4 ms·

> He needs to stop fighting with the winds he can't control. Users gonna be users, and people gonna be people. Everyone won't be happy, never ever. Right - but

> He needs to stop fighting with the winds he can't control. Users gonna be users, and people gonna be people. Everyone won't be happy, never ever. Right - but it kinda sounds like he's facing headwinds in a lot of different directions. Headwinds from Apple, who are indifferent to the project, stingy with documentation, and not inclined to reduce their own rate of change. Headwinds from users, because of the stripped down experience. Headwinds from the kernel team, who are in the unenviable situation of having to accept and maintain code they can't test for hardware they don't own; and who apparently have some sort of schism over rust support? Be a heck of a lot easier if at least one of them was on your side.

dapperdrake 2y ago
Well, nobody ever said it wouldn’t feel uphill both ways.
lillecarl 2y ago
Another uphill battle that I haven't seen anyone mention is just how good mobile AMD chips got a year or so after the M1 release. I wouldn't buy a Mac to run Linux on it when I can buy a Lenovo with equally soldered parts that'll work well with the OS I wanna run already.
- bscphil 2y ago
  And some of these Lenovos are relatively upgradable too. I'm using a ThinkPad I bought refurbished (with a 2 year warranty) and upgraded myself to 40 GB of RAM and 1TB of SSD (there's another slot too if I need it). It cost me $350 including the part upgrades.
  - snvzz 2y ago
    There's also the Framework option now. It took them a while to, but they finally offer boards based on AMD chips. I don't need an upgrade now, but I feel a RISC-V framework is feasible once I do.
  - MattSayar 2y ago
    Where did you find a deal like that? Quick googling couldn't find it for me
    - bscphil 2y ago
      Prices seem to have risen a bit since I bought mine. Here's a similar model with a Ryzen 5 7530U for $355: https://www.ebay.com/itm/156626070024 https://www.ebay.com/itm/156626070024 It is certified refurbished and has a two year warranty. It has a SODIMM slot and supports dual SSDs, although not the full size M.2.
- musicale 2y ago
  The M1 reset expectations for laptop battery life and performance, and the result has been great for all platforms.
- The_Colonel 2y ago
  A lot of it is simply AMD getting on newer TSMC nodes. Most of the Apple's efficiency head start is better process (they got exclusive access to 5nm at first).
  - lillecarl 2y ago
    That's my understanding as well, as soon as the node exclusivity dropped they were ballpark equal. Many ARM SOC are designed to run on battery only so the wireless packages and low power states are better, my AMD couldn't go below 400mhz. But yeah the "Apple M hardware is miles and leagues away" hypetrain was just a hypetrain. Impressive and genuinely great but not revolutionary, at best incremental. I hope to be able to run ARM on an unlocked laptop soon. I run a Chromebook as extra laptop with a MediaTek 520 chip and it's got 2 days battery life, AMD isn't quite there yet.
    - bayindirh 2y ago
      > But yeah the "Apple M hardware is miles and leagues away" hypetrain was just a hypetrain. Impressive and genuinely great but not revolutionary, at best incremental. It's more nuanced than that. Apple effectively pulled a "Sony A7-III" move. Released something one generation ahead before everybody else, and disrupted everyone. Sony called "A7-III" entry level mirrorless, but it had much more features even when compared to the higher-end SLRs of the era, and effectively pulled every other camera on the market one level down. I don't think even they thought they'd keep that gap forever. I personally didn't think it either, but when it was released, it was leaps and bounds ahead, and forced other manufacturers to do the same to stay relevant. They pulled everyone upwards, and now they continue their move. If not this, they also showed that computers can be miniaturized much more. Intel N100 and RaspberryPi/OrangePi 5 provides so much performance for daily tasks, so unimaginable things at that size are considered normal now.
      - lillecarl 2y ago
        I like the Sony story, but I don't think Apple did "pull everyone along" like that, they had an exclusivity deal with TSMC to be first on a good manufacturing node improvement. They took their high-quality, high-performance iPhone SoC, gave it more juice and a bit better thermals. It's just another "Apple integrating well" story. Their SoC is huge compared to competitors because Apple doesn't have to make a profit selling a SoC, they profit selling a device + services so they can splurge on the SoC, splurging on the SoC plus being one node ahead is just "being good", the team implementing Rosetta are the real wizards doing "revolutionary cool shit" if anything
account42 2y ago
> Headwinds from Apple, who are indifferent to the project, stingy with documentation, and not inclined to reduce their own rate of change. That is part of the challenge he chose to take on. > Headwinds from users, because of the stripped down experience. Users can be ignored. How much you get users to you is your own choice. > Headwinds from the kernel team, who are in the unenviable situation of having to accept and maintain code they can't test for hardware they don't own You don't have to upstream. Again, it's not the kernel team that chose to add support for "hostile" hardware so don't try to make this their problem. > and who apparently have some sort of schism over rust support? Resistance when trying to push an entirely different language into an established project is entirely expected. The maintainers in question did not ask for people to add Rust to the kernel. They have no obligation to be welcoming to it. > Be a heck of a lot easier if at least one of them was on your side. Except for the users all the conflicts are the direct result from the choice of work. And the users are something you have to choose to listen to as well.
- reshlo 2y ago
  > The maintainers in question did not ask for people to add Rust to the kernel. They have no obligation to be welcoming to it. Their boss, however, did ask for it, so yes, they do have an obligation to be welcoming to it.
  - daurentius523 2y ago
    "Their boss" - I'm not sure that boss is best word here. "did ask for it" - did he? Because from my perspective it looks more like he gave the bone for corporations so they will shut up for rust in kernel. After some time it will end up "Sorry but rust did not have enough support - maintainers left and there were issues with language - well back to C"
    - reshlo 2y ago
      In what way is the sole person who decides whether code gets merged into Linux not the boss of everyone who writes code for Linux? I addressed your second point here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43075508 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43075508

dapperdrake 2y ago

Well, nobody ever said it wouldn’t feel uphill both ways.

