So.. depending what you want to do on these older machines, my point is that this may be the least of your worries.
^(though I think it's fine, because it's the reverse that would be a problem? Bad news for 'hackintosh' if all supported versions of macOS can expect secure boot hardware, I think)
I bought a 2017 MBP hoping the situation would eventually improve but it never did, so I never got around to installing Linux. I'm expecting it'll be even worse for these M1 systems.
It is a shame, it's not something I ever really did (or not for long, for a period I do recall having Arch on my 2013 Air) but I like the idea - I like Apple's hardware, just not the software.
Which is unfortunate, because the 2015 models make great Linux machines.
The introduction of the T2 chip made proper Linux support much harder to achieve.
Oh, and Apple's NVMe interface is non-compliant. This is widely reported as Apple locking Linux out with the T2 chip, but that's not really true. The T2 chip will by default prevent unsigned kernels from reading/writing to the SSD, but this can be disabled.
Even if it's disabled, the controller is not standards compliant, and Linux won't see the underlying block device. I saw some diffs floating around on github a few years ago that fixed it, but I don't think it was ever mainlined.
Basically, post-2016, Apple seems to have incorporated even more custom (and undocumented) hardware that running alternative OSes on them is basically impossible. Windows works because of the Apple-provided HAL + drivers for WinNT.
As far as I know it’s only available on Apple OSes.
Your claims about "dismal then and only got worse" are unfounded. The repository you refer to is still active. https://github.com/Dunedan/mbp-2016-linux If anything, activity has slowed down in these threads because it was figured out how to make it work.
Even among people who run Linux on these MacBooks, the general recommendation is to keep a macOS partition around for stability. Some of the value you get from any Apple computer is in the software. If you intend on instantly installing Linux or Windows as your only OS, this probably isn't the computer for you. But if you want to or have to use Linux sometimes, these T2-chip Macs can do it.
As I'm said repo owner, let me chime in here quickly to shed some light on that.
I used a 13" MacBook Pro 2016 for 3 years with Debian as my sole machine for work. When ordering it back in 2016 I wasn't sure how difficult it'd be to get Linux properly working on it, as at that point it was only known that it's possible to boot Linux, but nobody had figured out even such basics like support for the integrated input devices or the NVMe SSD yet. However as I was using Linux on Macs since 2006 I figured it'd be somehow possible to get it to work for me.
Fortunately I wasn't the only one serious about running Linux these 2016+ MacBooks, as I have very limited knowledge of the required lowlevel programming skills. What I did was to provide and moderate a Github repository (https://github.com/Dunedan/mbp-2016-linux) as a central place to document and discuss of the status of hardware support for these MacBook Pros, some little patches and lots of feedback and bug reports. A big shoutout to all contributors who did an incredible job at reverse engineering, implementing and upstreaming drivers for various components! That's quite an achievement for such a complex device with no public hardware documentation at all!
After a while it turned out that support for certain components would be rather difficult to get working flawlessly. As an example, even at the end of the 3 years I used the MacBook Pro, I had to use an external adapter to be able to use WiFi. With that in mind I started to reconsider why I bought Apple products: I bought them because of their superior hardware quality. But if I'm not able to use the hardware as intended, what's the point of paying a premium for Apple products? And let's just not talk about the butterfly keyboard or the horrible thermal management. So when it came to replacing my MacBook Pro, I decided to go with a Lenovo Thinkpad X1 Carbon instead. It's not perfect, but I'm way happier now than I ever was with the MacBook Pro 2016, as the hardware just works.
As I don't own any 2016+ Apple device anymore, the help for further Linux support I can provide is limited, but I didn't stop bothering at all! I'm still actively managing said Github repository, but activity in general has significantly dropped there over time. Either the devices work well enough for other people now or they also replaced them with non-Apple hardware.
After two years of using an otherwise beautiful iPad Pro (along with my MBP) I came to realize that a crippled machine that is very limited in how I use a computer is not the future of computing I like. The device collects dust for quite some time as I prefer a computing environment where I use the terminal a lot, where I use my bash and Python scripts a lot to automate, where I use Emacs a lot to write tech docs, do my project planning, writing, automating workflows, and many more things that are not doable on a crippled (iPad)OS.
You keep going toward your vision of a computing platform where your customers are just consumers, not hackers and doers, and us hackers need to look for alternative platforms, most propably Linux.
You can get XPS Developer Edition, System76, Purism, or many other laptop brands (eg. any of these https://elementary.io/store/ with elementaryOS, whose DE should feel fairly familiar to a macOS user) with GNU preinstalled these days.
I do wish someone would dare ship something high-end non-amd64 (e.g.: ARM). Kinda like what we're seeing from Apple.
It doesn't need to be our only computing device to be appreciated, and not every computing device needs to be powerful.
But the iPad is an excellent companion, since I use that to scrible around, consume media, photo editing, keep my music sheets, and all that stuff that would suck on Linux.
I obviously count myself among the people who needs and wants creator capabilities, but for my technologically challenged family and friends there's no reason to learn and manage all the complexities of a classic computer environment if they just want a point of access to youtube, netflix, spotify and social networks.
I still shiver remembering the times of browsers riddled with search bars, trojans and antivirus software slowing computers to a crawl and people who's "good with tech" being dragged to friends' houses to see what's wrong with the computer.
