Onboarding with an M1
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It also caught me off guard especially as I purchased the LG 4K thunderbolt/usb-c monitors from the Apple website with the hope of connecting everything via daisy chain.
I haven’t yet definitively found a DisplayLink hub that can output its video via thunderbolt and/or USB-C so whenever I see articles about M1’s and developer setups I happily check in to see if anybody has found a setup.
There are similar workarounds for the M1 MacBoooks. [2]
Is this a reasonable workaround until Apple provides M1 hardware that can run more than 1 monitor out of the box?
[0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5jLAwSvs7vE
[1] https://www.slashgear.com/m1-macs-can-run-up-to-six-displays...
If you occassionally just want to plug in to multiple displays, it can bridge the gap. It's no substitute for a dedicated workstation.
There's no trick or way around this on an M1-equipped Mac. Something else will be handling the graphics.
DisplayLink generally works excellent for running most apps. It does not work well where you’re pushing a bunch of bits at the screen rapidly, eg. First person shooters or high definition video.
That said, one of my DisplayLink monitors is used for IP camera feeds, and while the little traffic light on the USB dongle is blinking incredibly fast, I don’t notice any stutters.
Everyone already knows about this and the author mentions this in their post.
I feel the “Pro” label is somewhat misleading, and has definitely damaged my trust further.
Scroll down to Video Support and see: "One external display with up to 6K resolution at 60Hz."
When I was making a buying decision back in November, the limited external display support came up in every analysis & review I read. I'm not trying to give you a hard time here, but I genuinely don't know how you missed this.
What? The M1 MacBook Pro is not the magical device with no compromises???
People were way too enthusiastic and purposely skipped over any weaknesses of the form factor.
People were claiming that it was capped at 16G ram because there were no purpose for having 32G ram (it was amazing to see the hacker news technical set reclaim Bill Gate's "640K ought to be enough for anybody" and "1 monitor is enough for every use case").
There are no perfect computers. Even Apple has to compromise. They were clearly stated but people just didn't want to accept that the M1 isn't a perfect computer that could do everything.
My mother bought a new macbook m1 with me telling her about the monitor stuff and she cant even get her 1080p normal external to work with the dock that the apple store sold her.
It’s definitely an Apple issue, but the specific problem can be worked around by basically not using hdmi (I appreciate we don’t all have that luxury :/)
Do you want 256G ssd size or do you want the upgraded processor or memory size? Do you want 2 usb-c ports or 4 usb-c ports? do you want touchbar or no touchbar?
Apple has market segmentation and compromise down to a science. Apple computers have been forcing people into a compromise for their entire history. Want more features? Give more money. need that money for rent? ok buy the 256G version instead that you can't upgrade because everything is soldered in.... you have more money? pay for 512G version.
And in the dock's case - that's always been the case where apple will happily charge you more money to get certain accessories to work properly. (want this accessory to work? you gotta get the right adapter! oh that old adapter won't work, you gotta get a new one for 80$! oh sorry even with an adapter that old dock won't work anymore, you gotta get the right interface! usb-c vs thunderbolt vs firewire vs usb-c 4!)
However in 2021 I am not interested in a computer with less than 32GB ram. Sure, I could work around the limitations and close not in use programs/tabs to avoid going OOM, or using swap, but life is short and memory is cheap. I'd rather not have to worry about it.
There are workloads that don't fit into 16G ram. Even with paging, there are legitimate needs for 32G and beyond memory sizes.
Then your limitation clearly wasn’t RAM.
It can't make it appear out of thin air. If you need 16GB of ram and only have 8GB, you will run out of memory.
For context I regularly have open (what I consider to be standard apps):
* IntelliJ IDEA (Pycharm or Clion, never both)
* Slack
* Chrome
* kitty (20 or so terminals)
* Outlook
* yabai & bartender
* littlesnitch & adguard
The ONLY time I run out of memory (or leave the "green" memory pressure) is when i use Figma - but that is a known memory hog. And it does crash, it just warns me that im running out of memory and asks to close something.
This is all on an 8GB machine. Previously I had 16GB intel macbook pro (2015) and it simply wasn't possible to run this quantity of applications.
