4 ms·

What's cynical about it? Apple is benefitting from the availability of Linux on these devices. That they do nothing to help this effort is disappointing. Yes,

by Tepix 4y ago

What's cynical about it? Apple is benefitting from the availability of Linux on these devices. That they do nothing to help this effort is disappointing. Yes, it is a triumph in reverse engineering. I am very impressed. But why reward Apple despite not helping in this effort?

pharmakom 4y ago
> Apple is benefitting from the availability of Linux on these devices. How do we know this? I think there are downsides too.
- wanderingmind 4y ago
  I would absolutely run a cloud Linux VM on M1 compared to any other hardware. Apple can create a PaaS that can rival AWS
  - sofixa 4y ago
    Have you checked AWS' Graviton?
  - gigatexal 4y ago
    they could ... but doing so would likely cost far too many billions even for Apple. Maybe they could justify it by saying instead of paying AWS and GCP and Azure for services they could just do it all in house on Apple hardware -- and boy howdy that'd be really cool -- I don't think they REALLY think that is a useful use of their time and resources and would rather instead focus on devices and services.
- oblio 4y ago
  And those would be...? Keep in mind absolutely everything in life has downsides, so listing only minor things is for all intents and purposes, worthless.
- viraptor 4y ago
  Someone working on the re effort mentioned how Apple runs their own testing on those machines on Linux while macos support is being developed. I don't know where they got the information from. (It was posted on Twitter, but can't dig out the link now)
- Tepix 4y ago
  We know this because people right here are saying they find the Apple hardware more attractive now that it runs Linux.
  - pharmakom 4y ago
    Maybe Linux on M1 helps Linux at the expense of macOS.
amelius 4y ago
What's more cynical is that these hackers are helping Apple to eliminate the competition, and when that happens they'll put another layer of crypto on everything and the hackers and other developers have no platform left to work on without paying 90% Apple taxes.
- gigatexal 4y ago
  What are you on about? Apple locking down their platform is their prerogative. If it comes to that and the Asahi team cannot continue their reverse-engineering efforts then they'll stop. Consider why they began in the first place. The M1 and their subsequent M2 and future chips are amazing. The M1 was such a huge leap in performance per watt that it wow'd everyone. In fact it's a huge testament to the hardware team at Apple for creating such an amazing bit of kit that a team of Linux hackers wanted to work on porting Linux to it. This rebellious striving for freedom is refreshing and amazing. They're going to get Linux working on the M1/2... hardware working under Linux and it'll be even more performant than under MacOS. That's huge. But now folks are saying why Apple? Because nobody has a chip that rivals the M1. Why would you settle for worse performance? Why would you settle for build quality from a lesser hardware manufacturer? Qualcomm and others don't have chips that are as performant. They might in the future but by then the M3 or M4 will likely be out. Why are we punishing hackers -- in teh purest sense of the word -- for opening up a platform that is superior (hardware wise) to any of the other offerings from all the other deep pocketed ARM laptop/desktop manufacturers? Oh, right, because of tribal hate of Apple. Smh. If the other manufacturers get off their butts and pour billions into chip design and process and can get laptops out with similar or better performance characteristics then perhaps other teams will attempt what Asahi is doing, and if these same manufacturers wanted to release the specs or work with the upstream Linux community and release drivers themselves that'd be even better. Until then I will continue to support the Asahi team and champion their efforts in every ear that will hear me because I am just so astounded by what they've accomplished so far. I say all of this as a former Apple-stan. I had macbooks every year since college until now. That's some 15 years. I've since gone full time on Fedora and Thinkpads (currently a P14s but maybe an X1 Carbon in the future). Edit: I don't think there will be a huge wave of sales because of this for Apple but it will mean that i can get a used M1 and run my favorite distro of Linux because the Asahi team is working with upstream to get their changes up-streamed -- they're amazing like that. It really is how open source work thrives.

by Tepix 4y ago

pharmakom 4y ago

> Apple is benefitting from the availability of Linux on these devices. How do we know this? I think there are downsides too.

wanderingmind 4y ago
I would absolutely run a cloud Linux VM on M1 compared to any other hardware. Apple can create a PaaS that can rival AWS
- sofixa 4y ago
  Have you checked AWS' Graviton?
- gigatexal 4y ago
  they could ... but doing so would likely cost far too many billions even for Apple. Maybe they could justify it by saying instead of paying AWS and GCP and Azure for services they could just do it all in house on Apple hardware -- and boy howdy that'd be really cool -- I don't think they REALLY think that is a useful use of their time and resources and would rather instead focus on devices and services.
oblio 4y ago
And those would be...? Keep in mind absolutely everything in life has downsides, so listing only minor things is for all intents and purposes, worthless.
viraptor 4y ago
Someone working on the re effort mentioned how Apple runs their own testing on those machines on Linux while macos support is being developed. I don't know where they got the information from. (It was posted on Twitter, but can't dig out the link now)
Tepix 4y ago
We know this because people right here are saying they find the Apple hardware more attractive now that it runs Linux.
- pharmakom 4y ago
  Maybe Linux on M1 helps Linux at the expense of macOS.

amelius 4y ago

What's more cynical is that these hackers are helping Apple to eliminate the competition, and when that happens they'll put another layer of crypto on everything and the hackers and other developers have no platform left to work on without paying 90% Apple taxes.

gigatexal 4y ago
What are you on about? Apple locking down their platform is their prerogative. If it comes to that and the Asahi team cannot continue their reverse-engineering efforts then they'll stop. Consider why they began in the first place. The M1 and their subsequent M2 and future chips are amazing. The M1 was such a huge leap in performance per watt that it wow'd everyone. In fact it's a huge testament to the hardware team at Apple for creating such an amazing bit of kit that a team of Linux hackers wanted to work on porting Linux to it. This rebellious striving for freedom is refreshing and amazing. They're going to get Linux working on the M1/2... hardware working under Linux and it'll be even more performant than under MacOS. That's huge. But now folks are saying why Apple? Because nobody has a chip that rivals the M1. Why would you settle for worse performance? Why would you settle for build quality from a lesser hardware manufacturer? Qualcomm and others don't have chips that are as performant. They might in the future but by then the M3 or M4 will likely be out. Why are we punishing hackers -- in teh purest sense of the word -- for opening up a platform that is superior (hardware wise) to any of the other offerings from all the other deep pocketed ARM laptop/desktop manufacturers? Oh, right, because of tribal hate of Apple. Smh. If the other manufacturers get off their butts and pour billions into chip design and process and can get laptops out with similar or better performance characteristics then perhaps other teams will attempt what Asahi is doing, and if these same manufacturers wanted to release the specs or work with the upstream Linux community and release drivers themselves that'd be even better. Until then I will continue to support the Asahi team and champion their efforts in every ear that will hear me because I am just so astounded by what they've accomplished so far. I say all of this as a former Apple-stan. I had macbooks every year since college until now. That's some 15 years. I've since gone full time on Fedora and Thinkpads (currently a P14s but maybe an X1 Carbon in the future). Edit: I don't think there will be a huge wave of sales because of this for Apple but it will mean that i can get a used M1 and run my favorite distro of Linux because the Asahi team is working with upstream to get their changes up-streamed -- they're amazing like that. It really is how open source work thrives.