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Asahi Linux for M1 Macs Progress October-November 2021

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

#101

Post by simonh »

peoplefromibiza wrote: post #88
dijit wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The price seems to be comparable to premium lines of PC's. Dell XPS and HP Elitebooks often meet or exceed the price of comparable MacBooks.

> The price seems to be comparable to premium lines of PC's. How many times people said that the Air is the "entry level" "low budget" Mac? Which one is true? Is it a luxury product or an entry level one? I can quote many comments saying both things in the same thread. Anyway, no company pays Lenovo full price and their discount policies are far more aggressive than Apple's. There's a reason: Apple doesn't undersell,…

Why can’t a luxury product range have entry level models? Even Ferrari has cars ranging in price from $220k up to $1m. Search for “Ferrari entry-level” and you’ll get plenty of hits using that phrase for various Portofino, Spider and Roma configurations.

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

#102

Post by jhickok »

floatboth wrote: post #30
sharikous wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not only that. They have the knowhow, and a top-notch engineering team. The iPhone processor were developed over the course of 15 years and grew organically to become the M1. Even if you consider other mobile processors on par with Apple's (they are not) - it will take years before they can be adapted to PCs. And as latest Intel efforts show us processors that were not designed with efficiency as a key target fr…

Don't discount the other engineering teams. AMD is currently not too far behind (even ahead in a couple benchmarks) despite being on TSMC's previous node. It's all gonna be pretty close.

And Intel seems to be storming back, albeit with pretty incredible power draw. Either way consumers win.

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

#103

Post by specialist »

sys_64738 wrote: post #53
retskrad wrote: 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.

Performance per Watt only matters to Intel when they are leading. Otherwise they brute force to be "fastest". I think that the ARM in Macs is on a different trajectory than Intel. The battery life along in an ARM based Mac is second to none. That's more important to most folks, IMO.

> ...the ARM in Macs is on a different trajectory than Intel

Agreed. Yes and:

I'd like more analysis and punditry (predictions) comparing SoC offerings from Apple, Intel, AMD, etc.

Especially wrt Apple's anticipated consumer features and markets, like AR/VR, video chat, integrated Apple Pay, whatever.

For instance, I want to hear more about Apple Silicon's codecs. More about biometrics UX (Face ID, Touch ID).

I think a server optimized SoC from Intel is right and proper. Ditto for Apple Silicon's strategy for mobile and media. And I don't anticipate Apple caring so much about server use cases. Maybe in-house stuff, like server farms for Siri. And I mean "market focus", vs "technical focus". While Apple Silicon is probably fine for server, I don't anticipate Apple caring, leaving those segments to existing cloud providers, eg Amazon's Graviton.

Now that I think about it, I'd like to see an Apple Silicon vs Graviton matchup. Just to get a sense of the landscape. For instance, I'd guess Apple Silicon's TPU (Neural Engine) is optimized for their software stack, whereas Amazon's doing something more general purpose, as befits their respective markets.

Sorry for stream of conscious, blathering for too long. I'm just writing out loud.

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

#104

Post by WastingMyTime89 »

dagw wrote: post #99
WastingMyTime89 wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not interesting to buy these laptops straight from Apple. Large national resellers like Darty or Fnac offer better services and discount them very often. > Pro Macs are not iPhones, there are countless alternatives. I have a very different reading of the market. I don't think iPhones are priced competitively. They are not really better than Android phones which are far cheaper. That's why they have such a ridicu…

That's why they have such a ridiculously low market share in Europe. Phone market share in Europe[1]: Apple 35.42% Samsung 30.81% Xiaomi 11.71% edit: some other sources have it Samsung 32%, Apple 28% and yet others Samsung: 30% and Apple: 22%, but either way hardly "ridiculously low" [1] https://gs.statcounter.com/vendor-market-share/mobile/europe

Statcounter is not really a serious source for market share. Both Counterpoint Research and Strategy Analytics give Apple a more credible 20% market share in Europe behind Samsung and Xiaomi.

It's not disastrous but it compares poorly to the between 55% and 65% of the USA market.

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

#105

Post by specialist »

hbbio wrote: 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.

Totally. I'm not the target audience for Asahi as a daily driver. But I've used Linux to repurpose (life extension) my older macs. So this work is fills me with joy and appreciation.

Also, the comparison of A14 and M1 (aka "A14X") gives me hope that I can eventually repurpose my old iPads and iPhones. There was an iPodLinux project, back in the day. I have no idea what the options are today.