Obviously (as i have said, and keep getting downvoted for), if you are using VMs or you have a specific memory requirement, then you need to account for that.
They shouldn’t have called it a pro.
Apple apologists have been regularly redefining what "pro" means every year, along with a lot of other things that aren't a big deal.
Another commenter mentioned finding a video showing that it could in fact be "hacked" to use more than one external monitor. I tried purchasing the specific DisplayLink products in the video and still wasn't able to have success :(
Realistically I’ll look at investing in an ultra wide soon to offer similar screen real estate.
We also have a Lenovo laptop that we bought two of for our admin staff in our office to only find out afterwards multi monitor support was missing (despite having enough ports for it)... it’s a shame that this isn’t considered standard.
Startech Dual Display Port adapter https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07C69HG33/
We have noticed that the refresh rate on the second monitor isn’t great... but it works and isn’t horrible for developers.
Edit: and we also have this due to the lack of ports (Thanks Jony)
HyeperDrive USB C Hub https://www.amazon.com/dp/B01MUAEI7J/
This is not to say that the XPS 13 is perfect (need to change battery every two years in all the notebooks at the office and the notebook gets hot) but the notebook is great in many other factors.
Instead, people are going to be getting latitudes.
I run Ubuntu day to day and it has much better performance and less fan noise (presumed better thermals) than Windows.
Which is annoying because the whole reason I was buying XPS laptops for our devs was supposedly good Linux support. Maybe the laptop was overheating?
I recently ran into something somewhat similar of needing "active" displayport adapters to connect more than two monitors at a time to a video card.
Another possibility is a device that merges monitors' and then presents as one to the computer intended for video walls.. I know of the ones that Matrox makes but might need windows to setup.
https://www.matrox.com/en/video/products/video-walls/quadhea...
That's the whole point. It's about what Apple doesn't tell you that matters, which I have said before [0]. Especially for a new product announcement and release, which is why I don't immediately buy their products because everyone else is hyping it everywhere.
Now they are discovering the pitfalls and foot-guns later on after purchasing it, whilst I enjoy my trusty old Intel Macbook that can connect to more than one monitor.
I guess when Apple announces a M1X / M2 Macbook, the reviewers will be telling you that 'It's not worth buying if you already bought into M1'. If that's the case, they are right, since you're now at a sunk cost IF you wanted multi-monitors on your M1 Macbook Air.
What's better is that you wait for the next generation so that you don't fall for buying into Apple's limitations in their new products.
In all my previous experiences, purchasing into newly released products has always been a step forward in every measurement. I would say dongles have been the only pain points when moving to new generations.
This is the first product that took a step back in an important way and I wasn't expecting it. And it doubly hurt me as Apple's website store suggested these LG 4k monitors to go along with my new M1 and their store showcased the awesome thunderbolt daisy chain and driver support out of the box.
So while DisplayLink technologies do allow for an inferior multi-display setup - I haven't found one yet to drive dual LG 4k monitors that Apple sells.
The reason I ask is that my ThinkPad X1 Extreme can only handle a single external monitor running any recent version of Ubuntu, but on Windows 10 I run it with two or three external monitors with different scaling factors. I've used either a ThinkPad Thunderbolt dock or currently a Cable Matters mini-dock with two DisplayPorts and one HDMI.
So I gave up on Linux on the hardware and run it in a VMware VM under the Windows 10 host, or under WSL2 depending on what I'm doing.
At that point in time I was a lot less technically capable, so on the rare occasion googling the issue would turn up a relevant mailing list archive, I usually wasn't able to act on it and I'd wind up procuring the package in question through some other method or just doing without.
So when Homebrew came along and most things installed and ran fine with the rare issue that cropped up getting fixed fairly quickly, it easily stuck.
- before, I had generally heard of homebrew a lot, and macports very little. Brew's marketing is better. I think this is intentional (as in Macports doesn't really do any)
- The docs for macports are very poor. They are comprehensive, but barely navigable. Keyword search doesn't work well. They're obtuse.
Further context: I also find brew docs poor, but they're much more user-focused (how to install packages), whereas macports' seem more packager-focused.
