7 ms·

I wonder why we even bother trying to support these hardware vendors sometimes. I have been trying really hard to simply not deal with them for my own sanity. A

I wonder why we even bother trying to support these hardware vendors sometimes. I have been trying really hard to simply not deal with them for my own sanity. Are we not simply letting the leash out further for what we will accept and buy? Are we truly that powerless against the market forces which drive HW/OS sales?

watermelon0 5y ago
For some people it's a nice challenge to tackle. Additionally, M1 is currently best? platform when comparing performance with power usage, and (at least MBA) comes in a great form factor. AFAIK there is no comparable device that has decent support for Linux.
- distances 5y ago
  Ryzen mobile is of course still faster in multi-core tasks, although with a higher power demand.
  - phonon 5y ago
    Actually not--a 5900HX is about 1400/7500 (ST/MT GB5) An M1 is about 1700/7600. So call that a tie for MT, and 20% faster in ST...with a chip using about a third the power.
    - distances 5y ago
      No, M1 is clearly slower in multi-core (to be fair, it has fewer threads). Not sure where you got your numbers from. 5900HX gets about 7800 in Geekbench 5, and the difference is much larger in some other multi-core tests. For example Cinebench gives 7800 for M1, 13800 for 5900HX. E.g. https://nanoreview.net/en/cpu-compare/apple-m1-vs-amd-ryzen-9-5900hx https://nanoreview.net/en/cpu-compare/apple-m1-vs-amd-ryzen-...
      - phonon 5y ago
        It says in your link there is a 3% difference in "Geekbench 5 (Multi-Core)" between the two? I would say that is practically equivalent, particularly since 5900HX comes in several TDPs. (It says "54 Watt" at your link.) I took my data from perusing the Geekbench DB for the latest submissions...
        distances 5y ago
        Yeah I agree GB5 is roughly equivalent, others not so. Anyway this is just me being pedantic as so many people seem to think for whatever reason that M1 is the most powerful mobile chip while it certainly isn't. I do expect Apple's follow-up chips to take the multi-core lead too eventually.
        phonon 5y ago
        https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aVsy1yrG2e8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aVsy1yrG2e8
- nixpulvis 5y ago
  > For some people it's a nice challenge to tackle. So is killing a tiger, but you don't see any stripes on my wall.
  - bschwindHN 5y ago
    Sure, getting Linux to run on hardware you purchased is equivalent to poaching. Very reasonable take.
    - nixpulvis 5y ago
      I guess I took the OS X 10.4 joke a bit too far huh?
  - Y_Y 5y ago
    Well sticking the skin on your wall is just tacky. I normally just wait until people ask about the clawmarks and then feign reluctance as I explain.
  - h4x0r12345 5y ago
    With your anti-intellectual mindset, Linux and BSD would never had made any progress. Linux now runs on countless platforms and all of it has been reverse engineered and hacked from the beginning. Getting Linux working on the M1 is a worthwhile challenge for the most talented hackers, which you are definitely not one of.
    - nixpulvis 5y ago
      um, ok thanks.
diragon 5y ago
Currently probably because M1 is absurdly better than the competition. They will certainly draw users away from Linux unless either this porting effort gets done, or unless other ARM options that support Linux better become available.
- p4bl0 5y ago
  > They will certainly draw users away from Linux And the beauty of non commercial software is that we don't actually have to care about that. If people choose performance increase over freedom, you can't really chose for them. Now I'm not saying that we should not port free software to the M1. I'm saying that the good reason to do so is because the people porting it want to have it there, rather than thinking in term of user retention.
  - nixpulvis 5y ago
    The problem, as I see it, is that "free software" becomes unfree when you have to pay to port it. Back in the glory of more universal general computers this was perhaps a lesser spoken requirement of the system. Today, it's clear to me that we are slipping back into chaos. EDIT: Seems like FSF's "freedom to run" might fit the definitional benchmark for me. I'm not really sure how people are going to react to that though ;)
    - p4bl0 5y ago
      > "free software" becomes unfree when you have to pay Not the same meaning of "free". But anyway, for now, you have to pay Apple prices to have a computer with an M1 chip on it. If the price is a string requirement, one probably won't buy Apple hardware and rather get something that less expensive and is already well supported by free software :).
      - deleted 5y ago
        [deleted]
      - nixpulvis 5y ago
jbverschoor 5y ago
It's a strategic move from Apple to allow other OSses. They could've gone the iOS route, requiring jailbreaking. They know very well how they became so big. It was in the early 2000's, because they had the support of many developers.
- flomo 5y ago
  Yes and no. Specifically, Mac was lifesupport marketshare until Intel. Bootcamping or VMing Windows was a huge selling point at the time. (But maybe in the long-run, it turned out that UNIX was more valuable after all.) With apple silcon, Apple is dropping what was a huge feature -- Windows. Ability to run Linux distros on Mac hardware is like rounding error hacker stuff.
  - rdsnsca 5y ago
    Less than 5% of Mac users used bootcamp according to Apple.
    - Wowfunhappy 5y ago
      Now, but I expect it was a lot more common in the early days of the Intel transition.
Razengan 5y ago
Or, or, or.. bear with me.. do we simply like what’s being offered and nothing about it turns us off to change our habits and try alternative products, all of which come with their own brand of bullshit anyway?
- Razengan 5y ago
  * turns us off enough

watermelon0 5y ago

For some people it's a nice challenge to tackle. Additionally, M1 is currently best? platform when comparing performance with power usage, and (at least MBA) comes in a great form factor. AFAIK there is no comparable device that has decent support for Linux.

