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Are we going to get a separate post for every single operating system and distribution that someone decided to try in a VM on the new Apple hardware?

tambourine_man 6y ago
Windows is kind of a big deal, being ≈90% of the desktop market and closed source. But sure, I'd love to have a post for Ubuntu, CentOS, Arch… Why, any objections?
- tinus_hn 6y ago
  Actually there was a post about Ubuntu today: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25219698 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25219698
- xiphias2 6y ago
  The next interesting thing for me is PyTorch support, as Tensorflow is already running. I still don't know what data types and operations the neural engine supports though for example.
ineedasername 6y ago
Here's the thing: I know it's a lot of M1 news, and I thought it a bit much myself. But then I realized just how much of a game changer this chip is. Not just for Apple, but because the M1 success will really spark and accelerate other efforts at more commodity chips with similar capabilities. The problem though is chip architecture and the consequent software compatibility issues, and when compatible the performance issues. So, given the potential future of this choice of architecture and chip design, every development in compatibility or performance really does have significant consequences. And of course, the recommended community guidelines for dealing with posts you don't think are relevant or newsworthy to HN is to flag them instead of complaining in comments. If enough people share your opinion, it will disappear. If not, then it is de facto relevant to the community.
- seba_dos1 6y ago
  > The problem though is chip architecture and the consequent software compatibility issues, and when compatible the performance issues. Is it though? People have been running GNU/Linux on aarch64-based laptops, SBCs, phones and servers for years now (and not just GNU/Linux, there's even Windows these days, as seen in this submission!). This is a well supported architecture across multiple distributions and OSes. Granted, M1 is a rather beefy chip to see in a aarch64-based laptop, but compatibility and performance issues of 64-bit ARM are areas that seem pretty well researched in 2020. It's just macOS being late in the game.
  - tambourine_man 6y ago
    I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but Apple is usually not the first ever at something. Apple II wasn’t the first personal computer, Mac wasn’t the fist GUI, iPod not the first MP3 player, iPhone not the first touchscreen smartphone. It’s just that they often make the first a lot of people want to buy.
    - ineedasername 6y ago
      Their talent over the years has been to take existing tech, understand how people will be comfortable from an ergonomics, fashion, and ux perspective, and combine those pieces of tech into the corresponding device. They make evolutionary changes that result in revolutionary shifts in consumer behavior. And over the years they've build up a marketing behemoth that convinces people "hey, this thing that might look a little weird (airpods) is cool and you're a smarter more attractive person for having them". So they move the overton window of tech fashion.
      - tambourine_man 6y ago
        Which do you think is more likely: - They are able to create compelling products. - Most people are stupid enough to be easily deceived by behemoth corp, to the point that other behemoths must copy them to stay in business.
  - 6y ago
xiphias2 6y ago
Not just decided to try. They worked on supporting it and providing patches back to QEMU. You can do something similar, and I'll upvote your project as well :)

tambourine_man 6y ago

Windows is kind of a big deal, being ≈90% of the desktop market and closed source. But sure, I'd love to have a post for Ubuntu, CentOS, Arch… Why, any objections?

tinus_hn 6y ago
Actually there was a post about Ubuntu today: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25219698 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25219698
xiphias2 6y ago
The next interesting thing for me is PyTorch support, as Tensorflow is already running. I still don't know what data types and operations the neural engine supports though for example.

ineedasername 6y ago

Here's the thing: I know it's a lot of M1 news, and I thought it a bit much myself. But then I realized just how much of a game changer this chip is. Not just for Apple, but because the M1 success will really spark and accelerate other efforts at more commodity chips with similar capabilities. The problem though is chip architecture and the consequent software compatibility issues, and when compatible the performance issues. So, given the potential future of this choice of architecture and chip design, every development in compatibility or performance really does have significant consequences. And of course, the recommended community guidelines for dealing with posts you don't think are relevant or newsworthy to HN is to flag them instead of complaining in comments. If enough people share your opinion, it will disappear. If not, then it is de facto relevant to the community.

seba_dos1 6y ago
> The problem though is chip architecture and the consequent software compatibility issues, and when compatible the performance issues. Is it though? People have been running GNU/Linux on aarch64-based laptops, SBCs, phones and servers for years now (and not just GNU/Linux, there's even Windows these days, as seen in this submission!). This is a well supported architecture across multiple distributions and OSes. Granted, M1 is a rather beefy chip to see in a aarch64-based laptop, but compatibility and performance issues of 64-bit ARM are areas that seem pretty well researched in 2020. It's just macOS being late in the game.
- tambourine_man 6y ago
  I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but Apple is usually not the first ever at something. Apple II wasn’t the first personal computer, Mac wasn’t the fist GUI, iPod not the first MP3 player, iPhone not the first touchscreen smartphone. It’s just that they often make the first a lot of people want to buy.
  - ineedasername 6y ago
    Their talent over the years has been to take existing tech, understand how people will be comfortable from an ergonomics, fashion, and ux perspective, and combine those pieces of tech into the corresponding device. They make evolutionary changes that result in revolutionary shifts in consumer behavior. And over the years they've build up a marketing behemoth that convinces people "hey, this thing that might look a little weird (airpods) is cool and you're a smarter more attractive person for having them". So they move the overton window of tech fashion.
    - tambourine_man 6y ago
      Which do you think is more likely: - They are able to create compelling products. - Most people are stupid enough to be easily deceived by behemoth corp, to the point that other behemoths must copy them to stay in business.
- 6y ago

xiphias2 6y ago

Not just decided to try. They worked on supporting it and providing patches back to QEMU. You can do something similar, and I'll upvote your project as well :)