:
| Thankfully, Apple loads most firmware for us in the bootloader,
| so we don't have the blob problem that Nouveau does. This
| includes parts related to power management.
|
| Nouveau has an uphill battle because Nvidia is actively
| hostile, and because they have to support dozens of chips. We
| are starting with one. I do not expect for us to end up in a
| Nouveau situation with poor performance/PM over time. It will
| take time, of course, but I fully expect we will make it
| happen.
| JosephRedfern wrote:
| > As long as no code is taken from macOS in order to build the
| Linux support, the end result is completely legal to distribute
| and for end users to use, as it would not be a derivative work of
| macOS. Please see our Copyright & Reverse Engineering Policy for
| more information.
|
| This may be a dumb question, but are any of the Open Source
| components of macOS [0] useful for this kind of endeavour?
| Specifically stuff from XNU? Or are any useful hardware specific,
| driver-y bits excluded?
|
| [0] https://opensource.apple.com/release/macos-1101.html
| marcan_42 wrote:
| Worth noting that that OSS release does not include M1 support
| (and Apple does not open source most of their drivers, just the
| kernel core), although it does include (partially redacted, not
| buildable, because Apple) support for other mobile chips using
| the same CPU cores. Perhaps the next OSS dump will finally have
| the M1 bits. But we're definitely on our own for all of the fun
| stuff beyond "Linux boots with a serial tty".
|
| At least some really basic parts are useful as a hardware
| reference, e.g. things related to the interrupt controller,
| UARTs, and CPU quirks/errata workarounds. That said, their
| license is incompatible with the GPL, so we cannot take any
| code directly. I documented this explicitly in our copyright
| policy:
|
| https://asahilinux.org/copyright/
| saagarjha wrote:
| All the driver stuff is shipped as closed-source kexts, and
| interesting proprietary hardware features like GXF are missing
| too from the public sources for the most part.
| nickelcitymario wrote:
| > In particular, we will be reverse engineering the Apple GPU
| architecture and developing an open source driver for it.
|
| Well, this is exciting. I suppose it was inevitable that someone
| would take on this challenge, but it's exciting all the same.
| flatiron wrote:
| judging by other open source reverse engineerd GPU drivers its
| a massive undertaking. i also looked at a shot of the chip and
| see lots of neural networking functionality, i wonder what sort
| of special drivers stuff like that needs. i just feel like the
| hardware is so specialized without apples help it would take a
| lot for it to be a killer linux laptop.
| saagarjha wrote:
| You can't just not use that functionality. But getting the
| GPU to work is essentially required.
| duskwuff wrote:
| Reverse engineering of the Neural Engine is already under
| way:
|
| https://github.com/geohot/tinygrad/tree/master/ane
| actuator wrote:
| It seems so amazing to me that Microsoft saw the ARM opportunity
| with Windows RT, released 8 years back but somehow managed to not
| succeed with a stellar ARM laptop story.
|
| Maybe Qualcomm is more to blame here for never progressing as
| well as Apple has done on chips but maybe the software experience
| was just not there.
|
| We would probably already have good ARM laptops running linux
| distros if Windows on ARM had taken off.
| nereid wrote:
| Yes, Microsoft locked the laptop to avoid Linux to be
| installed.
| zinekeller wrote:
| With the RT, yes it was indeed locked as the market pattern
| and target at the time (with iPad and Android tablets) have
| been to lock the system at the benefit of better curation and
| more integrated experience (well some will point out and
| argue that this was more of a lock-in, but obviously a
| Windows without malware was a goal also). The newer ARM
| attempt however were a complete reversal: Microsoft had
| dropped the focus on phone and (to an extent) tablet markets
| and even recent first-party Surface have unlockable boot
| systems, something that was impossible with Surface RT
| devices.
| r00fus wrote:
| Perhaps it's because the M1 is not just a random ARM chipset.
|
| For those wondering why Apple has a market cap of $2T this may
| be a good reason.
|
| They have the ability to stage, time and deliver something like
| the M1 Mac whereas other massive corporations like Microsoft,
| Google, Intel, etc simply can't.
| macintux wrote:
| Watching Apple vs the rest of the industry when it comes to
| long-term strategy reminds me of Marvel vs DC in the film
| industry.
| WanderPanda wrote:
| Maybe it is not Qualcomm that is to blame, but it is Apple to
| be praised. But I guess I am talking glass half full / half
| empty here, so nevermind :D
| actuator wrote:
| Yeah, Apple definitely deserves a lot of praise on these
| chips. They are not even incremental improvements but drastic
| ones which will probably change the landscape completely.
|
| Like AWS was working on their own ARM chips, they now have a
| benchmark to go against if they even can. In DCs a lot of
| spend is on just power consumption. If these chips can really
| drive compute in servers at a much lower power consumption,
| it is just not monetarily good for the company but good for
| the planet too.
| kmeisthax wrote:
| Microsoft also saw the opportunity of tablet computing, media
| players, smartphones, and basically every other category where
| Apple has kicked them the pants despite coming out way later.
|
| In this particular case, Microsoft wanted an iPad, right down
| to the complete and total lockout of all third-party app
| distribution. They wrote a completely new UI toolkit for
| fullscreen tablet apps that only Store apps could make use of,
| then shipped an ARM port that refused to load anything but
| those signed fullscreen tablet apps. The comparatively less-
| locked-down Intel models succeeded far better than the
| WinRT/ARM ones, so the lesson was mislearned as "people want
| Intel".
|
| Apple knows that interfering with how people get their software
| to try and collect revenue is not a great idea; that's why the
| M1 Macs have the same security policy as Intel/T2 ones. If they
| had locked it down iOS style, creative professionals would be
| fleeing the Mac in droves and Adobe would seriously start
| considering native Photoshop on Linux.
| wyldfire wrote:
| > It seems so amazing to me that Microsoft saw the ARM
| opportunity with Windows RT, released 8 years back but somehow
| managed to not succeed with a stellar ARM laptop story.
