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KDE runs on the Apple M2 with full GPU acceleration

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Re: KDE runs on the Apple M2 with full GPU acceleration

#51

Post by musicale »

sofixa wrote: post #21
nu11ptr wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Possibly stupid q: Why buy a mac if you are just going to run Linux on it? I suspect any comparable PC would be more economical (w/ exception of power draw).

The hardware is pretty good. Utterly unmaintainable, unserviceable and unapgradeable, extremely overpriced tiering (e.g. adding storage or RAM which you have to do at purchase time), with limited options (e.g. i cannot stand glossy screens with shitty reflections everywhere causing eye strain), but still very good. However the software (macOS) is pretty shit and IMO hard to adapt to coming from any other OS. Raw perf…

> extremely overpriced tiering (e.g. adding storage or RAM

As I understand it, Apple uses a "system in a package" multi chip module that mounts RAM inside the same package as the main M1/M2 SoC.

Seems to work well in terms of memory bandwidth, unified memory architecture, and physical size, but it's hard to crack that SIP/MCM open to add more RAM.

And it's even harder to add RAM to an SoC die itself. And the GPU is integrated as well (although in theory one could connect an eGPU over Thunderbolt - assuming the driver issues could be sorted out somehow.)

Some old Macs from the 1990s included an external L2 cache SRAM slot. But cache RAM upgrades became impossible once the L2 cache was integrated on the CPU die.

Re: KDE runs on the Apple M2 with full GPU acceleration

#52

Post by acchow »

ultrarunner wrote: post #12
CameronNemo wrote: post #3

Question for those in the know: are there any substantial changes from M1 to M2? I'm sure lots of tuning took place, but is there any major component that was completely overhauled?

Another question for those in the know: there are what seem to be tons of weird GPU problems on macOS under M1— weird cursor tails, choppy scrolling, and very occasional panics that derive from GPU drivers. Are there any workarounds for unstable GPU behavior that were discovered during the RE & driver implementation? Edit: I've directly observed these on my machine, and it doesn't look to be an isolated incident. The…

Issue free for over a year on M1

Re: KDE runs on the Apple M2 with full GPU acceleration

#53

Post by coldtea »

nu11ptr wrote: post #18
jjtheblunt wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

i'm using it as a daily driver for a couple months easily, but my daily driving happens to not require the not-quite-perfect device drivers. i shutdown for sleep, for instance, which works just fine, since boot and login is super fast and restores everything.

Possibly stupid q: Why buy a mac if you are just going to run Linux on it? I suspect any comparable PC would be more economical (w/ exception of power draw).

Power+performance, great battery life, great build quality, great hardware...

Re: KDE runs on the Apple M2 with full GPU acceleration

#54

Post by sofixa »

coutego wrote: post #43
tambourine_man wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Macs, for me, are the software. This is something that became pretty evident during the Intel era. And I bought Macs exclusively when the hardware was both much slower and pricier than PCs (68k and PPC), because I loved the software so much. Funny to read such an opposite opinion. I don’t mind the pretty casing, but it’s icing on the cake.

I'm quite sure it's just a question of what you are used to. It is for me, anyway. My first PC (~year 2000) came with Windows but I wanted to use some software that only existed for Unix at the time and I was used to work in Unix anyway, so I heard about Linux and installed it. Great, I got an OS I was used to and the software I needed for my project. When finally I had to use Windows for work a couple of years later…

Same thing with keyboard mapping, it really bothers me. However I've found that using a keylogger to remap (Karabiner) works decently with very few exceptions (iTerm).

Re: KDE runs on the Apple M2 with full GPU acceleration

#55

Post by musicale »

rsynnott wrote: post #50
tambourine_man wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

On a second thought, there where some transformative hardwares though. The iMac 5k for me, almost a decade later, is still better than anything other vendors have to offer. It’s my childhood dream monitor. Such a shame that they never sold it separately. The M series laptops seem like an inflection point as well. A fanless powerhouse with more than a day's work of battery life and best in class monitor and trackpad.

> Such a shame that they never sold it separately. Well, they sold the controversial LG 5K, which was the same panel, but certainly not the same build quality. I've got one, and it's... fine, and for a very long time was literally the only 5K monitor you could buy, but for the price it is not a well-built piece of kit. (And the first two versions had weird bugs) They now (nearly a decade later) finally sell a fully f…

The 2016 LG 5K is still my preferred monitor. In retrospect it was a surprisingly good investment at its $974 introductory price (~$1100 in 2022.)

The Apple Studio Display certainly improves on it, but at ~$1600 it costs more than a midrange 24" iMac.

It's too bad that the iMac 5K didn't support Target Display Mode. Maybe Apple will bring it back someday along with a new 27" iMac.

Re: KDE runs on the Apple M2 with full GPU acceleration

#56

Post by psychoslave »

tambourine_man wrote: post #31
kitsunesoba wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Serviceability is improved (though still not amazing) in all the machines with chassises redesigned during the "M" era — the "notched" MBP 14/16 and Air have easily accessible bottom screws (no need to remove rubber feet first) and don't have batteries glued in. Keyboards can be changed independently from the top case too. Notably, many Windows laptops fail on both of those counts (like the LG Gram which hides screws…

Macs, for me, are the software. This is something that became pretty evident during the Intel era. And I bought Macs exclusively when the hardware was both much slower and pricier than PCs (68k and PPC), because I loved the software so much. Funny to read such an opposite opinion. I don’t mind the pretty casing, but it’s icing on the cake.

