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Asahi Linux 7.1 Progress Report

asahilinux.org

211–220 of 258 posts

Re: Asahi Linux 7.1 Progress Report

#211

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No one buys Apple Silicon laptops to run Linux because they can barely run Linux. But if they could, Apple would sweep the market for Linux laptops. Macbook hardware completely outclasses even the high end options.

I don't think they would. What market would that exactly be targeting? Devs, who are overwhelmingly just provided macbooks via their employer? They'll still run macOS because IT requires them to. Linux Gamers? The arm story for proton still needs work (hopefully the steam frame will help). Nvidia+Microsoft are working on it with that new surface ultra, but verdicts out on whether that will boot Linux or not as its sp…

Developers, of course.

Outside of the US, macOS is not that popular. Where I grew up, no school had Macs on their computer labs, but they did have Linux. You could have lived your entire life near computers and never been in contact with macOS. I had. The first time I saw macOS was in college in a digital media lab.

I like macOS, but I do prefer Linux.

I can't ask for a Framework, System76 or Tuxedo laptop at work because they don't sell them directly and locally (within my country). They don't want to risk importing these machines, sending them back if they're broken, and not having a local replacement. But since the iPod, Apple has had a meaningful global presence, so of course, I can ask for a Macbook.

For a while we could pick Intel Macbooks and install Linux, and maybe I live in a tiny bubble, but many people I know did just that.

Re: Asahi Linux 7.1 Progress Report

#213
post #6

I’m in absolute awe that a handful of motivated people can crack these problems

This project is impressive but I wonder if those efforts would not have been better spent on an open platform that actually respects its users and that is less likely to kill the whole project on a whim. It seems like building a house on someone's else property.

Re: Asahi Linux 7.1 Progress Report

#214

It's nice to see M3 support progressing well. They first mentioned that efforts to add M3 support were starting in February: > For quite some time, m1n1 has had basic support for the M3 series machines. What has been missing are Devicetrees for each machine, as well as patches to our Linux kernel drivers to support M3-specific hardware quirks and changes from M2. Our intent was always to get to fleshing this out once…

As someone rocking a M3 Pro, I personally don't expect to be able to try Asahi out until mid/late next year on my MBP, but I am looking forward to it nonetheless!

Re: Asahi Linux 7.1 Progress Report

#215
post #6

I’m in absolute awe that a handful of motivated people can crack these problems

This project is impressive but I wonder if those efforts would not have been better spent on an open platform that actually respects its users and that is less likely to kill the whole project on a whim. It seems like building a house on someone's else property.

Almost no hardware is open anyway. Plus all of the hard problems have been solved on typical pc hardware.

Re: Asahi Linux 7.1 Progress Report

#216
post #6

I’m in absolute awe that a handful of motivated people can crack these problems

This project is impressive but I wonder if those efforts would not have been better spent on an open platform that actually respects its users and that is less likely to kill the whole project on a whim. It seems like building a house on someone's else property.

I use MacBook anyway, this project brings open platform to my MacBook, I'm happy with that. I guess many people have the same situation like me. I don't use other laptop because their hardwares aren't comparable to MacBook.

Re: Asahi Linux 7.1 Progress Report

#217
post #156

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As far as I can tell, Framework’s claimed battery numbers require Windows to achieve, which is more than enough reason for many to not consider the FW 13 Pro as an option. If it can’t run Linux without sacrifice compared to Windows there’s no point. Standby time is likely also a major issue, unless Intel suddenly reversed course and decided to support proper sleep again.

Is there a laptop with super-awesome battery life on Linux? I'll buy one if so. I'm not sure it's fair to ding Framework specifically for not being able to make Linux battery life as good as Windows. Is that actually something they could reasonably fix?

There are ones with decent to good battery life. There are none with awesome battery life and abso-fucking-lutely none for super-awesome battery life.

That was one thing I never realized I needed until I had it. Having my laptop basically be optional to charge 99% of the time I use it changed my life. I can take it out with 20% left having not charged it in a week and still get a workday out of it. wtaf

Re: Asahi Linux 7.1 Progress Report

#218
post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> Apple is a digital services company that happens to sell hardware. That's just your made up opinion, completely not supported by their financials.

I think Apple sees the writing on the wall with hardware feature increases and hardware longevity.

Sell a phone that is good for a few years, or get sell a phone and also get monthly 100% margin payments indefinitely? Given that phones are going to be useful for longer and longer periods, the replacement/upgrade cycle is definitely going to slow. They’re running out of compelling reasons you MUST have the new phone, falling back on dumb shit like making it stupid colors so you can wield it like a $1400 status symbol. It already does all of the camera and video stuff any normal person could ever ask for, which was previously the main way of differentiating smartphones.

I wouldn’t be surprised if the internal mandate/goal is equal services profit to hardware profit. It is a LOT cheaper and easier to vibe code new services than to design and build new features into the best phone in the world that has already been aggressively iterated on for two decades. Additionally, new signups are all profit as the marginal cost of additional subscribers is zero. Apple’s future is in subscriptions, that’s clear.

Are they there now? No. Does almost every single product decision they have made in the last 10 years point to this future? Absolutely. This “sign up pretty please” user-hostile bullshit (which now everywhere in all products, or nudged toward by all products) is the most un-Apple thing that I have ever witnessed in my 30+ years spent watching hawk-eyed at every single product, accessory, product variation, and service they have ever released.

I sometimes wonder if Jobs would have reached the same conclusion and pulled the company into the same direction in service of profitmaxxing vs spending the company’s time and resources producing and selling things that are insanely great. Can you name one Apple service that is insanely great? (iMessage’s uptime comes to mind, but that doesn’t directly generate subscriptions, and certainly doesn’t generate a single shred of the unalloyed glee in customers that was the characteristic phenomenon that originally put Apple on the map for decades.)

(Unrelated to this topic, the closest I get to that feeling anymore mostly gets caused by DJI and Anker.)

Re: Asahi Linux 7.1 Progress Report

#219
post #54
post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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

That’s not a sales tactic. Apple supports their old hardware with updates longer than anyone in the industry. The recent ones have been due to the architecture transition, maintaining BC with amd64 has significant costs.

Re: Asahi Linux 7.1 Progress Report

#220
post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can’t see that being a bad thing considering that the kernel is mandatory software in the Linux world. You would want to have high standards for what gets added.

"Disgusting" Linux sched_ext Source Code Restructured Following Complaint By Linus Torvalds - Phoronix https://www.phoronix.com/news/Linux-Sched-Ext-Restructured

I mean, surely there is a more defensive way to communicate his preference, and the word disgusting is a bit unpolite. But still, does this really count as toxic behaviour?
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