- Requiring sudo is a security feature, but Macports doesn't advertise this well, so brew "seems" more secure on first impression
- Most software with cli install instructions recommend brew up top (even when there's a macports option). i.e. there's no evangelization of macports by maintainers who package for it. I don't really know why this is, but it's something macports maintainers could/should look into.
In reality however, macports uses "privilege separation" which drops privileges for each individual install to a separate "macports" user. This is more secure than brews sudoless approach because not only does the installer not have root access, it doesn't have full access to your own user either (e.g. your HOME). Privilege separation isn't possible without initially having root privileges.
The most common complaint (changing permissions on /usr/local) isn’t a problem with the arm64 version which now uses /opt/brew but, also, as far as my trust model goes, it isn’t a problem for me: I already have $HOME/bin on my path and, so, any local exploit that relies on overwriting system executables has multiple ways of tricking me into running a malicious program.
Homebrew was the cool new kid at the right time, when Macs popularity amongst webdevs was growing exponentially. OTOH, Macports is still working fine; there is room for two package managers on macOS.
I wasn't able to get it to work, and it left a bunch of users (like ten??) and other various junk which was a pain to clean up. This was in 2017 I think.
I keep hoping someone will chime in and say "I use nix on my Mac, and it's dreamy, everything Just Works you should try it!" because until that happens I'm going to stick with brew.
While I'm on the subject, I was also a macports user until hmm, 2013 I think. Don't recall exactly why I switched, just that I was having some kind of intractable problem, messaged a friend who knows what he's talking about, and he said "just use brew dude". So I did.
Well, it works now that I've set it up. But the setup is not exactly trivial. Here are the steps I used last time I set it up, a year or two ago, to get a single-user install working:
```bash
sudo vim /etc/synthetic.conf
# Insert the following line in vim (the file should be three bytes long):
nix
# Save and exit vim
echo "LABEL=Nix /nix apfs rw" | sudo tee -a /etc/fstab
# Reboot computer
sudo diskutil apfs addVolume disk1 APFSX Nix -mountpoint /nix
sudo diskutil enableOwnership /nix
sudo chown -R "$(whoami)" /nix
# Reboot computer
sh <(curl https://releases.nixos.org/nix/nix-2.3.10/install) --no-daemon ```
So not exactly pretty, but it works. And it works great. Nothing every breaks -- installations/updates may fail, but they leave the previously working version in place so that everything works as if I hadn't tried to install/update in the first place. I wouldn't want to have to set it up again, but now that I have, I don't want to use anything else to manage my packages.
Brew was a big timesaver back then (maybe now too if macports is still in 'compile everything' mode) and that is the key reason why it became the dominant package manager. Nobody has 'moved back' because macports isn't 'better enough' to induce people to switch over like they did with brew originally.
The optimization opportunities for some packages are typically on the order of 2x-5x faster, which isn't enough to deal with the headache of extra config for a personal dev box. So, my rule of thumb is, unless I know exactly the performance trade off I am trying to take advantage of by going with MacPorts, I will be better served by using Homebrew. I will wind up spending more time fixing config then I will have saved on execution processing time.
As does MacPorts. https://guide.macports.org/#installing.xcode
> MacPorts builds everything from scratch
This has not been true for many years: https://trac.macports.org/wiki/FAQ#fromsource
For some reason, It is PITA to get MacPorts to recognize Xcode. It took me three days to get MacPorts to see it. I tried various configuration, arguments, versions, etc until it's finally working.
That specific issue sounds like a MacPorts problem where it (MacPorts) is using an outdated version of Erlang; because Erlang works just fine on the M1.
While I'm not sure if it's building from source or pulling a binary, just pip3 install pandas seems to work just fine. Not a Rosetta terminal.
Just ran a fresh install from a new poetry venv, seemed to work fine. This was the poetry output
Using version ^1.2.4 for pandas
Package operations: 3 installs, 0 updates, 0 removals
• Installing numpy (1.20.2)
• Installing pytz (2021.1)
• Installing pandas (1.2.4)For some reason, the pip building is failing for me (python@3.9 from homebrew, all non-brew packages in --user). However, if I download the source and do the bdist_wheel manually, it succeeds and produces installable wheel.
