About six months ago, I speculated a bit on what Apple might do with their upcoming (rumored at the time) ARM transition. Apple did it, has shipped ha

The Apple M1, ARM/x86 Linux Virtualization, and BOINC

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2022-05-23 05:30:04

About six months ago, I speculated a bit on what Apple might do with their upcoming (rumored at the time) ARM transition. Apple did it, has shipped hardware, and I’ve had a chance to play with for a while now. I’ve also, as is usual for me, gone down some weird paths - like ARM Linux virtualization, x86 Linux emulation, and BOINC in an ARM VM!

The fastest Linux machine I’ve ever used is a hardware virtualized install on the Apple M1 - and this post covers how to do it!

While I don’t generally make a habit of buying brand new, just-released hardware, I made an exception for the M1 and bought a M1 Mac Mini to replace an Intel Mac Mini (which had replaced a perfectly function 2014 iMac I’d still be running if the monitor hadn’t failed - the display assembly, used, cost $600 in not-cracked condition). The Intel one wasn’t doing most of what I wanted (to say the GPU sucked would be an understatement), I’ve been lusting after a mid-range ARM desktop for a long while, and the fact that things would be broken on it doesn’t bother me - it’s not a production machine for me, so I’m happy to run on the bleeding, slightly broken edge. It’s a common theme with ARM desktop use, especially 64-bit, so this is no different.

How is it? It’s fast. It’s really, really fast. Not just for the power - that’s amazing too, but simple, flat out, using it for stuff. It’s amazing. I figured it would be really good, but it’s beyond good, crossing into the “Yeah, I’ll call this magical…” realm. The fan almost never comes off idle, power consumption (I work in a solar office, remember?) is a rounding error, and it just does what I ask of it in a real hurry.