LinuxQuestions.org - Slackware ARM VM's on Apple M1 Macs?

- Slackware - ARM (https://www.linuxquestions.org/questions/slackware-arm-108/)

- - Slackware ARM VM's on Apple M1 Macs? (https://www.linuxquestions.org/questions/slackware-arm-108/slackware-arm-vms-on-apple-m1-macs-4175694106/)

Slackware ARM VM's on Apple M1 Macs?

Parallels Desktop 16.5 on Apple M1 (ARM) Macs currently supports:

Quote:

"Linux distributives Ubuntu 20.04, Kali Linux 2021.1, Debian 10.7 and Fedora Workstation 33-1.2"

https://www.parallels.com/blogs/parallels-desktop-m1/

VMWare Fusion should be announcing support for M1 Macs "any day now" and will almost certainly support Linux as well.

Curious if anyone knows or has a guess whether Slackware ARM 32-bit or upcoming aarch64 is likely to run in VM's under these virtual environments on M1 Macs. It's been fun running Slackware ARM on Raspberry Pi's but would be nice to be able to run Slackware ARM on higher performance hardware.

My only experience with ARM on virtualization is Qemu. Qemu emulates Virtual Express ARM Ltd (vexpress-a9) and runs extremely slow. It took nearly 10 minutes to boot the virtual machine last night. I do not recommened Qemu as an option. I haven't tried anything like that with Aarch64 and likely will not in the future. LXC seems like the better choice. Here is the documentation I wrote on the topic.

https://docs.slackware.com/howtos:ha..._slackware_arm

@mralk3 thanks - no surprise that emulating ARM under x86 might be slow.

But ARM VM's under an ARM machine (Linux ARM under Mac ARM) would run with excellent performance. I haven't tried ARM Linux under an ARM M1 Mac yet but expect it would run very well.

Quote:

Originally Posted by eduardr (Post 6243893)

Let me know what you find out. Hopefully someone else has more experience and can provide you with a better answer.

I've been watching this communities activity for a few months. It's getting really promising with GPU acceleration on the way. I may buy a 2022 Macbook Air to get Slackware working on it.
https://asahilinux.org/

vmware fusion/aarch64

I recently have successfully gotten the aarch64 port running on VMWare Fusion. Unfortunately, the stock slackware kernel does not support virtualization it seems. Likely missing the needed modules within the kernel. I've taken the config from Debian bookworm (which boots and runs nicely) and built a special kernel for this with it. I'm unsure exactly how many modules are needed for slackware to officially support vmware currently, as there are large differences in the two configs. But basically I have a slackware-built replica of the current Debian kernel which boots it (along with grub).

What I'm curious of is if anyone would have interest in a vmware image of the aarch64 port, kernel configs, packages or anything else? I do not know if it will run on UTM (I will test this eventually) or parallels. I'm sure at least UTM is possible, as it's just qemu underneath, but I'm not buying commercial virtualization software (parallels) when there's quality, free options available and I can already run slackware natively on the M1. Running it in a vm is just a convenience thing.

I'd hate for the information to go to waste, or be forgotten about by me. So if anyone is interested in virtualizing slackware on MacOS (or even wants some info on slackware-asahi), please let me know. I don't have a lot of time to set aside to write documentation, make images, packages, etc, if there is no interest out of any Slackware/Mac users out there (I'm not the only one am I?).

I'd like to at least get the correct modules into slackware's config so this is possible in the future, but any extra stuff, that is all based on community interest if it's worth going that far. I'll post again with some configs/diffs after I sort it out.

Quote:

Originally Posted by jloco (Post 6429856)

Code:

CONFIG_VIRTUALIZATION=y

and various other KVM options are set already. What else is required?

I can put them into the next Kernel package. I wonder if you will need them within the OS InitRD as well. If it does I guess it'd be drivers for storage and perhaps an RTC.

That's great you were able to get it running. I'd certainly like to be able to run a Slackware ARM VM sometime (for now running a Debian VM in UTM). If you figure out which kernel modules in particular are required, might be possible to use the stock Slackware kernel while adding those modules to the initrd, assuming those modules are present in the Slackware /lib/modules.

Quote:

Originally Posted by drmozes (Post 6429977)

Code:

CONFIG_VIRTUALIZATION=y

and various other KVM options are set already. What else is required?

Here's a 'lsmod' of the Debian kernel running on Slackware. This one is 6.1.20, the latest they are shipping is 6.1.25.

