> However, Apple is unique in putting emphasis in keeping hardware interfaces compatible across SoC generations – the UART hardware in the M1 dates back to the original iPhone! This means we are in a unique position to be able to try writing drivers that will not only work for the M1, but may work –unchanged– on future chips as well. This is a very exciting opportunity in the ARM64 world. We won’t know until Apple releases the M1X/M2, but if we succeed in making enough drivers forwards-compatible to boot Linux on newer chips, that will make things like booting older distro installers possible on newer hardware. That is something people take for granted on x86, but it’s usually impossible in the embedded world – and we hope we can change that on these machines.
