The

Linux kernel The Linux kernel is a free and open-source, monolithic, modular, multitasking, Unix-like operating system kernel. It was originally authored in 1991 by Linus Torvalds for his i386-based PC, and it was soon adopted as the kernel for the GNU ope ...

can run on a variety of devices made by

Apple An apple is an edible fruit produced by an apple tree (''Malus domestica''). Apple fruit tree, trees are agriculture, cultivated worldwide and are the most widely grown species in the genus ''Malus''. The tree originated in Central Asia, wh ...

, including devices where the unlocking of the bootloader is not possible with an official procedure, such as iPhones and

iPad The iPad is a brand of iOS and iPadOS-based tablet computers that are developed by Apple Inc. The iPad was conceived before the related iPhone but the iPhone was developed and released first. Speculation about the development, operating s ...

iPad

In June 2022, software developers Konrad Dybcio and Markuss Broks managed to run Linux kernel 5.18 on a

iPad Air 2 The iPad Air 2 is the second-generation iPad Air tablet computer designed, developed, and marketed by Apple Inc. It was announced on October 16, 2014, alongside the iPad Mini 3, both of which were released on October 22, 2014. The iPad Air 2 i ...

. The project made use of the

Alpine Linux Alpine Linux is a Linux distribution designed to be small, simple and secure. Alpine Linux uses musl, BusyBox and OpenRC instead of the more commonly used glibc, GNU Core Utilities and systemd respectively.

based

Linux distribution A Linux distribution (often abbreviated as distro) is an operating system made from a software collection that includes the Linux kernel and, often, a package management system. Linux users usually obtain their operating system by downloading one ...

called

postmarketOS postmarketOS (abbreviated as pmOS) is an operating system primarily for smartphones, based on the Alpine Linux distribution. postmarketOS was launched on 26 May 2017 with the source code available on GitHub before migrating to GitLab in 2018. I ...

, which is primarily developed for

Android Android may refer to: Science and technology * Android (robot), a humanoid robot or synthetic organism designed to imitate a human * Android (operating system), Google's mobile operating system ** Bugdroid, a Google mascot sometimes referred to ...

devices. The developer suggested that they used the checkm8 exploit which was published back in 2019.

iPhone

In 2008, Linux kernel 2.6 was ported to the

iPhone 3G The iPhone 3G (also known as iPhone 2) is a smartphone that was designed and marketed by Apple Inc.; it is the second generation of iPhone, successor to the original iPhone, and was introduced on June 9, 2008, at the WWDC 2008 at the Moscon ...

iPhone (1st generation) The iPhone (retrospectively referred to unofficially as the iPhone 2G, iPhone 1 or original iPhone) is the first iPhone model and the first smartphone designed and marketed by Apple Inc. After years of rumors and speculation, it was official ...

, and

iPod Touch (1st generation) The first-generation iPod Touch, (colloquially known as the iPod Touch 1G, iPod Touch 1, or original iPod Touch) is a multi-touch mobile device designed and marketed by Apple Inc. with a touchscreen-based user interface. The first device of t ...

using OpeniBoot. Corellium's Project Sandcastle made it possible to run Android on an

iPhone 7 The iPhone 7 and iPhone 7 Plus are smartphones that were designed, developed, and marketed by Apple Inc. They are the tenth generation of the iPhone. They were announced on September 7, 2016, at the Bill Graham Civic Auditorium in San Fran ...

/7+ or an

iPod Touch (7th generation) The seventh generation iPod Touch (marketed as the iPod touch, colloquially known as the iPod touch (2019) or iPod touch 7) is a mobile device designed and marketed by Apple Inc. with a touchscreen-based user interface. It is the successor t ...

using the checkm8 exploit.

iPod

iPodLinux is a Linux distribution created specifically to run on Apple's

iPod The iPod is a discontinued series of portable media players and multi-purpose mobile devices designed and marketed by Apple Inc. The first version was released on October 23, 2001, about months after the Macintosh version of iTunes ...

Mac

Motorola 68k Macs

Linux can be dual-booted on Macs that use

Motorola 680x0 The Motorola 68000 series (also known as 680x0, m68000, m68k, or 68k) is a family of 32-bit complex instruction set computer (CISC) microprocessors. During the 1980s and early 1990s, they were popular in personal computers and workstations and w ...

processors (only 68020 and higher, and only non-"EC" processor variants since an MMU is required). The ''Linux/mac68k'' community project provides resources to do so, and an m68k community port of the

Debian Debian (), also known as Debian GNU/Linux, is a Linux distribution composed of free and open-source software, developed by the community-supported Debian Project, which was established by Ian Murdock on August 16, 1993. The first version of D ...

Linux distribution is also available.

PowerPC Macs

PowerPC PowerPC (with the backronym Performance Optimization With Enhanced RISC – Performance Computing, sometimes abbreviated as PPC) is a reduced instruction set computer (RISC) instruction set architecture (ISA) created by the 1991 Apple Inc., App ...

