[nicoburns]

Somewhat surprisingly, Linux support for Apple Silicon MacBooks seems to be shaping up to be better than that for pretty much any other laptop. The Asahi team don’t have support for everything yet (notably no GPU) but what they do have support for seems to be high quality, well integrated with Linux’s conventions, and upstreamed into the mainline kernel! How much other hardware can claim that?

The Asahi developers have also stated that Apple tends to keep hardware peripheral interfaces stable across generations (they speculate that this is to keep things easy for their own OS dev teams), and that this has so far proven to be true for M2 (and several iPhone generations before that), and thus once support is available , it should stay relevant for some time.

Given this, it seems like MacBooks could easily end up becoming the laptop of choice for Linux developers in the years to come.

[vbernat]

If you take a regular Lenovo laptop, everything likely works out of the box with an upstream kernel. This quite not the case yet with Asahi Linux which does not support power management, no USB, no sound.

There was a time where Apple laptops came with very good Linux support. It was the time were every bit of hardware support was present in Darwin (a 12" iBook G3 was working flawlessly with Linux for example). I think that at each generation, support gets worse because the hardware is closing down. This translates to far more time between release and having something usable with Linux.

[avar]

I used an iBook G3/G4 for years as a primary development laptop running Linux, and I think your recollection here is a bit off. The state of it was that:

- There were numerous laptops with near-full Linux support, the Apple hardware wasn't categorically better when it came to that.

- The power usage of x86 CPUs was atrocious at the time compared to PPC. Now history is repeating with Apple's M[12] line. Therefore people put up with a lot to get 2-3x longer battery life. As I recall I got 3-4 hours of active use out of my iBook, but (going to conferences) it felt like people's x86s almost always had to be plugged in.

- The Linux support for software suspend/hibernation was really flaky at the time, but it worked perfectly on Apple hardware, because all Linux had to do was to tell the hardware "do the suspend thing now" (IIRC by tweaking a file in /proc). The hardware did a slow "heartbeat" with a front LED hidden behind the plastic frame when suspended (a nice effect). When running Linux it would do the the exact same, as it was all done in hardware.

- There were still edge cases in hardware support, just as with any other laptop vendor, it all came down to what individual components happened to have Linux drivers. Some of this was better on Apple's hardware, some of it was worse.

[protonbob]

This is such a trip down memory lane. The iBook G4 was a bit of a pain to set up with ubuntu, but once you got it going it was pretty fool proof. I think I ran a machine on it until 12.04 where they stopped supporting PPC officially.

[rvdginste]

I used an iBook G3/G4 12" for several years with linux. I remember the G3 was supported completely out of the box. I loved it: it was small, battery lasted pretty long (I did spend some time fine tuning laptop-mode-tools), suspend-to-ram was working flawlessly and from what I remember all hardware was supported, including 3d graphics (ati radeon). For the G4, I remember there were some issues to get the wireless card working when it came out (Broadcom hardware I think), but the rest of the hardware also worked out of the box.

[bityard]

> The Linux support for software suspend/hibernation was really flaky at the time, but it worked perfectly on Apple hardware, because all Linux had to do was to tell the hardware "do the suspend thing now" (IIRC by tweaking a file in /proc).

That's interesting to read, because I ran Linux on a Macbook Pro for a few years around 2012 and the only thing on that machine that _never_ worked right was suspend and resume.

[spectre3d]

Pretty sure they were speaking of the PowerPC age, not Intel. The iBook and PowerBook G3 and G4, not the MacBook and MacBook Pro.

[necovek]

While I am a devoted fan of Thinkpad laptops (they are better than Apple MacBooks because of — at least as an option — non-glare screens, keyboards and soft-touch non-wrist-cutting palmrest: two/three most important factors for a portable machine imho), that's only partially true, and rarely with a new generation of hardware.

Eg. I remember getting Thinkpad X1 Carbon 6th gen early on in the cycle (I've also got 5th and 8th gen in the house, and X1 Yoga 6th gen which sucks with that metal finish), and the with the removal of "regular" S3 sleep, you close your laptop and it keeps running and potentially burning in your bag. It took Lenovo a year or so to add a "Linux sleep support" BIOS option, though it took community less than that to provide DSDT patches to re-enable S3 sleep.

