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Asahi Linux for M1 Macs Progress October-November 2021

asahilinux.org

11–20 of 218 posts

Re: Asahi Linux for M1 Macs Progress October-November 2021

#11
post #7

Alder Lake, Intel's flagship dekstop class CPU, is only 10-15% faster than the M1 Pro/M1 Max in CPU performance but it requires an insane amount of cooling and the power consumption is frankly ridiculous. Seems like Apple Silion will be 5 years ahead of the competition - similar to how long it took for others to catch up with the first iPhone.

Apple will only be ahead of the competition for as long as they can buy out the whole TSMC's latest and greatest node. After that day, it won't be.

Re: Asahi Linux for M1 Macs Progress October-November 2021

#12
post #3

The progress on all fronts is really impressive, and even the write-up is top notch. The pace at which the team advances is incredible, as it seems Apple support is minimal... Maybe the core tech users is negligible to Apple, but it shouldn't be: Winning over the power users generally precedes larger adoption and I wouldn't be surprised if Macs continue to gain market share in the years to come with their CPU lead.

power users come and go. general population don't need macs, a $ 200 smartphone is more than enough for the majority who would spend 1.500 euros (in Europe) for a laptop that has a limit of 16gb of RAM? only people with lots of money to waste.

I suspect you'll get downvoted into oblivion for your PoV by the pro-Apple HN crowd and even though I do agree with you to some extent on the the high pricing (a basic M1 MacBook is half my NET take home pay as a dev in Europe, and double my rent costs) but value is subjective to most people, and for most, buying into the Apple ecosystem the value the ecosystem brings to their lives is justified, otherwise they wouldn't buy it in the first place (it's not a Prada handbag). Especially for high income earners from wealthy western countries, the cost of ownership can be easily justified for the convenience it brings.

But if you're not currently into the Apple ecosystem, and consider going all-in, the total costs of ownership are indeed a bit eye-watering for those without six figure jobs, if you disregard or don't need or don't care about the whole ecosystem and just look at the specs to price ratio of the laptop on it's own (I got a 13 inch QHD thin and light laptop with an 8 core Ryzen 5800U and 16GB RAM and 1TB NVME removable!!! SSD and 8 hour battery life for 750 Euros, where I can dual-boot Linux and Windows and run absolutely any (non-Apple)SW I could ever need).

So, since I don't need any component of the Apple ecosystem, I can't justify spending double the money to get more limited functionality in return, though I am tech savvy enough to use Windows and Linux and create for myself a similar (and subjectively better) ecosystem to Apple's for cheap/free using various OSS and proprietary SW.

However, lost of doctors I visit and most high-earners I know seem to own Macs and iPhones, so for them most likely it's worth the extra penny for the magic of the ecosystem where everything Justworks(TM) and they don't have to spend extra time learning and fiddling with tech related stuff they don't care for.

And TBH, if I didn't have to worry about money, and didn't have a career and hobbies that required the need to run X86_X64 binaries and Android apps, then I'd probably go all-in on the latest Apple MacBook Pros with extra-ports plus iPhone ecosystem for the convenience and time savings.

Re: Asahi Linux for M1 Macs Progress October-November 2021

#13
post #3

The progress on all fronts is really impressive, and even the write-up is top notch. The pace at which the team advances is incredible, as it seems Apple support is minimal... Maybe the core tech users is negligible to Apple, but it shouldn't be: Winning over the power users generally precedes larger adoption and I wouldn't be surprised if Macs continue to gain market share in the years to come with their CPU lead.

> and even the write-up is top notch

I enjoyed the pun, even more so now that "support" for the hardware notch on the screen is also mentioned in the article.

Re: Asahi Linux for M1 Macs Progress October-November 2021

#14
post #3

The progress on all fronts is really impressive, and even the write-up is top notch. The pace at which the team advances is incredible, as it seems Apple support is minimal... Maybe the core tech users is negligible to Apple, but it shouldn't be: Winning over the power users generally precedes larger adoption and I wouldn't be surprised if Macs continue to gain market share in the years to come with their CPU lead.

power users come and go. general population don't need macs, a $ 200 smartphone is more than enough for the majority who would spend 1.500 euros (in Europe) for a laptop that has a limit of 16gb of RAM? only people with lots of money to waste.

A $200 smartphone isn’t enough for most people. They’ve been sold that ideology but all I see is people struggling with them constantly assuming that’s the best of the future in their hands.

