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Thats like the recent thread where someone asked for a good Linux laptop, and the top comment was to buy a mac. I'll never understand this brand loyalism/consu

by sva_ 4y ago

Thats like the recent thread where someone asked for a good Linux laptop, and the top comment was to buy a mac. I'll never understand this brand loyalism/consumer mentality, and to what lengths Apple folks will go to promote, justify, and defend their purchase decisions.

nazka 4y ago
I don’t get it. Why a Mac cannot be a good Linux laptop?
- eptcyka 4y ago
  They can, but none of the current ones are well supported.
  - nazka 4y ago
    Ah ok thanks. Is it because of the new M1/M2 architecture?
    - traviswt 4y ago
      I think Asahi Linux is where the progress is. Looking promising but rough. Lots of reverse engineering.
    - eptcyka 4y ago
      T2 chips aren't supported too well either.
    - cmurf 4y ago
      That's one aspect. They implement UEFI, but no support for user loading of certificates. So you have to disable Secure Boot, making it considerably less secure than alternatives. There's no interface or drivers for T2, so again less secure than alternatives with TPM 2.0.
- sva_ 4y ago
  I think you'd have to be willing to be extremely enthusiastic dealing with all the shortcomings of the experimental support currently. Maybe older MacBooks are somewhat supported, but the ARM (Asahi Linux) is alpha right now, and a lot of stuff simply isn't implemented. There's also some individual differences, i.e. from what I've heard you won't ever be able to run something like the Xen Hypervisor as Apple didn't fully implement the Arm spec s.t. some opcodes are missing.
willhslade 4y ago
I'm not going to wade into this flamewar but I will say one thing. Apple is what it says on the tin. It's a curated garden that mostly just works. At a certain point in your life and your career you don't have weekends to spare on side projects and, especially in the tools that you use the most to interact with the Internet (phone, laptop) you want it to work the first time. I've flirted with Linux and for what it is, it's great, but I'm mostly done with hunting down drivers not working. Apple gives me my time back.
- runarberg 4y ago
  I got the Nokia G-100 about a month ago for less than 200 USD and it worked fine out of the box. In fact I would say it worked better out of the box then my partner’s iphone mini. My nokia has a headphone jack, it came with a charger with the correct ports etc. My partner on the other hand had to immediately purchase all the appropriate dongles and chords to fit the proprietary ports.
- ajsnigrutin 4y ago
  Apple works great if you use it to do the 6 things it supports natively and that's it. If you want to go outside the walled garden of apple, even windows is better. Old software, incompatible software, weird software? Nope. USB->rs232? Good luck finding that kext, but it just works on linux, and the cd in the box has the windows drivers. Some weird vpn setup? Good luck. Need a non standard hotspot setup with wpa enterprise? Good luck. So yes... if you just need a browser, sure,.... if you need anything more, as many people here do, then macs might not be the best or most flexible choice.
- nextos 4y ago
  > [...] hunting down drivers not working This sounds like a really outdated opinion about Linux. If you make a little effort selecting decently supported hardware, everything should work out of the box. I actually use Linux (NixOS) because for my particular usecases, maintenance burden is lower than macOS.
  - smoldesu 4y ago
KyeRussell 4y ago
Oh please. Get a grip. I’ve honestly got no idea what things are like in this space post-ARM-transition. I don’t really care, either. Historically though, there have been enough people claiming that the hardware quality of a MacBook is so good that it’s worth buying one just to run Linux on it, for it to be considered a ‘serious option’. Are you sure that “promote, justify, and defend their purchase decisions” isn’t just code for “liking something that I don’t like”? The undertones of this mentality are so gross and elitist.
- sva_ 4y ago
  Apple fanboys calling others elitist. Now I've heard it all.

by sva_ 4y ago

nazka 4y ago

I don’t get it. Why a Mac cannot be a good Linux laptop?

eptcyka 4y ago
They can, but none of the current ones are well supported.
- nazka 4y ago
  Ah ok thanks. Is it because of the new M1/M2 architecture?
  - traviswt 4y ago
    I think Asahi Linux is where the progress is. Looking promising but rough. Lots of reverse engineering.
  - eptcyka 4y ago
    T2 chips aren't supported too well either.
  - cmurf 4y ago
    That's one aspect. They implement UEFI, but no support for user loading of certificates. So you have to disable Secure Boot, making it considerably less secure than alternatives. There's no interface or drivers for T2, so again less secure than alternatives with TPM 2.0.
sva_ 4y ago
I think you'd have to be willing to be extremely enthusiastic dealing with all the shortcomings of the experimental support currently. Maybe older MacBooks are somewhat supported, but the ARM (Asahi Linux) is alpha right now, and a lot of stuff simply isn't implemented. There's also some individual differences, i.e. from what I've heard you won't ever be able to run something like the Xen Hypervisor as Apple didn't fully implement the Arm spec s.t. some opcodes are missing.

willhslade 4y ago

I'm not going to wade into this flamewar but I will say one thing. Apple is what it says on the tin. It's a curated garden that mostly just works. At a certain point in your life and your career you don't have weekends to spare on side projects and, especially in the tools that you use the most to interact with the Internet (phone, laptop) you want it to work the first time. I've flirted with Linux and for what it is, it's great, but I'm mostly done with hunting down drivers not working. Apple gives me my time back.

runarberg 4y ago
I got the Nokia G-100 about a month ago for less than 200 USD and it worked fine out of the box. In fact I would say it worked better out of the box then my partner’s iphone mini. My nokia has a headphone jack, it came with a charger with the correct ports etc. My partner on the other hand had to immediately purchase all the appropriate dongles and chords to fit the proprietary ports.
ajsnigrutin 4y ago
Apple works great if you use it to do the 6 things it supports natively and that's it. If you want to go outside the walled garden of apple, even windows is better. Old software, incompatible software, weird software? Nope. USB->rs232? Good luck finding that kext, but it just works on linux, and the cd in the box has the windows drivers. Some weird vpn setup? Good luck. Need a non standard hotspot setup with wpa enterprise? Good luck. So yes... if you just need a browser, sure,.... if you need anything more, as many people here do, then macs might not be the best or most flexible choice.
nextos 4y ago
> [...] hunting down drivers not working This sounds like a really outdated opinion about Linux. If you make a little effort selecting decently supported hardware, everything should work out of the box. I actually use Linux (NixOS) because for my particular usecases, maintenance burden is lower than macOS.
- smoldesu 4y ago

KyeRussell 4y ago

Oh please. Get a grip. I’ve honestly got no idea what things are like in this space post-ARM-transition. I don’t really care, either. Historically though, there have been enough people claiming that the hardware quality of a MacBook is so good that it’s worth buying one just to run Linux on it, for it to be considered a ‘serious option’. Are you sure that “promote, justify, and defend their purchase decisions” isn’t just code for “liking something that I don’t like”? The undertones of this mentality are so gross and elitist.

sva_ 4y ago
Apple fanboys calling others elitist. Now I've heard it all.