All I am saying is that Lenovo machines, esp Thinkpad line, are usually a great choice, but you can hit early-adopter hurdles just like with any other laptop. The good thing about them is that community is huge and great, and that they are the best laptops around as far as usability on the go goes (as in, actually typing on them and seeing what you type).

[nobleach]

The whole S3 sleep fiasco is the stuff of nightmares. I have a gen 6 X1 Carbon too and I've gotten it sleeping very well. I also have a Dell XPS 15 that I love but... it's been 2 years since it was brand new and it's still stuck on S2 "idle". As I understand it, Microsoft wants it this way so they can maintain network connectivity. My major gripe with the Lenovo is the 16 gigs of RAM soldered on the board. It's so nice to be able to pop open my Dell and put up to 64 gigs in there, while replacing the SSD in one of the two M2 slots.

Then again, I'm typing this on a 2019 Macbook Pro (Intel) that has nary a single replaceable part.

[CoolCold]

> Microsoft wants it this way so they can maintain network connectivity

I liked coolness of "Connected Standby" - laptop sleeping, but playing music over bluetooth. Other than coolness, cannot say I found much use of it - may be my ssh didn't terminate? Don't remember.

[DJeuxg]

The windows created S3 sleep debacle was annoying. But it's long since solved. Lenovo ships both sleep options in bios now and Linux distro a support both sleep styles because they have different drain profiles.

[FullyFunctional]

Quick note about the screen glaring - my very first action upon unpacking any Apple notebook is to apply a matte screen protector (the purist may wince). I'd recommend a screen protector on any expensive purchase and the matte one has all but eliminated the glare for me.

[necovek]

I personally live in a country where it's hard to get any small thing easily online: I'd probably have to order it online from USA, UK or Germany, get it processed by customs and then hope it'd work well. To reduce the costs of trying out more than one item, I'd probably order a few different ones so the shipping costs and customs costs are contained. Which means that I'd be spending $150+ on a screen protector that might not work.

Or I could just look for a laptop that has an anti-glare screen ;-) And a good keyboard.

Too bad new AMD-based Thinkpad Z series do away with a bunch of the good things from X1 Carbon (soft-touch palmrests for one), or I'd seriously consider them to be able to drop my desktop entirely (Intel iGPUs struggle to do full screen video calls on 4k external screens under Linux, I am _hoping_ AMD 680M would do a better job).

[addicted]

The same thing happens to me with my company Thinkpad.

Closing the cover does not put it to sleep, no matter what I do to the settings (admittedly it’s a very locked down device so there may be settings that are not available to me).

[bodge5000]

Yeh same for me, I'm a big thinkpad fan (I own 5 of them, 7 if you include the ones I broke in attempts to do some outlandish mods), but I do occasionally find issues out the box, though that can be down to the distro you use as well.

That being said, an imperfect out the box experience just gives me an excuse to get another (old) thinkpad, so every cloud

[RL_Quine]

Nonsense. The 10th gen X1 Carbon has basically nothing functional unless you are running master kernel, and even then it's not completely there. It's just an unusable paperweight at the moment, the OLED screen is pretty though.

[dm319]

As a long-time Thinkpad user, it usually helps to not go for the latest/greatest, but even so, the time between release and 99% working linux is in the region of months with Thinkpads, whereas it can be years-never with Mac.

I had some issues with my AMD X13 when getting it new - but they weren't show-stopping, just annoying, and they got ironed out over the next 6 months.

[rayiner]

But that supports the point OP made above. Each generation of Lenovo laptop changes out lots of parts (presumably based on changing prices and supply contracts). Apple laptop hardware tends to be stable over time.

[viraptor]

> Apple laptop hardware tends to be stable over time.

I'm confused where you got that idea. T2 chips changed a lot. The most recent Intel MBPs have a different wifi with a known-broken firmware for Linux. The sound handling has also changed and hasn't been reverse engineered yet since 2019. And that's before we even get to changing the entire architecture to M1. How is that less changes than lenovo?