I think it's a bit narrow to call label them content-consuming devices. Of course, they have limitations for activities like programming.
Because they can. Most other laptop manufacturers are producing garbage. Vaunted brands like Thinkpad and Dell are even failing to keep pace.
My wife's 2019 Dell XPS 13 is awful to use. The touchpad is horrendous, and I'm not buying Lenovo after the Superfish thing.
I had a Dell XPS 13 1645 that had a great display, but everything else about it was awful.
Well, in reality, you can't be a purist or you'll end up with nothing. The Lenovo T480 is solid and has two batteries.
None of this, of course, is to pretend it's easy.
Void my warranty, boot with a scary splash screen, whatever, but don’t lock me out of the thing I ostensibly own. Or, maybe change the “buy” button to a “license to use” button in your store.
See this WWDC session: https://developer.apple.com/videos/play/wwdc2020/10686
and this manpage: https://pastebin.ubuntu.com/p/RwcT8stYMY/
The margins on general-purpose computers are simply too thin to sustain a $1T company.
People are frustrated with technology lately. Even non-tech people. Apple has everything it would need to change that, but it decides to contribute to technology becoming ever more frustrating time and time again instead.
Not true. Yahoo made 2 separate offers to acquire Google, and an established social-media company offered to acquire Facebook (for a billion dollars IIRC).
kmutil lets you do it apparently: https://pastebin.ubuntu.com/p/mN3Z2kfJWy/ and bputil lets you disable the signature checking of the kernel https://pastebin.ubuntu.com/p/RwcT8stYMY/
I’m totally fine with a chromebook-style unsigned boot warning.
Update: here a podcast with Craig Federighi on that matter https://youtu.be/Hg9F1Qjv3iU
"we're not direct booting an alternate operating system, it's purely virtualization"
Who else is making 8 core, 18 hour battery life laptops that have >200ppi displays and weigh <=1290g?
The choice is now performance xor privacy.
I suspect very little will work at all if someone can get Linux to boot on one, and it will be a very lengthy endeavor to get things up to being usable.
It really depends on whether their secure boot architecture can be disabled (unlikely knowing apple), or allow adding ones own keys (unlikely). Bootcamp probably won't happen since windows does not support the architecture: they'll be pushing people to use VMs.
They might also provide some untrusted path to boot without it being able to access certain secure features. I wish they did this, but also won't keep my breath!
That said, the kernel itself needs to have support for the hardware architecture, and then drivers for all the new hardware they're pushing out. I don't expect this to be soon, though I'd definitely be willing to sponsor anyone willing to work on this.
Windows supports ARM and has for a while. But still probably Bootcamp's days are over, yeah.
https://www.reddit.com/r/MacOSBeta/comments/jn7wbf/heres_the...
Repeat for every new model.
¹ They will have to give you a full refund: it's your right as a consumer. Note that this may not work for companies.
"Vote with your wallet!"
<votes with wallet by doing as OP suggests above. Mind you, NOT buying is noise - buying and returning is signal>
"Not like that!!"
The only reason I could bare some of their hw is becase I knew I can put Linux when I get enough of it, and now what?
I am not buying, sophisticated people are not buying and it doesn't help so in my perspective IF something is ever going to change their policy is returning products to SEND A MESSAGE. Other option is to wait untill some dumbo get it when it'll be too late, like it was when S.Jobs has to return to save them..
Or you sugest even more strong action then returning?
Companies DO care when people return something, because that is pure signal. "I got it because I thought I would like it and I don't" is a much different signal than "I have no idea what you think because I never interacted with you". That is likely one of the most effective ways to make a company sit up and take notice, the return rate of a product is a key indicator of its success.
I really don't see that there's anything to disagree with there. Loving Apple, as you may, doesn't make the above point wrong.
This has nothing to do with a love of Apple or anything, and everything to do with “you’re abusing a program that they are going to either ban you from, or remove because you abused it too much”.
PS: Well, this one is downvoted too. Looks like some lost even a sense of what PERSONAL computer means.
OK. Keep downvoting! it's a good strategy to silence someone when there are no valid arguments.
Also, people who complain about downvotes usually attract more. I’d suggest not doing that. Claims that there are “no valid arguments” against your position rather than nobody wanting to deal with you are, well, absurd.
Recently I see more and more perfectly valid comments to be downvoted and I do not like it. If this forum will become mob controlled with bullying then I see no reason why bright people would stay here. If one doesn't want ot deal with comment, usually one moves on, like I do. But if argument is perfectly valid and instead of answer I see one simply downvotes it is bullying as it appears.
You probably turn around and then criticize people for contributing to the e-waste problem, and polluting the planet with carbon emissions.
Can't be satisfied just not to buy someone's offering, you actively need to go sabotage them.
Actually sounds quite right-wing in philosophy.
While I can appreciate that some see other-OSs as something of a curiosity, for many of us it's a big deal-breaker, and it's a shame Apple is not willing to provide their hardware to so many potential clients who simply don't want their software.
I'm talking about ARM macs, not Intel ones.
For me that quote means that they're not allowing booting any alternate operating system and they expect developers to use virtualization if other operating system is needed. I would be happy to be wrong about that.