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> It’s your machine, but the inner workings are this ineffable mystery. At some point, every machine's software becomes an ineffable mystery. Do you know what

> It’s your machine, but the inner workings are this ineffable mystery. At some point, every machine's software becomes an ineffable mystery. Do you know what is going on in all your 3rd-party Linux drivers, say, from NVIDIA?

Aperocky 5y ago
[The machine] will not fulfill its destiny until you let go of the illusion of control. -- Master Oogway.
TremendousJudge 5y ago
What's your point?. That since some software doesn't play nice and doesn't treat its users with respect, we shouldn't value all the software that does? I don't find this agreeable
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- gotaquestion 5y ago
  I don't think I meant that, although it might sound like it. I think you're accusing me of the fallacy of all or nothing, but to me the original argument sounds like an obsession with purity, but clearly one line isn't enough to explain that. The replies to my original post seem to me to be arguing for 100% transparency from the keyboard to the atoms on the finfets. I don't think I'm strawmanning that (maybe hyperbolizing a little, but with RISC-V proponents, maybe not!) That sounds like a noble goal, like world peace, ending starvation, and curing all modern ails. However, the extent to which tribalism and out-grouping emerges from people who don't use the "superior, pure" solution is nonsense: just look at the tone of the first post, snidely declaring that this is proof apple is again such a bad solution. That's not helpful, and after hearing similar tech arguments for nearly 35 years online, it is tiresome (ironic). On top of that, the dream of transparency seems unlikely because every open source hardware project I've ever seen has failed [1], there is zero motivation for it. Again, not to say it isn't a noble goal, but don't fetishize it to the point of outgrouping others. [1] This is a broad statement, as there is plenty of gadgetry that is open source hardware. I mean: open source hardware for Linux laptops. Or at least hardware that has open source drivers but doesn't have an "Appendix H".
  - TremendousJudge 5y ago
    Thanks for elaborating. I agree with what you just said, a high level of snobbery won't fix anything, and expecting everything to be "pure" is utopian. That being said, I think that the original commenter was just expressing his frustration at the fact that "tech minded" people continue to buy into Apples ecosystems and then observing the behaviour as though they didn't own their stuff. In a way, not dissimilar to your point elsewhere about how people complain about Nvidia drivers but keep buying their hardware.
  - mst 5y ago
    Everything is about trade-offs. Since I can't meaningfully audit kernel level stuff anyway (not my area) I mostly care whether it works for me (or for the production purpose the customer needs or etc.) and that's not an ideal world but I choose to prioritise open source userspace contributions and running code. I also run windows 10 on a Thinkpad Helix 2 for my personal machine - with WSL to provide me an X11 environment that I use to ssh to the debian/freebsd/<whatever the customer runs> machines I'm actually doing development work on. I like writing server side code (and tolerate writing browser side code) so being a linux desktop admin would involve a whole extra field of expertise that wouldn't gain me anything, and I'd rather spend the required learning time on writing and publishing more code instead. Other people are entirely welcome to choose entirely different trade-offs, of course, but this particular attitude works for me. Edit: Ironically, my one foray into OS X ended because Aqua insisted on reaching into my X11 instance and controlling focus, which completely trashed my fvwm2 FocusFollowsMouse setup in terms of usability for me, so I decided the Microsoft black box was a better trade-off than an Apple black box even though in those days I had to have cygwin for my X11 + ssh setup.
    - gotaquestion 5y ago
      It certainly is. I have Ubuntu 20.04 running on a Multiboot Yoga, an old Dell, and a MacBook Pro 2013 (because this is the only OS that will boot). I use both the default Gnome desktop, and sometimes switch to FVWM2 or MWM (mostly on VNC because I hate all the bells-and-whistles on Gnome). I hate using Linux on the actual laptop. The touchpad is always a trainwreck. Sensitivity and scroll speed/acceleration is infuriating (too much Xorg config hassle). Trying to get "middle click" working -always- has issues. Power buttons never work properly, same with LidClose actions (i've read many knowledge bases and stackoverflow posts, none seem to work for my particular hardware, as is always the case). It is frustrating as hell to get it to act like a well-behaved "normal" laptop. Don't get me started on suspend/hibernate issues, or the flaky bluetooth drivers that always need system ctl restart command line help. Now that I've made the tradeoff to not use Linux as anything but a remote server via VNC, my choices are Windows or Mac for a primary computer. I don't like ads showing up in start menu, or idiotic MFA and login requirements, so I'm left with Mac.