|
| It's definitely not a stellar ARM laptop story, but the ARM
| laptops have been at market for years prior to the ARM Macbook
| release. Not porting Chrome for the initial release was a huge
| blunder IMO. No one wants to use Edge. Having a chip with
| performance parity targeted at Intel's i5 might have been a
| mistake, too.
|
| But (while admittedly not as stellar as M1 Macbook) we have
| options: the Envy X2, Yoga/Flex 5G, Surface Pro X, Galaxy Book
| S.
|
| The M1 validates Microsoft's strategy to embrace ARM. Hopefully
| the third-party software devs are able to port their software
| in order to make this transition easier.
|
| Qualcomm stopped their own CPU design a while back and if
| they'd have kept that going then perhaps there would be a
| better competitor to the M1. Or maybe they just need to drop in
| a better reference design from ARM?
| TimTheTinker wrote:
| Looks like his donation/sponsorship page is down :-(
|
| I'm super excited someone is taking this on. Hopefully Apple
| contributes drivers as well -- they only stand to gain from the
| success of this project.
| hundchenkatze wrote:
| There's also a GH Sponsors page:
| https://github.com/sponsors/marcan
| Hamuko wrote:
| Wouldn't the sponsorship page be this:
| https://www.patreon.com/marcan
| my123 wrote:
| https://github.com/sponsors/marcan is a better option.
|
| (much lower fees present there)
| ogre_codes wrote:
| I think the Patreon is the best place to donate
|
| https://www.patreon.com/marcan
| codetrotter wrote:
| I was wondering if this was the project of the guy that talked
| about doing this a while back, which I read about here on HN and
| indeed it is.
|
| Announcement post: https://www.patreon.com/posts/website-
| launch-45852093
| spurgu wrote:
| I came here thinking this was a separate attempt and was going
| to share that Marcan has already started working on it and that
| there could be some collaboration.
| djhworld wrote:
| Really hope they pull this off.
|
| The initial target of the M1 Mini is probably the smart choice,
| I'd imagine all the power management stuff in the laptops might
| be a big task to reverse engineer
| marcan_42 wrote:
| It's also the simplest hardware (no keyboard/trackpad/internal
| screen/camera to worry about), and no-PM Linux will be useful
| already on the Mini (no so much on laptops).
| rickdg wrote:
| Given the level of technological proficiency of people interested
| in this project, why Patreon tough? A platform that carries all
| the fees back to the person you're trying to support and puts
| their own cut on top for basically hosting a few iframes? Is this
| really the best way to provide some monthly income? I
| marcan_42 wrote:
| I also have GitHub Sponsors!
|
| https://github.com/sponsors/marcan
|
| I want people to pick whatever platform they are comfortable
| with, and Patreon is very popular, so I offer both. But yes, in
| principle GitHub sponsors should have lower overhead (I'll have
| to wait until I get income from both to see exactly how it
| works out after the intermediaries involved).
| fareesh wrote:
| Do the cons of open sourcing device drivers really outweigh the
| pros? Good / popular hardware will end up benefitting from all
| kinds of contributions from interested folks. Plus the
| recruitment pool and onboarding of new talent expands by a
| reasonable amount, in theory.
|
| Is it really the case that somewhere in the drivers there is some
| secret sauce that is so ingenious that if the competition got
| wind of it, it would give them free access to a lot of hard work
| and research, and enable them to catch up?
|
| I guess I've never really dealt with super secret proprietary
| magic beans before so I can't relate.
| reikonomusha wrote:
| For projects like these, I don't know why Apple doesn't just step
| in and help. What have they got to lose?
| sneak wrote:
| I agree with you in theory; in practice Apple seems to have
| enough issues just getting their own in-house OS to work right
| on these things.
|
| A lot of macOS internals are really a reflection of Apple's
| deadlines-over-everything, ship-at-all-costs attitude. Certain
| parts are great, because those teams seem to be great and are
| blockers, such as the kernel or the silicon. Other parts closer
| to the surface that aren't in quite as critical a path, all the
| way up to documentation... not quite as much.
|
| Overall they do a decent job, and are certainly moving in a
| good direction security-wise (although not privacy-wise). It's
| just clear that many of their teams are stretched extremely
| thin.
| deergomoo wrote:
| My biggest wish for the Mac is to take macOS back off yearly
| releases. Or at least make every other yearly release minor,
| just to add compatibility with whatever got added to iOS.
|
| What's the point in having a big release every year if takes
| six months to sand down all the rough edges?
| ogre_codes wrote:
| I agree. At the very least, they should be a corporate sponsor
| for Marcan's Patreon. Ideally they should just hire him and
| provide him with internal resources to work on it. Even if
| Apple doesn't benefit from Linux running on bare metal, many of
| these efforts will benefit Linux running inside a VM as well.
| ksec wrote:
| Or they could donate anonymously, supporting its development
| without their official logo.
| monocasa wrote:
| I don't think hardly anything here will help Linux running in
| a VM FWIW. The unknowns are mainly the Apple specific IP
| blocks which aren't exposed to VMs.
| INTPenis wrote:
| It's also bonus points towards sustainability to ensure their
| devices have a life after obsolescence.
|
| Honestly Apple could use some of those points considering how
| many little plastic parts they force people to buy.
| spurdoman77 wrote:
| What they got to win? It is probably quite small userbase.
| turbinerneiter wrote:
| A lot of time, money and effort invested to support a platform
| whos creator is unwilling to provide support.
|
| I think it's part of the Linux ethos to run on everything, but I
| also think this kind of effort is ... not wasted, but I feel like
| it could be spent more efficiently.
|
| Still looking forward to hear about the first successful boots
| and the epic reverse engineering feats.
|
| Just wish this kind of stuff wouldn't be needed anymore and
| companies would just release their specs already.
| ogre_codes wrote:
| > A lot of time, money and effort invested to support a
| platform whos creator is unwilling to provide support.
|
| If Linux only ran on hardware which the creator was willing to
| provide support, Linux would not exist. Linux was created in
| spite of Intel, Nvidia, AMD, etc etc. Support from the makers
| only came later.
