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Initial M1 support merged into Linux SoC tree

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Re: Initial M1 support merged into Linux SoC tree

#191
post #54

See, even linux has these corporate branch squashers, mixing completely unrelated patches into their feature branch. Here the m1-support feature included the unrelated removal of Cyclades, ISIcom and RocketPort/RocketModem.

That's not the case. What happened is that the Samsung UART patches to support the M1 got merged into tty-next first, and it is preferable to have this series based on those - otherwise, the devicetree would fail validation due to the missing bindings, and there would be no serial to debug or do anything. It helps keeping things ordered for bisection.

So we decided to merge a specific point from tty-next into this branch first, before the rest of the patches. Those patches are already in the pipeline for upstream inclusion. So it pulled in everything in tty-next that was before the Samsung changes, and it shows up in the diffstat, but those aren't really part of this series, it's just caused by the merge from tty-next.

Re: Initial M1 support merged into Linux SoC tree

#192

I sincerely hope that one day, Linux GUI land will receive similar amounts of work as the kernel. While it's great that we can boot it on pretty much every device out there, I would much prefer if it was a viable Windows alternative on a few devices instead. Just yesterday, I plugged an external screen into my Ubuntu laptop. And then I had to duck-duck for like an hour to figure out how to make the fonts large enough…

I really think we're getting there. Wayland is a much saner, more consistent experience than X11 ever was. I use Fedora and with Gnome and Mutter you get a solid experience. Not everyone likes Gnome but I find it to be generally pretty good and productive to work in.

There are some gaps in Wayland - screen sharing being the obvious one. But these gaps are in the process of being closed (pipewire being part of the picture). Give it another year and I believe that Wayland will be a solid solution for all the major use cases (multi-monitor, high-dpi, screen sharing).

My other issue with Linux as a workstation solution is OOM handling, and even that is being worked on!

Re: Initial M1 support merged into Linux SoC tree

#193
post #80

I sincerely hope that one day, Linux GUI land will receive similar amounts of work as the kernel. While it's great that we can boot it on pretty much every device out there, I would much prefer if it was a viable Windows alternative on a few devices instead. Just yesterday, I plugged an external screen into my Ubuntu laptop. And then I had to duck-duck for like an hour to figure out how to make the fonts large enough…

Anecdotal I know, but I very recently got a macbook air after years of practically exclusively using Linux and the opinionated user interface drives me crazy. Here's a few pain points: - Scroll direction can only be set globally so either touchpad or mouse scrolling feels awkward for me - You need an extra click on another window before you can interact with it - No focus-follows-mouse (there used to be 3rd party plu…

- You need an extra click on another window before you can interact with it

- No focus-follows-mouse (there used to be 3rd party plugins but those seem to be gone now)

- While basic split screen tiling works and you can set up a global kb shortcut to move windows to left/right of the screen, Firefox seems to completely ignore those

- If you're running multiple displays macos for some reason always picks the most awkward display to open new windows in

- I really miss being able to grab and resize windows using a modifier key like in XFCE

All of these things can be done with yabai https://github.com/koekeishiya/yabai

Re: Initial M1 support merged into Linux SoC tree

#194

This is very anecdotal but every single laptop I have bought in the last 10 years (4) worked perfectly out-of-the box with either Linux Mint or Ubuntu (which are the same on the inside). I only vaguely remember once I had to change some conf file for my trackpad to work after a dist update but that was it. Not sure why everyone in this thread is so hesitant about Linux on a laptop? It literally just works (tm) for me…

I had one of the first Nvidia Optimus laptops. It was a nightmare on Linux for a while even just trying to get the Nvidia card off (no BIOS option) so it wouldn't drain the battery was difficult let alone using it. I don't even think it was officially supported by Nvidia when they added support because the gen after they changed how Optimus worked?

My laptop after that at least had a BIOS option to disable the Nvidia graphics. I only bought an Nvidia model again because the OEM made a mistake and sold it for hundreds less than the Intel one on their website. Every distro needed me to do something to get the screen brightness keys to work.

WiFi chipsets could also be a hassle though they have gotten much better.

My current laptop, a 2018 MacBook Pro, is basically near unusable as a Linux laptop. By default the trackpad and keyboard don't work and you need someone's kernel patch to use them. You can't currently have both sleep and sound. A bunch of little other gremlins.

