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Asahi Linux 7.1 Progress Report

asahilinux.org

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Re: Asahi Linux 7.1 Progress Report

#51

Post by Grombobulous »

sneak wrote: post #8

It is baffling to me that Apple, ostensibly a hardware company (that happens to be pursuing services revenue the way a crackhead pursues crack), ridiculously flush with cash, doesn’t throw 2 or 3 of their thousands of FTEs on this. The goodwill/brand marketing alone is worth their comp, and it will absolutely move units as well. Linux people LOVE laptops, and Apple makes the best laptops by a parsec. It seems like 10…

Food for thought: Apple’s services make more revenue than Macs and iPads combined, and they do so at a higher profit margin. There’s your answer.

I don’t agree that Apple makes the best laptops by a parsec. Not anymore, many alternatives are closing the gap. This is aided by the fact that Apple hasn’t touched the MacBook Pro chassis in 5 years, making it quite dated especially with the underutilized, oversized notch and the horrendous menu bar software implementation that plagues the notch as a real problem for me and something that doesn’t just “disappear into the background.” The software solution is to just disappear menu bar items that don’t fit, making them unusable.

Apple is still the gold standard, don’t get me wrong. But I’ve got my Framework 13 Pro preorder in, and the list of compromises compared to a Mac is very short. My existing Framework 13 is already close enough and the Pro appears to fix 100% of the gripes I have with my system.

CNC machined chassis? Check. Haptic trackpad? Check. Graphics performance? Better than the M5 (non-Pro). Battery life? 20 hours of video playback.

And I’ll be getting numerous advantages over a MacBook: cross-compatible modular hardware, upgradable RAM and storage, customizable I/O, low cost DIY repairs, 3:2 screen ratio ideal for coding.

But this is just one laptop. If you explore the windows laptop space, there are a lot of great machines these days. Windows is really the weakest part of the equation, and you can just get rid of that.

I’ve myself eyed the Zephyrus G14 or G16 as a gaming and general purpose system in a MacBook Pro-sized form factor. It’s refined, it feels premium, the OLED display is gorgeous. Apple’s best chips can’t touch the graphics performance of a dedicated Nvidia GPU, so long as a huge amount of VRAM isn’t a requirement for you.

There are also laptops in the Lenovo Yoga line that are extremely compelling against a MacBook Air.

Re: Asahi Linux 7.1 Progress Report

#52

Post by GTP »

toxik wrote: post #16
sneak wrote: post #8

It is baffling to me that Apple, ostensibly a hardware company (that happens to be pursuing services revenue the way a crackhead pursues crack), ridiculously flush with cash, doesn’t throw 2 or 3 of their thousands of FTEs on this. The goodwill/brand marketing alone is worth their comp, and it will absolutely move units as well. Linux people LOVE laptops, and Apple makes the best laptops by a parsec. It seems like 10…

Nobody gets promoted for building open-source software at corpos. It is allowed, at best, not condoned. So what manager is going to go for this? Let's dedicate our limited resources to gratuitous goodwill work. Carrer suicide, I expect. Unfortunately.

How would you fit Red Hat in this picture? I think the situation could be different, if it is about improving some software the company is using for its business. Not that this happens often, but I think the possibility to persuade managment that improving a piece of software crucial for the company's business is there.

Re: Asahi Linux 7.1 Progress Report

#53

Post by carlosjobim »

GTP wrote: post #44
carlosjobim wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But in this case it was Microsoft who forced him to upgrade, wasn't it?

Depends on the point of view, as it is Apple not supporting that MacBook anymore, and Microsoft could have a point in not supporting macOS versions that Apple doesn't want to support anymore. You could even argue that he forced the update on himself, since the web version still worked. The point remains that somehow without upgrading the hardware some software he uses everyday doesn't work anymore.

I would put it squarely on Microsoft in this case. They decided to make their software not function anymore. Why not let older Teams clients still function and communicate with the newer?

Apple still pushes updates and security updates to OS versions which are not the latest. So I don't see how they can be blamed much here.

Re: Asahi Linux 7.1 Progress Report

#54

Post by GTP »

rvz wrote: post #23
sneak wrote: post #8

It is baffling to me that Apple, ostensibly a hardware company (that happens to be pursuing services revenue the way a crackhead pursues crack), ridiculously flush with cash, doesn’t throw 2 or 3 of their thousands of FTEs on this. The goodwill/brand marketing alone is worth their comp, and it will absolutely move units as well. Linux people LOVE laptops, and Apple makes the best laptops by a parsec. It seems like 10…

> It is baffling to me that Apple, ostensibly a hardware company (that happens to be pursuing services revenue the way a crackhead pursues crack), ridiculously flush with cash, doesn’t throw 2 or 3 of their thousands of FTEs on this. Why should they when they have macOS already? > Linux people LOVE laptops, and Apple makes the best laptops by a parsec. It seems like 10x ROI would be a conservative estimate. How many…

> Why should they when they have macOS already?

