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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?

#391

Post by flyinglizard »

fsflover wrote: post #363
flyinglizard wrote: post #332

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> As some one else said, every spare dollar I have is going to fund a company that values open source hardware, open source software, right to repair and own. What is this whimsical company, and how exactly does it make money? > You know why open source hardware is expensive for lower quality? Because Apple pays the premium on the premium quality stuff. But I'm that process they also drive up the prices. Apple is not…

> What is this whimsical company, and how exactly does it make money? https://puri.sm/products

Is their hardware really open source? Are they making money? Is a $799 phone with hardware that dates 5 years back considered a "viable consumer product", or is this a niche device that just shows how open source fails to produce viable consumer products?

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

#392

Post by simonh »

fsflover wrote: post #363
flyinglizard wrote: post #332

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> As some one else said, every spare dollar I have is going to fund a company that values open source hardware, open source software, right to repair and own. What is this whimsical company, and how exactly does it make money? > You know why open source hardware is expensive for lower quality? Because Apple pays the premium on the premium quality stuff. But I'm that process they also drive up the prices. Apple is not…

> What is this whimsical company, and how exactly does it make money? https://puri.sm/products

What is the point of having the right to repair a phone that, 3 years after it's crowd funding campaign, now has 5 year old hardware, still can't reliably make calls and has a sub 2 hour battery life?

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

#393

Post by dreamer_ »

herpderperator wrote: post #374
thayne wrote: post #278

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Whenever I use the CLI on a mac, I am frustrated by the absense of all the GNU extensions that aren't there when I use the core utilities, and that the version of bash is ancient . I mean I still prefer it over windows, but it is not the same experience as linux.

This is really a non-issue and easy to get around. You can easily install the GNU utilities which take precedence in your PATH. I installed them all with Homebrew in a few minutes, including bash5. You can follow this guide[0] as a start. [0] https://gist.github.com/skyzyx/3438280b18e4f7c490db8a2a2ca0b...

It is an issue if I need to rewrite my scripts specifically for macOS and they are no longer cross-platform.

Yeah, you can alias all utilities called g to , but you can't reasonably expect all users of your scripts to do so as well.

Using macOS is PITA.

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

#394

Post by mschuster91 »

amelius wrote: post #390
mschuster91 wrote: post #382

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree with the majority of your post, but this part here is flat out wrong: > You know why open source hardware is expensive for lower quality? Because Apple pays the premium on the premium quality stuff. But I'm that process they also drive up the prices. Hardware is hard . Some Atmel or whatever low brain microcontroller can be had on a board with hand-painted selfmade-etched circuits or shoddy breadboard stuff,…

You seem to be forgetting about the powerful EDA software that will help with the design and its verification.

Which isn't free (and easy to use!) either.

And I forgot about another thing too: the supply of people. While everyone and their dog can attend some six weeks coding bootcamp or teach themselves using free and open resources and can then start contributing to open source code, dealing with hardware requires a good education in fundamental physics, good amounts of money for components and tooling (a good soldering iron, air filters, fine-controlled hot air gun, a decent oven, the equipment and the chemicals for etching, a precise micro-drill, ...). Many people don't have that amount of upfront money and skills, and those that do often don't have the amount of free time to help advance open source because, as I wrote, it takes lots of time and money to deal with smart hardware.

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

#395

Post by beshrkayali »

Yes. Because it'd be good to provide an alternative. Yes it's locked platform, but performance/price wise it'll be interesting to see what happens, and it's unlikely that we'll have an open alternative to it soon.

People replying "no" seem to be doing so for ideological reasons with no regard to practicality. Obviously it'd be better if it was an open platform, but it isn't, and that's fine. Whatever you think of Apple, you have a very simple option of not using their products. I don't use a Mac for that reason. But with the performance and price of new M1 machines, I can definitely see a usecase, probably not as a daily driver, but I'd still need it to run linux natively. Anyway, people who will take on such an effort (with the appropriate funding) aren't necessarily going to be working on something else if this doesn't materialize.

I don't think that asking this kind of question on twitter/hackernews is representative. Start with something and open up some way to fund it, then either continue or stop if it makes sense.