|
| Linux was originally an OS created by people who wanted to do
| things the OEMs and commercial vendors didn't support. While
| it's cool that a lot of manufacturers support Linux now, that's
| not where we came from.
| turbinerneiter wrote:
| Fully agree.
|
| Sometimes the uphill battle gets tiresome tough.
| ogre_codes wrote:
| > Sometimes the uphill battle gets tiresome tough.
|
| Yep.
|
| Apple hiring just one engineer and giving them access to
| internal resources would be massive. Or just giving them an
| engineering contact for support.
| pkulak wrote:
| Mac hardware is just so damn good though. And everywhere. I
| absolutely agree with what you're saying... but man, Linux
| working well on an M1 Mac would be my ideal machine.
| rightisleft wrote:
| is it? my 2016 macbook was the worst apple product i've ever
| owned...
| ksec wrote:
| Well All 2016 - 2019 MacBook are pretty much junk. As shown
| by their resale value. So it was probably one of the worst
| Apple product ever.
|
| But the Pre-2015 MacBook Pro and M1? They are great. (
| Although M1 still have shitty keyboard )
| midrus wrote:
| Worst apple product is still far ahead of most non-apple
| alternatives. At least laptops wise.
| reader_mode wrote:
| My previous ThinkPad X1 is a superior device to my 15
| inch i9 MBP (2018) in every way - thermals, keyboard,
| touchscreen, issues with 5k display for over a year,
| Bluetooth issues.
|
| I needed a Mac for iOS development so I went all out
| since I do all sort of development - and this is by far
| the worst premium device I owned.
|
| With that said M1 Macs look really good and I'll probably
| upgrade if they refresh the 16 inch.
| Wohlf wrote:
| I really don't find them any better than the competing
| products in the same price range these days, but you do
| you.
| samatman wrote:
| Resale value is the closest thing to an objective measure
| we're going to get.
|
| The butterfly keyboard era Macs took a nosedive in this
| metric, because they were bad computers.
|
| I have what turns out to be the last Intel 16" MacBook
| Pro which Apple will ever build. I suspect the Intel part
| of it will make its resale value kind of grim, but the
| keyboard, speakers, monitor, build quality: all great.
|
| MacBooks traditionally resell at a significant premium,
| because they're good computers with a long useful life. I
| expect this will be true for the M-series as well,
| although it's too soon to know.
| klelatti wrote:
| I bought a new Intel 13" MBP just before the M1
| announcement specifically because I needed an x86
| machine.
|
| No intention to sell but I suspect resale value will stay
| OK as there is likely to be ongoing demand from those who
| want a Mac for x86 cloud development (and non-technical
| users probably don't care if its x86 or M1).
| djsumdog wrote:
| I got Linux running on a MacBook 14,3. It was ... less than
| ideal.
|
| https://battlepenguin.com/tech/linux-on-a-macbook-pro-14-3/
|
| ..but I also don't want to see Linux get left in the dust.
| I'm more likely Intel or AMD crush the M1 in their next few
| generations.
| ravi-delia wrote:
| I think that's pretty unlikely. The M1 is a totally new
| world from even the best x86 processors, especially in a
| laptop. Not only that, but Apple has indicated that the
| next generation is yet another quantum leap from this
| one. Eventually other companies _will_ catch up, but I
| doubt it will be anyone without a stake in ARM already.
| NVIDIA looks like the one to do it.
| saagarjha wrote:
| I think you're comparing it to the wrong thing.
| marmaduke wrote:
| Would it be materially different than Linux running in a VM
| on m1? Because you can have that now
| Megranium wrote:
| It doesn't feel "right", there's resolution issues, and I
| never got real-time, low-latency sound running in any VM
| ... so, I'd say yes, by all means.
| ed25519FUUU wrote:
| What VM matches the performance of a mac mini?
| viraptor wrote:
| Trying to display at native full screen resolution from a
| VM is not a great experience. Or at least I couldn't
| achieve that without lag on any hypervisor. On top of that
| you're paying the battery tax because of virtualisation.
| SomeHacker44 wrote:
| Every time I accidentally hit something on the touch bar, I
| hate that I still have a Mac. Every time I intentionally use
| the ESC and have to touch it two or three times, I hate the
| Mac. Every time I need an F key, or want to do something
| without looking (like change volume or hit mute), I hate the
| Mac. Thank goodness this year I stopped using it so much as I
| did not have to repair the keyboard twice and potentially get
| COVID as in previous years.
|
| All in all, I am glad to dislike Macs with their abysmally
| bad keyboards and actively hostile and negatively productive
| touch bar. WSL is pretty nice.
| DevKoala wrote:
| Yeah, I also see a tough situation developing a few years down
| the road when Apple inevitably closes the platform even more
| and harms features of this project. Hopefully I am wrong.
| ogre_codes wrote:
| > inevitably
|
| It's been inevitable for 10+ years now.
|
| Maybe this word doesn't mean what you think it means.
| spurdoman77 wrote:
| If they arent actively opposing it that can be enough.
| ravi-delia wrote:
| On any other apple computer I'd agree, but I _really_ want some
| of that sweet ARM magic.
| turbinerneiter wrote:
| Just wait for SiFive and RISC-V, that's going to be the
| revolution I'll join :)
| ravi-delia wrote:
| Oh believe me I fully intend to ride that train, but I'll
| wait for it to get to the station first.
| zucker42 wrote:
| Not useful for someone who wants a laptop within the next
| 10 years.
|
| Top of the line laptops are probably going to be last
| devices that adopt RISC-V even assuming it significantly
| gains market share from ARM and x86.
| sergeykish wrote:
| Yes, but isn't same true about most of the hardware?
|
| Just a fraction of notebooks comes with Linux. I'd like to but
| I've never bought one. Smartphone manufacturers are not
| cooperative, NVIDIA got finger.
|
| Personally I would not recommend buying hardware thinking it
| would be supported in the future. Linux hardware acceleration
| for Intel GMA 500 (Poulsbo) never materialized.
