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Gnome Shell on the Apple M1, bare metal

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Re: Gnome Shell on the Apple M1, bare metal

#61

Post by CogitoCogito »

nixpulvis wrote: post #54
p4bl0 wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> "free software" becomes unfree when you have to pay Not the same meaning of "free". But anyway, for now, you have to pay Apple prices to have a computer with an M1 chip on it. If the price is a string requirement, one probably won't buy Apple hardware and rather get something that less expensive and is already well supported by free software :).

> Not the same meaning of "free". But anyway Would you care to enlighten me please? Otherwise your comment is of no value.

“Free software” means software that respects users' freedom and community. Roughly, it means that the users have the freedom to run, copy, distribute, study, change and improve the software. Thus, “free software” is a matter of liberty, not price. To understand the concept, you should think of “free” as in “free speech,” not as in “free beer”. We sometimes call it “libre software,” borrowing the French or Spanish word for “free” as in freedom, to show we do not mean the software is gratis.

You may have paid money to get copies of a free program, or you may have obtained copies at no charge. But regardless of how you got your copies, you always have the freedom to copy and change the software, even to sell copies.

https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-sw.en.html

Re: Gnome Shell on the Apple M1, bare metal

#62

Post by bschwindHN »

nixpulvis wrote: post #47
watermelon0 wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For some people it's a nice challenge to tackle. Additionally, M1 is currently best? platform when comparing performance with power usage, and (at least MBA) comes in a great form factor. AFAIK there is no comparable device that has decent support for Linux.

> For some people it's a nice challenge to tackle. So is killing a tiger, but you don't see any stripes on my wall.

Sure, getting Linux to run on hardware you purchased is equivalent to poaching. Very reasonable take.

Re: Gnome Shell on the Apple M1, bare metal

#63

Post by [deleted] »

alpaca128 wrote: post #58
nixpulvis wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem, as I see it, is that "free software" becomes unfree when you have to pay to port it. Back in the glory of more universal general computers this was perhaps a lesser spoken requirement of the system. Today, it's clear to me that we are slipping back into chaos. EDIT: Seems like FSF's "freedom to run" might fit the definitional benchmark for me. I'm not really sure how people are going to react to that tho…

Free Software is not about getting stuff for free and never was. Free refers to freedom/liberty. > Free software is software that gives you the user the freedom to share, study and modify it. We call this free software because the user is free. https://www.fsf.org/about/what-is-free-software

[deleted]

Re: Gnome Shell on the Apple M1, bare metal

#64

Post by nixpulvis »

karatinversion wrote: post #59
p4bl0 wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> "free software" becomes unfree when you have to pay Not the same meaning of "free". But anyway, for now, you have to pay Apple prices to have a computer with an M1 chip on it. If the price is a string requirement, one probably won't buy Apple hardware and rather get something that less expensive and is already well supported by free software :).

To quote fsf, > Free software means that the users have the freedom to run, edit, contribute to, and share the software. Thus, free software is a matter of liberty, not price.

"freedom to run"

Re: Gnome Shell on the Apple M1, bare metal

#65

Post by caskstrength »

pkulak wrote: post #24

I’m so worried this project will get 95% of the way there, and then all the fun issues will run out and the M1 will be just another MacBook with WiFi, Bluetooth and sleep issues. The obvious issue is to pay someone to do the work, and I am, but I still can’t shake the fear.

> I’m so worried this project will get 95% of the way there, and then all the fun issues will run out and the M1 will be just another MacBook with WiFi, Bluetooth and sleep issues.

You are right to be worried. Getting all the nitty-gritty details about modern hardware without access to documentation is impossible. In the end this will somewhat work but will almost certainly have worse performance than MacOS with higher energy usage and be otherwise rough around the edges (like sleep problems, lack of support for fingerprint scanner and other issues typical to hardware that are not directly supported to run Linux by the vendor).

> The obvious issue is to pay someone to do the work, and I am, but I still can’t shake the fear.

I don't think just paying someone is going to help unless Apple provides documentation (which they won't do).

