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I maintain mbpfan and have contributed to a few other Linux on Mac tools. Linux on Mac is not worth the effort. I ran Ubuntu on a 2011 MacBook Air and now run

by gaul 6y ago

I maintain mbpfan and have contributed to a few other Linux on Mac tools. Linux on Mac is not worth the effort. I ran Ubuntu on a 2011 MacBook Air and now run Fedora on a 2014 MacBook Air. There were several papercuts even with these relatively open models where it took a while to get suspend, trackpad, fan, webcam, wifi, etc. working properly. You will need to use binary drivers for the latter two features and some strange EFI bootloader. It seems that newer MacBook compatibility is worse: https://github.com/Dunedan/mbp-2016-linux https://github.com/Dunedan/mbp-2016-linux I use Debian on ThinkPad at work and plan to buy this or a Dell XPS for my next laptop.

jseliger 6y ago
I'd suspect, though, that most Linux people who considered running it on Apple hardware just shrugged and picked very similar PC hardware instead. Apple's m1 computers have no PC analogue and may not for some time. I've not used one but it appears they really are different, and better, than anything else in their class.
- krageon 6y ago
  > Apple's m1 computers have no PC analogue And they don't need to. There's hardware available that works just as well, the buzzy marketing space around M1 is just that: marketing. Nobody needs this.
  - nspattak 6y ago
    As much as I do not really care about apple machines (and I neither own neither plan to own in the near future) it seems that the M1 laptops have a significant advantage in power consumption over amd64 laptops. And as a linux user, this is only gets worst with linux. I agree however that from a performance perspective the M1 seems to be competitive but not much faster than existing amd64 products.
    - krageon 6y ago
      I have had 24h+ battery life on a 64bit x86_64 machine - clearly good battery life is possible already. Edit: Yes, this was with the lid open and me doing things. Not videogames, just some light coding.
      - ubercow13 6y ago
        On a form factor similar to a Macbook Air? I'm sure it is possible to have 24h+ battery life on a Linux laptop; if you ignore the other parameters (battery size and performance) it is meaningless.
        krageon 6y ago
        thin, no fans, normal keyboard. I have not held a macbook air so I can't comment on weight. The battery size doesn't matter, only how long it lasts while using it :)

by gaul 6y ago

jseliger 6y ago

I'd suspect, though, that most Linux people who considered running it on Apple hardware just shrugged and picked very similar PC hardware instead. Apple's m1 computers have no PC analogue and may not for some time. I've not used one but it appears they really are different, and better, than anything else in their class.

krageon 6y ago
> Apple's m1 computers have no PC analogue And they don't need to. There's hardware available that works just as well, the buzzy marketing space around M1 is just that: marketing. Nobody needs this.
- nspattak 6y ago
  As much as I do not really care about apple machines (and I neither own neither plan to own in the near future) it seems that the M1 laptops have a significant advantage in power consumption over amd64 laptops. And as a linux user, this is only gets worst with linux. I agree however that from a performance perspective the M1 seems to be competitive but not much faster than existing amd64 products.
  - krageon 6y ago
    I have had 24h+ battery life on a 64bit x86_64 machine - clearly good battery life is possible already. Edit: Yes, this was with the lid open and me doing things. Not videogames, just some light coding.
    - ubercow13 6y ago
      On a form factor similar to a Macbook Air? I'm sure it is possible to have 24h+ battery life on a Linux laptop; if you ignore the other parameters (battery size and performance) it is meaningless.
      - krageon 6y ago
        thin, no fans, normal keyboard. I have not held a macbook air so I can't comment on weight. The battery size doesn't matter, only how long it lasts while using it :)