| Badfood wrote:
| I'll buy our whole company these macs in a heartbeat if this
| becomes good enough
| deadmutex wrote:
| Why not support a hardware vendor that actually cares about
| linux?
| unethical_ban wrote:
| Why not buy hardware that doesn't suck?
|
| I still have a Thinkpad for my primary laptop, but using a
| mac with retina, 5-10hr batt life, and a nice touchpad for
| work is such a joy compared to a 1080p matte screen with 3hr
| battery life.
| NikolaeVarius wrote:
| 1440p Matt screen, 24G Ram, i7. Battery life all day. Still
| cheaper than a weaker specced Mac.
| breakfastduck wrote:
| But x86, so missing the point entirely.
| saagarjha wrote:
| > 1440p
|
| > i7
|
| Surely you're joking?
| deadmutex wrote:
| I mean, there is a wide range of products here. If we're
| comparing anecdotes, I have a personal MBA with a TN panel
| with less than 1080p screen, and crappy built-in webcam.
| But it is not fair to compare it to another laptop I use
| which was designed and manufactured later.
|
| Keep in mind that battery life is not just about hw, and
| requires careful tuning of the OS. However, the OP is
| talking about running linux on it, so the batt life will
| definitely NOT be as good as running MacOS.
| _ph_ wrote:
| Apple devices always have been usually quite attractive, but
| currently, there is no better ARM hardware for the end user
| available. A lot of people would like to use some other cpu
| than x86 and on top of that the M1 is currently perhaps the
| most attractive notebook cpu.
| Klonoar wrote:
| People value industrial design, for one.
| deadmutex wrote:
| Is the Mac laptop ID significantly different than other
| laptops, e.g. PixelBook Go? I have a MBA, and was super
| surprised at how think it was compared to my Pixelbook. I
| would say that Apple laptop ID nothing special, and is
| lacking things like a touchscreen, etc.
|
| I would say that M1 has good performance ON MAC SOFTWARE,
| which has been tuned for it (and vice versa). It is unknown
| if linux will perform as well on it.
| Klonoar wrote:
| The PixelBook is closer, sure - though still not as great
| when it comes to, say, the trackpad. Apple also still has
| a near-monopoly on amazing screens. These might seem
| inconsequential when you scan them on a list, but the
| entire package really adds up.
|
| Anyway, with that all said, the thread in question is
| about vendors who explicitly support Linux, which is a
| very different story. If I had to pick anything in that
| realm that I'm excited about, it's... maybe Purism's
| upcoming Librem 14, mostly due to them trying to do
| something custom. Relies on them actually shipping it,
| tho.
|
| I remain surprised that System76 hasn't done more towards
| a non-rebranded laptop shell. I really like their desktop
| offerings, but I've no need for a desktop in my life.
| turbinerneiter wrote:
| I'm pretty sure System76 would really love to design an
| build macbook level laptops with M1 level chips, but how
| the hell are they ever supposed to get there?
|
| It took Apple, what, 13 years from the iPhone to the M1,
| surfing on the wave of success of the iPhone.
|
| There isn't even a processor vendor that is capable of
| supplying them an M1 level chip.
| Klonoar wrote:
| I didn't say that System76 needs to pump out an
| M1-comparable laptop off the bat.
|
| In fact, my comment specifically notes "non-rebranded
| laptop shell" as that would go a long way to turning
| around the cheap feeling they currently have.
| turbinerneiter wrote:
| Yes, sorry, I was getting ahead of myself, mixing in the
| M1 stuff.
|
| But my point still stands: it's hard for them to do their
| own design with the numbers they sell. They started with
| desktops, because it's easier to do them custom. I hope
| they will be able to grow into being able to do custom
| laptops as well.
| mhh__ wrote:
| Being able to have someone on call for support is pretty
| valuable too, no?
| wtetzner wrote:
| One reason I can think of is that the hardware from those
| vendors is less appealing.
| drno123 wrote:
| I would switch our self-hosted servers to Mac M1 Minis if this
| goes through.
| libria wrote:
| Very interesting overall.
|
| > Apple allows booting unsigned/custom kernels on Apple Silicon
| macs without a jailbreak! This isn't a hack or an omission, but
| an actual feature that Apple built into these devices.
|
| Indefinitely? How do we know it's a feature vs a temporarily
| convenient oversight?
|
| > Our goal is not just to make Linux run on these machines, but
| to polish it to the point where it can be used as a daily OS.
| Doing this requires a huge amount of work to be done, as Apple
| Silicon is a completely undocumented platform. In particular, we
| will be reverse engineering the Apple GPU architecture and
| developing an open source driver for it.
|
| This looks like the major bullet point. The wiki is currently
| empty, but while it's WIP, it would be nice to see some of the
| major milestones or breakdown of the goal mentioned above.
|
| Best of luck to Hector and the contributors!
| scoopertrooper wrote:
| > Indefinitely? How do we know it's a feature vs a temporarily
| convenient oversight?
|
| Could not the same be said for any computer manufacturer? How
| do we know for sure Dell won't start locking down future XPS
| models?
| chpmrc wrote:
| Apple adds limitations to protect the system: "too strict!"
|
| Apple gives the chance to disable these limitations to power
| users: "they should be disabled by default!"
|
| Apple disables limitations: "temporary convenient oversight?"
|
| ...
| ciwolsey wrote:
| I see nothing wrong with any of these speculations. If you or
| Apple don't like speculation the answer is for them to
| communicate their intention.
| machello13 wrote:
| They've plenty communicated their intention to not turn the
| Mac into the iPhone/iPad. And besides which, it would be a
| disastrous product strategy to do that, from a company
| that's absolutely top-of-the-ball when it comes to product
| strategy.
| fsflover wrote:
| Are you serious?