[nicoburns]

> whereas it can be years-never with Mac

Notably the Asahi project got M2 laptops up to parity with the M1 family in ~48 hours of dev work. No doubt this won't always be the case (there's bound to be major hardware revisions at some point) but at the moment this is quite promising looking towards the future.

[dm319]

Yes, I think the difference this time is motivation (because M1!) and some money going this way.

[petepete]

I have a 7th gen X1 Carbon and everything, including the fingerprint reader, worked out of the box with Fedora.

[RL_Quine]

It is from August 2019 though.

[ajsnigrutin]

> regular Lenovo laptop

This is true for what we nerds call a "lenovo laptop" (so mostly T series). Install, everything works.

Lenovo also sells a bunch of cheapish plasticky laptops that look like some random noname chinese OEM manufactured and lenovo just put a sticker on... well, linux support there is a bit hit and miss.

[GekkePrutser]

> Lenovo also sells a bunch of cheapish plasticky laptops that look like some random noname chinese OEM manufactured and lenovo just put a sticker on... well, linux support there is a bit hit and miss.

They look like that because they basically are.

There's really two companies called Lenovo. One of them makes the ThinkPad T, X, P and one of the budget lines (L or E, always forget which, we don't use either). And the ThinkStations.

The other makes the IdeaPads and the other ThinkPad budget line which lacks the great keyboard and Linux compatibility, it just looks a bit like a ThinkPad. And the Legion gaming stuff etc.

They're really two different companies with different factories. We have a global contract with Lenovo and we can't even order the consumer laptops. We wanted to get some Legions because some of our dev teams prefer the Legion with RTX over the ThinkPad P which come with Quadros. But they simply can't sell them to us. I think RTX came to the ThinkPad P since anyway, not sure because I'm not involved anymore.

It seems one company because as a consumer you can buy all of them from Lenovo.com but that's not even really Lenovo, it's a third party reseller called DigitalRiver.

[nobleach]

If it says "YOGA" or you can open it more than 180 degrees.....

[pharmakom]

> If you take a regular Lenovo laptop, everything likely works out of the box with an upstream kernel.

Never worked flawlessly in my experience.

[Loic]

I suppose it depends on your Lenovo series.

I have been using exclusively T and X laptop for the past 20+ years and it always worked perfectly. There was a time where the battery life was better with Windows, but maybe only 2 or 3 years "in-between". Nowadays, the hardware support is for me a non issue.

[microtonal]

I had a T14 AMD for 8 months or so last years and it was death by a thousand paper cuts. Wake from (S3) sleep would not work well, e.g. the trackpad/point would often not come back up. Sometimes the GPU wouldn't wake properly. The fingerprint reader rarely worked. Bluetooth was very flaky. Battery life was much worse than Windows. I had a Lenovo USB-C dock. However, Linux configured the lanes wrong, making it impossible to use 4k@60Hz through the dock (worked fine on Windows).

[jcelerier]

> Wake from (S3) sleep would not work well, e.g. the trackpad/point would often not come back up. Sometimes the GPU wouldn't wake properly. The fingerprint reader rarely worked. Bluetooth was very flaky.

except the fingerprint one because I don't have a fingerprint reader, I had all these issues on my windows laptop

[melesian]

My experience, also using T and X series laptops matches yours. Some issues with resuming from sleep a long time ago and with firmware on a docking station once but otherwise only one gripe: I've never been entirely happy with the fan control. I found in the end with my T440s that leaving it to the OS worked well enough. Previously, with older X series machines, I had to both try to optimize and also ended up replacing fans.

[whalesalad]

I just wish other laptop hardware was on par with Apple. One can’t deny their attention to detail, fit and finish.

[xtracto]

I just bought a Thinkpad because my home's other Windows machine died. The laptop is ok in general , and I love the mate screen, but the black plastic body is just horrible. It feels as if it's going to break just by opening the screen. Does apple have some kind of patent for the aluminium body?

