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I have a T2 Macbook, which I generally like (though the thermals on the i9 aren't great), but I'm a little annoyed how hard it is to get Linux on there because

I have a T2 Macbook, which I generally like (though the thermals on the i9 aren't great), but I'm a little annoyed how hard it is to get Linux on there because of all the changes that Apple made to the architecture. I doubt I'll be getting updates of any kind on x86 Macbooks for much longer, so I wanted to install NixOS on here like I had on previous Macs, and I did manage to get it installed, but the support for the T2 hardware is, in my opinion, not usable for daily use. Very basic stuff like suspending doesn't work, the audio sounds like crap, sometimes booting simply doesn't work, and the discrete graphics card doesn't work. I don't blame the community for this, obviously. These are hard problems, and Apple worked pretty hard to make it difficult to actually sideload other operating systems on here. It's annoying that in another year or so, this computer might become increasingly less secure, because updates will cease. I should probably just buy a Framework at this point and sell this Mac while it still has some street value.

95014_refugee 2y ago
[flagged]
- tombert 2y ago
  I should clarify, bad wording on my end. I don’t think Apple made the T2 chip specifically to make Linux harder to install, just that they changed a bunch of stuff that made it harder to install another OS. Linux being hard to install was incidental, but I don’t think it was an explicit goal at Apple to make it difficult.
- froddd 2y ago
  I’m not sure why this is getting downvoted. It’s perfectly reasonable to assume that the difficulty in side loading another OS is incidental, rather than designed. A citation would help support the opposite assumption made above.
  - thebruce87m 2y ago
    When it comes to Apple, perfectly reasonable people throw logic to the wind to come up with the most ridiculous theories. It’s annoying as it detracts from actual real conversations.
    - Sakos 2y ago
      You might not see the issue there. You might be willing to forgive Apple for it. Plenty of us aren't. And it has nothing to do with "hating Apple", rather it's an extension of hating how Apple makes decisions regarding things like this. I own an M1 Macbook, I've owned an iPhone, I have an iPad. There is no irrational hatred here. I see absolutely nothing wrong with the original comment. I see a person who wants to use their Mac long-term, but their attempt to use it that way is thwarted by Apple's decisions. You're arguing in bad faith by saying things like this > people throw logic to the wind to come up with the most ridiculous theories The user has legitimate grievances and you dismiss it because of this nonsense. You must be joking.
      - thebruce87m 2y ago
        > hating how Apple makes decisions Apple makes decisions like any other company. They are not going to spend engineering time (money) on things that don’t benefit them in some way - that’s a quick way to go out of business. Doubly so if you are actually enabling customers to move away from your eco system - you might have lost future service sales. You cannot blame apple for acting in its own best interests. That’s the nature of the capitalism beast. If you want hardware to be opened up for the installation of other operating systems, you’ll have to lobby a governing body for that.
        hu3 2y ago
        > If you want hardware to be opened up for the installation of other operating systems, you’ll have to lobby a governing body for that. No need. That was already fine 20 years ago in x86 land. > You cannot blame apple for acting in its own best interests. That’s the nature of the capitalism beast. Surely you cannot invalidate criticism towards apple using this logic. As I see you don't use the same when criticizing other companies in your other comments.
  - Sakos 2y ago
    It doesn't matter whether it was incidental or not. If a company accidentally dumps toxic sludge into a river, people aren't just going to shrug and say "oh, it was an accident". If Asus releases a Windows laptop with hardware changes that make it near impossible to run Linux without years of software engineering effort, people aren't going to shrug and say "oh, it was incidental". It doesn't matter. Although I guess people like you would say "But they never said they would support Linux", which also is beside the point. The fact that Apple is happily creating their own platform which has, by design, no guarantees for longevity (whether from Apple or being able to install Linux as an end-user) is a flaw in itself that, from my perspective, does not deserve being defended. You might not see the issue there. You might be willing to forgive Apple for it. Plenty of us aren't. And it has nothing to do with "hating Apple", rather it's an extension of hating how Apple makes decisions regarding things like this. I own an M1 Macbook, I've owned an iPhone, I have an iPad. There is no irrational hatred here.
Hamuko 2y ago
>though the thermals on the i9 aren't great Getting my work laptop upgraded from a 16-inch i9 to a 16-inch M2 Max has been a godsend to my ears. The fan noise was constant with an i9.
- tombert 2y ago
  The fan hasn't been too distracting for me, the thermal throttling has been much more annoying. In hindsight I wish I had gotten the i7.
highwaylights 2y ago
I've gone back and forward on this. They obviously want to move on as quickly as possible (the local AI updates for example), but it's not clear how long T2 will get support - the last Intel Mac mini was still being sold new from Apple until 2023. Sure, they could still axe it, but hopefully they won't for another couple of versions (which would imply that other T2 Macs get some additional support). Even then, you're getting Sequoia at least, a year of support for that, then another two (if memory serves) of patch(y) support.
pjmlp 2y ago
Anyone that wants Linux on a laptop should support Linux OEMs, instead of expecting other vendors to make life easy to Linux users, while increasing their sales for their own platforms.
- giancarlostoro 2y ago
  System76 is who I would shout out to considering they maintain their own Ubuntu based distro, and their own Desktop Environment for it. I'm sure there's others, but S76's POP OS has been my main Linux distro for a few years now. Things just work. I hope more people buy their hardware and they can devote more resources to making POP OS (and by side effect) and Linux in general better for us all.
- WillAdams 2y ago
  If there was a tablet with: - Wacom EMR - touch - high resolution display - decent performance - decent battery life I'd like to know of it so I can buy one --- the nearest replacement I could find for my Samsung Galaxy Book 12 was a Book 3 Pro 360, and it has me contemplating giving up the battery and high resolution and getting a Raspberry Pi 5 and Wacom One 13 Gen 2 touch screen.
  - pjmlp 2y ago
    So are the compromises of Year of Desktop Linux. Those of us that rather not deal with those issues any longer, buy Apple, Google or Microsoft, and run GNU/Linux on a VM, via whatever mechanisms they make available. However buying Apple, Google or Microsoft, and then complaining they don't make hardware to run GNU/Linux natively on it, what is one naively expecting them to do otherwise?
    - WillAdams 2y ago
      I'd be satisfied with a documented and workable and reliable way to root an Android tablet and run Linux on it.
    - fontana49 2y ago
127001brewer 2y ago
I'm still using my Mid-2012 MacBook Pro as my main machine - it still runs great.
- hu3 2y ago
  That's an intel mac. They do run hotter but their Linux support is great!
- giancarlostoro 2y ago
  My wife's 2008 Mac still boots up just the same, just needs a new battery and charger, otherwise, it might be sluggish, but given how much faster things are now, it probably runs the same as it ever did.
justin66 2y ago
> suspending doesn't work, the audio sounds like crap Your laptop isn’t the first to experience that stuff under Linux.
- tombert 2y ago
  Not claiming it is, but I'm saying that it does thoroughly place it into the camp of "not usable for a daily driver" for me.

