macOS ARM support

[neelagallant]

Recently, Apple boasted of running iphone made apps natively on macs. So can we reach to a point that both a series chips in iphones and m series chips in macs are of same DNA,

And as in the case of Asahi linux which was designed to run on M-series macs, Can we take advantage of its boot loader and use sonething like opencore to simulate the hardware and run(probably) macOS on them (arm chips).

I am a 15 yr old and I may not understand the shortcomings in this approach.
Pls don't lose patience and answer to this small question.

Can we run macOS on arm machines as they share same architecture?

 

[stator]

Those don't share the same architecture, but much of the same instructions. The problem with porting MacOS to other ARM architectures is Apple incorporates the GPU and memory on the chip which is Apple proprietary, not ARM.

Since this is a closed architecture, I suspect we'll never be able to use other ARM computers for a hackintosh.

There's a rumor starting the next WWDC will announce the end of x86 MacOS major updates. Sonoma may be the last.

 

[craighazan]

I don’t see why Rosetta 2 can’t be used to translate between x86 and M series, or am I missing something?.

 

[trs96]

I don’t see why Rosetta 2 can’t be used to translate between x86 and M series

Major performance hit would make it a deal breaker. Instead of translating a single app or program, you'd be doing that for the whole OS. Not good for performance.

 

[UtterDisbelief]

Rosetta is a translator, not an emulator as I understand it.

In the same way, perhaps, as WINE "wine Is Not an Emulator etc.

In fact Crossover, based on WINE, runs Windows apps very well on ARM macOS because it does so through Rosetta. Per app the performance hit is barely noticable, which is maybe why the Codeweavers devs seem to concentrate on modern Windows game support.

I suppose the only downside is that Windows apps coded in "tricky" ways often don't run.

 

[craighazan]

Rosetta is a translator, not an emulator as I understand it.

In the same way, perhaps, as WINE "wine Is Not an Emulator etc.

In fact Crossover, based on WINE, runs Windows apps very well on ARM macOS because it does so through Rosetta. Per app the performance hit is barely noticable, which is maybe why the Codeweavers devs seem to concentrate on modern Windows game support.

I suppose the only downside is that Windows apps coded in "tricky" ways often don't run.

I thought it was a translator too, another layer between x86 and M, and your description of wine is a good example.

Rosetta (software) - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

 

[trs96]

It's both. Rosetta 2 is an emulator that translates code. X86 to ARM64.

Emulation and translation are used by companies transitioning architectures. For example, Apple used a translator/emulation environment called Rosetta to let people run old PowerPC Mac programs on new Intel based macs. They are doing this again with Rosetta2 for the upcoming transition from Intel to Apple Silicon.

from Alfasoft.com

Rosetta 2 is an emulator designed to bridge the transition between Intel and Apple processors. In short, it translates apps built for Intel so they will run on Apple Silicon (like the M1 chip).

To the user, Rosetta is mostly transparent. If an executable contains only Intel instructions, macOS automatically launches Rosetta and begins the translation process. When translation finishes, the system launches the translated executable in place of the original.

 

[UtterDisbelief]

It's both. Rosetta 2 is an emulator that translates code. X86 to ARM64.


from Alfasoft.com

With great respect, it's easy to quote any online source to confirm your bias. There are so many "opinions" out there.

The view Apple takes is that it is a "translator" in that it directly converts Intel code to ARM on the fly. It is not emulating an environment:

About the Rosetta Translation Environment | Apple Developer Documentation

Learn how Rosetta translates executables, and understand what Rosetta can’t translate.

developer.apple.com

Rosetta 2 does JIT and AOT translation and compilation. Whereas an emulator takes the environment as a whole and reproduces it.

This is where my view came from, if anyone is interested.