[Mikeb85]

> black plastic body is just horrible

It might not "feel" premium or durable but it's way more durable than aluminum... Also doesn't heat up as much on your lap.

[GekkePrutser]

And it's not actually plastic but magnesium on the upmarket models. Mine has a few scuffs and the metal shines through

[nicoburns]

> Does apple have some kind of patent for the aluminium body?

No, they just have an absolutely huge farm of CNC machines cutting them out which is expensive to maintain, not generally available from contract manufacturers in the volumes required, and would take a huge capital outlay from competitors who wanted to replicate it.

[DJeuxg]

Aluminium is heavy, cold, dents and expensive.

Plastic is better in most ways for a laptop shell.

[tekknik]

So by dent I assume you’re meaning drops? How does plastic survive that better? It’ll shatter, leaving the laptop internals on the sidewalk. I’ll take a dented aluminum body over plastic thanks.

[rowanG077]

Aluminium has the best property. It conducts heat. Plastic laptops are saunas.

[mbakke]

Aluminium is also highly recycleable.

[adrian_b]

The rapid progress of the Asahi Linux team is very impressive, but there is no need to exaggerate.

There have always been plenty of laptops with very good Linux support.

Of the 3 laptops that I had during the last 15 years (before those I had used an Apple laptop, but then I have switched to Linux), on the first (a HP Compaq) and on the third (a Dell Precision), when I have installed Linux it just worked, while on the second (a Lenovo), I had to spend a couple of days until making everything work, mainly because it used NVIDIA Optimus, which required some workarounds, but after that it worked flawlessly. During these years I have also used Linux on various company laptops, always without problems.

At least some months might have to pass until a MacBook will be able to work under Asahi Linux as well as most laptops with Intel/AMD CPUs work already in the day when they are bought.

[moonchrome]

Yeah I'm going to use a completely custom SoC + enthusiast driven driver support - with no support from manufacturer - to be my daily driver as a developer.

Because I've got nothing better to do with my time than diagnose issues due to running a setup only 50 other people in the world use.

[mort96]

Most laptops don't use a completely custom SoC, but most of them have enthusiast driven driver support -- or worse, formerly-enthusiast driven driver support where nobody currently cares -- with no support from the manufacturer. And on less popular hardware; the most popular laptop models in the world are macs.

If you want manufacturer support, you need to use macOS or Windows or one of the very limited selection of laptops which feature Linux as an option. Most people who use Linux probably already use Linux on a computer without manufacturer support. If that's not for you though, that's totally fine.

[moonchrome]

PC component manufacturers offer Linux drivers for their hardware, sometimes it's binary blobs, etc. but at least there's some effort there. And companies like Intel and AMD are paying engineers to maintain it. For example AMD and Intel both have open source Linux GPU drivers available. Does Apple even have specifications for their GPU available ?

[zinekeller]

> PC component manufacturers offer Linux drivers for their hardware, sometimes it's binary blobs, etc. but at least there's some effort there.

I'm gonna say that it's a "generic" driver, which is totally fine on desktops but almost always (except for Thinkpads and Linux-focused laptop manufacturers) has a nasty edge case (modified chips or chip firmware) that just makes it incompatible. This isn't exclusive to Linux by the way, even Windows suffers from this exact problem (usually audio, fingerprint and touchpad).

Edit: for example, this is the FreeBSD code for HDA sound device (it's messy): https://github.com/freebsd/freebsd-src/blob/main/sys/dev/sou...

[mort96]

It's not the big components like the CPU and the GPU that's the problem most of the time, it's the wifi/bluetooth chip, the sound chip, the LAN controller, the USB controller, the trackpad, the power management stuff, display backlight, etc etc.

[moonchrome]

>GPU that's the problem most of the time

Developing a GPU driver for a custom chip with no public reference or support from Apple isn't a problem ? I guess you're saying it's not a problem in other laptops - but for Apple Silicon it sounds like more fundamental than those issues you mentioned.

[mort96]

Yeah, I wash just countering the idea that "AMD and Intel make GPU drivers for Linux so drivers on PC hardware isn't a problem".

