7 ms·

Apple will singlehandedly make 2021 "the year of Linux on the desktop".

by m000 6y ago

the-golden-one 6y ago
I thought that was WSL2 on Windows 10?
pantalaimon 6y ago
When was the year of the macOS desktop?
- julienfr112 6y ago
  2012 ?
- inetknght 6y ago
  1996
- m000 6y ago
  It's not about stealing users from macOS. It's about stealing developers. Hell, Apple is at the mercy of Microsoft and Adobe right now. I'd bet they had to line their pockets very well, so that they don't get any funny ideas. But Apple can't just pay-up every cross-platform software developer. Smaller developers will have to re-evaluate whether macOS remains a viable target platform for them. Which can translate to a dev-gain for Linux. The catch is that Linux is in much better position to translate an influx of developers to an influx of new users: Linux runs on what you have, while macOS requires you buy Apple hardware. And let's not forget about macOS as a gaming platform. Linux has made a huge leap forward with Steam Proton. On macOS there's still a ton of games not supporting x86_64 (Catalina), and situation won't get better by transition to ARM.
  - dnh44 6y ago
    That may be true but it’s not accounting for the iPhone and iPad developers out there that will be able to easily target macOS after the switch.
  - alwillis 6y ago
    Hell, Apple is at the mercy of Microsoft and Adobe right now. I'd bet they had to line their pockets very well, so that they don't get any funny ideas. I’m sure that's not the case. It's much more in Adobe’s interest to be ARM-ready on day 1; there are plenty of Photoshop alternatives in the Mac App Store—notice they demoed Affinity Photo running on the ARM Mac and Affinity is much better at using Apple's native APIs and technologies than Adobe every was. And it's just a one-time cost of $49.99 vs. renting Photoshop from Adobe. Users of Apple devices are continue to be a large segment of their customer base. Adobe has already migrated all of their core applications to a new codebase that should be relatively easy to bring to ARM Macs. Photoshop and several other of their apps already runs on iPadOS, so it won't be that big a deal to move it over to Big Sur.
  - jmull 6y ago
    > ... while macOS requires you buy Apple hardware ... macOS as a gaming platform ... So nothing is changing. ARM Mac isn’t going to change the Linux desktop/laptop story.
  - pjmlp 6y ago
    macOS users actually pay those smaller developers, it would be foolish for them to expect anything from Linux users, it is hard but it is the reality. Hence why plenty just target Android, although some of their apps could easily be targeting GNU/Linux as well (specially the ones that are mostly NDK glue + whatever framework).
- anthk 6y ago
  2001-2002 with OSX.
- ch_sm 6y ago
  Pretty much when the choice was between Vista and Tiger
octorian 6y ago
Every time Microsoft or Apple majorly screws something up, people say this. It still hasn't happened yet. However, I think Apple has been a far greater threat to Linux adoption than Microsoft. Why? Because it gives techies the *nix environment they want, with the software and hardware support no one will give them on Linux. There is real value in proprietary commercial end-user application software. Most companies who make such software couldn't care less about supporting Linux. So if you want to use Linux, you have to use F/OSS alternatives and continue to try convincing everyone that somehow they're better than the commercial options... even when the rest of the world has agreed that they're really not. The whole incentive structure around F/OSS development really doesn't work for software where the profit motive is in the product itself... Not some nebulous "support contract" that you don't actually need. (Which is a far bigger issue for end-user applications.)
- ryandvm 6y ago
  > Because it gives techies the *nix environment they want, with the software and hardware support no one will give them on Linux. The UNIX experience on the Mac is pretty shitty. Ancient versions of all the tooling. Command-line utils have that weird BSD well-water flavor. No package management. Funny Docker quirks. The hardware used to be pretty nice, but honestly I'm still having trouble forgiving them for getting rid of the physical ESC key and turning volume control into a two-step routine on the TouchBar. Honestly if I'm doing server-side development, I much prefer using my ThinkPad (Ubuntu) over my MacBook. About the only thing I miss is the far superior touchpad on the Macbook. That's it.
  - rootusrootus 6y ago
    I was with you until they released the newest MBP. Now my beloved ESC is back. I already do all my development in a Vagrant instance so I've never been bothered by the tooling. In all other regards I prefer MacOS as a desktop environment to the currently available Linux choices.
  - mbreese 6y ago
    >> Because it gives techies the nix environment they want, with the software and hardware support no one will give them on Linux. > The UNIX experience on the Mac is pretty shitty. Ancient versions of all the tooling. Command-line utils have that weird BSD well-water flavor. No package management. Funny Docker quirks. It doesn't have to be the best nix environment. Hell, it doesn't even have to be a good one. It just has to be "good-enough". For this, they still have an advantage over Windows. And compared with Linux, they still have the advantage that by-and-large, things "just work". I have never personally been able to say that about a Linux desktop I've had. There is always one more thing to tweak, one more knob to turn, etc... I'm with you on the ESC key and touch bar though... which they thankfully fixed the missing ESC key.
starsinspace 6y ago
To give a different perspective: I find Apple's move to ARM the most exciting thing to happen in desktop computers in many years. I'm typing this from a PC running Win10. Current plan is: as soon as ARM desktop Macs become available (and assuming they don't screw it up in some weird way), I'd like to switch.
- yjftsjthsd-h 6y ago
  So, and I say this as someone who's stoked to see any non-x86 system going mainstream... why do you want to switch? What benefit do you see to switching to an ARM laptop? Or is it just "this is a good thing (in general) so I want to get on board with it"?
  - starsinspace 6y ago
    I'm also excited about a non-x86 architecture on the desktop again. Monoculture is bad, and I find x86 to be especially ugly... As for switching... I'm increasingly unhappy with Microsoft's complete disregard of user privacy. Apple isn't perfect with that either, but IMO much better at least. For my use cases, Win and Mac are the only credible options due to software availability. So to get away from Windows.. there's not much choice these days.
    - torstenvl 6y ago
      Why do you feel like proprietary software monocultures are better than commoditized hardware monocultures? OS vendors selling 100% custom silicon is not the path to diversity and freedom of choice.
- mey 6y ago
  If it's ARM that excites you, Surface Pro X (Windows) and Pinebook (Linux) exist today. If it's macOS, you could switch now. What about the combo of macOS + ARM do you find compelling?
  - ajconway 6y ago
dehrmann 6y ago
I expect Lenovo will move a few extra units because of this decision.