lillecarl 2y ago

Another uphill battle that I haven't seen anyone mention is just how good mobile AMD chips got a year or so after the M1 release. I wouldn't buy a Mac to run Linux on it when I can buy a Lenovo with equally soldered parts that'll work well with the OS I wanna run already.

bscphil 2y ago
And some of these Lenovos are relatively upgradable too. I'm using a ThinkPad I bought refurbished (with a 2 year warranty) and upgraded myself to 40 GB of RAM and 1TB of SSD (there's another slot too if I need it). It cost me $350 including the part upgrades.
- snvzz 2y ago
  There's also the Framework option now. It took them a while to, but they finally offer boards based on AMD chips. I don't need an upgrade now, but I feel a RISC-V framework is feasible once I do.
- MattSayar 2y ago
  Where did you find a deal like that? Quick googling couldn't find it for me
  - bscphil 2y ago
    Prices seem to have risen a bit since I bought mine. Here's a similar model with a Ryzen 5 7530U for $355: https://www.ebay.com/itm/156626070024 https://www.ebay.com/itm/156626070024 It is certified refurbished and has a two year warranty. It has a SODIMM slot and supports dual SSDs, although not the full size M.2.
musicale 2y ago
The M1 reset expectations for laptop battery life and performance, and the result has been great for all platforms.
The_Colonel 2y ago
A lot of it is simply AMD getting on newer TSMC nodes. Most of the Apple's efficiency head start is better process (they got exclusive access to 5nm at first).
- lillecarl 2y ago
  That's my understanding as well, as soon as the node exclusivity dropped they were ballpark equal. Many ARM SOC are designed to run on battery only so the wireless packages and low power states are better, my AMD couldn't go below 400mhz. But yeah the "Apple M hardware is miles and leagues away" hypetrain was just a hypetrain. Impressive and genuinely great but not revolutionary, at best incremental. I hope to be able to run ARM on an unlocked laptop soon. I run a Chromebook as extra laptop with a MediaTek 520 chip and it's got 2 days battery life, AMD isn't quite there yet.
  - bayindirh 2y ago
    > But yeah the "Apple M hardware is miles and leagues away" hypetrain was just a hypetrain. Impressive and genuinely great but not revolutionary, at best incremental. It's more nuanced than that. Apple effectively pulled a "Sony A7-III" move. Released something one generation ahead before everybody else, and disrupted everyone. Sony called "A7-III" entry level mirrorless, but it had much more features even when compared to the higher-end SLRs of the era, and effectively pulled every other camera on the market one level down. I don't think even they thought they'd keep that gap forever. I personally didn't think it either, but when it was released, it was leaps and bounds ahead, and forced other manufacturers to do the same to stay relevant. They pulled everyone upwards, and now they continue their move. If not this, they also showed that computers can be miniaturized much more. Intel N100 and RaspberryPi/OrangePi 5 provides so much performance for daily tasks, so unimaginable things at that size are considered normal now.
    - lillecarl 2y ago
      I like the Sony story, but I don't think Apple did "pull everyone along" like that, they had an exclusivity deal with TSMC to be first on a good manufacturing node improvement. They took their high-quality, high-performance iPhone SoC, gave it more juice and a bit better thermals. It's just another "Apple integrating well" story. Their SoC is huge compared to competitors because Apple doesn't have to make a profit selling a SoC, they profit selling a device + services so they can splurge on the SoC, splurging on the SoC plus being one node ahead is just "being good", the team implementing Rosetta are the real wizards doing "revolutionary cool shit" if anything

account42 2y ago

> Headwinds from Apple, who are indifferent to the project, stingy with documentation, and not inclined to reduce their own rate of change. That is part of the challenge he chose to take on. > Headwinds from users, because of the stripped down experience. Users can be ignored. How much you get users to you is your own choice. > Headwinds from the kernel team, who are in the unenviable situation of having to accept and maintain code they can't test for hardware they don't own You don't have to upstream. Again, it's not the kernel team that chose to add support for "hostile" hardware so don't try to make this their problem. > and who apparently have some sort of schism over rust support? Resistance when trying to push an entirely different language into an established project is entirely expected. The maintainers in question did not ask for people to add Rust to the kernel. They have no obligation to be welcoming to it. > Be a heck of a lot easier if at least one of them was on your side. Except for the users all the conflicts are the direct result from the choice of work. And the users are something you have to choose to listen to as well.

reshlo 2y ago
> The maintainers in question did not ask for people to add Rust to the kernel. They have no obligation to be welcoming to it. Their boss, however, did ask for it, so yes, they do have an obligation to be welcoming to it.
- daurentius523 2y ago
  "Their boss" - I'm not sure that boss is best word here. "did ask for it" - did he? Because from my perspective it looks more like he gave the bone for corporations so they will shut up for rust in kernel. After some time it will end up "Sorry but rust did not have enough support - maintainers left and there were issues with language - well back to C"
  - reshlo 2y ago
    In what way is the sole person who decides whether code gets merged into Linux not the boss of everyone who writes code for Linux? I addressed your second point here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43075508 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43075508