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Linux on the Mac – state of the union

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Re: Linux on the Mac – state of the union

#121

Post by mrpippy »

digi_owl wrote: post #82
coldtea wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Apple could have kept the previous form factor and not made the battery 20% smaller which would have allowed them to have an energy sucking 32GB option. More people like thinness though, than 32GB RAM (which would have been a built-to-order option that few would have clicked). Remember, Apple has those numbers too. To quote a programmer on thinness: "I’m have to admit being a bit baffled by how nobody else seems to…

Iirc, Intel shipped custom CPUs to Apple for the Macbook Air. Once those CPUs became more generally available other brands followed suit quite quickly. This has been a repeating pattern with Apple since the iPod success fattened their wallet. They would routinely single out parts they wanted, and then basically order the factory capacity for that year in one go. Palm/HP execs lamented this fact when they unveiled the…

A rev of the original MacBook Air (the 2008-2010 one) got a custom package of an Intel CPU before it was available commercially.

The original MBA was expensive and underpowered, a niche product at the time. PC vendors responded with equally niche designs (remember the Dell Adamo?)

The Late 2010 MacBook Air introduced the current case design at a reasonable price, used 2+ year old internals (Core 2 Duo + 330m graphics), and set the world on fire.

Re: Linux on the Mac – state of the union

#122

Post by l1k »

willvarfar wrote: post #83
l1k wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Author here. As explained in the intro, folks like antirez are considering moving back to Linux and in his linked HN comment he specifically talks about trying Linux on the MacBook he's currently using to see where he's headed. The article seeks to give these folks in particular a helping hand in understanding what works and what doesn't: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12820490 That said, the kernel developers…

Really liked the article. Quickly jotted down my own progress as a user http://williamedwardscoder.tumblr.com/post/154376389528/linu... Really appreciate people making this stuff work, and hope I can use my retina MBP in the long run.

Thanks! The FileVault2 driver for Linux that you couldn't find is probably this one:

https://github.com/libyal/libfvde/wiki

It's experimental though. Better back up your data.

I'd recommend to create a partition for ZFS and move data there that you want to use on both OSes, or outright install Linux on a zpool and mount that on macOS. This has worked remarkably well for me, even with lz4 compression and all the other great features. Layer ZFS on TrueCrypt if you need encryption, I wrote a howto a while ago but never had the time to update it:

https://github.com/zfsonlinux/pkg-zfs/wiki/Dual-booting-OS-X...

Re: Linux on the Mac – state of the union

#123

Post by Someone »

dispose13432 wrote: post #37
Someone wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One argument I've heard is that they fear patent lawsuits because it might give hints as to how their hardware works.

How would it? As I understand things (which I'm clearly not an expert at all), CPU opcode is like an ABI, put this value into register A, this value into register B, and a magic opcode into register C, and poof, the register D contains the value of A+B. A driver will say that you put int X into memory point A, Y into memory point A+1, and call function C with argument of A and D will contain the multiplied number. So…

Let's say your driver exports an API that computes f(x,y,z) where the math turns out such that g(h(x,y),i(y,z)) is an easier and/or numerically better way to compute it.

Let's also say your hardware implements g, h and i, but doesn't wire them together yet. So, your driver's code calls the three functions.

Unknown to you, the trick to use that decomposition is patented. if you release your driver's source code, you make it easier for the patent holder to figure out that you are violating their patent (your programmers might even have made it patently obvious by mentioning the paper describing the trick in a comment)

Unlikely? Maybe, but the way patents are written, who knows? For an almost random example, I searched for "driver code and hardware patents". The first link I clicked was https://www.google.ch/patents/US20090006831. Reading that, I wouldn't know what driver would _not_ infringe on it.

Also, there are many patents on ways to move data around efficiently. Avoiding all of them while still writing a performant driver at not be possible.

Re: Linux on the Mac – state of the union

#124

Post by antspiders »

wtallis wrote: post #43
rodgerd wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> what advantage is there these days in Nvidia not open-sourcing the drivers? AMD have demonstrated that trying to do the right thing will get you shit from the maintainers and abuse from bystanders, who will then go and buy Nvidia because it gets a better frame rate.

AMD's been in the news for trying to half-ass the right thing, and asking the community to lower their standards because AMD is too poor to do the job right.

I never understand this sentiment: AMD is still putting in effort for a token market (Linux is something like 0.3% of computers if you don't count servers/embedded). Would you rather have them do nothing and leave the cards poorly supported?