Re: Asahi Linux for M1 Macs Progress October-November 2021

#15
post #3

The progress on all fronts is really impressive, and even the write-up is top notch. The pace at which the team advances is incredible, as it seems Apple support is minimal... Maybe the core tech users is negligible to Apple, but it shouldn't be: Winning over the power users generally precedes larger adoption and I wouldn't be surprised if Macs continue to gain market share in the years to come with their CPU lead.

I do wonder what Apple will do if this gets any sort of traction. I fear they only allow disabling of secure boot/other OS installs due to fear of regulation. Apple wants you running their OS and in their walled garden.

I don't know, when they were on Intel they went out of their way to support dual-booting with Windows.

Maybe if 20XX really does become year the "year of desktop on linux" they'll start to get worried? But for now it seems like an easy calculation that it only benefits Apple to allow easy dual-booting to Linux -- it makes their hardware more appealing to the hard-core geek crowd (w/ disproprtionate mind-share and knock-on effects), while still having essentially zero chance of Linux cannibalizing your every-day user market.

Re: Asahi Linux for M1 Macs Progress October-November 2021

#16
post #3

The progress on all fronts is really impressive, and even the write-up is top notch. The pace at which the team advances is incredible, as it seems Apple support is minimal... Maybe the core tech users is negligible to Apple, but it shouldn't be: Winning over the power users generally precedes larger adoption and I wouldn't be surprised if Macs continue to gain market share in the years to come with their CPU lead.

I do wonder what Apple will do if this gets any sort of traction. I fear they only allow disabling of secure boot/other OS installs due to fear of regulation. Apple wants you running their OS and in their walled garden.

Apple is at no risk of having Linux stealing their users away. Unless someone makes a business of reselling Macbooks with linux being preinstalled and in some magical way that business becomes immensely successful.

Re: Asahi Linux for M1 Macs Progress October-November 2021

#17
post #7

Alder Lake, Intel's flagship dekstop class CPU, is only 10-15% faster than the M1 Pro/M1 Max in CPU performance but it requires an insane amount of cooling and the power consumption is frankly ridiculous. Seems like Apple Silion will be 5 years ahead of the competition - similar to how long it took for others to catch up with the first iPhone.

Apple will only be ahead of the competition for as long as they can buy out the whole TSMC's latest and greatest node. After that day, it won't be.

There is good reason to believe that’s not the case. Oh having access to TSMC 5nm to other designs would definitely help reduce the gap, but we can see from like-for-like node implementations of previous A series chips and other ARM designs that Apple has a significant lead in architecture too. M1 has some really impressive new architectural features of its own that it’s hard to imagine their competitors being able to replicate any time soon.

Re: Asahi Linux for M1 Macs Progress October-November 2021

#18
post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I do wonder what Apple will do if this gets any sort of traction. I fear they only allow disabling of secure boot/other OS installs due to fear of regulation. Apple wants you running their OS and in their walled garden.

Apple is at no risk of having Linux stealing their users away. Unless someone makes a business of reselling Macbooks with linux being preinstalled and in some magical way that business becomes immensely successful.

In which case this will generate even more demand for Macbooks, which shouldn't be an issue for Apple.

Re: Asahi Linux for M1 Macs Progress October-November 2021

#19
post #3

The progress on all fronts is really impressive, and even the write-up is top notch. The pace at which the team advances is incredible, as it seems Apple support is minimal... Maybe the core tech users is negligible to Apple, but it shouldn't be: Winning over the power users generally precedes larger adoption and I wouldn't be surprised if Macs continue to gain market share in the years to come with their CPU lead.

power users come and go. general population don't need macs, a $ 200 smartphone is more than enough for the majority who would spend 1.500 euros (in Europe) for a laptop that has a limit of 16gb of RAM? only people with lots of money to waste.

There's a new set of Apple silicon Macs that go all the way up to 64 GB of RAM, although you'll pay a premium for it.

Re: Asahi Linux for M1 Macs Progress October-November 2021

#20
I have been running Ubuntu on my 14 inch Mac for a little while now and it works great. This project here is also really exciting.

Also, Windows ARM with the recent updates also works well in the new base 14 inch. I've been using it daily, no issues.

I have nothing but praise and swiftly switching between 3 OSs sure is neat. This computer is sooo fast.

I can see myself using this Mac for many years ahead.

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