I started to use a Mac for work a few months ago, first time in my life.

I am still often frustrated with keyboard shortcuts, despite having installed a dedicated software to not feel in such an alien place. Sure there is a lot of muscle memory you can blame here. But how does it happens that the default OS doesn't provide the software option? Brew is nice, but here too it's community work filling the hole of the default.

I miss the home, end and del key on the integrated keyboard.

The only way to shutdown the integrated screen and still have the camera usable is to duplicate the screen and diminish brightness to zero. Or use a magnet. Seriously?

No key to show the contextual keyboard.

Where is my select and paste with middle click, outside iTerm2 (community provided)?

Why is there no straight forward way to browse the actual file path in Finder, when a shortcut allows to copy it? It's possibly the file manager that made me feel the most clueless in my life.

It is not like everything is utterly horrible, but I was very surprised at how frustrating it could be as a daily driver. I didn't discovered anything that I would miss from it when I go back on something as basic as a vanilla Gnome.

Re: KDE runs on the Apple M2 with full GPU acceleration

#57

Post by Conan_Kudo »

School-Cotton wrote: post #45
nu11ptr wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Possibly stupid q: Why buy a mac if you are just going to run Linux on it? I suspect any comparable PC would be more economical (w/ exception of power draw).

There are a number of reasons. 1. I prefer Mac hardware to any PC hardware (I don't know any manufacturers who come close to apple in hardware quality, so I don't think the "comparable PC" you cite even exists in reality). 2. I prefer to use Linux, since I'm more familiar with it, I'm more likely to be able to debug it when things go wrong (macOS Just Works more reliably, but when it doesn't, I'm stuck), and also I w…

I would probably suggest that Lenovo comes pretty close to Apple in terms of build quality. I have both Macs and ThinkPads and they both feel pretty good. The Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Carbon Gen 10 is available with Fedora Linux as an option[1] and pretty much everything works out of the box with great performance.

If you're in Europe, you can also get the ThinkPad Z13 and Z16 (which are AMD-based laptops) with Fedora as well, and that should be coming to the North American Lenovo store soon (hopefully).

Lenovo works with Fedora to ensure that things work, and there's a nice process to make sure everything stays "good" with Fedora Linux on Lenovo hardware.

[1]: https://www.lenovo.com/us/en/p/laptops/thinkpad/thinkpadx1/t...

Re: KDE runs on the Apple M2 with full GPU acceleration

#58

Post by rsynnott »

musicale wrote: post #55
rsynnott wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Such a shame that they never sold it separately. Well, they sold the controversial LG 5K, which was the same panel, but certainly not the same build quality. I've got one, and it's... fine, and for a very long time was literally the only 5K monitor you could buy, but for the price it is not a well-built piece of kit. (And the first two versions had weird bugs) They now (nearly a decade later) finally sell a fully f…

The 2016 LG 5K is still my preferred monitor. In retrospect it was a surprisingly good investment at its $974 introductory price (~$1100 in 2022.) The Apple Studio Display certainly improves on it, but at ~$1600 it costs more than a midrange 24" iMac. It's too bad that the iMac 5K didn't support Target Display Mode. Maybe Apple will bring it back someday along with a new 27" iMac.

I was really hoping this would come back once it was feasible (at the time it came out, the only vaguely well-supported way to do it would have been two DP cables, but later versions of DP and Thunderbolt 3 and better can handle 5k without trouble), but, given that the 5K iMac is now gone, I wouldn't hold out too much hope...

Re: KDE runs on the Apple M2 with full GPU acceleration

#59

Post by atchoo »

nextos wrote: post #36
recuter wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I get 12+ hours of battery life on my M1 Air, no longer bother with cables and outlets at coffee shops. What else I could buy of similar weight/size/battery/quality? Even if knew of an alternative, there are other unexpected perks to going with Apple: travel constantly, occasionally selling my old one and switching to a new machine is easy whereas with other brands would be impossible. Amortized cost is less than $1/…

This also happened when Macs transitioned to Intel and Core 2 Duo laptops were released. At the same price point, PCs were much noiser and had much poorer battery range. ARM laptops from other brands are starting to pop up but they will take at least a year to catch up in terms of performance. Right now, ThinkPad X13s runs Linux very decently, but it's less powerful than the M1. In the US market it might be cheaper t…

Interesting product. 230g lighter with 10 hours longer battery life than an M1 Air.

> In Europe it's 50% more expensive

It's basically the same price in the UK. £84 more than an equivalent M1 Air on the Lenovo site right now.

Re: KDE runs on the Apple M2 with full GPU acceleration

#60

Post by pard68 »

nu11ptr wrote: post #18
jjtheblunt wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

i'm using it as a daily driver for a couple months easily, but my daily driving happens to not require the not-quite-perfect device drivers. i shutdown for sleep, for instance, which works just fine, since boot and login is super fast and restores everything.

Possibly stupid q: Why buy a mac if you are just going to run Linux on it? I suspect any comparable PC would be more economical (w/ exception of power draw).

I do not (currently) use this but I am interested in this. My reason is simple, I have a Mac and not a PC running Linux because my employer provides Macs and not PCs. If I got to use the computer I want, than I'd use a PC and run Linux (have at prior employers who didn't have/care about MDM).
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