Macs can run Linux through both

emulation Emulation may refer to: *Emulation (computing), imitation of behavior of a computer or other electronic system with the help of another type of system :*Video game console emulator, software which emulates video game consoles *Gaussian process em ...

and

dual-booting Multi-booting is the act of installing multiple operating systems on a single computer, and being able to choose which one to boot. The term dual-booting refers to the common configuration of specifically two operating systems. Multi-booting may ...

("bare metal"). The most popular PowerPC emulation tools for Mac OS/Mac OS X are Microsoft's

Virtual PC Windows Virtual PC (successor to Microsoft Virtual PC 2007, Microsoft Virtual PC 2004, and Connectix Virtual PC) is a virtualization program for Microsoft Windows. In July 2006, Microsoft released the Windows version free of charge. In August ...

, and the open-source

QEMU QEMU is a free and open-source emulator (Quick EMUlator). It emulates the machine's processor through dynamic binary translation and provides a set of different hardware and device models for the machine, enabling it to run a variety of guest ...

. Linux dual-booting is achieved by partitioning the

boot drive In computing, booting is the process of starting a computer as initiated via hardware such as a button or by a software command. After it is switched on, a computer's central processing unit (CPU) has no software in its main memory, so so ...

, installing the

Yaboot Yaboot (yet another boot loader) is a bootloader for PowerPC-based hardware running Linux. History In 2009, maintenance by Paul Nasrat was handed over to Tony Breeds. Hardware support Support includes the New World ROM Macintosh and IBM RS/60 ...

bootloader onto the Linux partition, and selecting that Linux partition as the Startup Disk. This results in users being prompted to select whether they want to boot into Mac OS or Linux when the machine starts. By 2008, a number of major Linux distributions had official versions compatible with Mac PowerPC processors, including: * Gentoo * Debian (until Debian 8) *

Ubuntu Ubuntu ( ) is a Linux distribution based on Debian and composed mostly of free and open-source software. Ubuntu is officially released in three editions: ''Desktop'', ''Server'', and ''Core'' for Internet of things devices and robots. All the ...

(until Ubuntu 16.10) *

Fedora A fedora () is a hat with a soft brim and indented crown.Kilgour, Ruth Edwards (1958). ''A Pageant of Hats Ancient and Modern''. R. M. McBride Company. It is typically creased lengthwise down the crown and "pinched" near the front on both sides ...

(until Fedora 17 for G3 and G4 processors, and Fedora 28 for G5) *

Yellow Dog Linux Yellow Dog Linux (YDL) is a discontinued free and open-source operating system for high-performance computing on multi-core processor computer architectures, focusing on GPU systems and computers using the POWER7 processor. The original develope ...

(discontinued in 2009) All of the above PowerPC ports have since been discontinued, except for Gentoo.

Intel Macs

Macs with Intel processors can run Linux through

virtualization In computing, virtualization or virtualisation (sometimes abbreviated v12n, a numeronym) is the act of creating a virtual (rather than actual) version of something at the same abstraction level, including virtual computer hardware platforms, stor ...

or through dual-booting. Common virtualization tools for Intel Macs include

VMware Fusion VMware Fusion is a software hypervisor developed by VMware for Mac computers. VMware Fusion allows Macs with Intel or the Apple M series of chips to run virtual machines with guest operating systems, such as Microsoft Windows, Linux, or macOS, ...

, Parallels Desktop, and

VirtualBox Oracle VM VirtualBox (formerly Sun VirtualBox, Sun xVM VirtualBox and Innotek VirtualBox) is a type-2 hypervisor for x86 virtualization developed by Oracle Corporation. VirtualBox was originally created by Innotek GmbH, which was acquired by ...

. In 2010, Whitson Gordon from Lifehacker noted that Apple has streamlined the process of dual booting Windows on Macs, but not for Linux.

rEFIt Refitting or refit of boats and marine vessels includes repairing, fixing, restoring, renewing, mending, and renovating an old vessel. Refitting has become one of the most important activities inside a shipyard. It offers a variety of services for ...

made it possible to dual boot Linux.

Apple silicon Macs

The

Asahi Linux Asahi Linux is a porting project to develop support for Linux on Apple devices, Linux on Apple hardware, specifically Apple silicon-powered Macintosh , Macs, allowing them to run alternative operating systems in addition to macOS. The software d ...

project is porting Linux to the M1 (and up) based

SoCs SOCS (suppressor of cytokine signaling proteins) refers to a family of genes involved in inhibiting the JAK-STAT signaling pathway. Genes * CISH * SOCS1 * SOCS2 * SOCS3 * SOCS4 * SOCS5 * SOCS6 * SOCS7 Suppressor of cytokine signaling 7 is a pro ...

. Asahi Linux is currently available as an incomplete preview.

References

External links

* {{Linux-stub Apple Inc. Linux kernel