grumbel 5y ago
A system should only be a mystery in so far that you were too lazy to look up how exactly something works. Having "undocumented service" running wild should be unacceptable, even so it has become so common place. Linux isn't free of this, far too many times there is no man-page to tell you what something does, but at least you can dig into the source if you have to.
- gotaquestion 5y ago
  Not with 3rd party drivers. I think people fetishize the desire to have complete control, and it is a myth. I've been using Linux since 1997, and all the fighting for transparency has been a tempest in a teapot with no progress made at ALL. If people wanted to fight for it, stop using NVIDIA products, but do you see that happening? Not bloody likely. This isn't so much whataboutism as it is about trying to coerce an ecosystem of hundreds of vendors to listen to a small cadre of open source proponents. If the Linux kernel forces AMD to improve UAI and make it look like LAM, I'd consider that a victory. Let's see what happens.
  - colonwqbang 5y ago
    Nobody forces you to buy NVIDIA hardware. I don't.
    - digisign 5y ago
      Correct, and not even on ideological grounds for me. Intel's stuff was good enough at the time and a lot cheaper.
    - blaser-waffle 5y ago
      Aye, the open AMD graphics drivers are pretty good. Nouveau will get there, one hopes...
  - Robotbeat 5y ago
    The need isn’t to have complete control in actuality, but instead the ability to control any particular something in the system, or at least understand it. i.e. the ability to examine and understand something weird that’s going on and that may be a potential problem.
jancsika 5y ago
That's certainly a single piece of evidence that every machine-- including all Linux distros-- are ineffable mysteries. Similarly, all fruits have fat content. Just off the top of my head: 1. avocados (a whopping 15% fat content!) 2. there is no legal requirement for me to list another fruit here
Robotbeat 5y ago
> Do you know what is going on in all your 3rd-party Linux drivers, say, from NVIDIA? I’d certainly like to.
macksd 5y ago
I'm pretty sure the most common picture of Linus Torvalds is a picture of him giving NVIDIA a rather rude gesture with his finger, and the reason was because of the way they push a proprietary driver and don't work well with an open community.
jakogut 5y ago
No, but I'm able to read and modify the code for all of the in-tree drivers, which are the only ones in use on my machine. There's also a large difference between a closed driver or firmware blob, where the function is known but the workings are not, and large portions of the userspace, including system services and applications, that are entirely opaque.
conradev 5y ago
As someone who used to work at Apple and have this knowledge at my fingertips… It really is nice to have, when you want to look it up. Userspace daemons and their behavior should not be a mystery. At an extreme minimum, most daemons on macOS have at least a man page describing their high level function.
- saagarjha 5y ago
  Well, I just filed FB9971057: triald should have a man page explaining what it does ¯\_(ツ)_/¯. Unsure it would help against a person who is dead set at reading logs to figure out what a daemon does, but it might provide some basic insight to the casual reader.
- asdff 5y ago
  Where is this documentation? Can you demonstrate how to invoke a man page for a particular background daemon? e.g. an arbitrary process from launchctl list output?
  - 1123581321 5y ago
    just type man and then the name of the service in terminal, like you'd do for awk or vim. For example, man launchd man triald will report no manual entry, though.
    - asdff 5y ago
      I already know about launchd. I am talking about stuff like com.apple.geod and the dozens of other daemons running on my device. Where is that documented?
josephcsible 5y ago
I only buy AMD GPUs, specifically because AMD provides open-source drivers and NVIDIA doesn't.
- trelane 5y ago
  Same. I bought Intel for a long time because they Just Worked. It looks like AMD will Just Work _and_ have great performance.
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
e2le 5y ago
> Do you know what is going on in all your 3rd-party Linux drivers, say, from NVIDIA? Sadly not because, like OSX, that software is proprietary and us filthy peasants are denied the honour of gazing upon the holy source code crafted by the holiest engineers, anointed by Huang himself. Of course, that's assuming you don't download the Nvidia leak and gaze upon the source code within. That would be bad, you're bad for thinking it, don't do that. Only bad people would do that. May Huang have mercy on your soul.