95014_refugee 2y ago

[flagged]

tombert 2y ago
I should clarify, bad wording on my end. I don’t think Apple made the T2 chip specifically to make Linux harder to install, just that they changed a bunch of stuff that made it harder to install another OS. Linux being hard to install was incidental, but I don’t think it was an explicit goal at Apple to make it difficult.
froddd 2y ago
I’m not sure why this is getting downvoted. It’s perfectly reasonable to assume that the difficulty in side loading another OS is incidental, rather than designed. A citation would help support the opposite assumption made above.
- thebruce87m 2y ago
  When it comes to Apple, perfectly reasonable people throw logic to the wind to come up with the most ridiculous theories. It’s annoying as it detracts from actual real conversations.
  - Sakos 2y ago
    You might not see the issue there. You might be willing to forgive Apple for it. Plenty of us aren't. And it has nothing to do with "hating Apple", rather it's an extension of hating how Apple makes decisions regarding things like this. I own an M1 Macbook, I've owned an iPhone, I have an iPad. There is no irrational hatred here. I see absolutely nothing wrong with the original comment. I see a person who wants to use their Mac long-term, but their attempt to use it that way is thwarted by Apple's decisions. You're arguing in bad faith by saying things like this > people throw logic to the wind to come up with the most ridiculous theories The user has legitimate grievances and you dismiss it because of this nonsense. You must be joking.
    - thebruce87m 2y ago
      > hating how Apple makes decisions Apple makes decisions like any other company. They are not going to spend engineering time (money) on things that don’t benefit them in some way - that’s a quick way to go out of business. Doubly so if you are actually enabling customers to move away from your eco system - you might have lost future service sales. You cannot blame apple for acting in its own best interests. That’s the nature of the capitalism beast. If you want hardware to be opened up for the installation of other operating systems, you’ll have to lobby a governing body for that.
      - hu3 2y ago
        > If you want hardware to be opened up for the installation of other operating systems, you’ll have to lobby a governing body for that. No need. That was already fine 20 years ago in x86 land. > You cannot blame apple for acting in its own best interests. That’s the nature of the capitalism beast. Surely you cannot invalidate criticism towards apple using this logic. As I see you don't use the same when criticizing other companies in your other comments.
- Sakos 2y ago
  It doesn't matter whether it was incidental or not. If a company accidentally dumps toxic sludge into a river, people aren't just going to shrug and say "oh, it was an accident". If Asus releases a Windows laptop with hardware changes that make it near impossible to run Linux without years of software engineering effort, people aren't going to shrug and say "oh, it was incidental". It doesn't matter. Although I guess people like you would say "But they never said they would support Linux", which also is beside the point. The fact that Apple is happily creating their own platform which has, by design, no guarantees for longevity (whether from Apple or being able to install Linux as an end-user) is a flaw in itself that, from my perspective, does not deserve being defended. You might not see the issue there. You might be willing to forgive Apple for it. Plenty of us aren't. And it has nothing to do with "hating Apple", rather it's an extension of hating how Apple makes decisions regarding things like this. I own an M1 Macbook, I've owned an iPhone, I have an iPad. There is no irrational hatred here.

