Apple Intern Spent 12 Weeks Porting Mac OS X To ARM

An anonymous reader writes "Apple hasn't released a Mac OS X device running on ARM yet, but a recently discovered thesis from a former Apple intern going by the name of Tristan Schapp details a 12-week project carried out in 2010 to port the OS to the ARMv5 architecture. The port got as far as booting to a multi-user prompt, but then hit hurdles to do with drivers and cache. The good news is that same intern now works for Apple as part of the CoreOS team. With rumors last year that a MacBook Air running on ARM could appear by 2013, could he be part of a team making that happen? If he is, I bet it will use the new ARMv8 architecture announced late last year."

Comments

NVIDIA

[Glock27]

NVIDIA is also working on high-end desktop/workstation ARM CPUs, under "Project Denver".

If something compelling emerges, perhaps ARM could be a player for sheer compute power.

Fat binaries might be useful again... ;-)

Re:NVIDIA

[fuzzyfuzzyfungus]

If Nvidia is working on it, it seems quite likely that ARM, as in the instruction set, won't; but ARM, in the same sense that "x86" can also describe a computer built around a specific CPU, quite possibly will.

Given Nvidia's (comparatively mature) GPU compute ambitions, and their displeasure at the fact that Intel has been shoving them out of all but the fat-'n-bulky laptop designs and discrete GPU desktop/workstation designs, it seems very likely indeed that Nvidia wants two things from ARM:

1. An ARM fast enough to, when combined with an Nvidia GPU, produce a tablet/laptop that people won't laugh at in comparison to a ULV i3/5/7 + Intel GMA.

2. An ARM fast enough(and with enough PCIe lanes and memory controller ability) to do boot, housekeeping, and care and feeding, for a big stack of 'Tesla' compute silicon.

Neither really requires(nor would it be obviously sensible) ARM to go up against high-wattage and relatively low thread-count x86 parts(in which struggle Intel is a very, very, dangerous adversary, and AMD a dogged and inexpensive one); but they likely would want something that can provide an adequate user experience compared to the intel power-constrained stuff, and something that can allow them to sell all-Nvidia Tesla compute stacks.

Re:NVIDIA

[BasilBrush]

What you describe is how application resources are bundled. But fat binaries are a different thing. They are a single executable file that contains code for multiple instruction sets. Same for both command line tools and Applications.

Re:Stop masturbating over apple

[Sarten-X]

If you really like freedom even a little bit, you need to recognize Apple's freedom to run their business however they want.

If you really like freedom even a little bit, you need to stop using rhetorical hyperbole posted on websites as a basis for decisions.

Apple history

[OzPeter]

Its not like Apple hasn't changed CPU architectures before. 68K->ppc->intel and if you want to count the Apple II, you can also include 6502->68k

Re:Apple history

[brwski]

And not only that, this is in NeXTStep's DNA. That OS was made for portability, and ran on at least (if this link is accurate) four different processor families. Apple also had a concurrent build of OS X on Intel while they sold PowerPC machines. Fat Binaries also would allow Apple, if they felt like it, to make the CPU all but invisible to the user for properly recompiled programs, letting them have multiple processors in their lineup (this does, however, leave anything older or not recompiled out in the cold; that doesn't seem to matter much to Apple, however).

This is just smart business; something goes wrong with Intel, they're ready. A new, decent competitor pops up? port it, and if it proves to be better, run with it. To not to have these projects going would seem to be a mistake.

Re:Apple history

[wvmarle]

And considering an intern could port a complete OS port in a mere 12 weeks, shows how portable it is. This person presumably had never touched the OS-X source before, yet manages to pull it off. And indeed I recall rumours that OS-X was running on Intel from before the time the rumours came that Apple was planning to switch to Intel. I suppose portability is simply part of the demands by management. I don't think Microsoft will have such an easy time if they were ever to switch to another architecture.

And those driver issues: no surprise. That's by nature fairly low-level stuff talking directly to hardware so will need more work. Not counting third-party drivers of course.

Re:Apple history

[SethJohnson]

This is just smart business; something goes wrong with Intel, they're ready.

Mr. Otellini. Thank you for meeting with us to discuss the Intel hardware performance-per-watt roadmap. It certainly looks like you have top engineers working very hard on this issue.

