Haiku’s ARM port boots bare metal on M1 Macs via m1n1+u-boot+UEFI from USB, reaching a desktop with all 8 cores functional.
Key Takeaways
Boots bare metal, not in a VM; m1n1 and u-boot handle Apple-specific boot stages, enabling standard UEFI USB boot.
All 8 M1 cores are recognized and functional at this stage.
USB is currently broken, limiting practical usability for now.
This is an early milestone for both the Haiku ARM port broadly and the M1 Mac target specifically.
Hacker News Comment Review
Commenters frame this as historically resonant: Haiku is a BeOS clone, and BeOS had deep Apple connections, making M1 native boot feel like an alternate-timeline moment.
There is shared appreciation for the reverse-engineering effort required given Apple’s sparse public documentation, echoing lessons from the Asahi Linux project.
@alterom: notes the port helps ensure Haiku’s long-term survival and calls it incentive to buy M1 hardware.
Notable Comments
@linguae: highlights Apple’s documentation gap as the core obstacle, citing Asahi Linux’s “tremendous effort” as a benchmark for what bare-metal alternative OS work costs.