Re: Linux on the Mac – state of the union

#125

Post by digi_owl »

mrpippy wrote: post #121
digi_owl wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Iirc, Intel shipped custom CPUs to Apple for the Macbook Air. Once those CPUs became more generally available other brands followed suit quite quickly. This has been a repeating pattern with Apple since the iPod success fattened their wallet. They would routinely single out parts they wanted, and then basically order the factory capacity for that year in one go. Palm/HP execs lamented this fact when they unveiled the…

A rev of the original MacBook Air (the 2008-2010 one) got a custom package of an Intel CPU before it was available commercially. The original MBA was expensive and underpowered, a niche product at the time. PC vendors responded with equally niche designs (remember the Dell Adamo?) The Late 2010 MacBook Air introduced the current case design at a reasonable price, used 2+ year old internals (Core 2 Duo + 330m graphics…

> set the world on fire.

Yeah i can smell the bonfires from here...

Re: Linux on the Mac – state of the union

#126

Post by navait »

l1k wrote: post #119
stinkytaco wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just to understand this, why wouldn't that be an acceptable compromise? As someone who uses linux on both a server and a laptop, I can tell you that when my laptop is unplugged, I'd much rather have that battery life than inbound ssh connection stability. I would imagine this is much the same for the vast majority of linux users. Could the lack of compromise be part of the problem?

If nothing's plugged in then many devices can indeed be suspended in some way, either by putting them in PCI power state D3hot or by cutting power if the platform supports it. Plug events are then signaled e.g. by an ACPI GPE (general purpose event, an interrupt sent by the platform to the OS). The case I was referring to was with the Ethernet cable still plugged in. They seem to suspend the Ethernet controller but d…

Thank you for clarifying the case.

Re: Linux on the Mac – state of the union

#127

Post by ticoombs »

manyxcxi wrote: post #86
toodlebunions wrote: post #5

>>> "the realization that Apple no longer caters equally to casual and professional customers as it had in the past [YouTube video]. Instead, the company appears to be following an iOS-focused, margin-driven strategy that essentially relegates professionals to a fringe group." Ouch

What I don't get from the article, if I'm pissed about the hardware change why am I trying to run Linux on it/my old one? A) You keep your old laptop and continue to run macOS for as long as possible B) You're shopping for a new laptop and don't buy Apple, then run Linux If you keep your old hardware why run Linux on it? I've been looking at who else is out there are making decent laptops that run Linux well (open to…

I cannot recommend Lenovo X1 Carbons enough. I use it at work. Runs Linux buttery smooth. (Tested Ubuntu and Arch, both work perfectly, Arch needs a few minor tweaks)

Re: Linux on the Mac – state of the union

#128

Post by prodigal_erik »

antspiders wrote: post #124
wtallis wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

AMD's been in the news for trying to half-ass the right thing, and asking the community to lower their standards because AMD is too poor to do the job right.

I never understand this sentiment: AMD is still putting in effort for a token market (Linux is something like 0.3% of computers if you don't count servers/embedded). Would you rather have them do nothing and leave the cards poorly supported?

They're putting in token effort and trying to create an impediment for Linux kernel development even on other hardware. And they were warned months ago that it wasn't going to fly.

Having a driver is good, but putting it in-kernel is bad if the kernel devs can't read it and fix it.

Re: Linux on the Mac – state of the union

#129

Post by verandaguy »

augustl wrote: post #23
rocky1138 wrote: post #12

I wish to thank the dedicated people who make this happen. I'm forced to use Apple hardware at work, but thankfully can run whatever OS I choose. Here's to the crazy ones.

> Here's to the crazy ones. That one hit home.. Based on my lack of options (Windows sucks, macOS is OK but the hardware sucks, Linux lacks a desktop ecosystem) I feel just like a crazy one, a misfit, the ones Apple addressed in that legendary ad.

>Linux lacks a desktop ecosystem

Granted, I'm more of a terminal power user, but what's missing (honest question)?

GNOME and KDE are both very refined and mature, and there are plenty more stable, if a bit less full-featured DEs.

There's the LibreOffice suite, which is stable, well-maintained, and feature-rich.

VLC is arguably an extremely stable and full-featured media player with Linux support.

Firefox and Chromium are both widely available on Linux.

Thunderbird and Slack ship for Linux, too.

I can scarcely think of other software you might need to run on Linux.

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