8 ms·

I really wish nerds would stop supporting Apple hardware and software. It is so closed and everything is a giant pain. Its one thing for the average non-techie

I really wish nerds would stop supporting Apple hardware and software. It is so closed and everything is a giant pain. Its one thing for the average non-techie that does not want to do anything advanced and just wants to swallow the blue pill. But for an actual techie to support a system that is the antithesis of general purpose compute...Can you even be considered a true techie anymore? I just don't get it.

kaba0 3y ago
How is it any more of an antithesis, than HP, Dell, Lenovo.. etc?
AnonMO 3y ago
When you realize the world isn't strictly dividen it categories such as blue or red. you might begin to understand why people do what they do. also let me ask you a question since you're obviously for free and open source. how much have you contributed to riscv development or donated to move their cause forward? are you actively maintaining any open projects? because if you read the post the authors stated that they are small with limited funding which is the case for most open source projects.
- nwellinghoff 3y ago
  Who are you responding to? By closed I meant they artificially restrict you from doing things in the name of selling more devices. Like running VM clusters for testing unless you run it on "apple hardware" when there really is no requirement. Removing support for 3rd party GPUs. Having to buy a million dongles that use proprietary connectors (not really a problem anymore). Limiting what you can control at the OS level. Not letting you run what you want. The list goes on. I obviously think what the asahi linux team has done is bad ass. Just think us nerds have to force ourselves off the tech giants or the end result will likely be; you won't be able to easily buy something you actually control.
okamiueru 3y ago
A lot of dev companies force their employees to use bacbooks in part as a result of their locked down practices and the only way to actually compile and test for "everything", because of how much easier it is to cross compile to other platforms and markets. For that reason, I've personally had to use a M2 for a week now, and I find the experience unpleasant. The OS feels old and cumbersome. I had flashback to a time long ago when I needed to install custom apps in Windows for some basic functionality that's been built in gnome. Things like "alt + tab" actually bringing an app to the foreground, instead of prioritizing the minimized state. Why this deliberate action would have seemingly no effect is correct, I'm sure will be defended. Global shortcut to start up a terminal? Install a third party utility is probably the easiest. Want to place windows on the screen? Install a third party utility. Better screenshot functionality? Install a third party app. Change the default shell to a custom one? First you got to figure out how to access the root system through finder to actually find the executable. It goes on and on. And the performance is much worse than what I've become used to. The only thing it actually has going for it, which I believe is great, is battery life. But, that's it. I'm just glad I was able to disable the app validation check, because it had literally prevented me from installing a lot of third party software, and the suggested workarounds had no effect. Just the fact of phoning home every time run an executable makes me nauseous. I wonder how often the homebrew team get offers to add malware, because the checks there seem woefully insufficient.
- rekoil 3y ago
  > A lot of dev companies force their employees to use bacbooks in part as a result of their locked down practices and the only way to actually compile and test for "everything", because of how much easier it is to cross compile to other platforms and markets. A lot of devs are also choosing them because they are insanely good machines. Simply because ARM64 is a good architecture and there is pretty much no competition available, it's more or less a choice between Apple or not ARM64...
  - okamiueru 3y ago
    My personal experience: - MacOS user experience: Terrible. It feels like Linux did 10 years ago. Bugs and inconsistencies everywhere. But hey, they are competing with W11 so, no need to improve it either. Forced updates and restarts. And, did I mention bugs and inconsistencies everywhere? - M2 Computational performance: It feels like my laptop 10 years ago. - M2 Batterly life performance: It is absolutely brilliant, but, I also work 80% of the time at a fixed desk, so, it's mostly only relevant when traveling. I'm sure a lot of devs use them because they like them. But, your argument that ARM64 is "good architecture" whatever vagueness that entails, is pretty much bollocks. Compile time performance is ok at best compared to other laptop CPUs (the fastest laptop Mx hardware is about half of the laptop competition, and that's just comparing