On Macs it's a big deal; about as big a deal as making open source AMD drivers was before they had official open source drivers. And people did that, and people are working open source GPU drivers for Apple's GPU now.

[deathhand]

Dell, one of the largest manufacturers of laptops supports Linux and OSS. It's not some red headed step child anymore.

[mort96]

Dell laptops support Linux for a select few models. You can't just get any Dell and expect manufacturer support. I think "laptops from a few tiny Linux-focused companies, plus a few Linux models from dell" counts as a "very limited selection", even though it's better than it used to be.

[Toutouxc]

I'm not sure whether this is an argument for or against Asahi. The "50 other people in the world" statement is hardly true for a machine offered with a single SoC and zero customization options except RAM size and SSD.

[dijit]

Honestly. That’s what I’ve been doing my entire professional career.

Modern laptops are not materially different from SoCs, everything is soldered to the board and the CPU does basically everything memory related.

I guess you think that Intel designs are an open standard?

At the very least they’re extremely patent incumbered; with AMD and Intel having a sort of patent truce between them.

[moonchrome]

Intel and AMD have developers working on Linux support and drivers and support running Linux on their hardware.

[sbuk]

Intel and AMD don't make the whole widget. They want people to buy the components, so publicly 'supporting' multiple OSs makes sense. Apple on the other hand want people to buy and use Macs and macOS...

[rowanG077]

I wonder if you ever got any meaningful support from an OEM. I never have. But I have gotten meaningful support from enthusiasts.

[manmal]

Enthusiast driven software can be really good. Eg the enthusiast community has given us OSS automated insulin delivery systems.

[JonChesterfield]

If some of those 50 are kernel devs Linux is likely to run just fine.

[2OEH8eoCRo0]

You've put in a support ticket with Apple, had an engineer assigned to it, and had it fixed promptly?

[necovek]

> it seems like MacBooks could easily end up becoming the laptop of choice for Linux developers in the years to come.

Having used MacBook Pro 14" with an M1 Max for ~6 months, I'd really wonder which developer submits themselves to such a glare-emitting screen and crappy keyboard (and potentially imprinting their palms/wrists on the sharp front edge), if you can get a Thinkpad X1 Carbon for much less?

Sure, performance was slightly better than the latest X1 Carbon, and battery life was significantly better, but if I am undocked for a prolonged period, that screen and keyboard make it very unpleasant to use. If I needed more performance, I'd go for a desktop or a workstation-type Thinkpad laptop, though I'd lose on the portability (though MacBook Pros — including 14" — are heavy as well).

[Meltion3]

I was surprised about this hard edge as well.

But as I only use it on a docking station, all good.

[necovek]

Did you experience any issues with USB-C monitors? I have a Dell U3219Q as a docking station, and my Thinkpads running Linux never put it in a state MacOS was able to: it won't turn on after Mac suspends, and it requires an intricate dance to unplug it from the socket and then turn it on while connected for it to restart working, and not even that always works.

[throwingrocks]

> I'd really wonder which developer

I’m wondering the same. It’s probably just a few?

[necovek]

Oh, I know it's masses of them (my previous company prescribed them, which is how I got the unfortunate experience). That does not make it any less perplexing to me ;)

[darthrupert]

lol

[okasaki]

Don't understand what's so great about it. Pretty much every amd64 laptop works great with Linux. I've had Lenovos, Dells, Huaweis, HPs, etc.

Not to mention laptops designed specifically to target Linux like the Framework laptop.

[geerlingguy]

You really have to use the hardware to understand; things like the trackpad quality, battery life, blissful silence, and general build quality are beyond most other laptops on the market.

[Avamander]

> Don't understand what's so great about it. Pretty much every amd64 laptop works great with Linux. I've had Lenovos, Dells, Huaweis, HPs, etc.

It's not amd64, it's especially not Intel. It's not fugly or fnoisy. The bar is really so low.

[acomjean]

I'll agree with you here. I had a MacBook pro (2015) and switched to a system76 popOS linux notebook (8th gen intel, its really a "clevo" OEMed notebook). Its not quite as well built, but the Matt screen is nice, the keyboard and trackpad are good enough, and it has NVIDIA acceleration. Yeah, when pushed the fans spin up, the battery life if mediocre at best, but it can game (thanks steam) and its really fast. Its really not bad at all.