distances 5y ago
Ryzen mobile is of course still faster in multi-core tasks, although with a higher power demand.
- phonon 5y ago
  Actually not--a 5900HX is about 1400/7500 (ST/MT GB5) An M1 is about 1700/7600. So call that a tie for MT, and 20% faster in ST...with a chip using about a third the power.
  - distances 5y ago
    No, M1 is clearly slower in multi-core (to be fair, it has fewer threads). Not sure where you got your numbers from. 5900HX gets about 7800 in Geekbench 5, and the difference is much larger in some other multi-core tests. For example Cinebench gives 7800 for M1, 13800 for 5900HX. E.g. https://nanoreview.net/en/cpu-compare/apple-m1-vs-amd-ryzen-9-5900hx https://nanoreview.net/en/cpu-compare/apple-m1-vs-amd-ryzen-...
    - phonon 5y ago
      It says in your link there is a 3% difference in "Geekbench 5 (Multi-Core)" between the two? I would say that is practically equivalent, particularly since 5900HX comes in several TDPs. (It says "54 Watt" at your link.) I took my data from perusing the Geekbench DB for the latest submissions...
      - distances 5y ago
        Yeah I agree GB5 is roughly equivalent, others not so. Anyway this is just me being pedantic as so many people seem to think for whatever reason that M1 is the most powerful mobile chip while it certainly isn't. I do expect Apple's follow-up chips to take the multi-core lead too eventually.
        phonon 5y ago
        https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aVsy1yrG2e8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aVsy1yrG2e8
nixpulvis 5y ago
> For some people it's a nice challenge to tackle. So is killing a tiger, but you don't see any stripes on my wall.
- bschwindHN 5y ago
  Sure, getting Linux to run on hardware you purchased is equivalent to poaching. Very reasonable take.
  - nixpulvis 5y ago
    I guess I took the OS X 10.4 joke a bit too far huh?
- Y_Y 5y ago
  Well sticking the skin on your wall is just tacky. I normally just wait until people ask about the clawmarks and then feign reluctance as I explain.
- h4x0r12345 5y ago
  With your anti-intellectual mindset, Linux and BSD would never had made any progress. Linux now runs on countless platforms and all of it has been reverse engineered and hacked from the beginning. Getting Linux working on the M1 is a worthwhile challenge for the most talented hackers, which you are definitely not one of.
  - nixpulvis 5y ago
    um, ok thanks.

diragon 5y ago

Currently probably because M1 is absurdly better than the competition. They will certainly draw users away from Linux unless either this porting effort gets done, or unless other ARM options that support Linux better become available.

p4bl0 5y ago
> They will certainly draw users away from Linux And the beauty of non commercial software is that we don't actually have to care about that. If people choose performance increase over freedom, you can't really chose for them. Now I'm not saying that we should not port free software to the M1. I'm saying that the good reason to do so is because the people porting it want to have it there, rather than thinking in term of user retention.
- nixpulvis 5y ago
  The problem, as I see it, is that "free software" becomes unfree when you have to pay to port it. Back in the glory of more universal general computers this was perhaps a lesser spoken requirement of the system. Today, it's clear to me that we are slipping back into chaos. EDIT: Seems like FSF's "freedom to run" might fit the definitional benchmark for me. I'm not really sure how people are going to react to that though ;)
  - p4bl0 5y ago
    > "free software" becomes unfree when you have to pay Not the same meaning of "free". But anyway, for now, you have to pay Apple prices to have a computer with an M1 chip on it. If the price is a string requirement, one probably won't buy Apple hardware and rather get something that less expensive and is already well supported by free software :).
    - deleted 5y ago
      [deleted]
    - nixpulvis 5y ago

jbverschoor 5y ago

It's a strategic move from Apple to allow other OSses. They could've gone the iOS route, requiring jailbreaking. They know very well how they became so big. It was in the early 2000's, because they had the support of many developers.

flomo 5y ago
Yes and no. Specifically, Mac was lifesupport marketshare until Intel. Bootcamping or VMing Windows was a huge selling point at the time. (But maybe in the long-run, it turned out that UNIX was more valuable after all.) With apple silcon, Apple is dropping what was a huge feature -- Windows. Ability to run Linux distros on Mac hardware is like rounding error hacker stuff.
- rdsnsca 5y ago
  Less than 5% of Mac users used bootcamp according to Apple.
  - Wowfunhappy 5y ago
    Now, but I expect it was a lot more common in the early days of the Intel transition.

Razengan 5y ago

Or, or, or.. bear with me.. do we simply like what’s being offered and nothing about it turns us off to change our habits and try alternative products, all of which come with their own brand of bullshit anyway?

Razengan 5y ago
* turns us off enough