At WWDC 2020, Apple announced that the Mac will be transitioning from Intel to Apple silicon. The company unveiled new Macs powered by a new M series chip. In November, Apple released updated versions of the MacBook Air, 13” base MacBook Pro, and Mac mini – all powered by Apple’s M1 chip.
The chips are based on ARM architecture, same as the iPhone, iPad, and Apple TV processors. The change means that the new M1 Macs will not support the use of Bootcamp which is used to install Windows alongside macOS or even flavours of Linux. However, to rescue, a security firm named Corellium has successfully ported Ubuntu to M1 Macs.
A detailed guide has been released
Corellium has released a tutorial for other M1 Mac users to install Ubuntu on their machines as well if they wish to. The security firm is known for offering a virtual version of iOS which can be used for testing security levels. The firm’s website reads “Advance your development work on ARM through the power of virtualization.”
The detailed tutorial released by Corellium offers a step-by-step guide on installing Ubuntu on a M1 Mac computer. Porting Ubuntu to M1 Macs must have required a lot of work as the M1 chip is a completely new thing (architecture) for the Mac. Creating support for components of computers like WiFi, Display, Sound, etc for a new platform is the most difficult task. However, the security firm has successfully done so within three months of release.
The new M1 Macs offer immense performance improvements over the previous generation Intel versions. The M1 chip is also much more power efficient compared to the Intel chips used in the previous generation Intel MacBook Air, 13” MacBook Air, and Mac mini. The M1 chip is the first 5nm chip to be used in a consumer desktop grade computer.