Code:

Module                  Size  Used by

cfg80211              782336  0

8021q                  32768  0

garp                  20480  1 8021q

mrp                    20480  1 8021q

stp                    16384  1 garp

llc                    16384  2 stp,garp

rfkill                36864  1 cfg80211

efivarfs              20480  1

snd_hda_codec_generic    77824  1

aes_ce_blk            32768  0

ledtrig_audio          16384  1 snd_hda_codec_generic

aes_ce_cipher          16384  1 aes_ce_blk

polyval_ce            16384  0

polyval_generic        16384  1 polyval_ce

ghash_ce              20480  0

gf128mul              16384  2 polyval_generic,ghash_ce

sha3_ce                16384  0

sha3_generic          16384  1 sha3_ce

sha512_ce              16384  0

sha512_arm64          20480  1 sha512_ce

snd_hda_intel          45056  0

sha2_ce                16384  0

snd_intel_dspcfg      20480  1 snd_hda_intel

snd_hda_codec        126976  2 snd_hda_codec_generic,snd_hda_intel

sha256_arm64          24576  1 sha2_ce

evdev                  28672  7

joydev                32768  0

snd_hda_core          86016  3 snd_hda_codec_generic,snd_hda_intel,snd_hda_codec

snd_hwdep              20480  1 snd_hda_codec

sha1_ce                16384  0

snd_pcm              114688  3 snd_hda_intel,snd_hda_codec,snd_hda_core

efi_pstore            16384  0

snd_timer              40960  1 snd_pcm

snd                    98304  6 snd_hda_codec_generic,snd_hwdep,snd_hda_intel,snd_hda_codec,snd_timer,snd_pcm

soundcore              16384  1 snd

loop                  36864  0

ext4                  765952  1

crc16                  16384  1 ext4

mbcache                20480  1 ext4

jbd2                  139264  1 ext4

crc32c_generic        16384  2

hid_generic            16384  0

usbhid                57344  0

hid                  135168  2 usbhid,hid_generic

sr_mod                28672  0

cdrom                  61440  1 sr_mod

nvme                  45056  1

nvme_core            114688  2 nvme

t10_pi                16384  1 nvme_core

ahci                  49152  0

libahci                40960  1 ahci

vmwgfx                339968  1

libata                299008  2 libahci,ahci

crc64_rocksoft        20480  1 t10_pi

drm_ttm_helper        16384  1 vmwgfx

crc64                  20480  1 crc64_rocksoft

ttm                    69632  2 vmwgfx,drm_ttm_helper

crc_t10dif            20480  1 t10_pi

scsi_mod              229376  2 libata,sr_mod

drm_kms_helper        139264  1 vmwgfx

scsi_common            16384  3 scsi_mod,libata,sr_mod

drm                  442368  5 vmwgfx,drm_kms_helper,drm_ttm_helper,ttm

e1000e                266240  0

xhci_pci              24576  0

crct10dif_generic      16384  0

xhci_hcd              258048  1 xhci_pci

ehci_pci              20480  0

ehci_hcd              90112  1 ehci_pci

crct10dif_ce          16384  1

crct10dif_common      16384  3 crct10dif_ce,crct10dif_generic,crc_t10dif

usbcore              266240  5 xhci_hcd,ehci_pci,usbhid,ehci_hcd,xhci_pci

ptp                    32768  1 e1000e

pps_core              24576  1 ptp

usb_common            16384  3 xhci_hcd,usbcore,ehci_hcd

Here's a link to the file: https://slackware.lngn.net/pub/lsmod...-debkern-armv8

TBH, I'm not sure which module(s) it is that makes the difference. In the URL above, the dir also has 2 slackware packages of the Debian kernel and modules for use/testing. I haven't used them on real hardware yet, it's been an awfully long day of yard work. The only oddity I've noticed is tty1 likes to randomly press Enter while attempting to input a password. Using another tty and it's fine.

I'm willing to test changes made to the official kernel package, whenever we narrow down whats missing. I'll make attempts to poke at this next week, as my free time is officially over for this one.

Compared to Slackware AArch64 running on a RockPro64, only the modules below aren't modules in Slackware AArch64.

Some of them such as crc16 and a number of others I checked are compiled into the Slackware Kernel, and others such as snd and e1000 have no relevance to the Kernel booting.

Code:

crc16

crc32c_generic

crc_t10dif

crct10dif_common

crct10dif_generic

drm_ttm_helper

e1000e

efi_pstore

efivarfs

evdev

hid_generic

joydev

ledtrig_audio

libata

loop

pps_core

ptp

scsi_common

scsi_mod

sha3_ce

sha3_generic

sha512_arm64

sha512_ce

snd_hda_codec

snd_hda_codec_generic

snd_hda_core

snd_hda_intel

snd_hwdep

snd_intel_dspcfg

ttm

usb_common

vmwgfx

Once you figure out which Kernel modules are required, you'll need to make a module loader plugin for the OS InitRD.
You should also look at /proc/cmdline to see if there are any particular Kernel paramaters which might be required (apart from the obvious ones like root= and stuff like that)

See the first post in this thread for this.
Once you've got this started I can bundle it into the Kernel package to make it easier going forwards.