Cffi is unbuildable without a patch, it is failing on symbol ffi_prep_closure being non-existant.
I've had issues with pip and building from source being incredibly fragile before (in general, not an M1 specific thing), so I'm not that surprised, but unfortunately I don't really have any answers here.
The scientific calc package + cffi have installed normally since I got the M1 (mid February).
I did have an issue with PyQt5, where I had to link qmake in my .zshrc before it would build properly (and it had an incredibly unhelpful wheels error message), but that's been it so far.
Edit: I do use one HDMI and one display port (from a USB c connector.) I drive both 4K monitors at a full 60hz. It is beautiful.
I really do sympathize with any consumer who has to try to make sense of what a given port is actually capable of these days.
It is powered with a 12V, 2A charger via one USB C port (and just one of the existing two). But try to use a standard USB-C PD charger, and nothing happens. However it does charge with a plain 12V charger, sporting a USB C jack, that does not require PD negotiation ...
I'm coming to think that having one connector for everything may not be easy ...
I am unsure if you need thunderbolt specifically to use USB c to display port cables. It seems you do not need thunderbolt but I am not an expert.
Correct, you do not need Thunderbolt for this. Most laptops with USB-C support something called DisplayPort Alt Mode, which is essentially DisplayPort over the type-C connector; I'd imagine that's what those cables are doing.
Now, if you have a Thunderbolt display specifically, like the ones Apple used to sell? Your type-C port would need to support Thunderbolt to use that.
Funny things happen when the alternate mode is Thunderbolt. It allows to tunnel DisplayPort and USB3 traffic, so when you are using TB alt mode, you still have usable DP and USB3, not USB-C natively, but packetized inside TB3 traffic.
For 2x20 GBit TB3 traffic, you need much better cable than what the average USB3/USB-C cable can handle (that's the reason why they are sold as TB cables); if it is anything above 0.5m, it is usually active one. And to make things even more interesting, there are USB-C cables than cannot handle even USB3/alt modes... so it is important to check the specs, not only price tag.
Incorrect. Perhaps with a low-end adapter, but with a higher end dock (and sufficiently modern hardware that supports DP1.3) you can drive 4k@60Hz [1], USB 3.2 Gen 2 10Gbit/s, USB 2, and PD at the same time over a single USB-C cable. For example, the Lenovo USB-C Dock Gen 2 that I use does this without any issues.
The configuration is that two superspeed lanes are used for USB 3.2. The other two superspeed lanes are used for DP-Alt, which have 8.1Gbit/s bandwidth per lane with HBR3 for a total of 16.2, which is perfectly fine for 4k@60Hz. You can even do higher resolutions with DSC (though I am not sure which, if any, docks support this).
[1] Or lower resolutions/refresh rates with HBR2.
My display is a Qhd (2560 x 1440)
Things like Cisco's Anyconnect VPN, MS Teams, Active Directory Auth, and so on.
Source: am macadmin for startup
Example,
https://doesitarm.com/app/photoshop/
> Known Issues
links to https://helpx.adobe.com/photoshop/kb/photoshop-for-apple-sil...
Something that's been missed a lot, I think, is that the Intel-based 13" MacBook Pro actually came in two versions -- a two-port one with a less-capable, low-power processor and a lot of limitations that made it more like a juiced-up Air, and a four-port one which was much more like the 15" MBP. The current M1-based MBP is direct replacement for that two-port model, and is now absolutely just a juiced-up Air; there's very little that the M1 MBP does that the M1 Air doesn't.
And, yes, the Intel version of the MacBook Pro But Really Juiced-Up Air, or MBPBRUJUA for short, could run two external 4K displays or one external 5K display, while the M1 MBPBRUJUA can only run one external display (although for the ones and ones of you out there with 6K displays, good news!). I would presume Apple knows this is a regression and plans to address it, at least when they update the four-port MBPs.
Personally, I'm not convinced the MBPBRUJUA is going to stay around past this product cycle; it's always struck me as a laptop in sort of a weird middle space, too big to make people who really want an Air happy but not "pro" enough to make, well, actual pros happy, and the shift to Apple Silicon brings the Air and the MBPBRUJUA so close together the only material difference is the case design. I can't help but suspect that the only reason we have an M1-based MBPBRUJUA is so Apple could tick off the "shipped an ARM-based laptop with a MacBook Pro nameplate in 2020" box.
