Corellium, a specialist in the virtualization of ARM devices, has succeeded in porting the Linux kernel to Apple’s new M1 ARM processor. In a tweet, the company shows with a photo that the kernel is booting on the M1 Mac. The necessary code should be open source.

Corellium CTO Chris Wade points out, however, that the first version only runs on one processor core and does not yet bring USB support. An update with SMP and USB support is in progress. Before Linux can seriously be used on the new Macs, a lot more Apple-specific hardware needs to be supported – not least the graphics.

Also Hector “marcan “Martin wants to port Linux to the new Apple processors in a community-financed project. Asahi Linux, as it is called, is still in its infancy. Currently marcan is working on the bootloader m1n1, which is supposed to start the Linux kernel on the Apple hardware and to facilitate the examination of the Apple hardware.

It is ironic that Corellium, of all people, is the first to bring Linux to the M1 processor: Apple sued the company 2019 for software that allows iOS to be virtualized and the security researchers should facilitate the investigation of Apple’s mobile system. Just a few weeks ago a US court ruled that Correlium’s iOS virtualization is not a violation of Apple’s copyright.

(odi)