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ARM64 Linux Workstation

jasoneckert.github.io

351–360 of 493 posts

Re: ARM64 Linux Workstation

#351
post #287

Earlier quoted context omitted.

From your link, what's missing for the OP is: Thunderbolt, DP Alt Mode, Video Decoder/Encoder, SEP, Neural Engine, internal Speaker Thunderbolt seems like the main missing feature. It's easy to see how someone could live a fulfilling life without running into the lack of any of those features. E.g. is there even anything on the Linux desktop that could take advantage of the Neural Engine or Secure Enclave?

Lack of HW video support will ruin battery life if you do conference calls or watch YouTube. It’s surprisingly important.

[deleted]

Re: ARM64 Linux Workstation

#352

I cannot wait for Linux to be fully usable on my Apple Silicon MBP. That is going to be such a killer environment to develop on. Crazy fast hardware, great high refresh screen, insane battery life, fantastic touchpad, gestures and keyboard. There is the potential that Windows games could run on it with some combination of x86 translation and Proton. Using MacOS on it feels like I have a ferrari with square wheels. Wa…

> Using MacOS on it feels like I have a ferrari with square wheels.

Indeed macOS is the weakest part when working on Apple Silicon.

Sure it’s quite pretty but it stumbles over itself with terrible quality of life features. macOS looks modern but feels around ten years behind other desktops now.

Apple love to talk about how professionals and power users can get so much work done with the amazing Apple Silicon but ignore the fact window management is garbage. The UI still frequently stutters/judders when just resizing a window. There is no true virtual desktop management. Etc.

I do love macOS but Windows and Linux desktop environments are evolving much faster with excellent quality of life and productivity improvements that macOS badly needs but Apple ignore or worse over engineer other “solutions” such as Stage Manager.

Honestly who at Apple signed off on Stage Manager before basic window snapping?!

Does nobody at Apple have an ultrawide monitor? macOS is painful to work with on anything not 16:9 (or :10).

Re: ARM64 Linux Workstation

#353
post #244

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’ve grown to hate using a mouse, and love the MacBook trackpad. Having your hands so close to both keyboard and trackpad means less travel time between.

That's why I like trackpoint. Mouse without as much as moving your fingers from the home row.

I like the idea behind trackpoint, but I just can't get used to it. Any tips?

Re: ARM64 Linux Workstation

#355

I cannot wait for Linux to be fully usable on my Apple Silicon MBP. That is going to be such a killer environment to develop on. Crazy fast hardware, great high refresh screen, insane battery life, fantastic touchpad, gestures and keyboard. There is the potential that Windows games could run on it with some combination of x86 translation and Proton. Using MacOS on it feels like I have a ferrari with square wheels. Wa…

> not happening for new titles

Resident Evil Village, Baldur's Gate 3.

> and never happening for old titles

World of Warcraft.

Re: ARM64 Linux Workstation

#356
post #343

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you have it backwards. The lower latency kernels are great for desktops (and the default for desktop distros typically). They sacrifice raw power for lower latency. So my compiles take a bit longer as the kernel will switch tasks more often, but keypresses will be captured with reduced latency from my perspective. I have tested this, the stock arch kernel has considerable more latency on inputs.

"Lower latency" usually means lower peak, not average. E.g. <5 99% of the time and 25 1% of the time is "high" but much better for desktops than <15 100% of the time (made up numbers). So you usually avoid low latency or real time kernels unless you need the <15 guarantee.

I think we're talking about latency in incorrect terms, I'm referring to polling frequency of my task queue to handle interrupts, which is configured as an increase in the polling rate of the scheduled workloads inside linux with the following keys:

    CONFIG_HZ_100   # Typical for server workloads
    CONFIG_HZ_250   # For servers that need to switch tasks more often (think: overprovisioned cloud providers) 
    CONFIG_HZ_300   # For Media servers/workstations, typically
    CONFIG_HZ_1000  # For desktops, typicall.
The documentation suggests for “workstation/desktop” operations the timer should be set to 1000MHz.

Why does it recommend this? Because the higher the polling rate the quicker it will see inputs from human interface devices like mice and keyboards and respond to them.

A higher tickrate here will mean more interrupts (meaning lower throughput but a lower latency to interrupts). If you're talking about process latency of non-interrupted processes then a lower value is prefered because you don't really want your program to wait around for more CPU time while linux polls all of its buffers and tries to schedule other tasks.

You can easily see what is configured by asking the kernel for its configuration param: `zcat /proc/config.gz | grep -E '^CONFIG_HZ'`

Re: ARM64 Linux Workstation

#357
post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not trying to invalidate your specific use case, but in general, there's not really any practical difference between ARM64 and x86 for desktop use. ARM is generally perceived as being more power efficient, but the latest x86 mobile processors from AMD (and probably also Intel) are very efficient. The Apple M series does have very tightly coupled RAM and onboard ML & video encode accelerators, but when it comes to…

btw. my m1 mac barely goes over 40 w TOTAL power (whole machine) heck watching prime video my total power is at ~10w total power. trust me no matter which ryzen/intel processer you will never be as low as 10w total power. I'm pretty sure the biggest intel/amd desktopn cpu is faster than a m1 pro/ultra, m2 pro/ultra but there is no amd64 processer with the same efficiency than the m1/m2 macs.

I can get under 8W playing Morrowind on the Steam Deck. The CPU and GPU use less than 2W while playing.

Re: ARM64 Linux Workstation

#358

> Asahi is a Linux distribution that can run natively on Apple Silicon-based Macs due to some slick reverse engineering provided by members of the open source community. Moreover, running Asahi is perfectly legal because Apple formally allows booting non-macOS operating systems on their Apple Silicon platform. Umm how would it ever be not legal? Even if Apple doesn't formally allow it, you're free too so with your ow…

The DMCA made it illegal to circumvent software locks.

That doesn't sound right. Hasn't this been overruled a couple years ago?

Re: ARM64 Linux Workstation

#360

I cannot wait for Linux to be fully usable on my Apple Silicon MBP. That is going to be such a killer environment to develop on. Crazy fast hardware, great high refresh screen, insane battery life, fantastic touchpad, gestures and keyboard. There is the potential that Windows games could run on it with some combination of x86 translation and Proton. Using MacOS on it feels like I have a ferrari with square wheels. Wa…

>Using MacOS on it feels like I have a ferrari with square wheels.

Probably they care more about iOS since iPhone is their money maker. They might release iOS on MacBooks, too.

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