I got an Linux AMD laptop for work this year, much better on the battery and still very fast. Its been great.

[pxc]

> Somewhat surprisingly, Linux support for Apple Silicon MacBooks seems to be shaping up to be better than that for pretty much any other laptop

People are writing about Thinkpads below, but the real comparison should be to laptops that are sold with Linux on them, like the Dell XPS 13 Developer Edition, the HP Dev One, or the many laptops sold by System76 which even feature 'instant on' since they run open-source UEFI implementations.

The Apple Silicon laptops have gained Linux support faster than most Apple hardware in recent memory, including the Intel MacBooks from 2016 on. But Linux support has long been especially late on Apple machines because the hardware is custom and quirky and volunteer interest in reverse-engineering it has been relatively low.

And let's be real— a computer without GPU acceleration is virtually unusable. You need that these days for everything from actually getting to use basic features of your window manager to videe playback.

That said, Intel and Microsoft have hampered Linux support recently with crap like S0ix and Pluton, so if the GPU support ever becomes stable enough to support most Linux window managers, the Apple Silicon laptops might seem attractive by comparison to laptops that aren't built for Linux. I would consider one at that point. But it's hard to be optimistic when Apple has no material reason not to pull the rug out from under Asahi at any time (not necessarily out of malice).

[manholio]

> MacBooks could easily end up becoming the laptop of choice for Linux developers

That is, if they want to subsidize with their own wallets the dominance of consumer-hostile computing that open source was created to avert.

Except for development such as this here, which aims at liberating users from a closed platform, I would have a philosophical problem to buy such hardware purely for my convenience.

Let's not fool ourselves, when proprietary hardware from platform giants like Amazon and Apple becomes dominant killing open ecosystems, the end of road can only lead to consumer coercion, regardless if a negligible fraction of users would be able to still run Linux on such hardware.

[mort96]

Eh, Apple is merely not documenting their M1/M2 hardware as much as they should be; nothing is intentionally locked down in any way, their bootloader explicitly and intentionally supports booting alternative OSes, nothing requires being signed by Apple, etc.

Compare that to what's going on in the non-Mac world, with Pluton and SecureBoot stuff, where hardware is being cryptographically locked down. Or compare it to nvidia, who is intentionally making it impossible to make a good FOSS driver. Yet people have no problems buying thinkpads from Lenovo or nvidia cards from System76.

I'll take "undocumented hardware which needs to be reverse engineered, but once that's done we have a great driver and stuff just works" over "undocumented hardware which refuses to run unsigned software and the user can't install their own signing key" any day.

[nivenkos]

Yeah, if you can afford a Macbook, you can afford a Framework.

[Gigachad]

The framework is not at all competitive with a MacBook.

[babypuncher]

I don't think they are really targeting the same people.

[mort96]

I hear framework laptops can be quite loud though? With ARM Mac laptops, you have the choice between a machine which literally doesn't have a fan, and a machine which has a fan that's turned off unless you're maxing out both your CPU and your GPU for sustained periods of time (and even then it's just a wind sound, not a high pitched whine). The machines are great about coil whine too, which has been an issue for some PC laptops I've used even when their fan is off.

[Sebb767]

I use a framework and the laptop definitely isn't loud. The fan is off most of the time and even when running it's actually rather quiet. It might be running more than on an M1 (though I don't have personal experience), but it's far from annoying.

[Bud]

Can't you make your argument without the fallacious roping-in of Amazon? Apple isn't Amazon. Also, if Macs are actually as hostile to consumers and to open-source computing as you claim (and boy, is this ever an old and tired claim at this point), why is Linus still working so very hard and enthusiastically to support the platform in question?

[manholio]

In regard to proprietary hardware, it is my assertion that Apple and Amazon are essentially making the same move: throw money they obtained by dominating their respective markets into closed hardware development that will allow them to lock into their market dominance in the future by limiting consumer choice. You might disagree but there is nothing fallacious about this line of reasoning.

