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What's the use case here, buy Apple's M1 hardware and reinstall it with Linux? Apple's hardware is relatively expensive and part of that price might be from its

What's the use case here, buy Apple's M1 hardware and reinstall it with Linux? Apple's hardware is relatively expensive and part of that price might be from its MacOS, I will just buy a PC instead, better yet, a PC with no OS(or Linux installed). I do need get a Mac Mini to test flutter apps there, not happy with its default small DDR size(8GB) and pricey upgrades, and, of course it's not upgrade-able either, disappointed.

sega_sai 4y ago
Apple's hardware is pretty much the best (and I don't particularly care about the price for something I use as much as my laptop). In the same time I've been using Linux for 20 years and I am happy with it, so I don't want to change to MacOS. Thus I would happy to buy apple & install linux on it.
deleted 4y ago
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stakhanov 4y ago
> What's the use case I think the answer is that it's a uniform piece of desktop hardware with a huge installed base. Apple's market share in the desktop space may be small compared to PC, but the PC ecosystem is heterogeneous, so the economics of supporting a large fraction of PCs is disadvantageous for open source maintenance. If support for linux and other open source OSes on apple desktop hardware becomes a thing, it may well quickly become the best-supported and best-tested hardware of all, which would be a huge leap forward for open source on the desktop. Besides: The relationship between Intel and open source is not exactly a love affair either. Maybe Apple will be nicer to open source, or maybe the sheer fact that there is a second hardware player in the open source desktop space will be a shift in competitive dynamics that's advantageous to open source.
rkangel 4y ago
The M1 chips are astonishingly quick, and extremely power efficient. You get something that outperforms all but the most powerful desktops for development tasks like "compile the whole of an embedded Linux distro", and will happily do that for 12 hours on the battery. The only Apple hardware I've owned was a mac mini for the exact same use case as you, but the M1 laptops might change that if I can run Linux. I did not enjoy Mac OS when using it on the Mini!
zamadatix 4y ago
That's precisely why I got an M1 MacBook (typed from Asahi Linux). I've also run Windows in a VM quite a bit on it since it's a fantastic Windows laptop, even if it means running it virtualized.
captn3m0 4y ago
MacBooks, especially the new M1/M2 are pretty much the best built laptops you can buy. I’ve run Linux laptops before (Dell XPS, System76) and always wanted better build quality and battery life. I am now running Asahi Linux on a M2 Air, because that’s the best combination for a user like me.
- synergy20 4y ago
  M1 and M2 are both chiplet design, it has quite a few accelerators hardware built in(e.g. neural network unit), are those supported? or currently only the CPU and (built-in) GPU are used? if all those units are fully supported, e.g. I can use its NPU to train a machine learning model, I may get a M2 laptop too.
  - captn3m0 4y ago
    The coprocessors (TouchID, SecureEnclave, NNE) are not yet supported. These will be next in line once the webcam/mic/speakers are fully functional, so probably worth waiting a bit more (few months?) if this is critical. Most of my usage is browsing, emails, and light development - so it works good enough for now. If I need a GPU, I run Jupyter on my homeserver with a 1050Ti.

sega_sai 4y ago

Apple's hardware is pretty much the best (and I don't particularly care about the price for something I use as much as my laptop). In the same time I've been using Linux for 20 years and I am happy with it, so I don't want to change to MacOS. Thus I would happy to buy apple & install linux on it.

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stakhanov 4y ago

> What's the use case I think the answer is that it's a uniform piece of desktop hardware with a huge installed base. Apple's market share in the desktop space may be small compared to PC, but the PC ecosystem is heterogeneous, so the economics of supporting a large fraction of PCs is disadvantageous for open source maintenance. If support for linux and other open source OSes on apple desktop hardware becomes a thing, it may well quickly become the best-supported and best-tested hardware of all, which would be a huge leap forward for open source on the desktop. Besides: The relationship between Intel and open source is not exactly a love affair either. Maybe Apple will be nicer to open source, or maybe the sheer fact that there is a second hardware player in the open source desktop space will be a shift in competitive dynamics that's advantageous to open source.

rkangel 4y ago

The M1 chips are astonishingly quick, and extremely power efficient. You get something that outperforms all but the most powerful desktops for development tasks like "compile the whole of an embedded Linux distro", and will happily do that for 12 hours on the battery. The only Apple hardware I've owned was a mac mini for the exact same use case as you, but the M1 laptops might change that if I can run Linux. I did not enjoy Mac OS when using it on the Mini!

zamadatix 4y ago

That's precisely why I got an M1 MacBook (typed from Asahi Linux). I've also run Windows in a VM quite a bit on it since it's a fantastic Windows laptop, even if it means running it virtualized.

captn3m0 4y ago

MacBooks, especially the new M1/M2 are pretty much the best built laptops you can buy. I’ve run Linux laptops before (Dell XPS, System76) and always wanted better build quality and battery life. I am now running Asahi Linux on a M2 Air, because that’s the best combination for a user like me.

synergy20 4y ago
M1 and M2 are both chiplet design, it has quite a few accelerators hardware built in(e.g. neural network unit), are those supported? or currently only the CPU and (built-in) GPU are used? if all those units are fully supported, e.g. I can use its NPU to train a machine learning model, I may get a M2 laptop too.
- captn3m0 4y ago
  The coprocessors (TouchID, SecureEnclave, NNE) are not yet supported. These will be next in line once the webcam/mic/speakers are fully functional, so probably worth waiting a bit more (few months?) if this is critical. Most of my usage is browsing, emails, and light development - so it works good enough for now. If I need a GPU, I run Jupyter on my homeserver with a 1050Ti.