[compounding_it]

>They are great heavily supported Linux machines though.

Since the release of Touch Bar based Macs (which contain apple silicon) this has not been the case. The Macs that are well supported by linux and work very well were abandoned long time ago.

[opan]

Touch Bar predates Apple Silicon and most AS models do not have a Touch Bar.

[spectre3d]

The T2 chip is Apple silicon, and marked the beginning of really locking down the OS running on a Mac (as opposed to iOS, which was always locked down that way, and Intel Macs which of course could run anything).

It was the first mass market SoC hardware test of their new Mac chip design and it seems it was also to prep macOS for the M line. The level of control Apple gave it makes repair and refurbishing very difficult without Apple’s authorization.

T2 Overview PDF https://www.apple.com/jp/mac/docs/Apple_T2_Security_Chip_Ove...

[opan]

That is an interesting point. I did mean the M series, M1 and later, when I said Apple Silicon, and that's usually how I interpret the phrase. The Wikipedia article by the same name seems to interpret it much more broadly, also including mobile stuff like the A series.

[tym0]

Not sure why this is so down voted. I have a touch bar era Intel Mac, I regularly check the state of Linux on it and they are still somewhat poorly supported. Some drivers are out of tree, audio and sleep doesn't necessarily work, etc...

[bombcar]

He explicitly said Intel Macs - which are great Linux machines if you can accept the performance.

Would the M* be much better? Obviously, but that's not (yet) in the cards.