Re: Gnome Shell on the Apple M1, bare metal

#66

Post by the_biot »

aviatordongle wrote: post #9
rpowers wrote: post #7

I am forever in awe of the engineers that can work with the low-level bits and make things like this happen. I'm a deer in the headlights whenever I see addrs and `eax 0xDAFAC000...`

I was until I did some device driver development. Imagine it like trying to write a HTTP client for an undocumented SMTP-as-a-service HTTP server. * you know how to make HTTP requests (you know how to use I2C or PCI or ...) * you know roughly what an SMTP-as-a-service should do (you know roughly what a display driver should do) * you don't know the URLs (you don't know the addresses) It's a fun exercise in collaborat…

That's regular device driver reverse engineering stuff, and not a bad analogy BTW.

But what marcan is doing is another level of awesomeness altogether. The m1n1 bootloader that runs the rest of MacOS in a VM for logging purposes is a hail mary move of such epic brilliance, it brings tears to my eyes.

Re: Gnome Shell on the Apple M1, bare metal

#67

Post by bni »

pkulak wrote: post #24

I’m so worried this project will get 95% of the way there, and then all the fun issues will run out and the M1 will be just another MacBook with WiFi, Bluetooth and sleep issues. The obvious issue is to pay someone to do the work, and I am, but I still can’t shake the fear.

"WiFi, Bluetooth and sleep issues."

This is true for almost any random laptop, and has been since forever.

Its obvious the M1 and its successors have a chance of becoming a well known constant since its a SoC, and not a collection of random components from many vendors (that might or might not have good inline-Linux driver). Intel Macs, other laptops have had different hardware components even for the same model over its lifetime.

Re: Gnome Shell on the Apple M1, bare metal

#68

Post by the_gipsy »

bni wrote: post #67
pkulak wrote: post #24

I’m so worried this project will get 95% of the way there, and then all the fun issues will run out and the M1 will be just another MacBook with WiFi, Bluetooth and sleep issues. The obvious issue is to pay someone to do the work, and I am, but I still can’t shake the fear.

"WiFi, Bluetooth and sleep issues." This is true for almost any random laptop, and has been since forever. Its obvious the M1 and its successors have a chance of becoming a well known constant since its a SoC, and not a collection of random components from many vendors (that might or might not have good inline-Linux driver). Intel Macs, other laptops have had different hardware components even for the same model over…

> This is true for almost any random laptop, and has been since forever.

For sone random hp or whatever crappy netbook maybe yes, but you can’t compare a MacBook to that. There are good laptops that don’t have those problems, I haven’t run into any issues with my Thinkpad.

Re: Gnome Shell on the Apple M1, bare metal

#69

Post by Razengan »

nixpulvis wrote: post #26
pkulak wrote: post #24

I’m so worried this project will get 95% of the way there, and then all the fun issues will run out and the M1 will be just another MacBook with WiFi, Bluetooth and sleep issues. The obvious issue is to pay someone to do the work, and I am, but I still can’t shake the fear.

I wonder why we even bother trying to support these hardware vendors sometimes. I have been trying really hard to simply not deal with them for my own sanity. Are we not simply letting the leash out further for what we will accept and buy? Are we truly that powerless against the market forces which drive HW/OS sales?

Or, or, or.. bear with me.. do we simply like what’s being offered and nothing about it turns us off to change our habits and try alternative products, all of which come with their own brand of bullshit anyway?

Re: Gnome Shell on the Apple M1, bare metal

#70

Post by laumars »

bni wrote: post #67
pkulak wrote: post #24

I’m so worried this project will get 95% of the way there, and then all the fun issues will run out and the M1 will be just another MacBook with WiFi, Bluetooth and sleep issues. The obvious issue is to pay someone to do the work, and I am, but I still can’t shake the fear.

"WiFi, Bluetooth and sleep issues." This is true for almost any random laptop, and has been since forever. Its obvious the M1 and its successors have a chance of becoming a well known constant since its a SoC, and not a collection of random components from many vendors (that might or might not have good inline-Linux driver). Intel Macs, other laptops have had different hardware components even for the same model over…

> This is true for almost any random laptop, and has been since forever.

Not this old trope again.

I haven’t had WiFi and sleep issues with Linux for at least a decade (I don’t use Bluetooth on laptops so can’t comment there). And I do use random laptops, including MBPs.

People seem to hold on to the same old arguments about Linux that were true back when XP was released but things have unsurprisingly moved on since then.

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