The Ampere Altra Review: 2x 80 Cores Arm Server Performance Monster

Re:The Ampere Altra Review: 2x 80 Cores Arm Server Performan... by flyinghamster on Friday December 18, 2020 @10:50AM (#25468184)

It's encouraging to see an effort like this, but unless it can become a first-class citizen on M1 hardware, it will be at best like trying to keep an iDevice jailbroken, or having a custom Android ROM that lacks important basic functionality like VoLTE.

One can hope, I guess. If I could be sure I could run Linux without it being hobbled, and that Apple wouldn't pull the rug out from under me, I could actually see myself adding a Mac Mini to the stable.

Edit:

> Windows on arm64 systems aren't locked down.

Has this changed? I recall that on ARM, Microsoft requires that UEFI Secure Boot be enabled, cannot be disabled, and cannot load custom keys. So, you could boot Linux as long as it's been "blessed" by Microsoft, assuming they don't pull the rug out, much like the leaving Secure Boot enabled on an x86 PC (except on a PC you can usually load your own keys).

https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2012/01/windo...

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:The Ampere Altra Review: 2x 80 Cores Arm Server Performan... by my123 on Friday December 18, 2020 @12:50PM (#25469779)

That was a restriction for 32-bit Arm Windows devices, which were indeed locked down. (I ended up breaking the Secure Boot implementation for Windows RT devices later on, and they didn't bother to fix it)

For 64-bit Arm Windows devices, they had the security policies of a conventional PC since the very beginning.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:The Ampere Altra Review: 2x 80 Cores Arm Server Performan... by flyinghamster on Friday December 18, 2020 @02:55PM (#25471171)

Thanks for clearing that up for me. I've long viewed that as one of the storm clouds on the horizon, as it was.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:The Ampere Altra Review: 2x 80 Cores Arm Server Performan... by salawat on Friday December 18, 2020 @01:56PM (#25470540)

Alternate source, though may be dated to around the time of v2.2 of the UEFI spec.

https://www.happyassassin.net/posts/2014/01/25/uefi-boot-how...

I find it funny that almost all the real gripes with user freedom infringement actually tend to come as a result of Microsoft or other big players getting their fingers into a hardware platform.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:The Ampere Altra Review: 2x 80 Cores Arm Server Performan... by saagarjha on Friday December 18, 2020 @05:54PM (#25473086)

Not quite, since Apple actively works against jailbreaks on iOS. On macOS they have provided an actual path for code execution to boot alternate OSes.

[ Parent | on HN ]