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I used to say “I don’t need to run Linux day-to-day, but if Apple become too heavy handed I can always switch”. Well, that’s not the case anymore.

kgwxd 6y ago
You could switch and not buy Apple hardware. IMO, they became too heavy handed a pretty long time ago.
- gjsman-1000 6y ago
  `sudo spctl --master-disable` to disable Gatekeeper, and `csrutil disable` in Recovery Mode to disable rootless/System Integrity Protection. Just like that, it's a Mac from a decade ago in openness.
  - oneplane 6y ago
    It's also immediately a Mac from a decade ago in security. Heavy-handed or not, that is something people tend to forget (and no, it's not perfect security, but definitely more secure than allowing root at runtime).
  - ccmcarey 6y ago
    The risk is, when will they disable those commands?
- cyrksoft 6y ago
  Any particular laptop to recommend? I am looking for a new laptop and haven't found anything similar to the MacBook Air (I hate the touchbar) for a similar price (the 16GB of RAM model). Anything similar is either a lot more expensive or the build quality is a lot worse. I travel and move around a lot (not so much now, but I still move around my country and to the office), so portability is very important to me. Another advantage of the MacBook line is that I can carry one Anker dual USB-C charger and charge everything I have. Any recommendation is more than welcomed!
new_realist 6y ago
If Apple becomes too heavy handed, market forces would come to the rescue with an alternative. It’s a multi billion dollar industry, and competitive.
- jhoechtl 6y ago
  I doubt the invisible hand would help. Government can by enforcing more competition.
  - new_realist 6y ago
    Apple’s share of the desktop and laptop market is minuscule. Competition already exists. Now, it may be that your use case is niche. But niche use cases don’t get mainstream support, and never have.
- cultus 6y ago
  With huge capital costs, and patent entanglements. It's not something that some Randian hero can just do. The "free market" never precisely exists. Adam Smith himself was very cognizant of this.
CivBase 6y ago
If you're serious about using Linux as a backup, you can't be very tied in with the Apple software ecosystem. So if Apple concerns you that much, why even buy an M1 MacBook?
- foolmeonce 6y ago
  Personally, I find an Arm with 16gb and better than desktop performance very compelling for compiling everything for all my devices. I hope the excitement somehow spurs more full Arm motherboards by other manufacturers.
  - Shivetya 6y ago
    there is no guarantee other ARM manufacturers will even approach what Apple has done and this is evident in how other ARM implementations work versus the A series chips. Apple has the ultimate advantage of writing the OS and the chip and that level of integration is obviously not being met by anyone else in the industry. I am not dismissing the possibility of an ARM desktop that is better performing than a similarly priced CISC system but I do doubt the level of difference Apple was able to achieve
  - FpUser 6y ago
    The performance is not better than desktop. Single threaded performance is on par with the Intel and less than 5950 (not significantly though) : https://www.anandtech.com/show/16252/mac-mini-apple-m1-tested/2 https://www.anandtech.com/show/16252/mac-mini-apple-m1-teste.... And because desktop can have many more cores multi-threaded performance is just simply way below. Of course when/if Apple increases core count in newer chips they may catch up in this department. Also desktop can have way better cooling. For example on my current desktop 16 AMD with 128GB RAM it goes sustained 4.2GHz without any throttle with the temperature at 60C.
btilly 6y ago
That stopped being the case a while ago. In the last 2 years my family completely switched away from iPhones and has replaced most of our macs with Windows. I am the lone holdout and when this laptop dies I will probably switch as well. It makes me sad. I used to love Apple. But they became focused on locking down a closed ecosystem and have consistently made the user experience worse. I hate Windows. But Apple has made themselves obnoxious enough that I no longer trust their upgrades, and do not want to be locked in to their fragile hardware choices.
- ehutch79 6y ago
  In what ways have they made the experince worse? Why do you not trust their upgrades? How are their hardware choices fragile? Do you mean build quality or do you think their ability to build their own chips will fail them and their chips for all the ipads and iphones haven't cut it? How are you not locked into the hardware choices of any laptop maker? Are there realistic, upgradable laptops out there? or are you switching to a desktop system?
  - dleslie 6y ago
    The last few years have been a bad time for Apple product quality. Terrible keyboards, broken backlights, software updates that lock down the system, and so on. They've definitely lost their quality edge.
    - ehutch79 6y ago
      That keyboard was terrible. Johnny Ive definitely went off the rails and this was a good example. They admitted it was crap and don't ship it anymore. I don't remember anything about broken backlights being a thing? Can you point me to an article or documentation where this was widespread? I assume by updates locking down the system, you're talking about things like gatekeeper. What ways has this actually impacted you? What can't you run, and are these apps that have had any active developer attention in years? You say they've lost their quality edge. Do you mean quality control coming out of their factory? That their defect rates have gone up? Or do you mean their products are being poorly designed?
ehutch79 6y ago
In what specific ways have they become heavy handed? And how, specifically, does that affect you day-to-day?
- ur-whale 6y ago
  A standard refrain from all people throughout who voted in fascist governments before the crackdowns begin.
  - ehutch79 6y ago
    Then shouldn't you be able to point to the specifics of what you're talking about?
new_realist 6y ago
You can’t run Linux in a VM?
- ehutch79 6y ago
  Right now VMs arn't running on the m1. the hypervisor stuff would only provide arm vms, so you couldn't drop a x86 unbuntu vm on it. Apparently it is coming, but it'll be a bit yet.
- dunmalg 6y ago
  I think the point is that if you can't install Linux running natively, you can't escape "undesirable behavior" by the Apple-supplied OS. For example, if you want to ensure your laptop isn't sending Apple information about what you're transmitting over the network, running a VM sandbox in OSX doesn't eliminate that possibility.

