Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Initial M1 support merged into Linux SoC tree

git.kernel.org

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

11–20 of 337 posts

Re: Initial M1 support merged into Linux SoC tree

#11

Post by tumblewit »

pfranz wrote: post #8
tumblewit wrote: post #3

Macbooks make one of the good linux laptops (the ones that have support like older retina macbooks). And the truth is Macbook Air is one of the handful ARM consumer laptops you can easily buy right now even though ARM is the superior everyday computing platform to x86. What a weird time in personal computers.

Is that true generally? I know my old (2008?) Macbook Pro supported Linux well, but I think that took a few years to get things like good trackpad, bluetooth, and wifi support. I remember getting a new one and it couldn't boot into the installer for most distros and still had driver issues (that might have been resolved). Macs seem to support Linux a few years after release. They were usually a great choice when mode…

Linux support on consumer hardware depends on community contribution generally. So it will take time generally to have good support. However in 2021 it’s no longer necessary to buy a good laptop and struggle to put linux on it. There are some great linux options like the xps developer edition or system76 and i know thinkpads also have a lineup now of linux. These generally should have good linux drivers for hardware (though for certain oems it’s not necessarily the case the drivers will be open source). System76 is probably the go to linux laptop right now.

Re: Initial M1 support merged into Linux SoC tree

#13

Post by tumblewit »

paxys wrote: post #9
tumblewit wrote: post #3

Macbooks make one of the good linux laptops (the ones that have support like older retina macbooks). And the truth is Macbook Air is one of the handful ARM consumer laptops you can easily buy right now even though ARM is the superior everyday computing platform to x86. What a weird time in personal computers.

Old Macbooks make good linux laptops. This hasn't really been the case for a while now.

Yeah I guess I should have said old there. The touchbar macbooks are definitely not something that fits this case

Re: Initial M1 support merged into Linux SoC tree

#14

Post by valparaiso »

pfranz wrote: post #8
tumblewit wrote: post #3

Macbooks make one of the good linux laptops (the ones that have support like older retina macbooks). And the truth is Macbook Air is one of the handful ARM consumer laptops you can easily buy right now even though ARM is the superior everyday computing platform to x86. What a weird time in personal computers.

Is that true generally? I know my old (2008?) Macbook Pro supported Linux well, but I think that took a few years to get things like good trackpad, bluetooth, and wifi support. I remember getting a new one and it couldn't boot into the installer for most distros and still had driver issues (that might have been resolved). Macs seem to support Linux a few years after release. They were usually a great choice when mode…

Yes. Linux core maintainers wrote article on LWN several years ago why the love and use MacBooks.

Re: Initial M1 support merged into Linux SoC tree

#15

Post by tumblewit »

chubs wrote: post #6

Somewhat related: I'm super curious if M1's advantages would melt away if Intel simply fabbed their current designs on TSMC's 5nm process, to have a level playing field between Intel and Apple's chip designers.

There is still the problem of ARM being superior. You can’t put a “low power” x86 5nm chip in a phone right now and expect it to be on par with the iPhone.

edit: also don’t forget intels fabs are actually better than tsmc when nodes are the same

Re: Initial M1 support merged into Linux SoC tree

#16

Post by paxys »

tumblewit wrote: post #13
paxys wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Old Macbooks make good linux laptops. This hasn't really been the case for a while now.

Yeah I guess I should have said old there. The touchbar macbooks are definitely not something that fits this case

Things have been spotty since well before the touchbar. I doubt anyone is running Linux reliably on any Macbook built after like 2014. There are still open issues with keyboard, touchpad, display drivers, brightness, sleep, nvme and lots more.

Re: Initial M1 support merged into Linux SoC tree

#17

Post by peter_retief »

tumblewit wrote: post #7
peter_retief wrote: post #4

Is this Mac for Linux? I am not totally sure what this is about.

They (community) are adding linux boot to macs with m1 chip. It requires quite a bit of work since apple doesn’t provide any documentation to boot other operating systems let alone drivers and so it will require patches in the kernel to even get it to boot. Eventually (maybe 2-3 years down the road) we may have a very usable linux ARM laptop.

Ah thanks, so it is not an apple project, makes sense to me now.

Re: Initial M1 support merged into Linux SoC tree

#18

Post by monsieurbanana »

curiousgal wrote: post #12

Maybe I am being over cynical by isn't this a huge waste of time given that Apple can "pull the plug" at any time? They want to control everything that runs on their chips so why bother?

I think they've started taking steps to allow other OS more easily than before? Someone will tell me if I'm wrong or right, I don't remember the specifics.

Which makes it more unlikely that they will pull the plug. Of course, it's always a possibility.

Re: Initial M1 support merged into Linux SoC tree

#19

Post by xmodem »

curiousgal wrote: post #12

Maybe I am being over cynical by isn't this a huge waste of time given that Apple can "pull the plug" at any time? They want to control everything that runs on their chips so why bother?

Apple has publicly stated their intent to permit users to run other operating systems on Apple silicon, and has provided various mechanisms for them to do so in a first-class way (still supporting secure boot, for instance). Of course, they haven't gone as far as many of use would like - marcan has had to do a lot of reverse engineering of stuff they could have just released the docs for, and it's always possible they'll change their mind and reverse course.

But those of us who daily-drive macs but need to use Linux occasionally are very much rooting for this to be a going concern.

Re: Initial M1 support merged into Linux SoC tree

#20

Post by strange_things »

This is very anecdotal but every single laptop I have bought in the last 10 years (4) worked perfectly out-of-the box with either Linux Mint or Ubuntu (which are the same on the inside). I only vaguely remember once I had to change some conf file for my trackpad to work after a dist update but that was it.

Not sure why everyone in this thread is so hesitant about Linux on a laptop? It literally just works (tm) for me and I haven’t used windows for 10 years and will never have a personal Mac.

Post reply on HN