Aperocky 5y ago

[The machine] will not fulfill its destiny until you let go of the illusion of control. -- Master Oogway.

TremendousJudge 5y ago

What's your point?. That since some software doesn't play nice and doesn't treat its users with respect, we shouldn't value all the software that does? I don't find this agreeable

deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
gotaquestion 5y ago
I don't think I meant that, although it might sound like it. I think you're accusing me of the fallacy of all or nothing, but to me the original argument sounds like an obsession with purity, but clearly one line isn't enough to explain that. The replies to my original post seem to me to be arguing for 100% transparency from the keyboard to the atoms on the finfets. I don't think I'm strawmanning that (maybe hyperbolizing a little, but with RISC-V proponents, maybe not!) That sounds like a noble goal, like world peace, ending starvation, and curing all modern ails. However, the extent to which tribalism and out-grouping emerges from people who don't use the "superior, pure" solution is nonsense: just look at the tone of the first post, snidely declaring that this is proof apple is again such a bad solution. That's not helpful, and after hearing similar tech arguments for nearly 35 years online, it is tiresome (ironic). On top of that, the dream of transparency seems unlikely because every open source hardware project I've ever seen has failed [1], there is zero motivation for it. Again, not to say it isn't a noble goal, but don't fetishize it to the point of outgrouping others. [1] This is a broad statement, as there is plenty of gadgetry that is open source hardware. I mean: open source hardware for Linux laptops. Or at least hardware that has open source drivers but doesn't have an "Appendix H".
- TremendousJudge 5y ago
  Thanks for elaborating. I agree with what you just said, a high level of snobbery won't fix anything, and expecting everything to be "pure" is utopian. That being said, I think that the original commenter was just expressing his frustration at the fact that "tech minded" people continue to buy into Apples ecosystems and then observing the behaviour as though they didn't own their stuff. In a way, not dissimilar to your point elsewhere about how people complain about Nvidia drivers but keep buying their hardware.
- mst 5y ago
  Everything is about trade-offs. Since I can't meaningfully audit kernel level stuff anyway (not my area) I mostly care whether it works for me (or for the production purpose the customer needs or etc.) and that's not an ideal world but I choose to prioritise open source userspace contributions and running code. I also run windows 10 on a Thinkpad Helix 2 for my personal machine - with WSL to provide me an X11 environment that I use to ssh to the debian/freebsd/<whatever the customer runs> machines I'm actually doing development work on. I like writing server side code (and tolerate writing browser side code) so being a linux desktop admin would involve a whole extra field of expertise that wouldn't gain me anything, and I'd rather spend the required learning time on writing and publishing more code instead. Other people are entirely welcome to choose entirely different trade-offs, of course, but this particular attitude works for me. Edit: Ironically, my one foray into OS X ended because Aqua insisted on reaching into my X11 instance and controlling focus, which completely trashed my fvwm2 FocusFollowsMouse setup in terms of usability for me, so I decided the Microsoft black box was a better trade-off than an Apple black box even though in those days I had to have cygwin for my X11 + ssh setup.
  - gotaquestion 5y ago
    It certainly is. I have Ubuntu 20.04 running on a Multiboot Yoga, an old Dell, and a MacBook Pro 2013 (because this is the only OS that will boot). I use both the default Gnome desktop, and sometimes switch to FVWM2 or MWM (mostly on VNC because I hate all the bells-and-whistles on Gnome). I hate using Linux on the actual laptop. The touchpad is always a trainwreck. Sensitivity and scroll speed/acceleration is infuriating (too much Xorg config hassle). Trying to get "middle click" working -always- has issues. Power buttons never work properly, same with LidClose actions (i've read many knowledge bases and stackoverflow posts, none seem to work for my particular hardware, as is always the case). It is frustrating as hell to get it to act like a well-behaved "normal" laptop. Don't get me started on suspend/hibernate issues, or the flaky bluetooth drivers that always need system ctl restart command line help. Now that I've made the tradeoff to not use Linux as anything but a remote server via VNC, my choices are Windows or Mac for a primary computer. I don't like ads showing up in start menu, or idiotic MFA and login requirements, so I'm left with Mac.

