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I think this is a legitimate concern, but it seems less likely to me, specifically in the case of Apple hardware, for two reasons: 1. There will be far more in

I think this is a legitimate concern, but it seems less likely to me, specifically in the case of Apple hardware, for two reasons: 1. There will be far more interest in being able to run Linux on that hardware, and in being able to keep it up to date (since it'll be a daily driver). 2. Apple are probably less likely to regularly make drastic changes between hardware revisions because they will need to support multiple hardware revisions themselves (Apple are typically pretty good with supporting old hardware). Their only strong motivator would be to actively prevent people running other OSes but I don't think Apple care that much about screwing over that niche demographic - especially when they're already paying for the hardware.

oblio 6y ago
I'm skeptical. Linux is reasonably popular for "Windows" hardware, most statistics put it at about 0.5% market share. I've never seen anyone running Linux on Intel Macs. Why would ARM Macs, which seem quite a bit more locked down, ever become a better supported and more popular Linux hardware platform? I wish they would become one, but I don't see how we can make this leap.
- marcan_42 6y ago
  Hi from Linux on an Intel Mac. (I've got fixing up amdgpu to work on this 2015 iMac on my TODO list too... might even do that as a bonus warm-up if this takes off, while I get my hands on an M1 mac)
  - oblio 6y ago
    I admire the work but you have to admit that even after all this time it's easier to install Ubuntu, say, on a random PC :-)
    - marcan_42 6y ago
      To be honest, the only problems on this iMac are audio (fair to say Apple's fault), the screen only running at 4K max (Apple custom stuff involved for 5K, but hey, not complaining about 4K, go find me an AiO PC with a 5K screem), the amdgpu issue (not really an Apple problem, it's just a rarer chip and probably a dumb bugfix and the older radeon driver works fine), and the Ethernet and SD card reader being problematic (that's a Broadcom chip and their silicon is universally buggy; not Apple's fault, these chips have issues on PCs too) So really just audio is the one thing that jumps out as broken and specific to this being a Mac. I personally happen not to care as I use an external audio interface anyway :-) Actual installation is trivial, it's just standard UEFI pretty much. As long as the right GPU driver loads you're fine. Thunderbolt and all that works out of the box.
      - rfoo 6y ago
        The Broadcom part is huge IMO. I try to avoid Broadcom as possible on every (programmable) thing I own, but that is not possible with Apple devices. I mean, I'm sure we can make brcm* not suck on Linux (or it already works well now), but I don't want to support such a hostile vendor.
- 27thPW 6y ago
  Anecdotally, I just bought my first Mac just because of the M1. It's an absolute game-changer and at least 5 years ahead of the competition. If macOS becomes too burdensome or heavy-handed, I anticipate I'll move to some Linux distribution assuming there's support (and would help fund its development). I'm guessing there are at least a few people like me who will constitute a market for developers to cater to.
- psanford 6y ago
  I ran linux on a MBP as my primary machine from 2009 - 2015 (on 3 different hardware revs). The late 2015 MBPs moved a bunch of peripherals off of the USB bus making them harder to use with linux at the time. In the years since, support has been added for all those peripherals. I still use my late 2013 MBP running nixos. That machine was a great piece of hardware at the time and still works fantastically well even today. (Its really sad how terrible most most non-Apple speakers are in laptops). I would buy an M1 Macbook Air if it could run linux and had good power management. (I'll say the same about an M1 MBP in the generation where they give up on the touchbar and go back to hardware buttons.)
heavyset_go 6y ago
With regard to #1, Linux support on existing Intel Macbooks since 2015 has been pretty poor[1]. That doesn't give me much confidence about support while Macs get more and more esoteric hardware configurations. As for #2, perhaps, but we've already seen what happens when Apple adds their proprietary hardware to existing x86 systems with things like the T2 chip or the Touchbar. Support for either on Linux is still poor and nonexistent. Full integration with hardware and software on Apple's end means that they don't have to worry about compatibility like 3rd party hardware manufacturers do. [1] https://github.com/Dunedan/mbp-2016-linux https://github.com/Dunedan/mbp-2016-linux

oblio 6y ago

I'm skeptical. Linux is reasonably popular for "Windows" hardware, most statistics put it at about 0.5% market share. I've never seen anyone running Linux on Intel Macs. Why would ARM Macs, which seem quite a bit more locked down, ever become a better supported and more popular Linux hardware platform? I wish they would become one, but I don't see how we can make this leap.

marcan_42 6y ago
Hi from Linux on an Intel Mac. (I've got fixing up amdgpu to work on this 2015 iMac on my TODO list too... might even do that as a bonus warm-up if this takes off, while I get my hands on an M1 mac)
- oblio 6y ago
  I admire the work but you have to admit that even after all this time it's easier to install Ubuntu, say, on a random PC :-)
  - marcan_42 6y ago
    To be honest, the only problems on this iMac are audio (fair to say Apple's fault), the screen only running at 4K max (Apple custom stuff involved for 5K, but hey, not complaining about 4K, go find me an AiO PC with a 5K screem), the amdgpu issue (not really an Apple problem, it's just a rarer chip and probably a dumb bugfix and the older radeon driver works fine), and the Ethernet and SD card reader being problematic (that's a Broadcom chip and their silicon is universally buggy; not Apple's fault, these chips have issues on PCs too) So really just audio is the one thing that jumps out as broken and specific to this being a Mac. I personally happen not to care as I use an external audio interface anyway :-) Actual installation is trivial, it's just standard UEFI pretty much. As long as the right GPU driver loads you're fine. Thunderbolt and all that works out of the box.
    - rfoo 6y ago
      The Broadcom part is huge IMO. I try to avoid Broadcom as possible on every (programmable) thing I own, but that is not possible with Apple devices. I mean, I'm sure we can make brcm* not suck on Linux (or it already works well now), but I don't want to support such a hostile vendor.
27thPW 6y ago
Anecdotally, I just bought my first Mac just because of the M1. It's an absolute game-changer and at least 5 years ahead of the competition. If macOS becomes too burdensome or heavy-handed, I anticipate I'll move to some Linux distribution assuming there's support (and would help fund its development). I'm guessing there are at least a few people like me who will constitute a market for developers to cater to.
psanford 6y ago
I ran linux on a MBP as my primary machine from 2009 - 2015 (on 3 different hardware revs). The late 2015 MBPs moved a bunch of peripherals off of the USB bus making them harder to use with linux at the time. In the years since, support has been added for all those peripherals. I still use my late 2013 MBP running nixos. That machine was a great piece of hardware at the time and still works fantastically well even today. (Its really sad how terrible most most non-Apple speakers are in laptops). I would buy an M1 Macbook Air if it could run linux and had good power management. (I'll say the same about an M1 MBP in the generation where they give up on the touchbar and go back to hardware buttons.)

heavyset_go 6y ago

With regard to #1, Linux support on existing Intel Macbooks since 2015 has been pretty poor[1]. That doesn't give me much confidence about support while Macs get more and more esoteric hardware configurations. As for #2, perhaps, but we've already seen what happens when Apple adds their proprietary hardware to existing x86 systems with things like the T2 chip or the Touchbar. Support for either on Linux is still poor and nonexistent. Full integration with hardware and software on Apple's end means that they don't have to worry about compatibility like 3rd party hardware manufacturers do. [1] https://github.com/Dunedan/mbp-2016-linux https://github.com/Dunedan/mbp-2016-linux