Hamuko 2y ago

>though the thermals on the i9 aren't great Getting my work laptop upgraded from a 16-inch i9 to a 16-inch M2 Max has been a godsend to my ears. The fan noise was constant with an i9.

tombert 2y ago
The fan hasn't been too distracting for me, the thermal throttling has been much more annoying. In hindsight I wish I had gotten the i7.

highwaylights 2y ago

I've gone back and forward on this. They obviously want to move on as quickly as possible (the local AI updates for example), but it's not clear how long T2 will get support - the last Intel Mac mini was still being sold new from Apple until 2023. Sure, they could still axe it, but hopefully they won't for another couple of versions (which would imply that other T2 Macs get some additional support). Even then, you're getting Sequoia at least, a year of support for that, then another two (if memory serves) of patch(y) support.

pjmlp 2y ago

Anyone that wants Linux on a laptop should support Linux OEMs, instead of expecting other vendors to make life easy to Linux users, while increasing their sales for their own platforms.

giancarlostoro 2y ago
System76 is who I would shout out to considering they maintain their own Ubuntu based distro, and their own Desktop Environment for it. I'm sure there's others, but S76's POP OS has been my main Linux distro for a few years now. Things just work. I hope more people buy their hardware and they can devote more resources to making POP OS (and by side effect) and Linux in general better for us all.
WillAdams 2y ago
If there was a tablet with: - Wacom EMR - touch - high resolution display - decent performance - decent battery life I'd like to know of it so I can buy one --- the nearest replacement I could find for my Samsung Galaxy Book 12 was a Book 3 Pro 360, and it has me contemplating giving up the battery and high resolution and getting a Raspberry Pi 5 and Wacom One 13 Gen 2 touch screen.
- pjmlp 2y ago
  So are the compromises of Year of Desktop Linux. Those of us that rather not deal with those issues any longer, buy Apple, Google or Microsoft, and run GNU/Linux on a VM, via whatever mechanisms they make available. However buying Apple, Google or Microsoft, and then complaining they don't make hardware to run GNU/Linux natively on it, what is one naively expecting them to do otherwise?
  - WillAdams 2y ago
    I'd be satisfied with a documented and workable and reliable way to root an Android tablet and run Linux on it.
  - fontana49 2y ago

127001brewer 2y ago

I'm still using my Mid-2012 MacBook Pro as my main machine - it still runs great.

hu3 2y ago
That's an intel mac. They do run hotter but their Linux support is great!
giancarlostoro 2y ago
My wife's 2008 Mac still boots up just the same, just needs a new battery and charger, otherwise, it might be sluggish, but given how much faster things are now, it probably runs the same as it ever did.

justin66 2y ago

> suspending doesn't work, the audio sounds like crap Your laptop isn’t the first to experience that stuff under Linux.

tombert 2y ago
Not claiming it is, but I'm saying that it does thoroughly place it into the camp of "not usable for a daily driver" for me.