M1 Macs: Truth and Truthiness • Hacker News Board

Re: M1 Macs: Truth and Truthiness

#341

Post by yjftsjthsd-h » Thu, Dec 03, 2020, 8:28 PM UTC

ogre_codes wrote: post #246

yjftsjthsd-h wrote: post #203

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I think it's a bit unfair to lump Linux in there since it's been running on ARM and other embedded, low-power devices basically forever, but it is true that few of us run our Linux desktop on an ARM board. We aren't running ARM on our desktops because there aren't ARM desktops for us to use. The market jumps from low-end boards like the Pi and Pine's lineups - which are excellent for what they are, but suffer from…

> We aren't running ARM on our desktops because there aren't ARM desktops for us to use. Indeed, while ARM based Linux desktops hit the price and energy efficiency on the nose, they aren't going to wow anyone with performance.

Exactly! I would love to switch my systems off of x86, but I can't buy anything performant for a price that I'm willing to spend on hardware. I might yet try a Pi 4 as a desktop with USB for disk, but that's hacky and still suffers from performance problems. Or, I could get something with good performance, either POWER or ARM, but then I'd have to pay through the nose for the privilege. Now, some of this is market size: I get my x86 boxes at a huge discount by buying used, and high-end ARM/POWER machines aren't popular enough to really show up on eBay (yet). But in practice, there's just no good options.

Re: M1 Macs: Truth and Truthiness

#342

Post by wmf » Thu, Dec 03, 2020, 8:29 PM UTC

vetinari wrote: post #323

jcheng wrote: post #312

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are you sure about Exynos? They announced the 1080 just a couple of weeks ago and the 2100 is expected next year.

This is from wikipedia (under "Exynos"), so apply the appropriate amount of salt: On October 1, 2019, rumors emerged that Samsung had laid off their custom CPU teams at SARC.[21][22][23] On November 1, 2019, Samsung filed a WARN letter with the Texas Workforce Commission, notifying of upcoming layoffs of their SARC CPU team and termination of their custom CPU development.[24] SARC and ACL will still continue developm…

You misunderstood what that means. Samsung is continuing to develop Exynos SoCs using stock Arm CPU cores and AMD GPU cores. This will require fewer people hence the layoff.

Re: M1 Macs: Truth and Truthiness

#343

Post by jakeva » Thu, Dec 03, 2020, 8:29 PM UTC

btilly wrote: post #319

j-pb wrote: post #311

My new M1 Macbook Air arrived today. The excitement was quickly replaced by sober frustration. Yes apple did a remarkable job with the M1, no they've still lost their mojo when it comes to high quality software. I've spend the last 3 hours trying the wipe and reinstall the thing, because their non-virgin-os migration assistant is simply unreliable. So far, I've had issues where the fused Data/OS drive would just spli…

You have demonstrated exactly why I don't care how fast the M1 runs, I'm not buying Apple hardware. Not until I start hearing that they have done something about their long quality slide. See https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25238688 for the last time that I expressed this opinion on HN.

Comments like these always make me wonder if I'm the only person in the world still delighted by Apple products. I mean I alone can not be responsible for their sales volume.

And then I start to wonder if I should be more critical of Apple, so I fire up my Windows machine and think silently "No, this is still a worse experience". So I fire up my Ubuntu and have the same reaction. I just don't understand the vitriol some people have for Apple, to me it is hands down always the better platform.

Re: M1 Macs: Truth and Truthiness

#344

Post by 6d65 » Thu, Dec 03, 2020, 8:31 PM UTC

Scarbutt wrote: post #324

6d65 wrote: post #297

The author is bashing another author for not doing measurements, yet himself declares that m1 beats all the other CPUs, without providing any measurements. With regards to the M1, I'm grateful for a good competition. As this will likely push premium laptop manufactures (Razer, Dell) towards ryzen CPUs, as opposed to using them in cheaper models. Loosening the grip that intel has on them. With Zen3 on mobile, giving a…

Regarding hardware, will Dell be able to compete with a MBA at the $1000 price point? I doubt it.

If it will cut into their sales they might have to adapt.

Also, from what I heard, while intel was on top, it was charging outrageous margins on its CPUs. AMD mobile were said to be hundreds of dollars less per cpu. The manufacturers might choose to pass on these savings.

Of course, if AMD becomes the only game in town, they might jack up their prices as well. We'll see.