Re: Initial M1 support merged into Linux SoC tree

#195
post #106
post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We see that kind of issue frequently and in the majority of cases it is not a Linux fault, but manufacturer firmware. It is such a frequent issue I wrote an article 10 years ago that is still extremely relevant with simple instructions to enable a kernel work-around [0]. Specifically the problem is the ACPI DSDT (Differentiated System Description Table) - which is actually byte-code installed by the device manufactur…

That sounds out of date. Linux has reported itself as Windows via ACPI OSI and actually reports FALSE for "Linux" OSI query for well over a decade now. https://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/torvalds/lin... https://www.kernel.org/doc/Documentation/firmware-guide/acpi...

most features of my laptop don't work reliably (MSI GS65) if I don't use the acpi_osi line, why would that be in that case ? I'm on archlinux with pretty much always the latest kernel

Re: Initial M1 support merged into Linux SoC tree

#196
post #140
post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We see that kind of issue frequently and in the majority of cases it is not a Linux fault, but manufacturer firmware. It is such a frequent issue I wrote an article 10 years ago that is still extremely relevant with simple instructions to enable a kernel work-around [0]. Specifically the problem is the ACPI DSDT (Differentiated System Description Table) - which is actually byte-code installed by the device manufactur…

As mentioned by AnssiH, this hasn't been true for a long time - https://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/torvalds/lin... was merged in 2007. I wrote up the reasoning back in 2008 at https://mjg59.livejournal.com/85923.html , but since then Linux should always have been behaving identically to the most recent version of Windows as far as OSI responses go.

most features of my laptop don't work reliably (MSI GS65) if I don't use the acpi_osi line, why would that be in that case ? I'm on archlinux with pretty much always the latest kernel

Re: Initial M1 support merged into Linux SoC tree

#197

This is very anecdotal but every single laptop I have bought in the last 10 years (4) worked perfectly out-of-the box with either Linux Mint or Ubuntu (which are the same on the inside). I only vaguely remember once I had to change some conf file for my trackpad to work after a dist update but that was it. Not sure why everyone in this thread is so hesitant about Linux on a laptop? It literally just works (tm) for me…

I feel like the pattern is that when you start to dig into people talking about their great experience with Linux on a laptop, you end up eventually getting them to admit that there are a lot of annoyances they’ve just resigned to living with

I have a fine experience on my Dell XPS laptop, it doesn't come with an nVidia card but know it would be a PITA if it did.

Better than my colleagues who use a Macbook and can't use Display Ports correctly, can't plug a cable into one side without it ramping up CPU, can't use their keyboards after a while, etcetcetc.

Re: Initial M1 support merged into Linux SoC tree

#198
post #182

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As opposed to the constant annoyances with windows, and similarly things I don't like in Mac?

As opposed to basic things (like display drivers, hibernation, bluetooth, fingerprint scanners, etc.) working fine on both. Every OS will add annoyances and bugs on top. But it's on Linux where people usually have to fight/configure/trial-and-error to get basic things working more often than Windows and macOS. And this is not some Linux hater notion. It has been complained about by people like ESR, Linus, and Miguel…

The only thing that's never worked for me is hibernation, and that doesn't even work for my windows pc either

Re: Initial M1 support merged into Linux SoC tree

#199
post #133
post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Of all the things, accusing GNU/Linux of opinionated GUI just doesn't make sense at all to me. There's like 30+ different desktop environments you can use. So many so that there's a need for articles like 10 best Linux DE's of 2021, and those don't even scratch the surface anyway.

I think you've misread my comment. It's the macos GUI that's opinionated.

Allright. :)

Re: Initial M1 support merged into Linux SoC tree

#200
post #156
post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I don't have this issue, I can interact with a window just by hovering over it with the mouse pointer Hm, maybe it's just Firefox that's a bad citizen here, like with the global shortcuts.

Do not blame Firefox, this is actually how MacOS UI works by default: https://apple.stackexchange.com/questions/269622/macos-windo... I think the other poster has some addon installed and forgot about it.

I don't think I do, I'm a fairly recent convert to macOS. I'm running Big Sur and I can interact with any window the mouse cursor is over. I can scroll any window I'm hovering over, and with a single click can perform an action.
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