grumbel 5y ago

A system should only be a mystery in so far that you were too lazy to look up how exactly something works. Having "undocumented service" running wild should be unacceptable, even so it has become so common place. Linux isn't free of this, far too many times there is no man-page to tell you what something does, but at least you can dig into the source if you have to.

gotaquestion 5y ago
Not with 3rd party drivers. I think people fetishize the desire to have complete control, and it is a myth. I've been using Linux since 1997, and all the fighting for transparency has been a tempest in a teapot with no progress made at ALL. If people wanted to fight for it, stop using NVIDIA products, but do you see that happening? Not bloody likely. This isn't so much whataboutism as it is about trying to coerce an ecosystem of hundreds of vendors to listen to a small cadre of open source proponents. If the Linux kernel forces AMD to improve UAI and make it look like LAM, I'd consider that a victory. Let's see what happens.
- colonwqbang 5y ago
  Nobody forces you to buy NVIDIA hardware. I don't.
  - digisign 5y ago
    Correct, and not even on ideological grounds for me. Intel's stuff was good enough at the time and a lot cheaper.
  - blaser-waffle 5y ago
    Aye, the open AMD graphics drivers are pretty good. Nouveau will get there, one hopes...
- Robotbeat 5y ago
  The need isn’t to have complete control in actuality, but instead the ability to control any particular something in the system, or at least understand it. i.e. the ability to examine and understand something weird that’s going on and that may be a potential problem.

jancsika 5y ago

That's certainly a single piece of evidence that every machine-- including all Linux distros-- are ineffable mysteries. Similarly, all fruits have fat content. Just off the top of my head: 1. avocados (a whopping 15% fat content!) 2. there is no legal requirement for me to list another fruit here

Robotbeat 5y ago

> Do you know what is going on in all your 3rd-party Linux drivers, say, from NVIDIA? I’d certainly like to.

macksd 5y ago

I'm pretty sure the most common picture of Linus Torvalds is a picture of him giving NVIDIA a rather rude gesture with his finger, and the reason was because of the way they push a proprietary driver and don't work well with an open community.

jakogut 5y ago

No, but I'm able to read and modify the code for all of the in-tree drivers, which are the only ones in use on my machine. There's also a large difference between a closed driver or firmware blob, where the function is known but the workings are not, and large portions of the userspace, including system services and applications, that are entirely opaque.

conradev 5y ago

As someone who used to work at Apple and have this knowledge at my fingertips… It really is nice to have, when you want to look it up. Userspace daemons and their behavior should not be a mystery. At an extreme minimum, most daemons on macOS have at least a man page describing their high level function.

saagarjha 5y ago
Well, I just filed FB9971057: triald should have a man page explaining what it does ¯\_(ツ)_/¯. Unsure it would help against a person who is dead set at reading logs to figure out what a daemon does, but it might provide some basic insight to the casual reader.
asdff 5y ago
Where is this documentation? Can you demonstrate how to invoke a man page for a particular background daemon? e.g. an arbitrary process from launchctl list output?
- 1123581321 5y ago
  just type man and then the name of the service in terminal, like you'd do for awk or vim. For example, man launchd man triald will report no manual entry, though.
  - asdff 5y ago
    I already know about launchd. I am talking about stuff like com.apple.geod and the dozens of other daemons running on my device. Where is that documented?

josephcsible 5y ago

I only buy AMD GPUs, specifically because AMD provides open-source drivers and NVIDIA doesn't.

trelane 5y ago
Same. I bought Intel for a long time because they Just Worked. It looks like AMD will Just Work _and_ have great performance.

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]

e2le 5y ago

> Do you know what is going on in all your 3rd-party Linux drivers, say, from NVIDIA? Sadly not because, like OSX, that software is proprietary and us filthy peasants are denied the honour of gazing upon the holy source code crafted by the holiest engineers, anointed by Huang himself. Of course, that's assuming you don't download the Nvidia leak and gaze upon the source code within. That would be bad, you're bad for thinking it, don't do that. Only bad people would do that. May Huang have mercy on your soul.