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I understand the subtlety involved in your argument that Apple may and probably will make closed decisions that strictly benefit their own ecosystem even if at
by reacharavindh 5y ago
I understand the subtlety involved in your argument that Apple may and probably will make closed decisions that strictly benefit their own ecosystem even if at cost of making life difficult for those running Linux on this hardware.
However, “Unsupported hack, at best” is pretty dismissive of the engineering effort going on with this. People running Linux on “windows branded PCs” of the not so distant past could have easily said the same thing because Say Dell and Microsoft would be commercially motivated to only keep Windows running on their hardware. However the ecosystem around Linux made things happen such that it is almost a no-brained that most systems you buy _will_ run say Ubuntu with more than reasonable success.
With enough motivation, and the efforts of engineers such as those listed in this article, I bet we might even see better use of Apple hardware than MacOS. Apple might optimise for their stuff, but Linux can bring the power built for other needs(HPC, Real-time systems etc) to the table and can leap over MacOS given the right abstractions. The future is exciting for the hopeful.
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- stormbrew 5y ago> People running Linux on “windows branded PCs” of the not so distant past could have easily said the same thing because Say Dell and Microsoft would be commercially motivated to only keep Windows running on their hardware. I don't think this needs qualification. It's still true today.
- bscphil 5y agoWe recently purchased a cheap (<$500) Dell Inspiron, and it advertises support for Ubuntu in the specs. Not even one of those fancy XPS "developer edition" laptops or whatever, just an ordinary Inspiron. It's fine to worry about it (and UEFI was a real threat until Microsoft mandated support for other-os booting), but support for Linux in the PC world has never been as fragile as support for it on Macs. You're entirely at the mercy of Apple's whims; I support the Asahi project, but that's just the truth.
- simonh 5y agoHow did that Inspiron get its Linux support? Principally it was from hard working hackers reverse engineering the components and getting drivers working through painstaking dev test work. Dell then built a machine with hardware they knew worked thanks to all that effort and slapped a “Works with Ubuntu” sticker on it. That’s the sad reality. The idea that the PC platform and it’s peripherals are somehow an open platform paradise is a delusion.
- reacharavindh 5y agoExactly. It may actually be in Apple's interest to not actively hinder the hacker community from doing wonders with Apple hardware. After all, a successful ecosystem there will lead to more purchases from Apple!
- simonh 5y agoIn fact the Asahi team has said Apple has done a lot of engineering work making sure M1 can and does support third party OSes. They're not directly contributing to or assisting those projects, but the characterisation that they are actively obstructing them seems false, according to those projects themselves.
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]