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Linux on the Mac – state of the union

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Re: Linux on the Mac – state of the union

#51

Post by thomasfl »

maratc wrote: post #48

The basis of this article makes no sense. What developers love about Macs is the OS and the nice integration between OS and hardware. Even if you hate the new hardware, it makes sense to continue juicing your current one and see what comes along next year; it makes zero sense to install Linux on a fringe hardware (Mac).

If I'd wanted Linux, I would prefer a windows laptop with flipable touch screen. The Lenovo Yoga would have been great if they'd only support Linux: http://venturebeat.com/2016/09/21/lenovo-confirms-that-linux...

Re: Linux on the Mac – state of the union

#52

Post by hashkb »

toodlebunions wrote: post #5

>>> "the realization that Apple no longer caters equally to casual and professional customers as it had in the past [YouTube video]. Instead, the company appears to be following an iOS-focused, margin-driven strategy that essentially relegates professionals to a fringe group." Ouch

If you just realized this year that they are entertainment focused and devs/pros are a secondary concern, you haven't been paying attention. Since 10.6 when dual full screen was removed I say the shark has been jumped.

Re: Linux on the Mac – state of the union

#53

Post by unwind »

dispose13432 wrote: post #27
vacri wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As I understand it, Nvidia and AMD can't open-source their graphics drivers are parts of them are under third-party NDA.

>As I understand it, Nvidia and AMD can't open-source their graphics drivers are parts of them are under third-party NDA. OK, so the question is upstream. Why would Qualcomm, ARM, or any upstream care about people finding out the interface to their hardware? What secrets are there in the drivers?

Modern graphic card drivers contain full compilers, for the GPU's shading language. It seems reasonable that you can extract performance with better compiler technology.

On the other hand it also seems reasonable that a compiler for e.g. NVIDIA's hardware might be hard to re-target to another vendor's hardware while retaining the same advantage.

Re: Linux on the Mac – state of the union

#54

Post by gurkendoktor »

Sadly, I haven't heard/read anything good about running Linux on the iMac 5K, which I'm tempted to buy when/if it is updated in 2017. I don't understand Apple's vision at all, and it wouldn't surprise me if they ruined macOS in the next five years. Being able to install Fedora in that case would really buy me some peace of mind.

Re: Linux on the Mac – state of the union

#55

Post by [deleted] »

augustl wrote: post #23
rocky1138 wrote: post #12

I wish to thank the dedicated people who make this happen. I'm forced to use Apple hardware at work, but thankfully can run whatever OS I choose. Here's to the crazy ones.

> Here's to the crazy ones. That one hit home.. Based on my lack of options (Windows sucks, macOS is OK but the hardware sucks, Linux lacks a desktop ecosystem) I feel just like a crazy one, a misfit, the ones Apple addressed in that legendary ad.

[deleted]

Re: Linux on the Mac – state of the union

#56

Post by l1k »

matt4077 wrote: post #9
toodlebunions wrote: post #5

>>> "the realization that Apple no longer caters equally to casual and professional customers as it had in the past [YouTube video]. Instead, the company appears to be following an iOS-focused, margin-driven strategy that essentially relegates professionals to a fringe group." Ouch

Apart from being wrong, that narrative doesn't even make sense as an intro to this article: the criticism was directed at the new MBP hardware – so why would these super-professional uber-users buy it and then replace the OS? (Not to mention that, if I understood it correctly, Linux currently doesn't even support the keyboard, and is otherwise probably in its usual desktop mode of "WLAN, Sound, or functioning sleep –…

Author here. As explained in the intro, folks like antirez are considering moving back to Linux and in his linked HN comment he specifically talks about trying Linux on the MacBook he's currently using to see where he's headed. The article seeks to give these folks in particular a helping hand in understanding what works and what doesn't:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12820490

That said, the kernel developers working on Mac hardware support aren't Apple haters. We're fans. I also don't share the "not for professionals" criticism that was widely directed at the new MacBook Pro fully: E.g. as stated in the article, the four Thunderbolt ports are interesting for HPC applications as you can build a portable compute cluster with up to five fully-meshed high-speed networked nodes. If that's not professional I don't know what is.

Re: Linux on the Mac – state of the union

#57

Post by l1k »

maratc wrote: post #48

The basis of this article makes no sense. What developers love about Macs is the OS and the nice integration between OS and hardware. Even if you hate the new hardware, it makes sense to continue juicing your current one and see what comes along next year; it makes zero sense to install Linux on a fringe hardware (Mac).

Well, it turns out there are folks who like Apple's form language but can't get (all of) their work done on macOS or don't want to use it for some reason. So there's a target audience for Linux on the Mac. I'm not saying it's a huge crowd.

Re: Linux on the Mac – state of the union

#59

Post by l1k »

gurkendoktor wrote: post #54

Sadly, I haven't heard/read anything good about running Linux on the iMac 5K, which I'm tempted to buy when/if it is updated in 2017. I don't understand Apple's vision at all, and it wouldn't surprise me if they ruined macOS in the next five years. Being able to install Fedora in that case would really buy me some peace of mind.

There was a thread on dri-devel a year ago:

https://lists.freedesktop.org/archives/dri-devel/2015-Octobe...

Back then the probed panel resolution (EDID retrieved by radeon) was 3840x2160, which doesn't make any sense because the panel actually has 5120x2880. It's unclear if this was because of missing/broken MST support in radeon (Multistream Transport) or if Apple used some proprietary mechanism to squeeze the panel resolution in a single stream transport. You may want to contact the person who started that thread (Andreas Tunek) and ask if the situation has improved with contemporary kernels.

Re: Linux on the Mac – state of the union

#60

Post by maggit »

maratc wrote: post #48

The basis of this article makes no sense. What developers love about Macs is the OS and the nice integration between OS and hardware. Even if you hate the new hardware, it makes sense to continue juicing your current one and see what comes along next year; it makes zero sense to install Linux on a fringe hardware (Mac).

Macs have a good hw/sw-integration, but there are other features as well; I bought my first MBP for its trackpad, which is still unparalleled, and (as l1k puts it) its form language. I'm running Linux, which doesn't offer the same hw/sw-integration quality, but it's pretty good!
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