I'll dig into it once my work week-end is over. I need to setup a build of modules on the same version kernel so i can "drag & drop" ones I think are hopeful, until I find what works.

Side note: sound starts properly on runlevel 4 with the debian kernel, so hopefully I'll be able to figure that out as well.

I feel like I'm a dog chasing my tail with this, but after tampering with things for a while I've got os-initrd-mgr to make me a new initrd with modules from my installed debian kernel, but for some reason it don't find my rootdev, which should be passed to it from grub by UUID. I've looked through the scripts inside the initrd slightly but can't see any reason why it won't find my root. Manually mounting it from the emergency shell works and boot finishes so at least it works.

Here's a broader set of modules that it loads into the initrd:

Code:

snd_seq_dummy

snd_seq

snd_seq_device

fuse

cfg80211

8021q

garp

mrp

stp

llc

rfkill

nls_ascii

nls_cp437

vfat

fat

aes_ce_blk

aes_ce_cipher

polyval_ce

polyval_generic

snd_hda_codec_generic

ghash_ce

gf128mul

ledtrig_audio

sha3_ce

sha3_generic

sha512_ce

sha512_arm64

sha2_ce

snd_hda_intel

snd_intel_dspcfg

snd_hda_codec

snd_hda_core

snd_hwdep

joydev

sha256_arm64

snd_pcm

evdev

sha1_ce

efi_pstore

snd_timer

snd

soundcore

loop

ext4

crc16

mbcache

jbd2

crc32c_generic

hid_generic

usbhid

hid

sr_mod

cdrom

sd_mod

nvme

nvme_core

t10_pi

crc64_rocksoft

ahci

crc64

crc_t10dif

crct10dif_generic

libahci

e1000e

vmwgfx

libata

ptp

pps_core

crct10dif_ce

crct10dif_common

scsi_mod

xhci_pci

drm_ttm_helper

ehci_pci

ttm

ehci_hcd

xhci_hcd

drm_kms_helper

scsi_common

drm

usbcore

usb_common

Obviously it's different since debian ships the kernel with different items built-in vs how slackware does, but I'm posting this because my efforts at building numerous kernels have all been met with various problems, I figure the universe is telling me something...

EDIT I realize it's probably not a module that prevents booting but something else, but everything that should be there appears to be, so I've got a dead end at the moment.

Quote:

Originally Posted by jloco (Post 6432655)

Is rootdev= making it to the running Kernel (cat /proc/cmdline). If you're not already, use the 'slkpbs' boot parameter for console access during the boot process.
Check the response I made on the Rock5 integration thread about finding the device driver for your storage. When I've been doing this myself, I tend to use a mixture of that script and just loading everything from within /lib/modules from the slkpbs shell and seeing what comes up.

So for example, if you booted into the slkpbs shell, exited stages 1&2 then at stage three (when the AArch64 base line set of modules has been loaded), do something like:

Code:

find /lib/modules/$(uname -r) -type f -name '*.ko.*' | while read mod; do modprobe $( basename $mod .ko.xz ) ; done

I don't know if there's a more elegant way to do that - you can probably examine one of the files in /lib/modules as well.
You might need to restrict the scope of 'find' though, incase you bring the system down (it's always possible that loading some modules will cause a Kernel panic).

Slackware on Apple Silicon??

I'm currently running Kali Linux and OpenSuSE Tumbleweed under VMware Fusion on my new M1 MacBook Air, but I really would prefer to be running Slackware!
I'm dual-booting my OG white polycarbonate MacBook from 2006 between Mac OS X 10.6.8 "Snow Leopard" and Slackware -current.
This old MacBook is running a 32-bit-only intel CoreDuo "Yonah" CPU, and while Snow Leopard was a dandy OS back in the day, it won't support modern web browsers or much modern software at all. That's what I use Slackware for.

For several years I rocked an ASUS EeePC 2G Surf running a full install of Slackware -current. It was delightful! Linux in my jacket pocket, anywhere I wanted to go.

Asahi Linux is a project that is bringing Linux to Apple Silicon as a dual-boot install. They're starting with Fedora and will soon also offer Ubuntu, if not Debian.

I would love to be able to run Slackware on my new M1 MacBook Air, either in VMware or under Asahi's dual-boot system.

From what I've been able to find out, Slackware on Aarch64 isn't quite ready for prime time yet.

Maybe I could make do with a Raspberry Pi or something, but however I do it, I really want to be on Aarch64.