5 ms·

> Now I’m gonna see if there’s an option to throw money at this. Even if I were God I wouldn't stop anyone doing it, but does it not leave a bad taste in your

by mhh__ 6y ago

> Now I’m gonna see if there’s an option to throw money at this. Even if I were God I wouldn't stop anyone doing it, but does it not leave a bad taste in your mouth that Apple charge the best part of 2 thousand dollars for a laptop with a basically brand-new (so not rotted) stack but utterly refuse to document anything beyond the absolute basics - this is the world's largest tech company, from which I conclude that they have no interest in allowing users to control their own hardware since it's literally chump change for them to (say) publish some extremely basic info about the peripherals like even nvidia do now.

xiphias2 6y ago
Apple needs open source hackers to port all open source software to M1 chips for free before locking them more down. To be honest I just ordered my first MacBook Pro as well, so I guess I’m part of the ,,problem’’
- saagarjha 6y ago
  That makes very little sense. What does Apple get out of letting people run Linux and OpenBSD, then preventing it?
  - Wowfunhappy 6y ago
    ...to play devil's advocate a bit (because I really do agree with you), I could have asked the same question about Linux on the PS3, and we all know how that ended.
    - saagarjha 6y ago
      I run a “Hacker News advocate” against the comments I post, and this was one of the things I thought of. You will note that in that case Sony actually suffered quite a bit in their response, and they only really did it out of fears of piracy. In this case the I believe backlash will be fairly large, not the least from their own platform security people for having years of their work invalidated. Also, in this case the only thing I can see that could drive them to do this would be if FairPlay keys were somehow made available in the fully unsigned OS environment: I haven’t really looked into this (don’t have my M1 Mac yet) but I would be very surprised if so.
  - xiphias2 6y ago
    To have every open source app ported to their processor, and get the usage up. I'm a developer and I love the specs of the hardware, and I need open source tools to work on it. On the long term though they can get more App store / cloud revenue by making sure that Apple's apps are always ahead in hardware compatibility.
    - saagarjha 6y ago
      Porting apps does not require them to open up their boot sequence.
ogre_codes 6y ago
> but does it not leave a bad taste in your mouth that Apple charge the best part of 2 thousand dollars for a laptop with a basically brand-new (so not rotted) stack but utterly refuse to document anything beyond the absolute basics Computers are tools to get a job done. I buy a computer so I can write software on it. While I am happy that we can get Linux and OpenBSD on a Mac, it's not a deal breaker. Regardless of whether OpenBSD or Linux boots on it, I can get my job done quickly and effectively. If they did something that got in the way of building the software I need to build? Then I'd punch out in a heartbeat. Not everyone is interesting in fiddling with the internals of the tools they buy. Even if that tool is a computer.
- mhh__ 6y ago
  > If they did something that got in the way of building the software I need to build? Then I'd punch out in a heartbeat. Sadly I don't do it for a living, but the stuff I like to write is all tuned for performance, they don't tell me anything about the CPU, so even if I was in the market for one I still wouldn't buy one as I couldn't have any fun using it. And Computers stopped being mere tools years ago - the phone has now supplanted the laptop and desktop in this regard, but it remains true that many people are in terms of knowledge and purchasing power completely at the whim of (in this case) Apple to go about their lives.
  - Shared404 6y ago
    I agree with most of what you say, but this: > And Computers stopped being mere tools years ago - the phone has now supplanted the laptop and desktop in this regard Is just plainly inaccurate. The phone has nowhere near supplanted the desktop in multiple scenarios. Office work and programming [0] both come to mind. [0] And this was the specific use-case brought up by the parent. Pretty obvious a phone is not a competitor for that.
    - mhh__ 6y ago
      My point was that the phone has supplanted the computer as the sole device for many people i.e. people of my generation will often ask for an app rather than a website
bubblethink 6y ago
>like even nvidia do now. Nvidia does so kicking and screaming, because 1) they have no choice but to abide by the GPL for things that use kernel internals, and 2) Since they make money from linux, at least in the HPC/ML space, they want users to at least be able to see the screen light up so that they can install the proprietary stack. The lawnmover analogy is apt for most companies.
mjg59 6y ago
Intel refuse to document significant portions of their technology, and Linux works less well on their platforms as a result. They definitely do a better job of documenting things than Apple, but I'd really frame this as a difference in degree rather than in kind.
- webmobdev 6y ago
  Can you give some examples - I thought Intel was pretty involved with the Linux foundation and have released a lot of open source code?
  - saagarjha 6y ago
    Intel encrypts their microcode, for example.
    - mhh__ 6y ago
      DIY microcode is a really bad idea if that's what you mean
  - mjg59 6y ago
    They release plenty of open code, but then you also end up with situations like them not documenting DPTF and so laptops running slower under Linux than under Windows (https://mjg59.dreamwidth.org/54923.html https://mjg59.dreamwidth.org/54923.html has more on this), failing to document the requirements for entering deep power saving states and so laptops consuming more power under Linux than under Windows (https://mjg59.dreamwidth.org/41713.html https://mjg59.dreamwidth.org/41713.html), not doing any upstream work on the IPU4 camera platform so the webcam doesn't work on various laptops - instead this ends up with random people outside Intel having to reverse engineer stuff or do integration work on Intel's behalf. Is it better than Apple? Yeah. Is it good? No.
- mhh__ 6y ago
  Intel still publish manuals hundreds and hundreds of pages longer than anyone else at their volume of sales.
lloeki 6y ago
> utterly refuse to document anything beyond the absolute basics I don’t see how that’s any different from PC or ARM world, save for a couple of larger scale exceptions (Dell, Lenovo, Intel, AMD) and a bunch of insignificant players (Raspberry, System76 & al), and even then it’s a fairly recent development in PC history that these players document/support/contribute anything. The fact that Linux pretty much works+ on any PC out there is mostly due to volunteers hacking stuff around on PCs that are getting increasingly normalised. And even with the normalisation of hardware architecture, there are still a lot of either unspecified of spec violating special cases. If one is not convinced by that, I encourage one to lurk the Linux kernel tree for quirks, device trees, and other various DSDT hacks. The weird size of payloads for the T2 SSD controller that stumped everyone for some time is only one among many, many other quirks that exist overall. After 10+ years, dust is only settling on the BIOS to EFI transition, and I’m not the least surprised that it takes a bit of time to adapt to the overall ARM Mac architecture. + by “works” I mean boots reasonably well to init 5+VESA, and most of the time something else than VESA. But taking random hardware and having a bulletproof system out of the box down to every nook and cranny is still a tall order. There are systems that fully work optimally out of the box, but they’re a very small minority.

