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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?

#141

Post by IfOnlyYouKnew »

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…

I don't quite believe the people who might want to run Linux on the M1 would consider Linux-on-"currently-pretty-poor" to be as similar as you make it out to be.

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

#143

Post by slang800 »

rowanG077 wrote: post #131
ric2b wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What do you mean by no alternative?

All the current 13 inch devices have vastly underperforming cooling systems. Well every device except the Apple macbook pro.

If you're not willing to look outside of the exact form factor and specs that Apple happens to support, then open devices aren't a priority for you.

I use a 1 inch thick Thinkpad that's almost a decade old because it runs Libreboot. There is an alternative, but you need to be in the mindset where freedom is more important than hardware.

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

#144

Post by nicoburns »

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…

The other thing that makes it interesting is getting performance comparable to the fastest Intel/AMD processors as 3Ghz. I expect that AMD will catch up with Apple on performance when they switch to 5nm, but Apple's low clock speed means they're likely to retain the power usage advantage.

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

#145

Post by MR4D »

I think if Linux really wants to run well on consumer hardware - in other words, not servers - then we’ll have to build the hardware.

No idea how that happens from a business perspective, but Raspberry Pi seems to be a great model.

Perhaps a Pi Pro could be designed that meets some of those needs. The Zero is almost too mobile for a laptop to be usable, but who knows, maybe someone will come up with a unique design around it.

But if we don’t control the hardware, the. It’s always going to be a second or third class citizen on mobile (laptops or tablets).

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

#147

Post by someperson »

thekyle wrote: post #123

I think if you want a laptop to run Linux then you should just buy a laptop that comes with Linux. There are some pretty good options out there today (Dell XPS Dev Edition, ThinkPad, System 76, etc.) that you can buy from the manufacturer with Linux. Trying to take a laptop designed for macOS and turn it into a Linux laptop is going to be a painful and frustrating experience. It's like buying a Tesla and trying to pu…

The only reason those Linux laptops exist is because thousands of engineers (mostly volunteers but also commercial vendors like RedHat) improved Linux hardware support to the point commerical system integrators like Dell and System76 could select components well-supported by Linux to make the Linux laptops.

Hypothetically if one-day the performance gap between Apple's chips and the rest of the industry cannot be ignored (contrary to Apple's marketing, it's not there yet) then having Linux well-supported will allow third-party vendors to provide on-going Linux support (because the daunting heavy lifting has been completed by marcan).

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

#148

Post by LeifCarrotson »

rowanG077 wrote: post #126
ekianjo wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

X86 based PCs are no alternative?

Unfortunately not. There are no 13 inch x86 devices on the market that don't throttle afaik.

You've been mislead if you think the 13" Macbooks run at full boost clock all the time.

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

#149

Post by toyg »

doctor_eval wrote: post #90
robin_reala wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Apple have a FOSS kernel, one of the three remaining web renderers, CUPS, and a bunch more smaller things. They’re not the most religious of FOSS companies, but it’s a bit unfair to say they don’t play well in the places that they play. If you take FOSS to mean only GPL, then yes, I get your point.

Yeah I think it’s more often that FOSS that doesn’t play well with Apple. It’s understandable - Apple keeps a lot of desirable software for itself - but perhaps unfortunate. Federici has said in one of his interviews that Apple wants people to hack on the M1 machines so I’m hopeful that they will be more open than on IOS. All of that said, I won’t hold my breath.

> Apple wants people to hack on the M1 machines

Of course they do. Like they wanted people to hack on OSX 20 years ago; and once they reached critical mass, they pulled up the drawbridges (dropping anything GNU, dropping Java, restricting access to the OS, pushing AppStore, etc etc).

Chances they're going to do exactly the same with M1 and its follow-ups are 99.99%... if anything because their management is largely drawn from the very same people who executed that strategy.

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

#150

Post by 1337_d00dZ »

smspf wrote: post #121

No. Because (in no particular order): - it shouldn't be the community's (or a crowd-funded dev's) responsibility to provide software support for hardware produced by one of the largest companies out there (bonus: with zero hardware specs); - Apple could make all this futile with a push of a button (SecureBoot can be disabled for now, but what guarantees are there this won't change?); - other arm64 machines will be av…

It isn't UEFI-based, it uses iBoot. Proprietary up and down.
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