We have to head back to Cupertino in just a few moments, but before we conclude, I want to introduce you to young Tristan Schapp. He's an intern with us this semester and we've really enjoyed having him around the office. Now Tristan, can you show these nice gentlemen what it was you were able to cobble together in your cubicle over the summer?

Dissertation PDF

[Nick Fel]

You have to click through a lot of links to get there, but the PDF of his dissertation is online at his university's website: http://repository.tudelft.nl/assets/uuid:2f66fe0c-4080-4148-a01c-acd530160797/Report_BSc_complete.pdf

Par for the course.

[Anonymous Coward]

Sounds like standard intern hazing.

"Hey, Tim, take this source code (*drops huge book of source on desk*) and port it to... uh... ARM."

**12 weeks later.**

"Holy crap, he made it work."

At least it wasn't SPARC.

apple tv?

[vlm]

Assumption is its for the new mac book.
Would be funny if it turns out to be the much rumored apple tv.

Re:Droping X86 may be suide for apple

[Glock27]

Apple is certainly big enough at this point to support two architectures. You may or may not be aware that, with Xcode, generating a fat binary supporting multiple CPU architectures involves nothing more than a setting. Of course testing may not be quite that smooth, especially at first.

At any rate, I'm quite sure Apple won't drop x86 support for the foreseeable future. However, there may be some real advantages to supporting both, including price competition for Intel.

Don't forget that Microsoft has already promised Windows for ARM (NVIDIA's "Project Denver"), so it may also be in Apple's best interest to be a player there as well - especially if the NVIDIA CPUs have some real advantages.

One of Many Reasons for Intel UltraBook Program

[Kagato]

It's no secret that one of the reasons Intel is subsidizing manufacturers over $100M for the Ultrabook project is to keep ARM at bay. This is compounded by Microsoft offering a ARM version of Windows. Apple putting out a really nice A8 MacBook Air could really shake things up.

However, the real issue Apple is going to have is MacOS or iOS. There's a lot of compelling reasons to move to iOS for Apple, but ultimately the closed nature of iOS would likely alienate the large programmer base they have built up.

Re:Does it actualy matter?

[tverbeek]

OS X is nowhere near "totally locked down".

But to answer your question, it matters to anyone who wants to be able to run apps written and compiled for a different CPU.

OS News has a followup on this article

[Anonymous Coward]

http://www.osnews.com/story/25588/No_Mac_OS_X_wasn_t_ported_to_ARM_by_an_intern

Re:Stop masturbating over apple

[g0bshiTe]

I'm reminded of this joke.

http://www.tensionnot.com/jokes/operating_systems_and_airlines

Re:Droping X86 may be suide for apple

[guruevi]

Adobe deserves to die imho. They were indeed dragged kicking and screaming. Same for MS Office. You either adapt or die, if your code is so shitty you can't port it between slightly different architectures without breaking it, you have a really bad development team.

Re:Stop masturbating over apple

[UnknowingFool]

Um the closed console model for phones existed long before Apple. The reason most people don't remember back then didn't buy many apps because they were all shit. And back then it was the carrier controlling the access not the phones manufacturer. And you were lucky to get if the store only took 45%.

Re:Collude to take away freedom

[Glock27]

If you really like freedom a little bit, you need to be on your guard lest all manufacturers of computing devices priced for home users collude to design their products to take away the computing freedom of home users. This already happened decades ago in the video game industry.

Due to a wonderful concept called "free markets" this will almost certainly not happen. That is, unless perhaps the government decides that "free computing" is dangerous, and mandates that all PCs are locked down. The government, in particular the current US idiocracy, is the main enemy of free markets. In fact, the PS3 tried to make one if its distinguishing characteristics that it was a general-purpose device, but apparently rethought that for various reasons. Since video consoles are essentially fixed-function devices I guess it made sense to Sony, besides Sony's approach was always half-hearted.

Until then, someone will always offer "unlocked" computers due to market demand. Macs are in this category, along with virtually all desktops/laptops in the world. One of the more interesting developments in the area of "cheap, general purpose computing" lately is the sub $50 Raspberry Pi. Now there's a hacker platform if I've ever seen one! =:-D

Re:Collude to take away freedom

[jo_ham]

I'm curious, how has Apple designed their consumer computers to take away computing freedom?