by mhh__ 6y ago

xiphias2 6y ago

Apple needs open source hackers to port all open source software to M1 chips for free before locking them more down. To be honest I just ordered my first MacBook Pro as well, so I guess I’m part of the ,,problem’’

saagarjha 6y ago
That makes very little sense. What does Apple get out of letting people run Linux and OpenBSD, then preventing it?
- Wowfunhappy 6y ago
  ...to play devil's advocate a bit (because I really do agree with you), I could have asked the same question about Linux on the PS3, and we all know how that ended.
  - saagarjha 6y ago
    I run a “Hacker News advocate” against the comments I post, and this was one of the things I thought of. You will note that in that case Sony actually suffered quite a bit in their response, and they only really did it out of fears of piracy. In this case the I believe backlash will be fairly large, not the least from their own platform security people for having years of their work invalidated. Also, in this case the only thing I can see that could drive them to do this would be if FairPlay keys were somehow made available in the fully unsigned OS environment: I haven’t really looked into this (don’t have my M1 Mac yet) but I would be very surprised if so.
- xiphias2 6y ago
  To have every open source app ported to their processor, and get the usage up. I'm a developer and I love the specs of the hardware, and I need open source tools to work on it. On the long term though they can get more App store / cloud revenue by making sure that Apple's apps are always ahead in hardware compatibility.
  - saagarjha 6y ago
    Porting apps does not require them to open up their boot sequence.

ogre_codes 6y ago

> but does it not leave a bad taste in your mouth that Apple charge the best part of 2 thousand dollars for a laptop with a basically brand-new (so not rotted) stack but utterly refuse to document anything beyond the absolute basics Computers are tools to get a job done. I buy a computer so I can write software on it. While I am happy that we can get Linux and OpenBSD on a Mac, it's not a deal breaker. Regardless of whether OpenBSD or Linux boots on it, I can get my job done quickly and effectively. If they did something that got in the way of building the software I need to build? Then I'd punch out in a heartbeat. Not everyone is interesting in fiddling with the internals of the tools they buy. Even if that tool is a computer.

