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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?

#431

Post by cies »

kalleboo wrote: post #265
jjoonathan wrote: post #234

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Did they ever start getting license revenue from China? I've had a few recent interactions with Chinese businesses that suggest piracy is still rampant and shameless.

They're probably still better off than if they clamped down on piracy and China decided to develop a competitor to Windows and switched to that

China did, it's (was) called Red Flag Linux. It's shut down now. I believe this product was mainly a tactic to get the Chinese gov't a better position in negotiating deal with MS (probably regarding both cost and access to backdoors).

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

#432

Post by dragandj »

amluto wrote: post #277
cozzyd wrote: post #231

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That seems silly. Developer machines rarely have AVX-512 or multiple TB of ram too...

Various people have suggested to Intel that they made a mistake by not selling desktop/workstation chips with AVX-512.

They DO sell desktop chips with AVX-512. I'm writing this from one: i9-9900X.

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

#433

Post by pedro596 »

woahAcademia wrote: post #262
Wowfunhappy wrote: post #202

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The main reason to run hackintosh as far as I know is to write software for macOS or iOS. I suspect a lot of Hackintoshes users do so because they like using macOS day-to-day, but don't see anything appealing in Apple's hardware lineup. I'm one of them.

What makes MacOS good?

- Normally is attached to very good-looking and sturdy machines

- You can have (..)nix like terminal in half of the screen and Office, Photoshop, and most of the shiny SW ("except games") running flawlessly in the other half without some kind of VM

- The battery of this very nice machines that it comes attached to may last a day

- Customization is a bit more restricted than its (..)nix cousins so most of the time it runs flawlessly even if you don't know what you're doing

- It connects very well with the other device that a lot of people carry in their pockets

- There are not a lot of combinations of HW + MacOs that you can run so online support tends to be very good

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

#434

Post by cies »

yellowapple wrote: post #386
otabdeveloper4 wrote: post #352

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> they see no threat in Linux at all Yet.

I mean, hopefully they haven't entirely sold their hardware-company soul, in which case Linux support would only help hardware sales, even if by a little bit. Apple certainly didn't do much to interfere with people porting Linux and BSDs to their PowerPC hardware back in the day (and indeed, the Powerbook G4 sitting on my bed right now is mostly-happily running OpenBSD). However, considering Apple's behavior around i…

If you use Linux on an Apple laptop, you are less likely to use their software stores, mobile phones, tablets, headphones, etc.

The integratedness of Apple's offerings depend on the control they have on both software and hardware. I think it's the integratedness that sells Apple's product.

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

#435

Post by cbozeman »

rowanG077 wrote: post #177
slang800 wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you're not willing to look outside of the exact form factor and specs that Apple happens to support, then open devices aren't a priority for you. I use a 1 inch thick Thinkpad that's almost a decade old because it runs Libreboot. There is an alternative, but you need to be in the mindset where freedom is more important than hardware.

Exactly you need to compromise significantly on speed and form factor. It's simply not practical for me to do that.

No, its practical... you just don't want to do anything more than what's easiest, because that's how humans have evolved.

You could drive across country right now without a cell phone, just buy a Rand McNally road atlas. That's all you need.

You won't... because it would require you to pay attention to signs and exits, instead of having Google Maps do all that for you.

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

#436

Post by cbozeman »

rowanG077 wrote: post #337
tengbretson wrote: post #223

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Did you not own a computer prior to this month?

Of course I do. But there is no 13 inch laptop that fullfills my nerds.

> there is no 13 inch laptop that fullfills my nerds.

I choose to believe this is not a typo.

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

#437

Post by amelius »

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 don't think you understand very well how hardware design works. Most hardware designers write code just like software developers. Most of them have never used a hot air gun, and most of them can't explain in much detail how a transistor works at the physical level (they learned this once in their education, but have since forgotten, simply because they don't need to know this in their daytime jobs). Yes, once you need to fab your design (and iterate on it) you need other disciplines, but the work here is more or less the same for any design.

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

#438

Post by j4yav »

MaxBarraclough wrote: post #414
mschuster91 wrote: post #394

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> 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 Perhaps this was intended to be hyperbolic, but no, you can't become a kernel developer, say, in six weeks. You can learn to dabble in web development in that time, but you'll barely have taken the first step toward being a serious software engineer.

They said that it was possible to contribute to open source, which is surely true. Not that they could be a kernel developer.

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

#439

Post by samvher »

higerordermap wrote: post #406
MrBuddyCasino wrote: post #353

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> they see no threat in Linux at all Imagine thinking macOS is threatened by Linux. Guys like this will never understand the appeal of the Apple ecosystem, it is beyond their comprehension. There are some good reasons to run Linux, but shouldn't you at least be capable of seeing why Apple makes the kind of money they do, beyond the "well those customers must obviously be stupid and less enlightened than myself, a tru…

> "well those customers must obviously be stupid and less enlightened than myself, a true warrior of the Free Software tribe" Sort of. For most MacBook users, a chromebook will be more sensible choice. And iphones sell because fashion. iOS is locked down, and Mac app Store is also a candy shop. Because there are stupid people to spend money on shit mobile games, apple makes quite a lot of money. And they do lot of de…

My next machine is going to be a Linux machine. Having said that, Apple builds high quality products - my 2012 MacBook Pro is still very good, and the software is incredibly stable. Yes a lot of stuff is locked down but that also means the interface is predictable and stable, mostly things just work.

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

#440

Post by rbanffy »

saagarjha wrote: post #261
rbanffy wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

x86 emulation is not an issue for 99% of the ARM market. I think it's safe to assume M1 is the first Apple chip that has it.

A12Z has it.

That's kind of weird. What is it used for in iOS?
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