Corellium, a security research company that recently came into the limelight when it won a copyright lawsuit against Apple, says that it has successfully ported Linux to M1-based Macs.
A “very early” beta is already available to download for “advanced users only.” However, the company recommends waiting for a stable version to release as the current beta doesn’t include USB support and it won’t be useful to most users. Corellium also asked to “check back tomorrow,” which, as of this writing, is today. They did not mention the exact time they would release the new build today.
Apple released a 13-inch MacBook Pro, MacBook Air, and a Mac mini with custom silicon chips designed in-house. The chip is called M1 and it severely enhances performance as compared to older MacBook models with the Intel chip.
One disadvantage is that a lot of programs are incompatible with aarch64 processors like the M1 and it may take some time to achieve equilibrium. That said, even though the M1 Macs come with Boot Camp pre-installed, it’s technically useless as no other operating system supports dual-booting or porting over to ARM Macs currently.
That means there isn’t adequate documentation or support to motivate anyone to try porting a different operating system onto M1 Macs.
Even then, Corellium was successfully able to port Linux. But it isn’t the only one trying to do so. Martin Hector, another security researcher, and developer, kickstarted his Asahi Linux project with the goal to port a user-grade Linux operating system to the Mac. However, he relies on contributors and donations to boost and fund the project whereas Corellium probably already has a team assembled.
There is no information on how the installation looks on an M1 Mac. However, heading over to the downloads page of the beta on Corellium’s website returns a 404 error as of this writing.
Update: Corellium has finally ported a fully functional Ubuntu distro on their M1 Mac Mini. An update will be available on their Github later today.
