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We rebuilt the Linux MicroVM stack on Apple Silicon

encore.dev

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Re: We rebuilt the Linux MicroVM stack on Apple Silicon

#34

Post by hibbelig »

dolmen wrote: post #14

What an awful blog renderer that, in Firefox, works when scrolling with the trackpad, but doesn't work when using keyboard arrow keys or pageUp/down: I get blank pages when scrolling with the keyboard beyond the initial viewport.

Oh yes. I discovered that there are two scrollbars. By clicking somewhere in the blog text, you activate the inner one and then scrolling with the keyboard works.

Re: We rebuilt the Linux MicroVM stack on Apple Silicon

#35

Post by esseph »

rob_c wrote: post #7
kombine wrote: post #3

> most engineers at Encore develop on a Mac They are solving the wrong problem.

No, they're realists. Plus show me an off the shelf solution to MDM that exists in the Linux space? (Not too mention an easy to buy consumer devices which supports suspend/resume correctly in 2026, not even Windows can do that any more) Apple is crap and evil about many things, but at least here they know their paying audience...

> MDM Linux

Jumpcloud, I've used it across Windows / Mac / Linux end user desktops and laptop fleets.

https://jumpcloud.com/lp/cross-os-device-management-fava-bea...

Re: We rebuilt the Linux MicroVM stack on Apple Silicon

#36

Post by dofm »

ErroneousBosh wrote: post #13
mhast wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One case where Apple can be very useful is if you're traveling a lot for work. Wherever you are you can probably find a local store that sells and services Macbooks. So if your machine is damaged during a trip you can get it fixed, or buy a replacement on the spot, and at least get through the work you are there to do. For small-ish companies that can be a very useful feature.

Why wouldn't you do that with any other platform? Buy any laptop, stick Linux on it, get working. Buy a cheap shitty Chromebook, ssh to your dev platform, give it to some school child who doesn't have a laptop when you get your real one back. You don't need to be locked into Apple's ecosystem for that.

> Buy any laptop, stick Linux on it, get working.

Except it's still a slightly different challenge each time to "get it working", each different PC. A Mac is a Mac is a Mac, more or less.

I have a nice Framework laptop on my desk running Kubuntu alongside my Macs. Every now and then I check in, make sure I could switch to it if I needed to, test all my important tasks, plug it in so the stupid mainboard battery does not go flat.

And then I go back to my Mac, because I prefer it and even Tahoe isn't painful enough to switch. KDE is fine and I'll use it if circumstances dictate I have to.

I think critics misunderstand the extent to which Mac-using devs are "locked into Apple's ecosystem". Unless you're writing iOS apps, you aren't. You perhaps even exist in a more heterogeneous world (Mac and Linux, Mac and Windows, all three) than a Linux-using web dev does.

Essentially everything I run is not at all "locked in". I would miss the ease of keychain, handoff and Apple Notes (which I like despite its flaws). And then I'd deal with it. I'd probably carry on using an iPhone (I am very ambivalent about the iPad)

FWIW my "Apple ecosystem" is why I have been able to teach myself open weights/open source AI at a pragmatic level, because my secondhand off-the-shelf kit does an acceptable job of it without me yet having to specify a PC I don't have enough use for as a non-gamer. A lot of people have solved a lot of general problems that I don't have to tinker with too early.

This isn't a fanboy thing (I would consider myself a qualified critic). Both KDE and GNOME have some nice things. It's just a question of energies.

IIRC it was Adrian Cockcroft who said he used Sun at work, and a Mac at home, because performance tuning was his day job and he didn't want to do it at home; I think this resonates.

It has been my own choice for 28 years, largely: Mac plus linux.

Re: We rebuilt the Linux MicroVM stack on Apple Silicon

#37

Post by bojangleslover »

andout_ wrote: post #19

Hey everyone - author of the article here! Happy to take questions.

This is unbelievably cool. How did you use AI for this? Absolutely not suggesting there's anything wrong with it - quite the contrary. I find AI is most useful for these lower level driver type projects such as yours that one knows are possible but that would be very onerous for a human to implement. For example the guy who re-wrote a driver from scratch for his HP Printer the other day.

Do you think you could have done this without AI? I've been migrating people off of AWS recently and it was absolutely made possible (or at least expedient) by AI.

Re: We rebuilt the Linux MicroVM stack on Apple Silicon

#40

Post by TN1ck »

UqWBcuFx6NV4r wrote: post #12
kombine wrote: post #3

> most engineers at Encore develop on a Mac They are solving the wrong problem.

Hacker News is so utterly detached from reality at times, and comments like these really drive that home.

Thought I was tripping, someone made the same point today in another thread: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49381236
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