kgwxd 6y ago

You could switch and not buy Apple hardware. IMO, they became too heavy handed a pretty long time ago.

gjsman-1000 6y ago
`sudo spctl --master-disable` to disable Gatekeeper, and `csrutil disable` in Recovery Mode to disable rootless/System Integrity Protection. Just like that, it's a Mac from a decade ago in openness.
- oneplane 6y ago
  It's also immediately a Mac from a decade ago in security. Heavy-handed or not, that is something people tend to forget (and no, it's not perfect security, but definitely more secure than allowing root at runtime).
- ccmcarey 6y ago
  The risk is, when will they disable those commands?
cyrksoft 6y ago
Any particular laptop to recommend? I am looking for a new laptop and haven't found anything similar to the MacBook Air (I hate the touchbar) for a similar price (the 16GB of RAM model). Anything similar is either a lot more expensive or the build quality is a lot worse. I travel and move around a lot (not so much now, but I still move around my country and to the office), so portability is very important to me. Another advantage of the MacBook line is that I can carry one Anker dual USB-C charger and charge everything I have. Any recommendation is more than welcomed!

new_realist 6y ago

If Apple becomes too heavy handed, market forces would come to the rescue with an alternative. It’s a multi billion dollar industry, and competitive.

jhoechtl 6y ago
I doubt the invisible hand would help. Government can by enforcing more competition.
- new_realist 6y ago
  Apple’s share of the desktop and laptop market is minuscule. Competition already exists. Now, it may be that your use case is niche. But niche use cases don’t get mainstream support, and never have.
cultus 6y ago
With huge capital costs, and patent entanglements. It's not something that some Randian hero can just do. The "free market" never precisely exists. Adam Smith himself was very cognizant of this.

CivBase 6y ago

If you're serious about using Linux as a backup, you can't be very tied in with the Apple software ecosystem. So if Apple concerns you that much, why even buy an M1 MacBook?

foolmeonce 6y ago
Personally, I find an Arm with 16gb and better than desktop performance very compelling for compiling everything for all my devices. I hope the excitement somehow spurs more full Arm motherboards by other manufacturers.
- Shivetya 6y ago
  there is no guarantee other ARM manufacturers will even approach what Apple has done and this is evident in how other ARM implementations work versus the A series chips. Apple has the ultimate advantage of writing the OS and the chip and that level of integration is obviously not being met by anyone else in the industry. I am not dismissing the possibility of an ARM desktop that is better performing than a similarly priced CISC system but I do doubt the level of difference Apple was able to achieve
- FpUser 6y ago
  The performance is not better than desktop. Single threaded performance is on par with the Intel and less than 5950 (not significantly though) : https://www.anandtech.com/show/16252/mac-mini-apple-m1-tested/2 https://www.anandtech.com/show/16252/mac-mini-apple-m1-teste.... And because desktop can have many more cores multi-threaded performance is just simply way below. Of course when/if Apple increases core count in newer chips they may catch up in this department. Also desktop can have way better cooling. For example on my current desktop 16 AMD with 128GB RAM it goes sustained 4.2GHz without any throttle with the temperature at 60C.

btilly 6y ago

That stopped being the case a while ago. In the last 2 years my family completely switched away from iPhones and has replaced most of our macs with Windows. I am the lone holdout and when this laptop dies I will probably switch as well. It makes me sad. I used to love Apple. But they became focused on locking down a closed ecosystem and have consistently made the user experience worse. I hate Windows. But Apple has made themselves obnoxious enough that I no longer trust their upgrades, and do not want to be locked in to their fragile hardware choices.

ehutch79 6y ago
In what ways have they made the experince worse? Why do you not trust their upgrades? How are their hardware choices fragile? Do you mean build quality or do you think their ability to build their own chips will fail them and their chips for all the ipads and iphones haven't cut it? How are you not locked into the hardware choices of any laptop maker? Are there realistic, upgradable laptops out there? or are you switching to a desktop system?
- dleslie 6y ago
  The last few years have been a bad time for Apple product quality. Terrible keyboards, broken backlights, software updates that lock down the system, and so on. They've definitely lost their quality edge.
  - ehutch79 6y ago
    That keyboard was terrible. Johnny Ive definitely went off the rails and this was a good example. They admitted it was crap and don't ship it anymore. I don't remember anything about broken backlights being a thing? Can you point me to an article or documentation where this was widespread? I assume by updates locking down the system, you're talking about things like gatekeeper. What ways has this actually impacted you? What can't you run, and are these apps that have had any active developer attention in years? You say they've lost their quality edge. Do you mean quality control coming out of their factory? That their defect rates have gone up? Or do you mean their products are being poorly designed?

ehutch79 6y ago

In what specific ways have they become heavy handed? And how, specifically, does that affect you day-to-day?

ur-whale 6y ago
A standard refrain from all people throughout who voted in fascist governments before the crackdowns begin.
- ehutch79 6y ago
  Then shouldn't you be able to point to the specifics of what you're talking about?

new_realist 6y ago

You can’t run Linux in a VM?

ehutch79 6y ago
Right now VMs arn't running on the m1. the hypervisor stuff would only provide arm vms, so you couldn't drop a x86 unbuntu vm on it. Apparently it is coming, but it'll be a bit yet.
dunmalg 6y ago
I think the point is that if you can't install Linux running natively, you can't escape "undesirable behavior" by the Apple-supplied OS. For example, if you want to ensure your laptop isn't sending Apple information about what you're transmitting over the network, running a VM sandbox in OSX doesn't eliminate that possibility.