The MacBook 2,1 is almost unique in being supported by Coreboot and Libreboot. Furthermore, because it had an Atheros wireless card, you didn't need any blobs at all. Only two old Thinkpads are comparable, among x86_64 machines.
The MacBook Air 11 Late 2012, which was used as a daily runner by Linus for a number of years, was a pure Intel machine. Except for a weak Broadcom card, it was flawless with a stock kernel. Plus, it was silent, small and fast. The only comparable machine in terms of silent operation, cost and Linux support was IMHO the Xiaomi Notebook 12.5, which was released quite recently.
The problem with ARM Macs is not just secure boot. The secure enclave chip already gave serious trouble when trying to run Linux on their last Intel machines, as e.g. the keyboard doesn't show up as a standard USB device. So I don't have high hopes.
It's sad because the new MacBook Air seems superior to all competitors and the price is quite fair after academic discount.
Also, Apple makes it easy to buy any keyboard distribution from any location, which is really cool. With many brands, I need to hack the system and shop from NL to get a US ANSI keyboard here in EU.
I'm pretty sure we'll have Linux running on it by then. Perhaps just CLI only.
I just use VNC into it to manage anything. Another little machine that does what it needs. It's quiet and doesn't need much.
Probably wont take that long. Apple gives instructions to disable strict boot check and boot from any OS. The rest are the drivers. For graphics, they can start just using a framebuffer...
You have new android phones that ship with software 1.5 years old and NEVER get updated.
My 2011 model Lenovo came from the factory with a 2012 copy of Windows 8.
Lenovo released BIOS and driver updates to the 2011 machine at the end of 2019 and continue to do so. Windows 8 is EOL in 2023 with free upgrade paths to 8.1 which has a further out EOL date, meaning that the OS is still supported by both companies, as well.
Admittedly, however, your Android example is dead-on. Android seems to have always struggled with software updates; I blame version fragmentation along with very cheap (free in most cases) licensing costs, which spur on lower-quality vendors to take on the product.
The only solutions was to install linux and it worked.
So, even though I'm fully committed to the ecosystem and I love each and every apple product I still do think that having to trash a machine after 10 years isn't so good considering that those machines are usually still capable to work daily.
I have never heard of an iPad running Linux (and iPads been around for a long time), so chances of M1 running Linux natively is slim.
The likelyhood that Apple’s drivers at EOL outclass the driver support the community can provide seems high.
On the other hand, I agree with the last point. There is an aesthetic dimension that can’t be ignored.
I know —and apologies for the originally unintended, but retrospectively way-overused pun— I've compared an Apple to an orange there, and I realise it's very different hardware... But it's also not. It mostly depends on access. If developers can shim in a loader, and it doesn't require soldering, it'll be popular and get attention. These chips look too great to ignore.
Not my downvote, btw. Hopefully they'll toss an opinion in too.
Obviously it would take another canonical to do grunt driver creating work. But I suppose that if we don't see a quick response from intel or AMD, this hardware will take off and people will write the drivers.
Also, with the T2 chip in Intel Macs, there was a lot of nonstandard behavior[1], like the keyboard not being just a standard USB device.
Linux can run on ARM processors, but it's the architecture that can make a huge difference. Heck, even Apple's Lightning-to-HDMI adapter has an ARM chip in it[2], but that doesn't mean you can boot it to Linux very easily.
[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25221804
[2] https://www.theverge.com/2013/3/1/4055758/why-does-apples-li...
This sounds wrong. At most it may need a custom bootloader, which can then load a regular arm64 kernel plus the required drivers for Apple specific peripherals.
https://battlepenguin.com/tech/linux-on-a-macbook-pro-14-3/
With all the security on the newer Apple chips, I wonder if we'll ever see Linux boot on these things natively, much less get actual hardware driver support.
People also seem to be convinced that the T2 was a "locking down" measure, while all that's really missing is a Linux driver to interface with the T2. Surely Apple doesn't care at all about actively supporting Linux (and publishing specs), but they also don't lock this down.
The only support I see for the idea that Apple will "lock down Macs" is that for some reason they're irrationally hell bent on turning Macs into iPads. I don't see how that idea holds up if you inspect it closely though.
The percent of revenue coming from Macs continues to go down. I'm just assuming that at some point, the only (financial) reason the Mac exists is for Xcode.
At this revenue run rate, a standalone Mac company would be in the Fortune 100, next to companies like Nike and Coca-Cola.
https://cdn.statcdn.com/Infographic/images/normal/8817.jpeg
https://images.macrumors.com/t/hIKaZ3dlMYeHuw-3yqiPbLiHtnc=/...
And, yes, it's still significant, but it's also lower margin revenue than other Apple products.
Any attempt to improve security is of course going to follow a progression. All software development is progressive.
The leap from there to a ‘boiling frog’ i.e. that this is being done so the user won’t notice a hidden agenda, is a conspiracy theory.