CPU). The package management coherence is non existent, so everything is slow to start because everything ships a complete stack of libraries that need to be read from disk and copied in memory. I honestly believe that people who are blown away by the Mx hardware have simply lived too long in the walled garden to know what is out there. In summary: MacBooks are decent hardware, with exceptional battery life. Priced at 50% would make sense. And the OS experience is somewhere between mediocre to garbage. Ran an identical GPU workload on AMD hardware with dedicated GPU. - 3 year old desktop AMD hardware: 50 seconds (1x) - 1.5 year old laptop AMD hardware: 66 seconds. (1.32x) - Latest M2 Pro 12 core: 142 seconds. (2.84x) For CPU-only tasks. 1x, 1.9x 1.7x. So, the M2 Pro 12 core is about 2x slower than a one year older AMD laptop for GPU tasks, and about the same for CPU only tasks. And the latest AMD Laptop CPU is twice as fast as the one I used.
dimgl 3y ago
> everything is a giant pain Have you ever used a Windows machine?
- smoldesu 3y ago
  If you go fullscreen in a WSL terminal, at least the ads can't hurt you. I still get jumpscared by the Apple Music popup when I put on my headphones with a Mac...
  - meragrin_ 3y ago
    > If you go fullscreen in a WSL terminal, at least the ads can't hurt you. Ads? What ads?
    - sbuk 3y ago
      Apparently, there are ads everywhere in macOS. By which, they mean the notifications in settings that upsell iCloud, or when News or Apple Music opens, there is a prompt to subscribe to the service. Can they be invasive? I suppose so, but I believe the GP is exaggerating somewhat. There are far more egregious examples in Google and Microsoft properties (cue something about Apple being the richest...) There also appears to be an issue when connecting or plugging in headphones where Music.app opens automatically. I've tried to replicate this in Monterey and Ventura using AirPods, Beats and Sony MDR-7506 without success. Researching online suggests that this is a LaunchAgent/LaunchDaemon or cache problem. In short, it's a relatively simple bug to fix. Certainly annoying, but anyone with the tiniest bit of experience - especially in a field like DevOps - should be able to diagnose and correct.
      - meragrin_ 3y ago
        > There are far more egregious examples in Google and Microsoft properties I keep hearing about ads in Windows, but I have yet to experience anything like people claim.
      - deleted 3y ago
        [deleted]
zamadatix 3y ago
The Mac hardware and macOS "do what you want knobs" are actually pretty open as far as computer hardware goes. Hell, Apple even made part of the process of booting custom kernels easier for the Asahi team after the posted about it. I mean it's not a Talos workstation with full open firmware blobs but it's also not preventing you from loading whatever you want on it... but that could be said of anything. iOS based devices are where the lockdown is.
xcv123 3y ago
With that attitude, Linux and FreeBSD would never have started and would not exist today. You're advocating the total opposite mindset of being a "true techie". It has all been developed on proprietary hardware from the beginning. Everything was reverse engineered by talented hackers like these two. Vast majority of platforms are proprietary. Open source contributions from manufacturers started relatively recently. How can you call yourself a hacker if you're too lazy or stupid to reverse engineer anything?
- quickthrower2 3y ago
  x86 / IBM PC is probably more open than M1/2 even back in 90s
  - xcv123 3y ago
    What a joke. None of the drivers on x86 were open source, and there were literally thousands of devices that needed reverse engineering. The M1 instruction set is ARM which is already supported by Linux.
    - quickthrower2 3y ago
      I am talking about the CPU not other hardware. Comparing Apple’s apples with apples.
      - xcv123 3y ago
        Hmm, well the CPU in the M1 is ARM64 which is already open. But the M1 is a system on a chip that includes many proprietary components besides the CPU, such as GPU. So it's not apples to apples with 90's x86, which was a CPU only, not system-on-a-chip.
brailsafe 3y ago
I really wish people would leave ridiculous labels in high school where they belong, and use whatever works for them to get what they want to do done. If I want to tinker with Linux on my hypothetical M Series MacBook Pro in the future, I'm stoked that these particular nerds are devoting extreme amounts of time and intellect to solving that problem. It took me a lot of time and exposure to realize this, but in the world outside of your niche set of interests, it's a massive red flag to care about whether someone is a "real" whatever, because everyone's just into what they're into and trying to appease the gatekeepers doesn't do anything but sell yourself short.

kaba0 3y ago

How is it any more of an antithesis, than HP, Dell, Lenovo.. etc?

