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We 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" lapt
by bscphil 5y ago
We 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]