Apple will singlehandedly make 2021 "the year of Linux on the desktop".

by m000 6y ago

Apple will singlehandedly make 2021 "the year of Linux on the desktop".

the-golden-one 6y ago

I thought that was WSL2 on Windows 10?

pantalaimon 6y ago

When was the year of the macOS desktop?

julienfr112 6y ago
2012 ?
inetknght 6y ago
1996
m000 6y ago
It's not about stealing users from macOS. It's about stealing developers. Hell, Apple is at the mercy of Microsoft and Adobe right now. I'd bet they had to line their pockets very well, so that they don't get any funny ideas. But Apple can't just pay-up every cross-platform software developer. Smaller developers will have to re-evaluate whether macOS remains a viable target platform for them. Which can translate to a dev-gain for Linux. The catch is that Linux is in much better position to translate an influx of developers to an influx of new users: Linux runs on what you have, while macOS requires you buy Apple hardware. And let's not forget about macOS as a gaming platform. Linux has made a huge leap forward with Steam Proton. On macOS there's still a ton of games not supporting x86_64 (Catalina), and situation won't get better by transition to ARM.
- dnh44 6y ago
  That may be true but it’s not accounting for the iPhone and iPad developers out there that will be able to easily target macOS after the switch.
- alwillis 6y ago
  Hell, Apple is at the mercy of Microsoft and Adobe right now. I'd bet they had to line their pockets very well, so that they don't get any funny ideas. I’m sure that's not the case. It's much more in Adobe’s interest to be ARM-ready on day 1; there are plenty of Photoshop alternatives in the Mac App Store—notice they demoed Affinity Photo running on the ARM Mac and Affinity is much better at using Apple's native APIs and technologies than Adobe every was. And it's just a one-time cost of $49.99 vs. renting Photoshop from Adobe. Users of Apple devices are continue to be a large segment of their customer base. Adobe has already migrated all of their core applications to a new codebase that should be relatively easy to bring to ARM Macs. Photoshop and several other of their apps already runs on iPadOS, so it won't be that big a deal to move it over to Big Sur.
- jmull 6y ago
  > ... while macOS requires you buy Apple hardware ... macOS as a gaming platform ... So nothing is changing. ARM Mac isn’t going to change the Linux desktop/laptop story.
- pjmlp 6y ago
  macOS users actually pay those smaller developers, it would be foolish for them to expect anything from Linux users, it is hard but it is the reality. Hence why plenty just target Android, although some of their apps could easily be targeting GNU/Linux as well (specially the ones that are mostly NDK glue + whatever framework).
anthk 6y ago
2001-2002 with OSX.
ch_sm 6y ago
Pretty much when the choice was between Vista and Tiger