If you are looking for a fallacy take your argument from authority: if Linus does something then it cannot possibly be wrong. Which doesn't even get the point I'm making above, where I clearly contrast developing FOSS for the MacBook which is clearly a good thing (what Linus is doing), with buying a development MacBook for convenience, thereby putting your money to work against software liberty.

[Bud]

Except we clearly see that Linus has bought Macs over and over again. Presumably because they're the best tool for the job and he likes them. And you still have failed (like everyone else) to make any real argument that Apple is somehow warring against "software liberty". Promoting your own platform doesn't amount to doing so, certainly.

[manholio]

Again, what Linus does and doesn't is not relevant for a discussion about morality - unless you are starting a religion centered around him as a moral model.

Fyi, the App Store license is deliberately incompatible with the GPL.

[rimliu]

There is no such thing as "App Store license".

[rimliu]

Maybe Linux UX is user hostile, eh?

[motoboi]

The best Linux support is always where most Linux developers work on.

This seems like obvious but really is not.

As long MacBooks keep being the insane machines they now are, they will soon become (and keep being) the best Linux machines available.

Just because people will make sure of that.

[PaulDavisThe1st]

Not disagreeing (or agreeing) with you about that, but as a coda I would note that I find it somewhat absurd that laptops have become the typical platform for developers. It implies something about what drives people's choices for working environment that I find strange. I do have a laptop, and I appreciate it being portable and thus being able to do work away from my (home) office. But most of the time I work on "desktop" system (Threadripper 2950X) with 3 screens, a fantastic keyboard, an even better mouse and many other things in the physical environment that improve my working experience. In short, it makes essentially no difference to me how "insane" MacBooks might be - they will never replace my "desktop" system for work.

Apparently, this is an area where if I'm not in the actual minority, I'm certainly in the quieter faction.

[nicoburns]

Many (most?) people don't have the luxury of two development machines. If I could have two, I'd probably get a laptop and a desktop too. But if I can only have one, then I'll take the laptop.

[eproxus]

I have that luxury but the next round I’ll just get one powerful laptop and a great screen instead.

It’s way too much work syncing workspaces, repos, configuration, installed software, etc.

[the_gipsy]

You can use a laptop as a desktop, but not the other way around.

[acedTrex]

The option to work anywhere is nice, I have a dock that I just plug one cable into my macbook and the entire setup lights up and is ready to go. But sometimes i want to work from the living room, or work at a coffee shop etc. and all i have to do to enable that is just unplug that cable and put my laptop in my bag. It's some pretty nice freedom to be able to do that.

[maven29]

This doesn't mean that support would necessarily regress on existing platforms, just that there will be a window of opportunity to catch up to the state of the art.

As for the fixed function accelerator blocks, vendors who cooperate will have more robust driver implementations derived from their work to support customers who rely on it operationally.

[jillesvangurp]

Apple doing some minimal work to support their own hardware with Linux might bring them some new business. And it sounds like it shouldn't even be that much work. Mainly just documenting their hardware would be good enough to bootstrap that.

For developers, macs are just really nice hardware and there are not a whole lot of similarly nice, Linux friendly laptops out there. Most of them seem to be compromises between being noisy, not having great screens, keyboards, and touchpads, mediocre performance, etc.

Typing this on a Samsung Galaxy Book with a meh screen, meh touch pad, alright keyboard, and unimpressive performance. It runs Manjaro. I do miss having a nice screen and input options. I'm actually using a wireless mouse for the first time in a decade plus. Never needed one with a mac.

[smallpipe]

You widely underestimate how much work goes into documenting hardware.

[sumtechguy]

It is a lot of work. But having not really done it myself would they not already have most of this? At least one would hope they would?

[ryukafalz]

They need to have that sort of documentation internally anyway for their macOS devs to work on it, right?

[ChuckNorris89]

And good luck convincing the team of lawyers to groom tens of thousands of pages of internal confidential documentation and source code and prune what can be release to the public and what stays classified as a competitive advantage.

