Tl;dr they want to run x86 linux for their own reasons rather than arm.
ARM Mac: Why I'm Worried About Virtualization
151–160 of 313 posts
Re: ARM Mac: Why I'm Worried About Virtualization
#152This is ridiculous. Your code will just have to support multiple architectures, which is very easy with modern languages and tooling.
I think you missed the point. What about all the dependencies of your code that are only compiled for x86_64? The article isn't talking about native apps on the laptop, it's about apps that run on a server but that you are developing locally. You can't run your x86 docker image on your ARM mac without emulation. You can't run your x86 Windows VM without emulation etc. Of course there are solutions like using a remote…
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Re: ARM Mac: Why I'm Worried About Virtualization
#153I'm actually not worried, for a few reasons; - I already do cross-arch development day-in and day out between x86 and ARM, and have only run into hard blockers on a library or tool a handful of times. The solve was generally pretty straightforward to either use an ARM-compatible alternative, or to cross-compile it myself. - We've done this many many times before and it's not that bad. I know I'm not the only one old…
Tons of x86 code accesses misaligned addresses.
Well, that's only because it's efficient to do so on x86. Code recompiled for ARM isn't going to do that.
Re: ARM Mac: Why I'm Worried About Virtualization
#154This is ridiculous. Your code will just have to support multiple architectures, which is very easy with modern languages and tooling.
I think you missed the point. What about all the dependencies of your code that are only compiled for x86_64? The article isn't talking about native apps on the laptop, it's about apps that run on a server but that you are developing locally. You can't run your x86 docker image on your ARM mac without emulation. You can't run your x86 Windows VM without emulation etc. Of course there are solutions like using a remote…
Why not re-compile the dependencies so they run locally too? Am I missing some constraint?
Re: ARM Mac: Why I'm Worried About Virtualization
#155It’s still early days. bhyve which is likely what they’re using or whatever the hypervisor is will just run arm docker images — unless you have a hard x86 dependency many of our http micro services should run just fine on arm images at least my workflow will be just fine.
Re: ARM Mac: Why I'm Worried About Virtualization
#156Earlier quoted context omitted.
> It took a couple of hours to flip some base images away from Alpine, as Debian already has a load of ARM packages built. Why did you have to switch from Alpine to Debian? Alpine supports ARM quite happily, and it looks like they're shipping Docker images for ARM (and other architectures, too).
Not op, but alpine package manager leaves a lot to be desired especially compared to ubuntu. Also much easier to set locale. Since minimal ubuntu & debian exist, I think the question should be: "Why would you use alpine?" especially considering potentially slower performance: https://pythonspeed.com/articles/alpine-docker-python/
> Not op, but alpine package manager leaves a lot to be desired especially compared to ubuntu.
How so? If anything, apk is way nicer than apt in a container build script (or anything automated); with apt you have to use -y and maybe force the noninteractive frontend, where `apk add foo` just works, correctly, automatically, with no effort required.
> Also much easier to set locale.
> considering potentially slower performance:
It's slower at installing python packages from pypi since it can't use cached versions. That's not the same thing as "it's slow".
> Since minimal ubuntu & debian exist, I think the question should be: "Why would you use alpine?"
Because minimal ubuntu is still ~3 times the size of alpine, alpine is much smaller and simpler, alpine defaults to staying small (even if you remember to --no-install-recommends, deb packages are bigger and less modular), and I don't have to remember how to force apt to run in "no really install without asking questions" mode.
Re: ARM Mac: Why I'm Worried About Virtualization
#157Once again -- Apple will do what the entire industry without Apple couldn't do. In this case, force a migration to ARM-based servers, so that prod is running on the same architecture as the developer's machine. Apple is finally killing x86.
Hooray, we have successfully fixed the mistake with an open platform and will now be relegated to incompatible hardware without any competition. At last, the future will surely be bright!
How was x86 any more "open" of a platform? If anything, x86 is a far more "closed" platform, as there are only two remaining manufacturers of x86 parts, and there is no licensing process to join them. Meanwhile, there are hundreds of ARM licensees, and the process for becoming a licensee is all documented online [1].
Re: ARM Mac: Why I'm Worried About Virtualization
#158Earlier quoted context omitted.
I develop low-level code like compilers just fine on a MacBook.
What's "low level" about a compiler?
> Mac book was never really a dev platform. Maybe for front or nodejs, or definitly for native apple apps, but seriously, brew and so are so subpar.
I'm not sure what you're asking? It's lower level than the examples which were given.
There's nothing stopping you using a MacBook for almost any development task. It's not just for front-end tasks. You can do work that runs directly on the architecture.
Re: ARM Mac: Why I'm Worried About Virtualization
#159Earlier quoted context omitted.
Every time Microsoft or Apple majorly screws something up, people say this. It still hasn't happened yet. However, I think Apple has been a far greater threat to Linux adoption than Microsoft. Why? Because it gives techies the *nix environment they want, with the software and hardware support no one will give them on Linux. There is real value in proprietary commercial end-user application software. Most companies wh…
> Because it gives techies the *nix environment they want, with the software and hardware support no one will give them on Linux. The UNIX experience on the Mac is pretty shitty. Ancient versions of all the tooling. Command-line utils have that weird BSD well-water flavor. No package management. Funny Docker quirks. The hardware used to be pretty nice, but honestly I'm still having trouble forgiving them for getting…
> Ancient versions of all the tooling. Command-line utils have that weird BSD well-water flavor. No package management.
That's what MacPorts is for ;)
Re: ARM Mac: Why I'm Worried About Virtualization
#160It’s still early days. bhyve which is likely what they’re using or whatever the hypervisor is will just run arm docker images — unless you have a hard x86 dependency many of our http micro services should run just fine on arm images at least my workflow will be just fine.
Furthermore this is speculation. We don’t have ARM Macs yet to test. This is like all the nerds in the forums speculating on hardware leaks how the next gen GPUs will perform: wait for hardware and reviews. Making any sort of claim as to what to buy or not at this point seems disingenuous.