Earlier quoted context omitted.
On the other hand, we have basically one single model per year to support. That hardware is used by millions and usually users keep it for 5 or more years.
How is that different from simply picking the best option from some other manufacturer each year and supporting only that? There's no mandate that you need to support every device a company makes.
Would you be willing to fund a Linux port to Apple Silicon?
161–170 of 548 posts
Re: Would you be willing to fund a Linux port to Apple Silicon?
#162This is the Sputnik moment for open source. Should ACPI (and its associated lassiez-faire mindset) become obsolete as a standard, then general purpose computing on consumer devices would become history.
All the comments about how Apple's Macs are not worth it are entirely missing the point. There is nothing comparable to Apple's M1 right now. Your Purism/Lambda labs/Starlabs/System76/Pine64 usual Clevo shell machine with Linux pre-installed would never be able to compete with a M1 powered system. This isn't about 16:10/3:2 display ratios, machined aluminium, or HN's favorite complaint: "build quality". Even a well-funded premium laptop company like Razer would not be able produce something to compete with the MBP if they don't have a similarly efficient chip. Forget about the bigger players like Lenovo and Dell. Intel and AMD dropped the ball big time, and if the open source community doesn't step up, then the future will be locked-down ARM systems. RISC-V will not be competitive for another half a decade and there is no guarantee that it won't be locked down if the community does not push back against the embedded hardware culture (where VHDL/Verilog libraries are referred to as "intellectual property") which pervades ARM's heritage.
Re: Would you be willing to fund a Linux port to Apple Silicon?
#163Most 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…
> 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. It's many things working together, 5nm is not "most of it". Not to mention TSMC is already working on 3nm.
The reason for this is they have the scale to book all of TSMC's processing capacity for a new node. The AMDs of the world have to wait a year to receive the scraps while Apple move to the next TSMC node.
Re: Would you be willing to fund a Linux port to Apple Silicon?
#164Apple 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…
Re: Would you be willing to fund a Linux port to Apple Silicon?
#165No, 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…
We're talking about Apple, right? The company that made an entire software platform called Bootcamp, specifically to enable a competitor's OS to run on their hardware? A company who custom-developed drivers specifically to be compatible with a competitor's OS on their own hardware? You're talking about that Apple? The one who said they would be open to allowing Windows to run on M1 if Microsoft developed a compatible version of Windows?
I just want to make sure we're talking about the same company, because you seem to think we're talking about a company who runs in the face of competition, where the Apple I know confronts it head-on and goes out of their way to be compatible with the competitors.
Re: Would you be willing to fund a Linux port to Apple Silicon?
#166No, 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…
Re: Would you be willing to fund a Linux port to Apple Silicon?
#167No. 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…
For the record, I disagree with some of your points, but the one point I agree with is really important. There's no clear guarantee that there will be other performance-competitive arm64 CPUs in laptops anytime soon. I don't think anyone has as much incentive as Apple does. Who else is as incentivized to make a laptop/desktop-class arm64 chip? Maybe ARM themselves ... but without a mainstream OS to run it on (with ma…
I have heard a theory that ARM Servers have a difficult time because there aren't really many developer machines that run ARM. With Apple changing that, there is a chance that the next round of ARM server chips will have better success.
Re: Would you be willing to fund a Linux port to Apple Silicon?
#168No. 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…
You must be thinking of a different Open Source community than I am, because the Open Source community I know thrives off of providing community support for software on major vendor's hardware.
Re: Would you be willing to fund a Linux port to Apple Silicon?
#169No, 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…
>owner would make it incompatible two seconds after they would smell competition We're talking about Apple, right? The company that made an entire software platform called Bootcamp, specifically to enable a competitor's OS to run on their hardware? A company who custom-developed drivers specifically to be compatible with a competitor's OS on their own hardware? You're talking about that Apple? The one who said they w…
Re: Would you be willing to fund a Linux port to Apple Silicon?
#170I understand why the developer would like to get a recurring form of revenue, but as a consumer buying a subscription makes no sense at all! The goods obtained (Linux on MabBookAirX,Y) are very much non-recurring by nature...
This is the newly-normal software subscription package or a stipend to bootstrap a project. Both feel pretty normal! Even if it is the former, updates & improvements take work. And they seem likely to be necessary here.