[HN Gopher] AI-powered reverse-engineering of Rosetta 2 (for Lin...
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       AI-powered reverse-engineering of Rosetta 2 (for Linux VM)
        
       Author : inoki
       Score  : 31 points
       Date   : 2026-02-23 21:47 UTC (1 hours ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (github.com)
 (TXT) w3m dump (github.com)
        
       | mindwok wrote:
       | What exactly is this? It says it's for Linux, but what makes it
       | "for Linux"? I'm curious which parts of Rosetta are Apple
       | silicone specific and which aren't.
        
         | inoki wrote:
         | Just clarified in the README (by AI as well):
         | https://github.com/Inokinoki/attesor?tab=readme-ov-file#comp...
        
       | Retr0id wrote:
       | Does it produce runnable binaries?
       | 
       | The repo does not make it clear, but Apple ships Linux builds of
       | Rosetta 2 that can be used inside Linux VMs on apple silicon
       | hardware [0]. With some patches (or so I'm told) it can be made
       | to run on non-apple-silicon arm64 hardware.
       | 
       | Even if it's not fully decompiled yet, it should be possible to
       | relink the decompiled subsections into an original binary.
       | 
       | [0]:
       | https://developer.apple.com/documentation/virtualization/run...
        
         | inoki wrote:
         | WIP ;) The final target might be to get Intel's Houdini-like
         | binary (but for Intel instructions)
        
         | Retr0id wrote:
         | re: patches, looks like they've reversed some of the relevant
         | bits:
         | https://github.com/Inokinoki/attesor/commit/233cb459b9db8345...
         | (I was concerned this might be slop but that detail is
         | promising!)
        
           | duskwuff wrote:
           | That looks more like the AI inventing code to explain
           | observed behavior (cf. "For Linux virtualization
           | environments, we simulate this...").
        
             | inoki wrote:
             | Yeah, I guess it's losing some contexts. Still need human
             | work if want to make it really work on Linux...
        
             | Retr0id wrote:
             | Looking closer it does look pretty nonsensical, ugh.
        
         | duskwuff wrote:
         | > Does it produce runnable binaries?
         | 
         | No. Even the decompiled version is incomplete - there's
         | comments all over it which signal missing code like "could not
         | recover jumptable ... too many branches". The "refactored"
         | version is wildly speculative - it looks more like a very
         | clumsy attempt to write a new translator than to reverse-
         | engineer an existing one.
         | 
         | > With some patches (or so I'm told) it can be made to run on
         | non-apple-silicon arm64 hardware.
         | 
         | With the huge caveat that the generated code will expect TSO to
         | be enabled, and may malfunction on non-TSO ARM systems,
         | particularly when running multithreaded code. (Most ARM systems
         | are non-TSO; Apple Silicon has a MSR to enable TSO.)
        
       | selridge wrote:
       | This is the way. Gl; hf.
        
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       (page generated 2026-02-23 23:00 UTC)