Debian GNU/Linux running bare metal on the Apple M1 with a mainline kernel
In this technical retrospective (2021), @nixcraft shares practical architectural lessons learned from running, scaling, or migrating production software under lean constraints.
Core Principles for Independent Builders:
Defaulting to simpler architectures (such as monolithic frameworks, SQLite, or managed VPS) prevents early engineering bankruptcy.
Evaluating true compute and egress costs reveals that high cloud bills can often be slashed by 80%+ through judicious re-platforming.
Code you write at 2 AM as a solo engineer must be easy to debug six months later without complex microservice dependencies.
Community Debate Themes:
HN engineers debated the tradeoffs between cloud convenience and raw server economics, database indexing strategies, and resisting premature architectural complexity.
CATEGORY Frugal Engineering →
HISTORICAL ERA Pandemic Bubble (2020–2022)
COMMUNITY SCORE ★ 327 points
TOTAL DISCUSSIONS 94 comments
Get back to me when you've got it running on a dead badger:
https://www.abyssapexzine.com/2021/04/dead-badger/
/humor, in case you were wondering.
(More seriously: this is great stuff, but it's on a desktop Mac Mini; I suspect getting it running on an iPad Pro might be just slightly harder ...)
Free work for the richest company in the world so that their overpriced locked in unrepairable computers can run an open source OS and divert revenue from competitors that natively support linux.
I don't believe I've seen work that advocates against itself harder than this. Competitors that actually care about linux support should be the ones worked towards, and the ones that should receive your money.
If you want to see Marcan's latest stream (just an hour ago): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3hPtyaUFfY8
And if you want to sponsor him: https://www.patreon.com/marcan/posts
Any expectations that Debian GNU/Linux would be faster on this device than Apple’s own optimized OS should be tempered with a dose of reality; that said, there must be a headless arm64/M1-optimized Darwin variant in-house that it would be curious to benchmark against.
An aside, this lady's accomplishments at her age make her someone I look up to, ngl