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

#106

Post by simonh »

ohgodplsno wrote: post #71
GeekyBear wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The M1 chips that have been released certainly can't compete on core count against desktop chips with Zen 3 cores, but compared to the laptop versions of Ryzen, the M1 is absolutely not being eaten for breakfast. >The chips here aren’t only able to outclass any competitor laptop design, but also competes against the best desktop systems out there, you’d have to bring out server-class hardware to get ahead of the M1 M…

This article is one of the few anandtech articles which is just straight up wrong and/or incomplete on many points, notably only comparing to (relatively) old desktop chips. A 5900HX (released in January) scores 50% higher on multithreading on cinebench, and equal on single threaded tests like Geekbench. A 5900HX is available on laptops that start at $2500, unlike the $4000 that a macbook pro would run you. So, reall…

> Battery life doesn't matter, just plug your damn laptop

I see you subscribe to the John Hodgman school of laptop design.

https://youtu.be/gHG0cT_ck00

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

#107

Post by svenpeter »

phh wrote: post #91
marcan_42 wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It hasn't really started yet, other than some discussions on IRC, but the TL;DR is on every other ARM64 system those features are handled by either a hypervisor or a supervisor, via special PSCI calls. These machines don't have the option for a supervisor (and no nested virtualization, so an under-OS hypervisor would preclude VMs). Rather than introducing a special snowflake driver for these machines, the current thi…

Implementing a PSCI mechanism in m1n1 sounds like a nice workaround (I could almost consider it an actual fix, even if it's not totally standard), but I'm a bit surprised: - Doesn't ARMv8 architecture require supervisor mode? You should be able to just pop a good old Arm Trusted Framework sample, implement PSCI in there just like other standard ARMv8? - Linux kernel already supports various PSCI-less architectures (r…

I don't think ARMv8 requires EL3 but even if it did there is no EL3 on the M1.

Booting Windows natively would require Microsoft's support since some rather invasive changes to the kernel would be required (FIQ support, DART instead of SMMU) on top of implementing drivers for everything.

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

#108

Post by tambourine_man »

specialist wrote: post #105
hbbio wrote: 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.

Totally. I'm not the target audience for Asahi as a daily driver. But I've used Linux to repurpose (life extension) my older macs. So this work is fills me with joy and appreciation. Also, the comparison of A14 and M1 (aka "A14X") gives me hope that I can eventually repurpose my old iPads and iPhones. There was an iPodLinux project, back in the day. I have no idea what the options are today.

>gives me hope that I can eventually repurpose my old iPads and iPhones

That would involve jailbraking. The nice thing about the M series Macs is that there is an offical way to run alternative OSs, AFAIK. Something that should be required by law after X number of units sold IMO, but that's another conversation altogether.

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

#109

Post by simonh »

peoplefromibiza wrote: post #31
saagarjha wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I suspect that your workload that uses 64 GB of RAM and 2 1 TB SSDs could benefit from an extremely fast processor.

The point is that I can find the performance I need for half the price. The price of an M1 Pro it's not justified by a slightly faster CPU, no matter how low the power usage is. I could understand 20% more, but not two times. Also: most of my workflows wouldn't work natively on ARM Macs. That doesn't mean Apple doesn't have a great product with a big market. They simply will never be mainstream. My answer was to I wo…

>> I wouldn't be surprised if Macs continue to gain market share in the years to come with their CPU lead

>I would!

>CPU alone doesn't sell notebooks to non-tech people on a budget

You’re quite right. If you restrict your market segment of interest to budget products and overall market share, that’s Macs out of the picture before you even start. Apple does not care, at all, about the budget end of the market. It’s irrelevant to them.

Looking at the premium segment, and the market dynamics are completely different. The majority of retail laptops costing over $1k sold are Macs. They also enjoy about tripple the market share among university students that they have in the general market, although that varies greatly by country. The result is that Apple captures roughly 60% of the profits in the desktop/laptop computer market globally.

Aiming for market share would mean accepting much lower profit margins. That’s something they’re just not interested in.

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

#110

Post by marcan_42 »

phh wrote: post #91
marcan_42 wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It hasn't really started yet, other than some discussions on IRC, but the TL;DR is on every other ARM64 system those features are handled by either a hypervisor or a supervisor, via special PSCI calls. These machines don't have the option for a supervisor (and no nested virtualization, so an under-OS hypervisor would preclude VMs). Rather than introducing a special snowflake driver for these machines, the current thi…

Implementing a PSCI mechanism in m1n1 sounds like a nice workaround (I could almost consider it an actual fix, even if it's not totally standard), but I'm a bit surprised: - Doesn't ARMv8 architecture require supervisor mode? You should be able to just pop a good old Arm Trusted Framework sample, implement PSCI in there just like other standard ARMv8? - Linux kernel already supports various PSCI-less architectures (r…

ARMv8 does not require EL3 (nor EL2, for that matter). They are architecturally optional, and there's a whole bunch of the spec dedicated to how things interact with their presence or absence. There is definitely no EL3 on these machines.

Does rPi4 really have these features without PSCI? The internet suggests it does not support sleep states at all, and I wouldn't be surprised if it doesn't do any fancy CPU idle states either. Hence, they're at the same point we're at without PSCI.

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