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Would you be willing to fund a Linux port to Apple Silicon?

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Re: Would you be willing to fund a Linux port to Apple Silicon?

#111

Post by ralph84 »

pengaru wrote: post #51

Most of what makes the M1 interesting is TSMC's 5nm process, why wouldn't we expect similar results from future x86 CPUs on 5nm or smaller. At least AMD is supporting upstream Linux development for GPU support, if you care about Free software and control over your computers, throw your money at companies better aligned with those goals. Don't reward Apple for being assholes. <=5nm AMD Zen SoCs will be fantastic as we…

5nm certainly helped, but what really made M1 is the team Apple has assembled. Apple’s fat margins allowed them to attract and retain the best engineers with top of market total comp. Meanwhile Intel viewed engineering as a cost center to be optimized. So here we are.

Re: Would you be willing to fund a Linux port to Apple Silicon?

#112

Post by novok »

Eric_WVGG wrote: post #69
pengaru wrote: post #51

Most of what makes the M1 interesting is TSMC's 5nm process, why wouldn't we expect similar results from future x86 CPUs on 5nm or smaller. At least AMD is supporting upstream Linux development for GPU support, if you care about Free software and control over your computers, throw your money at companies better aligned with those goals. Don't reward Apple for being assholes. <=5nm AMD Zen SoCs will be fantastic as we…

I’m not sure that’s exactly accurate. The special JavaScript instructions, and the optimizations to retain/release counts within memory blocks, seem much more interesting. https://mobile.twitter.com/ErrataRob/status/1331735383193903... I haven’t the foggiest idea if any of this could make it to competing ARM chips, but given how many years Snapdragons have been lagging relative to the iPhone “A” chips, I don’t feel t…

I don't think it will be that hard for Intel & AMD to put little operations like the javascript float one (which is a standard ARM instruction BTW) or some special instructions to help garbage collection and retain/release counts work more effectively that all programming languages could leverage. It's something else that makes it better.

Re: Would you be willing to fund a Linux port to Apple Silicon?

#114

Post by sien »

It doesn't have to be Apple. Apple is the company that is most interested in complete lock in.

The Pinewood Pro, an ARM based Linux laptop, is currently pretty poor but it costs $US 200. For $US 400-600 perhaps someone could make a good Linux based ARM laptop.

Amazon's Graviton 2 processors are meant to be pretty good. Perhaps they could do it. Or someone else.

Ars has a review or the Pinebook Pro : https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2020/06/pinebook-pro-review-...

Re: Would you be willing to fund a Linux port to Apple Silicon?

#115

Post by pengaru »

mdellabitta wrote: post #98
pengaru wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Without any independent actual measurements of the same stack running on the same hardware with those optimizations turned off, we can't draw any conclusions regarding their significance. Considering Apple has been so adamant about misrepresenting what's really TSMC silicon as "Apple Silicon", I'm viewing everything they say through "PR oozing with insecurity about not actually controlling access to their chip's manu…

Based on your qualification of who's silicon it is, AMD, Broadcom, Marvell, MediaTek, Nvidia, STMicroelectronics, and Qualcomm do not manufacture chips... Even IBM uses TSMC. That's a lot of the CPU silicon shipping right now. The market has changed, and most CPU vendors don't fab their own chips anymore. The IP is in the chip design. Are you saying TSMC designed the M1?

I'm saying TSMC makes non-Apple chips as well, so Apple isn't enjoying as defensible of a moat when it comes to silicon as their marketing wants you to believe.

We are in agreement.

Re: Would you be willing to fund a Linux port to Apple Silicon?

#116

Post by pmontra »

m00x wrote: post #64
devwastaken wrote: post #54

Apple won't support it, therefore support and maintenance will be working around apples proprietary hardware and special drivers. Linux is not meant to live in that environment, I'd argue bettering support for other OEM's is a more fruitfull goal.

If anyone has been following nvidia/linux story, this nails it on the head. Apple has never played well with FOSS and aren't going to start now. Apple's implementation will always be ahead, better, less bugs, and the linux port will always be a shitty experience that takes up several weeks to get working properly, and then it'll be slower than expected. Get yourself a laptop with an nvidia card and Ubuntu. Even today…

I own an Ubuntu laptop with an NVIDIA card since 2014 (HP ZBook 15 with Quadro K1100M). Not perfect but not garbage. Hours of debugging / workarounds cumulated in 6 years yes, days not.

The remaining problems on Ubuntu 20.04:

1. The brightness control keys don't work. They generate the event they are supposed to generate then I see an error in syslog. Workaround: two hotkeys bound to windows+fn+brightness up/down to run a bash script that increases / reduces the backlight level.

2. The screen works at 40 Hz since Ubuntu 18.04. I expected to be unusable but actually I can't notice the difference with 60 Hz. Noveau works at 60 Hz but it's unusable for other reasons (I don't remember the details, I checked months ago)

Problems I had because of the NVIDIA driver: the laptop didn't shutdown, only restart. Workaround: I press the power button right after the restart, when the BIOS shows up. Not a big deal because I shutdown a couple of times per year.

Re: Would you be willing to fund a Linux port to Apple Silicon?

#117

Post by Gaelan »

oblio wrote: post #46
internet2000 wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because it sells the hardware, where they make the most money. I don't think they will do something like that, but I think the reason is that they just don't care enough to dedicate internal resources.

Apple is turning into a services company, though, look at their numbers. And one of those core services is the App Store.

I'm pretty sure the vast majority of Mac apps still aren't distributed on the App Store. The Mac App Store almost certainly isn't a big money-maker.

Re: Would you be willing to fund a Linux port to Apple Silicon?

#119

Post by rowanG077 »

squarefoot wrote: post #94

No, I wouldn't, not even if I could print billions in a snap. I'd rather help funding the port to a 10 times slower but open platform, rather to a technically superior but proprietary close one whose owner would make it incompatible two seconds after they would smell competition from Linux in any of their core business fields. No thanks, I'll send my small quid to whomever appears to be really in favor of openness, n…

Well I wouldn't pay for it if I could print billions in a snap because then I would start my own company that creates open RISC-V laptops and pcs. But in the current market I will because there's simply no alternative.

Re: Would you be willing to fund a Linux port to Apple Silicon?

#120

Post by rbanffy »

sien wrote: post #114

It doesn't have to be Apple. Apple is the company that is most interested in complete lock in. The Pinewood Pro, an ARM based Linux laptop, is currently pretty poor but it costs $US 200. For $US 400-600 perhaps someone could make a good Linux based ARM laptop. Amazon's Graviton 2 processors are meant to be pretty good. Perhaps they could do it. Or someone else. Ars has a review or the Pinebook Pro : https://arstechni…

Pinebook is possible (as are most of the SBCs we have) because there is an almost endless supply of processors and SoCs designed for cellphones and tablets. If a company decides to make a part that's really focused on performance (and tuned to the OS) the same way the M1 is, and that matches the needs of a laptop, then it'd be possible. But, unless the part is incredibly well tuned for this scenario, it'll fail the same way as the Windows on ARM laptops have - same price as an x86 at meh performance.
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