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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?

#451

Post by josteink »

freehunter wrote: post #165
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…

>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…

> 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?

Let's rephrase that: The company that made a generic X86 computer and intentionally created a non-standard way to boot operating systems on their run-of-the-mill X86 hardware, so that other X86-compatible operating-systems running on the same hardware would have issues and make OSX look better by comparison.

Yeah, that company. I don't expect them to do jack shit for compatibility.

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

#452

Post by otabdeveloper4 »

whereistimbo wrote: post #444
cies wrote: post #434

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

But is amount of people that want to use Linux on an Apple laptop going to be relevant to Apple? Given most consumer would rather use preloaded OS and the state of the linux on the desktop, I don't really think it matters to Apple.

Despite what people say, I view the possibility that Microsoft might switch to the Linux kernel to run Windows as very much real.

NT is very much legacy code in maintenance mode, switching to something that's more modern that's also the base for Android makes a lot of sense.

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

#453

Post by [deleted] »

dabernathy89 wrote: post #447
ashneo76 wrote: post #263

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> A company that doesn't purposefully force manufactured obsolescence as a business model Apple's mobile devices, laptops, and desktops have some of the best longevity and the best resale values in the market.

[deleted]

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

#455

Post by tubs »

marcan_42 wrote: post #41
reificator wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This talk was posted in another comment chain: https://media.ccc.de/v/33c3-7946-console_hacking_2016 This was 3 years after the hardware release, presented on substantially more locked-down (but x86 and PC-like GPU to be fair) hardware with a demonstration of Portal 2 running in real time. Presented by the person you are replying to. I'm also assuming there was no funding involved given the requirement to build an ex…

To be fair, as the author of that: that was mostly a job of reverse engineering what was weird/broken/different about the PS4's GPU, which is otherwise a standard Radeon. It was effectively adding support for a new Radeon variant chip of an existing GPU generation. There was definitely a deep dive into the platform and I reverse engineered the proprietary Radeon firmware CPU architecture in the process (which nobody…

Somewhat responding to a twitter post you made, but the Apple GPU is absolutely not a legacy-free architecture: it still looks broadly (very broadly) similar to a PowerVR GPU, which I don't think anyone would claim is even remotely sane.

To give you some context for the scope of the task: with all the hardware documentation and close to 32 years (combined) experience with that specific architecture it took around two years to write a conformant Vulkan implementation. Not including the compiler, kernel driver, or firmware.

Source: I have worked both on PowerVR and Apple GPU drivers.

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

#456

Post by johnisgood »

black_puppydog wrote: post #297
dwighttk wrote: post #281

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Fwiw both times I dipped my toes into Linux on some old PC laptops (once mint once Ubuntu) I ran into audio, trackpad, and WiFi driver issues.

Which is exactly why these days I'm mindful to buy hardware from companies (and using components) that don't make it hard to run FLOSS. Neither actively by locking bootloader or such, nor passively by withholding documentation needed to write drivers. There are options to buy from & support manufacturers who actively help this process. Why would I put my money towards making apples hardware more attractive, when thei…

I will probably look for laptops in the foreseeable future, or maybe a new desktop. I never had a laptop before[1]. Which brand or models do you recommend for Linux? And for desktop? Like for CPU is AMD good? What about motherboard? Asus, Gigabyte, MSI?

[1] OK, I do. I have a T-42 with an unknown supervisor password. :( I installed OpenBSD on it ages ago, but locked myself out.

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

#457

Post by woahAcademia »

andreareina wrote: post #340
woahAcademia wrote: post #262

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What makes MacOS good?

Reason I bought a Mac way back when is that I wasn't going to go back to Windows if I could avoid it, and I needed to run Photoshop.

This sounds a tad irrational, but I also hate windows once every 4 years.

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

#458

Post by woahAcademia »

deergomoo wrote: post #424
woahAcademia wrote: post #262

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What makes MacOS good?

It's a *nix with real Office and Photoshop

I'm not following why these are related. I use Linux for dev, I use windows for office and Photoshop.

None of those require macOS.

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

#459

Post by woahAcademia »

pedro596 wrote: post #433
woahAcademia wrote: post #262

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Can't really take this seriously when your first line is false.

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

#460

Post by flyinglizard »

cbozeman wrote: post #427
simonh wrote: post #392

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

What's the point? You own it. You control it. YOU have the power. That's the damn point.

You have all the power but none of the utility.
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