Otherwise everything works just fine.
I've been hoping for years that they would start supporting Linux, but I've settled with the fact that this won't happen.
If one year ago one would have asked NI if they plan to support ARM chips, they would probably have laughed at you, but I'm sure that they now have already started working on this, now that Apple has forced them to.
Proportional to the business they expect to get from M1/Arm.
>I've been hoping for years that they would start supporting Linux, but I've settled with the fact that this won't happen.
They'd have to have their codebase already compatible by a huge percentage (like BitWig, which was a fresh start from ex-Ableton folks) for that to happen (that is, it would have to require minimal effort to do it as a good will gesture that costs them nothing to just build and offer for the ocassional buyer).
Else, it would be lots of effort not really justified by expected sales (as only a tiny share of musicians use Linux, and they're generally not the "buying commercial DAWs/VSTs types").
The laptop also lacks Thunderbolt, which would provide more port options.
Same level of productivity boost as dual screen windowed was back in the day.
I don't get people who would want to optimize for working on a train or a plane or in a meeting either. My desktop is in a quiet room where I do work stuff and I easily get more compute per dollar too.
You really need to understand that this is nothing but a strawman.
I'm a M1 Air user. I'm currently worrying about how I'm gonna express some business logic in my app, not about some imaginary "irreplaceable" battery or an SSD. If anything breaks in the first two years (which probably won't happen), I'll have the machine or the part replaced for free. If anything breaks after the second year, well, I can either have it repaired or just get a newer Mac with the total cost of ownership of the old one being firmly below $50/month, which is laughably low for a tool that puts food on the table. And that's in an ex eastern bloc country where the average monthly wage is around $1300 net.
> My desktop is in a quiet room where I do work stuff
Mine too, in my bedroom, where I have a desk with a 43" screen on it. With the laptop connected in clamshell mode. Or on the couch. Sometimes I go to the office. Sometimes I go to meetings. And a laptop allows me to use a single machine for all that, ain't that great?
For example I can't have all the dependencies I need for work on an "offline laptop" and I work from the same place most of the time. Which means it's much more beneficial for me to have a beefy workstation setup with 3 displays and an old MacBook that works as a "remote desktop" when I need it. On the other hand someone who is on the go all the time might prefer to have beefy laptop with some docking solution on his desk.
I'm always wondering why some people think that their solution is the best for everyone ...
It's AMAZING.
I have servers, raspberry pi's. I work locally and push to wherever I need.
I work from home, sometimes from my office, sometimes from the couch. Sometimes I went out to coffee shops or the library. I sometimes gotta hop on a plane and go to the office where I switch between desks, conference rooms, offices. I travel to visit family.
A single device allows me to just close the lid and keep going. It's amazing.
Me, I just git push and walk away empty handed. Everything I need is in the cloud.
Sure, I have a laptop for meetings, coffee shops and couches but those are scientifically proven to be terrible places to work. And with just one screen :(
Enjoy waiting for your work tool which puts food on the table while it's in the shop I guess. My machines are orders of magnitude less expensive than your quote, so I have others on standby and I can take a ride up the street to buy parts if I don't feel like waiting a day for delivery.
> With the laptop connected in clamshell mode.
For those of us not part of the Apple cult/SV bubble in-group, that just means "closed" right?
What a shitty form factor though. It takes up desk space while limiting you to a single external display. All those hard and soft limitations so you can drag a single machine into a meeting or work (poorly) on a couch or in a cafe is an absolutely terrible tradeoff. In the age of syncing everything over the Internet the value of a single machine is negative. Putting all the eggs into one basket has never been a good idea.
And who even needs their entire machine in a meeting? Anyone that is doing creative work during a meeting is thoroughly doing it wrong. I would tell you to give a couple of desktops a try but I guess if you're Apple's prisoner already you'll be out $10k if you want properly outfitted desktop machines for your home and office.
I guess we cemented that sucker in pretty good now though eh?