mhh__ 6y ago
> If they did something that got in the way of building the software I need to build? Then I'd punch out in a heartbeat. Sadly I don't do it for a living, but the stuff I like to write is all tuned for performance, they don't tell me anything about the CPU, so even if I was in the market for one I still wouldn't buy one as I couldn't have any fun using it. And Computers stopped being mere tools years ago - the phone has now supplanted the laptop and desktop in this regard, but it remains true that many people are in terms of knowledge and purchasing power completely at the whim of (in this case) Apple to go about their lives.
- Shared404 6y ago
  I agree with most of what you say, but this: > And Computers stopped being mere tools years ago - the phone has now supplanted the laptop and desktop in this regard Is just plainly inaccurate. The phone has nowhere near supplanted the desktop in multiple scenarios. Office work and programming [0] both come to mind. [0] And this was the specific use-case brought up by the parent. Pretty obvious a phone is not a competitor for that.
  - mhh__ 6y ago
    My point was that the phone has supplanted the computer as the sole device for many people i.e. people of my generation will often ask for an app rather than a website

bubblethink 6y ago

>like even nvidia do now. Nvidia does so kicking and screaming, because 1) they have no choice but to abide by the GPL for things that use kernel internals, and 2) Since they make money from linux, at least in the HPC/ML space, they want users to at least be able to see the screen light up so that they can install the proprietary stack. The lawnmover analogy is apt for most companies.

mjg59 6y ago

Intel refuse to document significant portions of their technology, and Linux works less well on their platforms as a result. They definitely do a better job of documenting things than Apple, but I'd really frame this as a difference in degree rather than in kind.

webmobdev 6y ago
Can you give some examples - I thought Intel was pretty involved with the Linux foundation and have released a lot of open source code?
- saagarjha 6y ago
  Intel encrypts their microcode, for example.
  - mhh__ 6y ago
    DIY microcode is a really bad idea if that's what you mean
- mjg59 6y ago
  They release plenty of open code, but then you also end up with situations like them not documenting DPTF and so laptops running slower under Linux than under Windows (https://mjg59.dreamwidth.org/54923.html https://mjg59.dreamwidth.org/54923.html has more on this), failing to document the requirements for entering deep power saving states and so laptops consuming more power under Linux than under Windows (https://mjg59.dreamwidth.org/41713.html https://mjg59.dreamwidth.org/41713.html), not doing any upstream work on the IPU4 camera platform so the webcam doesn't work on various laptops - instead this ends up with random people outside Intel having to reverse engineer stuff or do integration work on Intel's behalf. Is it better than Apple? Yeah. Is it good? No.
mhh__ 6y ago
Intel still publish manuals hundreds and hundreds of pages longer than anyone else at their volume of sales.

lloeki 6y ago

> utterly refuse to document anything beyond the absolute basics I don’t see how that’s any different from PC or ARM world, save for a couple of larger scale exceptions (Dell, Lenovo, Intel, AMD) and a bunch of insignificant players (Raspberry, System76 & al), and even then it’s a fairly recent development in PC history that these players document/support/contribute anything. The fact that Linux pretty much works+ on any PC out there is mostly due to volunteers hacking stuff around on PCs that are getting increasingly normalised. And even with the normalisation of hardware architecture, there are still a lot of either unspecified of spec violating special cases. If one is not convinced by that, I encourage one to lurk the Linux kernel tree for quirks, device trees, and other various DSDT hacks. The weird size of payloads for the T2 SSD controller that stumped everyone for some time is only one among many, many other quirks that exist overall. After 10+ years, dust is only settling on the BIOS to EFI transition, and I’m not the least surprised that it takes a bit of time to adapt to the overall ARM Mac architecture. + by “works” I mean boots reasonably well to init 5+VESA, and most of the time something else than VESA. But taking random hardware and having a bulletproof system out of the box down to every nook and cranny is still a tall order. There are systems that fully work optimally out of the box, but they’re a very small minority.