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Comment by asddubs | Hacker News Reader

the eternal ideology vs pragmatism debate. this project will get people a good linux machine that actually exists and you can buy in stores. besides, why not both. linux has been all about making it run on hardware without the manufacturers support or consent from the beginning.

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But Intel actively contributes to the Linux kernel

yeah, now they do. And if linux had relied on manufacturers to write drivers, it would have died many times over before ever getting to that point

Yeah, well, Intel laptops are trash subjectively speaking. I'd much rather have an M1 MacBook Air than any current Intel machine. In the past, ThinkPads were my favorite, but they got rid of many ergonomic features and now I can't even use tpmiddle to make the middle trackpoint button function as middle click without using scrolling features. Also, the BIOS on my Ryzen 5000 ThinkPad is always max brightness, regardless of what I had last set it to, so it's extremely uncomfortable to turn on at night or just after waking up, which is basically the only two times I want to use my laptop. Previous ThinkPads lacked all these issues, so they were my favorite overall laptops, but it increasingly seems like Lenovo staff probably don't even use them; I bet they use MacBooks, lol.

There is no reason MacBooks have to be the best modern laptops, and yet they are. That's why I think it's a good idea for this much effort to be put into making Linux/Free Desktop useful on them.

Thought it was only me getting irritated by permanently missing plain touchpad left-click on a x13 3nd gen, clumsily middle clicking instead. That together with loss of kinetic scroll alone is such a regression. Actually, I'm looking at that notebook in anticipation of pain, and grabbing the MacBook next to it instead (running Mac OS but looking forward to run Linux on it as well).

Genuine question, why do you think Apple doesn't publish docs about the M1 architecture? They know the Asahi team will crack it anyway, but what's preventing them from opening the platform to make it even more popular?

It's just guess, but it very much possible Apple simply can't publish any documentation because even they use a lot of 3rd-party IP under NDA. Also publishing documentation officially make patents attack easier.

I not into defending Apple, but there are plenty of reasons why they're okay with Asahi team reverse engineering their hardware, but won't invest any money into making it more open. After all they earn a lot from subscription services and Linux users wont pay for them.

Two reasons I can think of:

1. Documentation implies a commitment to the decisions made thus far. Apple has no compunctions about changing things behind the scenes and concealing the impact from users as much as possible.

2. Apple’s bread and butter are always going to be macOS users, Linux will be a rounding error.

You keep saying this as if it’s some profound wisdom.

Agreed. Last time I checked, the folks who got Linux running on a refrigerator did not get any vendor support either.

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