Because Apple cuts support for old MacBooks eventually, even if the hardware still works perfectly. See also my other comment: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48745199

Re: Asahi Linux 7.1 Progress Report

#55

Post by GTP »

carlosjobim wrote: post #53
GTP wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Depends on the point of view, as it is Apple not supporting that MacBook anymore, and Microsoft could have a point in not supporting macOS versions that Apple doesn't want to support anymore. You could even argue that he forced the update on himself, since the web version still worked. The point remains that somehow without upgrading the hardware some software he uses everyday doesn't work anymore.

I would put it squarely on Microsoft in this case. They decided to make their software not function anymore. Why not let older Teams clients still function and communicate with the newer? Apple still pushes updates and security updates to OS versions which are not the latest. So I don't see how they can be blamed much here.

I'm not sure he's still receiving security updates, as the MacBook in question is from ~2015. But, if this is the case, then you would have a point.

Re: Asahi Linux 7.1 Progress Report

#56

Post by a1o »

eqvinox wrote: post #46

> The defacto industry standard for audio ICs is I²S, an I²C-based bus optimised for audio data. Nit: I²S has nothing to do with I²C. (Most I²S chips also have an I²C interface since I²S only carries raw audio data, no sideband like volume control or clock configuration. But that's a separate interface and can also be SPI rather than I²C. In fact, SPI is more closely related to I²S than I²C is.)

Thanks for this comment, it lead me to look into I2S and I learned something new!

Re: Asahi Linux 7.1 Progress Report

#57

Post by speed_spread »

jeroenhd wrote: post #17
sneak wrote: post #8

It is baffling to me that Apple, ostensibly a hardware company (that happens to be pursuing services revenue the way a crackhead pursues crack), ridiculously flush with cash, doesn’t throw 2 or 3 of their thousands of FTEs on this. The goodwill/brand marketing alone is worth their comp, and it will absolutely move units as well. Linux people LOVE laptops, and Apple makes the best laptops by a parsec. It seems like 10…

Apple is a digital services company that happens to sell hardware. Their big money maker is their app store, and no Linux user is ever going to buy apps from the app store. They still have the Darwin kernel open,but more and more of the open core is moving to closed components, a recipe for what Google started doing to Android. Now that they're no longer the hipster underdog, I don't think they care much about the br…

If there was a Linux Apple App Store, I would buy stuff from it. I already buy from Steam. OSS doesn't have the answer to everything. Boutique software has value that people are willing to pay for.

Re: Asahi Linux 7.1 Progress Report

#58

Post by carlosjobim »

GTP wrote: post #55
carlosjobim wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would put it squarely on Microsoft in this case. They decided to make their software not function anymore. Why not let older Teams clients still function and communicate with the newer? Apple still pushes updates and security updates to OS versions which are not the latest. So I don't see how they can be blamed much here.

I'm not sure he's still receiving security updates, as the MacBook in question is from ~2015. But, if this is the case, then you would have a point.

That's over 10 years of service. But if it's a Pro, then the latest OS officially supported is Monterey, which received its last update in 2024. So I would consider that very fair of Apple, even impressive.

Re: Asahi Linux 7.1 Progress Report

#59

Post by spockz »

Grombobulous wrote: post #51
sneak wrote: post #8

It is baffling to me that Apple, ostensibly a hardware company (that happens to be pursuing services revenue the way a crackhead pursues crack), ridiculously flush with cash, doesn’t throw 2 or 3 of their thousands of FTEs on this. The goodwill/brand marketing alone is worth their comp, and it will absolutely move units as well. Linux people LOVE laptops, and Apple makes the best laptops by a parsec. It seems like 10…

Food for thought: Apple’s services make more revenue than Macs and iPads combined, and they do so at a higher profit margin. There’s your answer. I don’t agree that Apple makes the best laptops by a parsec. Not anymore, many alternatives are closing the gap. This is aided by the fact that Apple hasn’t touched the MacBook Pro chassis in 5 years, making it quite dated especially with the underutilized, oversized notch…

I checked a 16” framework last week comparing to the 24/48GiB MBP. The ssd is significantly faster, the RAM is almost twice as fast, the CPU has more cores. The only benefit is having a dedicated gpu. At more or less the same price.

Admittedly, the screen ratio is better with the framework. But prefer the matte screen of the MacBook.

Re: Asahi Linux 7.1 Progress Report

#60

Post by GTP »

carlosjobim wrote: post #58
GTP wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not sure he's still receiving security updates, as the MacBook in question is from ~2015. But, if this is the case, then you would have a point.

That's over 10 years of service. But if it's a Pro, then the latest OS officially supported is Monterey, which received its last update in 2024. So I would consider that very fair of Apple, even impressive.

It is fair if you compare Apple with other manufacturers, but it is still unfair in absolute terms. The hardware still works, and the work they're doing to support other models would let macOS work on that laptop as well, as proven by tools that let you do the upgrade unofficially.
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