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

#396

Post by rdsubhas »

ashneo76 wrote: post #263
squarefoot wrote: post #94

No, 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…

No.No.no.no.no.no.no.no. A million thousand times no. As some one else said, every spare dollar I have is going to fund a company that values open source hardware, open source software, right to repair and own. A company that doesn't purposefully force manufactured obsolescence as a business model, privacy intrusions, lip service to OSS, bullying right to repair in courts, tax evasions doesn't deserve any free work f…

> You know why open source hardware is expensive for lower quality? Because Apple pays the premium on the premium quality stuff. But I'm that process they also drive up the prices.

"pays the premium on the premium quality stuff" reads very weird to me. Isn't that how generally the world is supposed to work? You pay a premium for premium stuff? If not Apple, somebody is anyways going to do it right...

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

#397

Post by fsflover »

simonh wrote: post #392
fsflover wrote: post #363

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> What is this whimsical company, and how exactly does it make money? https://puri.sm/products

What is the point of having the right to repair a phone that, 3 years after it's crowd funding campaign, now has 5 year old hardware, still can't reliably make calls and has a sub 2 hour battery life?

It can reliably make calls [0] and has a decent battery life [1] (even though it cannot sleep yet!). If you have more concerns, you can check the community FAQ [2].

Concerning the old hardware, it's the most powerful phone which can run latest Linux kernel and the only one recommended by the FSF [3]. Specs is not the whole story in smartphones [4].

[0] https://source.puri.sm/Librem5/community-wiki/-/wikis/Cellul...

[1] https://puri.sm/posts/librem-5-4500mah-battery-upgrade/

[2] https://source.puri.sm/Librem5/community-wiki/-/wikis/Freque...

[3] https://www.fsf.org/givingguide/v11

[4] https://source.puri.sm/Librem5/community-wiki/-/wikis/Freque...

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

#398

Post by foldr »

mschuster91 wrote: post #394
amelius wrote: post #390

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You seem to be forgetting about the powerful EDA software that will help with the design and its verification.

Which isn't free (and easy to use!) either. And I forgot about another thing too: the supply of people. While everyone and their dog can attend some six weeks coding bootcamp or teach themselves using free and open resources and can then start contributing to open source code, dealing with hardware requires a good education in fundamental physics, good amounts of money for components and tooling (a good soldering iro…

I completely agree with your overall point, but on a pedantic note, you don't need to etch your own PCBs these days.

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

#399

Post by fsflover »

flyinglizard wrote: post #391
fsflover wrote: post #363

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> What is this whimsical company, and how exactly does it make money? https://puri.sm/products

Is their hardware really open source? Are they making money? Is a $799 phone with hardware that dates 5 years back considered a "viable consumer product", or is this a niche device that just shows how open source fails to produce viable consumer products?

See my reply above and check the FAQ: https://source.puri.sm/Librem5/community-wiki/-/wikis/Freque....

> Is their hardware really open source?

The phone is going to get Respects Your Freedom certification by the FSF.

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

#400

Post by unionpivo »

ampdepolymerase wrote: post #162

Most of the solutions in this thread are simply not viable. Stuff like the Pinebook and Raspberry Pi are several magnitudes away from Apple's M1 SoC. No amount of hackerish imitation will bridge that gap, the laws of physics are not kind to consumer product hardware hackers. It is very obvious that most of the people commenting here has never held a soldering iron, nor taken a single computer architecture class. The…

Ehh I think people are overestimating M1 impact.

Sure its the best laptop/ipad(other pad) chip out there. And it (and it's next versions) will likely remain best for quite a while.

But it's not that the rest of the chips out there turned into garbage. They are still very usable.

Personally I have gone away from laptops back to desktops. Having desktop and a phone/tablet combination for me is better than just laptop or laptop + phone/tablet. I still have my laptop, but I very rarely use it now. (mostly if I travel, which I don't because of covid :) ) But having latest gratest laptop is not anywhere near the top of my purchasing priority.

And on desktops, latest AMD chips and lots of fast ram, are quite decent.

Bottom line even if OS never has anything that matches M1, it will still be fine.

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