Apart from switching to x86, and including tools in OS X to make dual booting other OSes easier, and putting socketed CPUs and removable GPU boards based on MXM in the iMac, or adding extra choice for software purchases with a new distribution method (that has no effect on prior methods of obtaining software...)

I mean, sure they modified the firmware on hard drives used in the iMac to use the LED activity output to monitor the temperature, thus causing the HD fan to spin up to full if you fit a non-Apple HD in that bay, but there is a simple method to tell the iMac that a non-custom-iMac drive is installed, since it has a factory option for an SSD where this different pinout is set back to standard SATA. Some people seem to believe this engineering choice is "proof" that Apple want to make it harder for you repair your own machine... in the same generation of hardware where they switched from soldered-on CPUs to socketed ones that are replaceable with standard Intel chips from newegg. Curious!

So, how are they taking away computing freedom from home users? I mean, sure they have iOS, but are you forced to choose to use it? What was the state of "freer" handsets before and after the iPhone? Someone on here tried to argue that Apple's entry into smartphones has been bad for "open" mobile computing because before there was Symbian and Win Mobile 6 (thus, a value of 2) and afterwards there's only Android (value of 1) and 2 is bigger than 1. Despite trying to convince him that Android is in better shape than ever and offering much more as a whole than the numerically greater but technically and figuratively worse older offerings just wasn't cutting it.

It's never been better for computing choice and freedom, not only despite, but in many cases *because* of Apple - especially with the success of the iPhone (which you are free not to use, and is certainly not the "freest" handset, but has sure done a lot to push Android on).

Re:iOS developer program copied from Xbox 360

[UnknowingFool]

That's just tepples. He lives to complain about Apple, logic need not apply. He'd complain that Apple products are racist because they are all white (if you conveniently ignore the other colors they have in their products).

Re:Does it actualy matter?

[geoffrobinson]

That's like saying America is socialist because of the welfare state or is laissez-faire because we have a robust capitalist system. Neither is true and it is a matter of degrees.

Not being open source doesn't make something "completely locked down." If that's what you want, more power to you, download Linux or FreeBSD.

Re:Stop masturbating over apple

[jo_ham]

Yeah, that 30% cut for handling all the credit card processing, hosting, bandwidth, servers, storefront etc... Such a travesty.

Seriously, the 30% cut just for managing the payment stuff *alone* is a bargain, as anyone who has ever had to handle a merchant account and payment processing will tell you, especially for small transactions. It is very expensive and time consuming to deal with.

Apple's official financial statements have confirmed year over year that they do not make much at all on the store - the 30% really just covers the cost of running the thing. That's not the point of the exercise for them, though - the store exists to drive hardware sales, and the third party developers are a major part of that.

If you're stuck thinking that the 30% cut is some sort of daylight robbery or "quite bad" then you really have no idea what the costs (in time, resources and hassle) it is to handle distribution yourself.

Also, "responsible for translating the closed console ecosystem to phones"? How short is your memory?! Phones were anything *but* open before Apple entered the market. If anything Apple has made it more open, by driving the success of its main competition - Android.

Darwin != OS X

[itsdapead]

TFA says he ported Darwin - the open-source version of the OS X kernel - and got as far as a multi-user login prompt (he'd need some of the BSD toolchain to get that far, but you could run BSD on the ARM-based Acorn Archimedes in the early 90s). Not to be sneezed at as an intern project - but a long, long way from porting "OS X".

Its the difference between porting "Linux" (in the correct sense of the name - i.e. the kernel) and porting Linux + GNU tools + X.Org + KDE/Gnome + ... in order to make something resembling modern Linux distro.

Not that its remotely unfeasible to port OS X to ARM (nobody outside of Apple knows how much of iOS code is directly ported from OS X but economic common sense says "as much as possible") and I'd be unsurprised if Apple had an ARM-based Mac lashed up behind a closed door at Infinite Loop. Apple know a thing or two about supporting multiple processor architectures and It might just make sense as a stop-gap between the iPad and the Air if it offered size/weight/power savings over Intel. Feasible, but probably not likely.