AnonMO 3y ago

When you realize the world isn't strictly dividen it categories such as blue or red. you might begin to understand why people do what they do. also let me ask you a question since you're obviously for free and open source. how much have you contributed to riscv development or donated to move their cause forward? are you actively maintaining any open projects? because if you read the post the authors stated that they are small with limited funding which is the case for most open source projects.

nwellinghoff 3y ago
Who are you responding to? By closed I meant they artificially restrict you from doing things in the name of selling more devices. Like running VM clusters for testing unless you run it on "apple hardware" when there really is no requirement. Removing support for 3rd party GPUs. Having to buy a million dongles that use proprietary connectors (not really a problem anymore). Limiting what you can control at the OS level. Not letting you run what you want. The list goes on. I obviously think what the asahi linux team has done is bad ass. Just think us nerds have to force ourselves off the tech giants or the end result will likely be; you won't be able to easily buy something you actually control.

okamiueru 3y ago

A lot of dev companies force their employees to use bacbooks in part as a result of their locked down practices and the only way to actually compile and test for "everything", because of how much easier it is to cross compile to other platforms and markets. For that reason, I've personally had to use a M2 for a week now, and I find the experience unpleasant. The OS feels old and cumbersome. I had flashback to a time long ago when I needed to install custom apps in Windows for some basic functionality that's been built in gnome. Things like "alt + tab" actually bringing an app to the foreground, instead of prioritizing the minimized state. Why this deliberate action would have seemingly no effect is correct, I'm sure will be defended. Global shortcut to start up a terminal? Install a third party utility is probably the easiest. Want to place windows on the screen? Install a third party utility. Better screenshot functionality? Install a third party app. Change the default shell to a custom one? First you got to figure out how to access the root system through finder to actually find the executable. It goes on and on. And the performance is much worse than what I've become used to. The only thing it actually has going for it, which I believe is great, is battery life. But, that's it. I'm just glad I was able to disable the app validation check, because it had literally prevented me from installing a lot of third party software, and the suggested workarounds had no effect. Just the fact of phoning home every time run an executable makes me nauseous. I wonder how often the homebrew team get offers to add malware, because the checks there seem woefully insufficient.

rekoil 3y ago
> A lot of dev companies force their employees to use bacbooks in part as a result of their locked down practices and the only way to actually compile and test for "everything", because of how much easier it is to cross compile to other platforms and markets. A lot of devs are also choosing them because they are insanely good machines. Simply because ARM64 is a good architecture and there is pretty much no competition available, it's more or less a choice between Apple or not ARM64...
- okamiueru 3y ago
  My personal experience: - MacOS user experience: Terrible. It feels like Linux did 10 years ago. Bugs and inconsistencies everywhere. But hey, they are competing with W11 so, no need to improve it either. Forced updates and restarts. And, did I mention bugs and inconsistencies everywhere? - M2 Computational performance: It feels like my laptop 10 years ago. - M2 Batterly life performance: It is absolutely brilliant, but, I also work 80% of the time at a fixed desk, so, it's mostly only relevant when traveling. I'm sure a lot of devs use them because they like them. But, your argument that ARM64 is "good architecture" whatever vagueness that entails, is pretty much bollocks. Compile time performance is ok at best compared to other laptop CPUs (the fastest laptop Mx hardware is about half of the laptop competition, and that's just comparing CPU). The package management coherence is non existent, so everything is slow to start because everything ships a complete stack of libraries that need to be read from disk and copied in memory. I honestly believe that people who are blown away by the Mx hardware have simply lived too long in the walled garden to know what is out there. In summary: MacBooks are decent hardware, with exceptional battery life. Priced at 50% would make sense. And the OS experience is somewhere between mediocre to garbage. Ran an identical GPU workload on AMD hardware with dedicated GPU. - 3 year old desktop AMD hardware: 50 seconds (1x) - 1.5 year old laptop AMD hardware: 66 seconds. (1.32x) - Latest M2 Pro 12 core: 142 seconds. (2.84x) For CPU-only tasks. 1x, 1.9x 1.7x. So, the M2 Pro 12 core is about 2x slower than a one year older AMD laptop for GPU tasks, and about the same for CPU only tasks. And the latest AMD Laptop CPU is twice as fast as the one I used.