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25074959
| machello13 wrote:
| Sorry, that seems like a total non sequitur to me. What
| about that (an outage + a failure to correctly handle the
| outage on the clientside) suggests Apple is planning to
| lock down macOS like iOS, either in terms of hardware or
| software?
|
| Or rather, maybe you'd like to explain what you think
| Apple would have to gain from doing something like that?
| fsflover wrote:
| You cannot start any non-Apple applications unless Apple
| explicitly allows them and keeps a list of what and when
| you are running. Looks totally fine...
| machello13 wrote:
| Again, I'm having trouble making the leap from this:
|
| "Apple checks which macOS applications I run in order to
| verify that the developers credentials are still valid
| and not expired/revoked, but only for macOS apps and not
| executables in general, and you can still open apps that
| are not signed with a Developer ID using a manual bypass"
| (which is certainly not ideal but seems like a reasonable
| security compromise. There's no evidence they're keeping
| a list of this information anywhere.)
|
| to:
|
| "Apple will lock down macOS and make it utterly
| impossible to run any executable or even scripting code
| that hasn't gone through a strict review process"
|
| Since you're unwilling (or unable?) to explain that leap
| without just spouting pithy 3-word comebacks, I guess
| we're done :)
| fsflover wrote:
| I suggest you read the comments in the linked thread. Why
| do I have to repeat those who can explain better than me?
| It's pretty clear that the current state:
|
| 1) cannot be called "fully unlocked",
|
| 2) more locked than what people used to have, even on
| Apple devices.
|
| It might be fine for you, but it certainly is potentially
| bad for privacy and freedom. Look up keyword "tor" in the
| thread if genuinely want to understand and not trolling.
| dvfjsdhgfv wrote:
| > They've plenty communicated their intention to not turn
| the Mac into the iPhone/iPad.
|
| Of course not, because they need to differentiate. This
| doesn't mean they renounce their plans to further lock
| down macOS. Running non-appstore apps is getting harder
| and harder each year.
| breakfastduck wrote:
| Apart from the fact they've actively stated (repeatedly,
| during their main presentations) that running arbitrary
| code on a mac will not be changing.
|
| For a company that seems sometimes to go out of its way
| to _not_ give any information on _anything_ it doesn 't
| make sense to clearly and concisely make that statement.
| andrekandre wrote:
| > running arbitrary code on a mac will not be changing.
|
| i wonder how much of this is thanks to peoples "gnashing
| of teeth" about mac getting an iphone lockdown
|
| in the end its speculation, but id wager a guess apple
| wouldnt have a big problem locking down macos if people
| didnt make a big deal out of it
| DCKing wrote:
| It's a bad faith argument. The presupposition is that Apple
| is inherently motivated to actively lock things down, because
| that's what they do with the iPhone. This glosses over that
| Apple has no reason to actually do so, only has reasons not
| to do it on the Mac, and has gone on record saying they won't
| treat the Mac as the iPhone. It's based on the notion that
| Apple would be against free booting _a priori_ for some
| reason.
|
| Mind you, not all bad faith arguments are unwarranted. I kind
| of get where it comes from. But it's important to recognize
| that's that what it is, and there's no reason to actually
| believe it.
| bsaul wrote:
| The reason people assume apple will prevent you from doing
| what you want with your computer, is because it's the
| logical consequence of the strategy they've followed for
| the past 10 years over their whole product line. From
| phones, to cable, to messenging software. They're into
| vertical integration and walled ecosystem.
| stopFalse wrote:
| We've seen Apple remove competition from the App Store at
| will.
|
| This is not theoretical.
| DCKing wrote:
| I'm not sure how that means anything when it comes to
| locking down Macs. If you're trying to make a general
| argument "Apple is capable of doing bad things", that's
| of course trivially true but does not at all imply
| they're interested in locking down the Mac?
| Hamuko wrote:
| > _Indefinitely? How do we know it 's a feature vs a
| temporarily convenient oversight?_
|
| Basically nothing can be known to be indefinite. But Apple has
| signaled that they'd be open for ARM Boot Camp if Microsoft was
| to sell non-OEM Windows for ARM licenses. So it seems like
| Apple might consider multi-booting a feature.
| Klonoar wrote:
| >How do we know it's a feature vs a temporarily convenient
| oversight?
|
| Considering the level of GUI work that outright supports this
| feature in recovery mode on an M1, I'm inclined to think it's
| not an oversight.
| marcan_42 wrote:
| It's a feature because it's literally a whole set of command
| line options and settings in their boot policies, which is
| documented in man pages, with all the warnings about normal
| users not having to use any of this that you'd expect.
|
| It's a whole pile of code that Apple doesn't need, and could've
| just removed or never written in the first place, that was
| written _explicitly and only_ so people could run unsigned
| kernels on Apple Silicon macs.
|
| Yup, the wiki is almost empty - I was hard at working getting
| the site/IRC/branding/etc worked out. Expect things to pick up
| steam on that front starting tomorrow, as I will now focus on
| hardware documentation and getting things through low-level
| boot bring-up.
| amelius wrote:
| > Indefinitely? How do we know it's a feature vs a temporarily
| convenient oversight?
|
| Apple could take most of the speculation/hostility away by
| simply giving their word for it. But they don't ...
| Bluerise wrote:
| First of all the feature wasn't available in the initial Big
| Sur release and it only got available during the Betas for the
| first minor patch. Second of all, some Apple developer stated
| on Twitter that (during M1 unveil) he's finally able to show
| all the boot policy work they worked on the past year(s) to
| allow users to boot foreign OSes and without opening up holes
| for attackers.
|
| Basically it boils down to: they could have just used iBoot
| without changing it at all to keep it as a brick like the
| iPhone/iPad/Watch, but instead they invested plenty of
| resources to _allow_ it.
|
| With all that work done to allow it, I'm sure there'll be
| plenty of people inside of Apple who'd protest if someone
| changes their mind and decides all this has to go away.
| raverbashing wrote:
| I'd say there might be ongoing work to support
| Windows/BootCamp but in true Apple tradition (or maybe due to
| MS delays) it is being kept secret
| kmeisthax wrote:
| Apple's outright said it's a matter of Microsoft agreeing
| to license Windows on ARM for consumers. Right now putting
| Windows on an ARM Mac is about as legal as Hackintoshing.