octorian 6y ago

Every time Microsoft or Apple majorly screws something up, people say this. It still hasn't happened yet. However, I think Apple has been a far greater threat to Linux adoption than Microsoft. Why? Because it gives techies the *nix environment they want, with the software and hardware support no one will give them on Linux. There is real value in proprietary commercial end-user application software. Most companies who make such software couldn't care less about supporting Linux. So if you want to use Linux, you have to use F/OSS alternatives and continue to try convincing everyone that somehow they're better than the commercial options... even when the rest of the world has agreed that they're really not. The whole incentive structure around F/OSS development really doesn't work for software where the profit motive is in the product itself... Not some nebulous "support contract" that you don't actually need. (Which is a far bigger issue for end-user applications.)

ryandvm 6y ago
> Because it gives techies the *nix environment they want, with the software and hardware support no one will give them on Linux. The UNIX experience on the Mac is pretty shitty. Ancient versions of all the tooling. Command-line utils have that weird BSD well-water flavor. No package management. Funny Docker quirks. The hardware used to be pretty nice, but honestly I'm still having trouble forgiving them for getting rid of the physical ESC key and turning volume control into a two-step routine on the TouchBar. Honestly if I'm doing server-side development, I much prefer using my ThinkPad (Ubuntu) over my MacBook. About the only thing I miss is the far superior touchpad on the Macbook. That's it.
- rootusrootus 6y ago
  I was with you until they released the newest MBP. Now my beloved ESC is back. I already do all my development in a Vagrant instance so I've never been bothered by the tooling. In all other regards I prefer MacOS as a desktop environment to the currently available Linux choices.
- mbreese 6y ago
  >> Because it gives techies the nix environment they want, with the software and hardware support no one will give them on Linux. > The UNIX experience on the Mac is pretty shitty. Ancient versions of all the tooling. Command-line utils have that weird BSD well-water flavor. No package management. Funny Docker quirks. It doesn't have to be the best nix environment. Hell, it doesn't even have to be a good one. It just has to be "good-enough". For this, they still have an advantage over Windows. And compared with Linux, they still have the advantage that by-and-large, things "just work". I have never personally been able to say that about a Linux desktop I've had. There is always one more thing to tweak, one more knob to turn, etc... I'm with you on the ESC key and touch bar though... which they thankfully fixed the missing ESC key.

starsinspace 6y ago

To give a different perspective: I find Apple's move to ARM the most exciting thing to happen in desktop computers in many years. I'm typing this from a PC running Win10. Current plan is: as soon as ARM desktop Macs become available (and assuming they don't screw it up in some weird way), I'd like to switch.

yjftsjthsd-h 6y ago
So, and I say this as someone who's stoked to see any non-x86 system going mainstream... why do you want to switch? What benefit do you see to switching to an ARM laptop? Or is it just "this is a good thing (in general) so I want to get on board with it"?
- starsinspace 6y ago
  I'm also excited about a non-x86 architecture on the desktop again. Monoculture is bad, and I find x86 to be especially ugly... As for switching... I'm increasingly unhappy with Microsoft's complete disregard of user privacy. Apple isn't perfect with that either, but IMO much better at least. For my use cases, Win and Mac are the only credible options due to software availability. So to get away from Windows.. there's not much choice these days.
  - torstenvl 6y ago
    Why do you feel like proprietary software monocultures are better than commoditized hardware monocultures? OS vendors selling 100% custom silicon is not the path to diversity and freedom of choice.
mey 6y ago
If it's ARM that excites you, Surface Pro X (Windows) and Pinebook (Linux) exist today. If it's macOS, you could switch now. What about the combo of macOS + ARM do you find compelling?
- ajconway 6y ago

dehrmann 6y ago

I expect Lenovo will move a few extra units because of this decision.