dimgl 3y ago

> everything is a giant pain Have you ever used a Windows machine?

smoldesu 3y ago
If you go fullscreen in a WSL terminal, at least the ads can't hurt you. I still get jumpscared by the Apple Music popup when I put on my headphones with a Mac...
- meragrin_ 3y ago
  > If you go fullscreen in a WSL terminal, at least the ads can't hurt you. Ads? What ads?
  - sbuk 3y ago
    Apparently, there are ads everywhere in macOS. By which, they mean the notifications in settings that upsell iCloud, or when News or Apple Music opens, there is a prompt to subscribe to the service. Can they be invasive? I suppose so, but I believe the GP is exaggerating somewhat. There are far more egregious examples in Google and Microsoft properties (cue something about Apple being the richest...) There also appears to be an issue when connecting or plugging in headphones where Music.app opens automatically. I've tried to replicate this in Monterey and Ventura using AirPods, Beats and Sony MDR-7506 without success. Researching online suggests that this is a LaunchAgent/LaunchDaemon or cache problem. In short, it's a relatively simple bug to fix. Certainly annoying, but anyone with the tiniest bit of experience - especially in a field like DevOps - should be able to diagnose and correct.
    - meragrin_ 3y ago
      > There are far more egregious examples in Google and Microsoft properties I keep hearing about ads in Windows, but I have yet to experience anything like people claim.
    - deleted 3y ago
      [deleted]

zamadatix 3y ago

The Mac hardware and macOS "do what you want knobs" are actually pretty open as far as computer hardware goes. Hell, Apple even made part of the process of booting custom kernels easier for the Asahi team after the posted about it. I mean it's not a Talos workstation with full open firmware blobs but it's also not preventing you from loading whatever you want on it... but that could be said of anything. iOS based devices are where the lockdown is.

xcv123 3y ago

With that attitude, Linux and FreeBSD would never have started and would not exist today. You're advocating the total opposite mindset of being a "true techie". It has all been developed on proprietary hardware from the beginning. Everything was reverse engineered by talented hackers like these two. Vast majority of platforms are proprietary. Open source contributions from manufacturers started relatively recently. How can you call yourself a hacker if you're too lazy or stupid to reverse engineer anything?

quickthrower2 3y ago
x86 / IBM PC is probably more open than M1/2 even back in 90s
- xcv123 3y ago
  What a joke. None of the drivers on x86 were open source, and there were literally thousands of devices that needed reverse engineering. The M1 instruction set is ARM which is already supported by Linux.
  - quickthrower2 3y ago
    I am talking about the CPU not other hardware. Comparing Apple’s apples with apples.
    - xcv123 3y ago
      Hmm, well the CPU in the M1 is ARM64 which is already open. But the M1 is a system on a chip that includes many proprietary components besides the CPU, such as GPU. So it's not apples to apples with 90's x86, which was a CPU only, not system-on-a-chip.

brailsafe 3y ago

I really wish people would leave ridiculous labels in high school where they belong, and use whatever works for them to get what they want to do done. If I want to tinker with Linux on my hypothetical M Series MacBook Pro in the future, I'm stoked that these particular nerds are devoting extreme amounts of time and intellect to solving that problem. It took me a lot of time and exposure to realize this, but in the world outside of your niche set of interests, it's a massive red flag to care about whether someone is a "real" whatever, because everyone's just into what they're into and trying to appease the gatekeepers doesn't do anything but sell yourself short.