| saagarjha wrote:
| I don't think that's what Apple said at all-they just
| said the ball is in their court, which means that they
| want Microsoft to write Bootcamp essentially.
| DCKing wrote:
| Yeah. Someone - cough cough Microsoft - would need to be
| convinced to write a Boot Camp Assistant app equivalent
| (okay), a Windows bootloader (okay), various device
| drivers for Apple Silicon hardware revisions for Windows
| (big ugh), graphics drivers for Apple Silicon GPUs for
| Windows (VERY big ugh). Microsoft will need to _very_
| motivated to distribute Windows on ARM for this to
| happen, _even if_ Apple gives them access to all the info
| they need which is not a given by any means.
|
| ...I don 't think this is going to happen, and Apple
| probably doesn't either.
| Twisell wrote:
| Apple have developed Bootcamp and provided drivers so far
| for Intel Mac. But developing Bootcamp for Windows ARM
| would be in EULA violation until Microsoft loosen the
| conditions. Changing this is literally step 1.
|
| Wether Apple would develop Bootcamp for ARM or not is
| purely theoretical discourse until then.
| ksec wrote:
| If I remember correctly Windows on ARM is still limited
| to 32bit Apps.
|
| And you can actually download Windows on ARM from
| Microsoft Insider Preview for Free. And run it on top of
| Parallels Desktop 16.
| benjaminl wrote:
| Windows on ARM supports 64bit ARM apps.
|
| What you were possibly remembering was that Windows on
| ARM when it was first introduced only supported emulating
| x86 apps. Although x64 emulation is currently in preview.
|
| https://docs.microsoft.com/en-
| us/windows/uwp/porting/apps-on...
| GeekyBear wrote:
| Legacy x86-64 app emulation has only just appeared in
| alpha form and still has massive compatibility issues.
|
| I'd still call it something we hope to see in the future,
| instead of a working proof of concept.
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OhESSZIXvCA
| Technically wrote:
| Is there any point of running windows outside of intel
| processors? I'm aware they have an ARM offering but it's
| not clear what the "killer apps" of the OS/arch pair are.
|
| I'd think linux/BSD drivers would be the concern here!
| brundolf wrote:
| That would make a lot of sense. Windows is in a tight spot
| right now because OEMs have lagged on ARM. Apple could
| offer MS a way out of that, while at the same time giving
| people one more reason to spend money on a Mac.
| _ph_ wrote:
| Right, if MS is serious about Windows on ARM, they should
| support the Mac as a show case and also to allow all
| future Mac buyers the chance to run Windows. Of course,
| Apple can't announce much until Microsoft makes an
| announcement about Windows on AS Macs.
| tibbydudeza wrote:
| Is MS not busy looking at doing their own ARM silicon for
| future Windows powered Surface devices after release of
| M1 and the failure Qualcomm with the Snapdragon 8cx (we
| just use ARM reference designs) ???.
|
| They do have the chops for it since they have done Xbox
| and Hololens and various other devices in-house.
| Hamuko wrote:
| https://www.theverge.com/2020/12/18/22189450/microsoft-
| arm-p...
|
| There are rumors.
| unilynx wrote:
| Maybe they are already developing their own "MS1" in
| secret ?
|
| But even if they are, it would make sense to release
| Windows 10 for the M1 and getting Win-developers to start
| porting their applications to ARM, so they could leap-
| frog Apple on ARM if they manage to build a 'better' ARM
| SoC
| solarkraft wrote:
| It's a rumor. If they're starting now I expect results in
| 2-5 years and in Azure first.
|
| > They do have the chops for it since they have done Xbox
| and Hololens and various other devices in-house.
|
| Not sure about the Hololens, but the XBox contains an x86
| AMD processor.
| Hamuko wrote:
| Linus Tech Tips actually just released a video a couple
| of hours ago where they compared the Surface Pro X SQ2
| with the M1 MacBook Air. It was not pretty.
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OhESSZIXvCA
| danudey wrote:
| So basically, the M1 Macbook Air is two to three times
| faster than the SQ2, including comparing ARM Windows on
| the SQ2 against ARM Windows in a VM on the M1 Air.
| granzymes wrote:
| The virtualized Windows comparison was just brutal.
| uncledave wrote:
| It's 100% on the mark that video.
| vlovich123 wrote:
| He's off on the strategic focus of Apple (where he says
| that the M1 benefit because Apple is taking a mobile OS
| and adapting it for the desktop vs Microsoft is taking a
| desktop OS and adapting it for mobile architectures. The
| truth of the matter is that Apple has been consistently
| making CPUs for about a decade that blow away the
| competition on compute per watt. Like 2-3 years before
| the industry catches up to where Apple was. They're just
| bringing that same power to laptops/PCs as they've
| saturated what that buys them on mobile (not fully but
| it's not a big enough sales driver as mobile sales growth
| has slowed). That's why you see AirPods and M1 - "where
| else can we deploy our perf per watt and vertical
| integration advantage".
|
| As for "why are there so few ARM versions of apps",
| that's purely the vertical integration piece again. Apple
| makes it very clear the old tech line is dead so
| developers have a clear thing to explain to their
| management. Microsoft tries to keep everyone happy which
| means devs are like "I'll wait until this actually has
| industry buy in" which then Microsoft uses as "well
| there's no interest here and maybe the tech won't work
| out/vendors won't materialize" and "we can't ask our
| customers to pay this transition cost".
| r00fus wrote:
| There is a significant number of people working at
| Microsoft who use Windows on a Mac as it's generally nice
| (and expensive) hardware. I'm sure they'd be thrilled to
| see Bootcamp operational on ARM Macs.
| lrvick wrote:
| Kind of like all the work Sony did to allow Linux on the PS4
| only to kill it later?
|
| You don't own a mac. You can only do on it what it is
| profitable for Apple to let you do, today.
|
| As much as I respect the incredible RE skills required for
| this task, I feel like this is shaky foundation unless an
| unpatchable bootrom exploit is discovered. Even then new
| models would be patched leaving existing users with an
| insecure platform that they can't replace when it breaks.