It is a theory that a group of people with power have a hidden agenda that is contrary to what they have public stated, despite the facts being consistent with the public claims.
That is pretty much the definition a conspiracy theory.
For you to be right, this must be a planned deception.
That is a conspiracy theory.
It seems like you actually know this and are just trying to argue that that you’re right that there is a conspiracy.
For what it’s worth - I don’t think there is anything fundamentally wrong with that. Conspiracies are sometimes real.
I’d just rather be open about what we are saying.
Sure, you're right, it's conspiracy theory -- but one doesn't have to be a conspiracy theorist to predict further anti-consumer action from companies that have a long and sordid past with anti-consumer actions.
Apple , quite literally, wrote the playbook for establishing gilded cages and vendor lock-in within the (modern) computer industry.
I mean.. most companies in the world don't generate enough ire that the public get together and maintain a wikipedia page about the criticisms that apply to the company separately from the parent page.[0]
But absolutely, I agree -- it's conspiracy theory. The problem I have personally with conspiracy theory regarding Apple is that over the past 30+ years i've seen a lot of it turn into fact gradually over time.
I have very few doubts that the trend will continue onward. -- as such I have little problem with entertaining conspiracy regarding Apple, as long as it's not absolutely insane.
Apple seems to be masterful at the magicians' game of misdirection. That's the best way I can put it.
'Ignore the man behind the curtain.'.
The most modern example?
Let's talk about how fast and cool and battery conserving their new processors are without taking into account the vast amounts of software breakage that came along with the architecture change and the future software landscape reform that's going to take place that will establish Apple customers even more firmly into territory they can't ever hope to leave.
...and this is coming from someone who , historically, has loved ARM. MY problem with it is that the architecture change, IMO of course, is going to undoubtedly be used to leverage and strong-arm customers into Apple-centric 'app-store' interfaces, pulling the market apart just like in the PPC days between Apple OK-d software and the rest of humanity -- for the sake of a lot of quick bucks for Apple and a lot of additional developer/customer friction for the rest of the world.
We'll see, I guess. I like the new M1 on paper, I just trust Apple about as far as I can throw them.
It’s worth noting that many of the criticisms on that page, while valid, are true of all their competitors too, and of comparable capitalist businesses.
What that page leaves out is that in many areas, Apple has made more progress at mitigating the problems than anyone else.
I have spoken to activists about this discrepancy, and received the answer that they are aware of this, but it is politically more effective to critique Apple because they are the market leader, than to critique their competitors.
I don’t really agree with this tactic, but I understand it.
Nevertheless why even bring this page up?
It seems like you think it supports a generalized narrative of ‘Apple as bad guy’, which then makes the conspiracy theory more plausible.
This is unsurprising because it is the normal way conspiracy theories are supported: some real problems are tied together with woven together with exaggerated claims in a grand narrative with a villain at the center.
We are asked to believe in the conspiracy because some of the things that are part of the theory are based in fact, despite the fact that the rest is just innuendo and naked assertions.
That is what you are asking us to do here.
See examples:
[1] “Apple seems to be masterful at the magicians' game of misdirection. That's the best way I can put it.”
Take this for example. Here you just affirm the consequent. Of course, as I said earlier for you to be right there must be a deception, and here you say that Apple are masters of deception.
But really that’s a naked assertion. If there is a conspiracy this would be true, but there is actually no evidence of it.
[2] “Apple, quite literally, wrote the playbook for establishing gilded cages and vendor lock-in within the (modern) computer industry.”
Obviously this is fantasy. If Apple had literally written such a playbook, you would be able to present it as evidence.
What they have written and presented literally, is a large body of work on how to produce a secure computing environment that mitigates most forms of security threat and is therefore trusted by consumers as a platform where they can purchase software.
That is literally what they have written.
Again you are just asking us to accept a conspiracy as if it were fact.
They never pretended otherwise. It's a commercial company, with its own platform.
It's not a generic OEM manufacturer for generic devices to install various OSes on.
Their whole pride is their software/hardware integration.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trusted_Platform_Module
It also reminds me a lot of the Palladium controversy of ages gone by:
https://www.zdnet.com/article/microsofts-palladium-what-the-...
Like a lot of other smartphones, the main difficulty in running something else on an iDevice is the locked bootloader. It won't run anything not signed by Apple. If an exploit like checkra1n is used to defeat this, iPhones can run Linux in principle [1], of course practically restricted by a lack of a large amount of drivers required to run Linux well.
This iDevice OS lockdown completely reduces to 1) the locked bootloader which must be "defeated" - which M1 Macs contain a built in tool for - and 2) the only OS with drivers for the hardware being Apple's Darwin. So no, the TPM isn't a large part of why it's so difficult to run anything else on an iDevice.
[1]: https://blog.project-insanity.org/2020/04/16/running-postmar...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trusted_Platform_Module
iPhones, iPads, etc. do use a similar concept though.
Yes, but another name for the "they're using the boil frogs method" is "slippery slope fallacy".