As lawyers usually play it safe (they're paid to defend the company) they'll tell you to keep everything internal internal, since Apple makes money selling finished products and services, not selling discreet chips to OEMs who's functionality needs to be explained to third parties.

[q3k]

Yeah, in the form of “here’s some excel spreadsheets from the hardware team and half-generated C sources from the validation team, just ask them for more info”.

[tekknik]

> For developers, macs are just really nice hardware

eh, not quite. for me the OS is the most important part, with great hardware being icing on the cake. I’m not knocking linux, but it’s not for everyone.

[fariszr]

Check out system76, they seem to be making really good laptops. Also Framework laptops support Linux fully too.

[jasoneckert]

Firstly, I agree with your points here.

And while other comments here have pointed out that not all hardware is supported yet (a valid criticism), I feel it's also important to note that the current user experience of Asahi on Apple Silicon is stellar (as has been since it was released in Alpha).

I've been using Asahi for over 3 months now as my daily driver to do real development work (https://jasoneckert.github.io/myblog/asahi-linux/), and everything I need is there, and fast. Consequently, I'm not surprised Linus is doing the same.

[WhyNotHugo]

> The Asahi developers have also stated that Apple tends to keep hardware peripheral interfaces stable across generations (they speculate that this is to keep things easy for their own OS dev teams)

It's crazy what happens when hardware designers collaborate with software developers. The current de-facto standard of working in silos with no regard for how the other party gets their part done is what's led us to the current global status quo.

[ogogmad]

> Given this, it seems like MacBooks could easily end up becoming the laptop of choice for Linux developers in the years to come.

What's the situation with traditional USB and HDMI ports? Dongles are easy to forget and easy to break, and lots of us have traditional USB devices lying around and 10-year-old TVs.

[Fredej]

There's an HDMI, 3 Thunderbolt 4 (USB-C), an SD card reader and a headphone jack on the Macbook Pro.

https://www.apple.com/macbook-pro-14-and-16/specs/

[anothernewdude]

My M1 has an HDMI 2.0 port.

[ZiiS]

That isnt currently supported under linux.

[nicoburns]

It's not, and in general I don't think one can claim that linux support for the Apple Silicon machines is good now. What seems to have been the case so far is that once hardware is supported it mostly stays supported (including on new generations of the machines), which suggests that linux support for Apple Silicon machines may well get to the point where it's really good.

[Mo3]

Definitely not the Air

[rvz]

> Given this, it seems like MacBooks could easily end up becoming the laptop of choice for Linux developers in the years to come.

Sounds like a failure for free software and open source, and the quest for progressing for open systems in general.

[ekianjo]

> to be better than that for pretty much any other laptop.

No GPU support is a big miss though. ARM also means that you can't make every binary made for x86 out there work, even if initiatives like Box86 and Box64 help bridge the gap.

[_ph_]

The very interesting thing here is, that Apple announced Rosetta for Linux being released together with Ventura (assuming the Linux is running a VM, but it seems it works on plain Linux installations too).

[DJeuxg]

> How much other hardware can claim that?

You mean aside from system76 or of any of the other Linux first hardware sellers?

> The Asahi developers have also stated that Apple tends to keep hardware peripheral interfaces stable across generations

The Asahi team has made an assumption about apples implementation of mobile chipsets that hasn't had a Linux competitor working to exploit it.

Nothing is stopping apple from rug pulling the project next cycle.

Nobody should be relying on this.

[EricE]

>Nothing is stopping apple from rug pulling the project next cycle.

Why would they do that? As others have pointed outed, Microsoft, Intel, Nvidia, etc. are indeed pulling the rug out on the other side (in the name of security). Locking the Mac down 100% would have zero benefit to Apple and just generate negativity.

[bodge5000]

I wonder if its possible to dual boot the M1/M2 macs? Having a laptop running both Asahi and MacOS would be pretty fantastic (although my understanding is that application support is still early days)

[geerlingguy]

That's how Asahi is built; you still have macOS on a separate partition, so you can boot to either OS at will.

[mhh__]

Emphasis on MacBook Vs laptops (plural)