| monocasa wrote:
| PS3, and supposedly that was because some jurisdictions
| treated game consoles and computers differently for import
| tariffs (computers being cheaper to import), but those
| jurisdictions changed to not having a distinction.
|
| Agreed with the underlying point you're making though. They
| allow this because it aligns with their current strategic
| objectives, and changes to those objectives can be
| arbitrary and capricious, at least from the viewpoint of
| the consumer.
| ogre_codes wrote:
| > Indefinitely? How do we know it's a feature vs a temporarily
| convenient oversight?
|
| The fact that Apple documented it.
| DCKing wrote:
| > Indefinitely? How do we know it's a feature vs a temporarily
| convenient oversight?
|
| I would point out that Apple has permitted booting alternative
| operating systems throughout their m68k (at least the m68ks
| that could meaningfully boot Linux or a BSD derivative) [1],
| PowerPC [2], and Intel [3] phases. It's only on Intel they
| actively made this a feature, because Windows Bootcamp probably
| allowed to sell them a certain percentage more Macs.
|
| The only reason to believe they would change this is that the
| Apple Silicon architecture changes would have Apple be
| interested in the Mac being some sort of equivalent to an iPod
| Touch. I don't really see Apple being interested in that, and
| Apple reps have gone on record to argue similar points as well.
|
| [1]: e.g. https://wiki.netbsd.org/ports/mac68k/ [2]: e.g.
| https://wiki.netbsd.org/ports/macppc/ [3]: Uh, anything that
| boots on x86 EFI will probably boot.
| Teknoman117 wrote:
| And at that Bootcamp is a BIOS emulation layer. You don't
| need to go through the bootcamp process to run operating
| systems with native EFI support such as Linux, Windows 7+,
| etc.
| marcan_42 wrote:
| I don't think recent Intel macs even support "Boot Camp"
| (CSM) any more. You need to go through UEFI, Boot Camp now
| is just a software wizard for getting UEFI Windows
| installed.
| zinekeller wrote:
| You're totally correct, it is indeed just putting the
| drivers on the installation media and partitioning magic.
| jasoneckert wrote:
| On the About page: "...requires a huge amount of work to be done,
| as Apple Silicon is a completely undocumented platform"
|
| It "is" a well-documented platform. I'm hoping that Apple makes
| it available to the open source community to make Linux on M1
| happen sooner than later.
| saagarjha wrote:
| How so?
| jarym wrote:
| I wonder if Apple will embrace Linux as Microsoft have done. If
| they are still a 'hardware' company at heart then they will.
| ibraheemdev wrote:
| I highly doubt it. Microsoft embraced Linux because they knew
| Windows couldn't compete in the developer OS space. MacOS on
| the other hand is built on Unix and is already a very popular
| OS for developers.
| TimTheTinker wrote:
| Linux has been taking serious dev mindshare (and market
| share) from Apple for several years now.
|
| And I think Apple _knows_ macOS can 't compete with Linux
| as a development environment against browser, Linux, and
| cloud-based deployments. Witness how they made a point of
| demonstrating a Linux VM running on Apple silicon during
| the M1 introductory keynote, and how they continue to
| remove dev-oriented tooling, allowing third-party setups
| like homebrew to fill it in.
|
| It seems their goal is increasingly to focus on their end-
| user platform only, which for dev tooling means only
| focusing on XCode/etc. and not the Mac's capabilities for
| other deployment targets.
|
| ... which leaves an obvious gap for Linux to fill. In fact,
| given how large and capable Apple is these days, I think
| there's a good chance they'll put a bit more effort into
| helping Linux integration along (especially Linux in VMs on
| macOS -- that's probably the main plan at the moment). They
| realize they only stand to gain from such efforts.
| mhh__ wrote:
| How is it documented if there is so software developers manual
| for the ISA, optimisation manual for the uarch, and no
| documentation at all on how the subsystems like the neural
| accelerator works let alone how to access it.
|
| I assume you mean that Apple have it internally, but I wouldn't
| assume it's any good.
|
| I would also love to see someone (I haven't got and can't
| afford one) try and fuzz it for undocumented instructions.
| klelatti wrote:
| There's no software developer's manual for the ISA? Arm don't
| release any documentation on their ISA?
| hrydgard wrote:
| The GPU ISA (yes, GPUs have ISAs) is undocumented.
| mhh__ wrote:
| Even Nvidia document theirs now, and the firmware details
| are on GitHub to some extent for the Nouveau guys.
| mhh__ wrote:
| There are currently undocumented instructions on M1, and
| Apple aren't a regular Arm partner so I'm kind of classing
| it as it's own ISA
| klelatti wrote:
| I've seen that too! I have a lot of sympathy for what
| you're saying here but I think classing it as it's own
| ISA is a bit of a stretch! How much flexibility Apple
| have with the ISA is an interesting point - I suspect
| they are pushing the limits of what they can get away
| with (what's Arm going to do?) Might be different when
| Nvidia own Arm?
| mhh__ wrote:
| What are the odds Apple shit on this?
| ogre_codes wrote:
| Why?
|
| If they'd intended to shut this down, they would have a locked
| down boot loader like on iOS. Instead they deliberately built a
| boot loader which supported things like this.
| m463 wrote:
| That can be changed in a software update. Is this likely?
| probably not, however I can imagine scenarios (lets say a
| worm gets out) where it might "make sense"
| ciwolsey wrote:
| Get people on board first. Lock it down once it's too late
| and everyone is invested.
| machello13 wrote:
| So your opinion of Apple is just that they're pure evil, or
| what?
| Jtsummers wrote:
| That hasn't been their MO, historically. On macOS
| everything that's locked down by default can be unlocked
| (at least that I've encountered) regarding running software
| or other OSes on the hardware. They've made it "secure" by
| default, but not _locked down_ , it's a simple switch to
| open it up.