Re: M1 Macs: Truth and Truthiness

#345

Post by jgrant27 » Thu, Dec 03, 2020, 8:31 PM UTC

It's just not true. Ryzen laptops have been available for months for a fraction of the price of a macbook that are just as impressive. https://imagine27.com/rise-of-the-mac-serial-killers

Re: M1 Macs: Truth and Truthiness

#346

Post by wmf » Thu, Dec 03, 2020, 8:31 PM UTC

ogre_codes wrote: post #317

cestith wrote: post #302

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Work has already begun to port Linux to M1 Macs. Linux for ARM and Windows for ARM are already running as PoC on the M1 Macs with QEMU (running ARM-on-ARM). https://www.techradar.com/news/you-can-now-run-linux-and-win...

I suspect people interested in "superfast, supercool ARM-based Linux laptops" are looking more for running on bare metal, not in a VM.

Linux on M1 bare metal is also in the works.

Re: M1 Macs: Truth and Truthiness

#347

Post by j-pb » Thu, Dec 03, 2020, 8:32 PM UTC

jakeva wrote: post #343

btilly wrote: post #319

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You have demonstrated exactly why I don't care how fast the M1 runs, I'm not buying Apple hardware. Not until I start hearing that they have done something about their long quality slide. See https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25238688 for the last time that I expressed this opinion on HN.

Comments like these always make me wonder if I'm the only person in the world still delighted by Apple products. I mean I alone can not be responsible for their sales volume. And then I start to wonder if I should be more critical of Apple, so I fire up my Windows machine and think silently "No, this is still a worse experience". So I fire up my Ubuntu and have the same reaction. I just don't understand the vitriol s…

Better doesn't mean good.

Currently I'm waiting for the beachball of death when trying to get into the boot volume selection menu.

I think this mac is bricked...

Re: M1 Macs: Truth and Truthiness

#348

Post by ogre_codes » Thu, Dec 03, 2020, 8:33 PM UTC

nix23 wrote: post #119

simias wrote: post #100

I've never owned a Mac and don't intend to own one but I'm very happy with this M1 move, mainly for the reasons highlighted in the introduction to the article: >M1 Macs embarrass all other PCs — all Intel-based Macs, including automobile-priced Mac Pros, and every single machine running Windows or Linux. Those machines are just standing around in their underwear now because the M1 stole all their pants. I think it's…

>Those machines are just standing around in their underwear now because the M1 stole all their pants. Not sure what shitty machine hes talking about, but my threadripper's are not impressed with some 4 core M1.

> Not sure what shitty machine hes talking about, but my threadripper's are not impressed with some 4 core M1.

Gruber greatly exaggerates here. Particularly mentioning the Mac Pro in the same paragraph.

Apple's M1 isn't competing with higher end Intel/ AMD desktop class CPUs with external GPUs. The M1 is a laptop CPU, designed for good performance with good thermals and excellent battery life. It will be interesting to see what they come up with over the next couple years to replace the CPU in the iMac and Mac Pro. But that is next year.

Re: M1 Macs: Truth and Truthiness

#349

Post by nix23 » Thu, Dec 03, 2020, 8:33 PM UTC

zepto wrote: post #285

nix23 wrote: post #221

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>The point about being able to upgrade ram or upgrade to whatever you want doesn’t make sense. If my program needs 64GB of ram, your 8GB highly efficient "memory architecture" can do nothing about it...you have to know that even my gpu has 16GB alone. But i have to say that 8GB are probably enough for your Chrome Browser.

Are you using a desktop tower?

Yes tower form-factor.

Re: M1 Macs: Truth and Truthiness

#350

Post by GekkePrutser » Thu, Dec 03, 2020, 8:34 PM UTC

ravi-delia wrote: post #329

_abox wrote: post #315

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah John Gruber has really become a shill over the last few years. His article reads like an Apple keynote transcript, everything is magical and amazing, a marvel and mindbogglingly great. No wonder they throw him so many exclusives ;) Yes M1 is great. But it's a closed system (no booting Linux or Windows at this time) and even under macOS you're having even less access to the system's internals than before. Also, A…

The M1 as a computer is too locked down for me, and it seems like for you. But the M1 as a demonstration of the power of modern ARM chips is absolutely unmatched. I have seen a lot of people use the lockdown argument to justify a disregard of ARM overall without realizing that no, the open version of this technology will be incredible .

Oh I'm not against ARM at all. In fact I have many systems running it :) Raspberries but also a Pinebook. I'm also getting an M1 mini from work.

I just don't like the almost-religious overhyping of everything Apple. They're doing a great job. They're not perfect.

For example: Moorhead makes a good point IMO. Yes he's talking about software issues. But in the case of Apple, you can't separate those two. The OS doesn't work on other hardware and (in this case) the hardware doesn't work with other OSes. This works to their (huge) advantage in some cases, being able to optimise each component perfectly. But it can be a drawback too like it is here.