|
| If, say, the iPad or iPhone had gone this route (started
| off as open as Android and _then_ became locked down) you
| might have a point. But they didn 't, they started off
| restricted and have only (gradually, and to a limited
| degree) been opened up.
| ogre_codes wrote:
| > Get people on board first. Lock it down once it's too
| late and everyone is invested.
|
| Examples? Been using the Mac for 15 years and haven't
| observed this myself. iOS was more or less locked down from
| go, but they never did some kind of bait-and-switch.
| mhh__ wrote:
| The engineers who did that probably don't make the decision
| on things like this.
|
| When have Apple been open about anything recently?
| ogre_codes wrote:
| This took time and resources to make happen. This isn't
| some switch a rogue engineer pulled while management wasn't
| looking. Not only did it take time and effort to implement,
| they've also documented it.
|
| > When have Apple been open about anything recently?
|
| Darwin, WebKit, Swift, LLVM, This effort.
|
| Apple keeps iOS fairly tight the Mac, not so much.
| mhh__ wrote:
| Apple aren't upstreaming their backends to LLVM, for
| example
| ogre_codes wrote:
| What happened to "When have they been open about
| anything?"
|
| Wonderful moving goal post here.
| fanatic2pope wrote:
| It wouldn't be unprecedented. Sony released the Playstation 3
| with the ability to run Linux and removed it later using a
| firmware update.
|
| https://tedium.co/2020/11/27/sony-linux-otheros-geohot-
| histo...
| Jtsummers wrote:
| The action isn't unprecedented. But that's a separate
| company. What has Apple done to make people _expect_ this
| behavior when they've not done it before?
| eitland wrote:
| I must say I am tempted to buy a Mac mini and if this project
| succeeds it might be the thing that triggers it.
|
| That or Apple making CMD - tab customizable so I can fix it on my
| desktop ;-)
| CyberRabbi wrote:
| Commendable effort but as someone who has spent significant time
| dealing with closed hardware, I believe that it is more efficient
| and beneficial long term to build a platform that supports linux.
| I support this project anyway because non-linear outcomes occur
| often enough in the marketplace of reality. Who can really know
| what will evolve from this work?
| miguelr2201 wrote:
| Interesting project and wish them best of luck.
|
| On the claim:
|
| >However, no modern device is "fully open" - no usable computer
| exists today that has completely open software and hardware (as
| much as some companies want to market themselves as such)
|
| Doesn't RaptorCS[1] offer a fully open modern device? Or is there
| a closed part I'm not aware of?
|
| [1] https://www.raptorcs.com/
| marcan_42 wrote:
| Is their silicon design open? Their internal boot ROM? Their
| microcode? :-)
|
| What I'm trying to say there is, there is always a line. There
| is always some secret sauce. Even if you have fully open HDL,
| you won't have documentation for the proprietary fab processes
| required to implement it in a way that performs. Even if the
| fab process were somehow fully open, you may not have public
| documentation on how to manufacture some of the required
| chemicals and raw materials available. And so on and so forth.
| The rabbit hole always goes deeper, and the lines between parts
| aren't entirely bright, and so making some kind of blanket
| statement that one is "fully open" is usually a marketing
| tactic and not actually truthful.
|
| That said, yes, Raptor stuff is pretty much as open as it gets,
| today, in the high-end space. They are pretty much the only
| modern platform which doesn't use blobs to train RAM on boot,
| for example. They are not perfect - for example, their
| motherboard schematics are only available to owners, so I
| assume they are not redistributable under an open hardware
| license.
| miguelr2201 wrote:
| Oh, I see. That is definitely a lot deeper in the stack that
| I was thinking of. Thanks for the comment.
| 1-6 wrote:
| Asahi, Super Dry! Sorry, had to say this.
| balozi wrote:
| This is one of those things that sound interesting but only from
| a technical point. Why would anyone take on this level of risk?
| In a few years they will be complaining on HN about being kicked
| off Apple silicon.
| pkulak wrote:
| Then just pop Mac OS back on it and sell it for 80% of it's new
| value. Really almost no risk at all, as far as I'm concerned.
| balozi wrote:
| However noble, the risk I see is for untold man-hours and
| resources that will be expended on an ill-fated adventure.
| This project requires tons of positive tech-community spirit,
| which apple isn't exactly known for.
| corytheboyd wrote:
| I hope this and projects like it spearhead a movement of ARM
| laptops outside of the Apple-sphere.
|
| I wonder if System76, for example, has their eyes on being the
| first to market as "the Linux laptop on ARM". Seems right up
| their alley.
|
| Also worth noting that I understand that System76 and Apple are
| not comparable companies. One is a humble operation installing a
| custom Linux build on rebranded hardware, and the other is a
| vertically integrated powerhouse building it's own hardware.
| fsflover wrote:
| > I wonder if System76, for example, has their eyes on being
| the first to market as "the Linux laptop on ARM".
|
| They are not the first already:
| https://www.pine64.org/pinebook-pro/
| corytheboyd wrote:
| Ah yeah pine64! But how does it compare to the M1
| performance? I should have explicitly stated that these ideal
| computers would match or outperform Apple's hardware, since
| that is very much the case with current intel based MacBooks
| spurdoman77 wrote:
| Pinebook does the typical "as cheap and low-end as
| possible" linux stuff.
|
| I would love to see ARM linux hardware manufacturer who
| would aim to create a high-end fanless powerhorse like mac
| mini.
| corytheboyd wrote:
| You and me both. I believe it will happen eventually, it
| seems inevitable now
| zucker42 wrote:
| The problem is no other laptop manufacturer besides Apple has
| the capital and resources to build their own chip.
| bgorman wrote:
| Definitely not true, IP blocks are available for all critical
| features and chip layout can be outsourced. ARM has a
| Cortex-X chip available for licensing for anyone that wants a
| high performance CPU core.
|
| For example, HP (who also makes laptops) has custom ASICs
| running Linux in their printers.
| wmf wrote:
| Even if you use all licensed IP the market might not be
| profitable enough to pay back the cost. We're talking about
| a $50M+ leap of faith.
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