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Comment by SlightlyLeftPad | Hacker News Reader

Silver lining: literally all Macs are a total steal right now.

Anyone have a good take on how well Asahi linux keeps the power management working on mac hardware? The biggest killer feature for me of mac hardware is the battery/weight. I have found it hard to get a good laptop in the linux ecosystem mainly because of power consumption. If Asahi doesn't really impact the battery life then I would seriously consider going that route. Similar question about support for pytorch on linux/arm64 / Asahi.

I think it's improved from when I last tried it, but it still isn't great. You can get like 60% of the battery life compared to macOS.

Someone with more recent knowledge correct me on this, but I believe idling is the biggest power drain in Asahi. You will want to shutdown and/or hibernate whenever possible.

How good is Mac virtualization? Would it be doable to put an Ubuntu inside a VM and just run it full screen all the time?

Bought a used MacBook Air M2 past summer to run Asahi linux exclusively on it, the installation went hassle-free. One charge lasts 9+ hours easily, sometimes up to 12 hours. Thunderbolt, DP Alt Mode and TouchID would be nice to haves, but I'm super happy how everything runs. Thank you everyone on the Asahi team!

I think the support for linux/arm64 is already very good in general, can't answer on pytorch though. The only app I'm really missing is Signal Desktop. The virtualization to run games is a noticeable performance hit and shows occasional glitches in the Steam overlay, but all my games run smoothly.

Hey, just letting you know you can get aarch64 Signal Desktop from Terra repository!

Too bad I can’t play the games I want to play on them

Hint : GE Force Now

ssshhhhh... do not tell anyone I told you...

It's horrible. Bad quality, bad latency, can't mod the games etc. And worse you have to pay for it when you already have a more than capable computer.

i wouldnt go as far to say "its horrible".

i would never recommend it to someone who otherwise has a capable computer, of course, but it really isnt that bad. i gave it a pretty thorough test out of curiosity, and when they sponsored a few streamers i watch, it was totally fine. with the caveat that you have a decent internet connection and its probably not good for twitchy games like counter strike.

and, as far as i know, there is limited support for modding and some unsupported workarounds.

And it works on the Vision Pro via the next update.

finally!!!

Can’t wait to try that and for the f1 stuff to come out.

I used Shadow PC for a long time. Never any issues over several years. Lots of reasons in preferred it over GeForce. I can expound on that later if needed

Is the computer in question really "more than capable" if it "can't play the games [you] want to play"?

I've used geforce now on my mac before and didn't have latency issues. I wasn't using it for any competitive games where you need ultrafast twitchy response, but I did use if for plenty of FPSes and never had any issues. And I don't have super fast internet, just the basic package from Spectrum. So I wouldn't say it's bad, though admittedly it might not be the best latency achievable in the gaming world.

You have to be joking, you don't own anything and enjoy your price hikes as people adopt it

What are you talking about? Geforce Now is specifically only playable with games you own.

No idea why you're down voted... I blissfully played cyberpunk 2077 for two years on GeforceNow. I still keep my membership even though I have a dedicated gaming pc now, for occasional laptop or living room pc use. It was beyond brilliant to play a hyper demanding game on a bare spec pc :-)

Mind you,I have gigabit internet. I don't know what the experience would be like on other types of internet / worldwide.

Crossover[1] is surprisingly good for this purpose if you game occasionally and don't need FPS-level responsiveness. You also need 3rd party software like LinearMouse and Mos to make a mouse usable.

[1]: https://www.codeweavers.com/crossover?srsltid=AfmBOor-7wbD-o...

I bought a Mac Mini in February and maxed out the ram and storage. Now, it seems like that was a prescient move, but honestly I really only bought it for photo editing and playing the new World of Warcraft expansion (don't judge me!).

Serious question: how does WoW still appeal to players except for habit social connections to keep them locked into the game? I used to spend nights and love the game, now, even with all these expansions it feels exactly like it was in 2006 but without what happened to the gaming world in the past 20 years.

It's still fun. The social connections are also hugely important to me. One of my characters is in the same active guild that I joined in 2006. It's hard to put into words how meaningful that is to me. The game has improved, the newly re-done Silvermoon City is beautiful and richly detailed, but you are right, in many ways it's the same game as 20+ years ago, except made more casual-friendly in a lot of ways. I like it and there really isn't anything else like it out there. ...and surprising to me, if you believe Blizzard, there are around 9 million people who still play.

Alright so I 100% understand you, and now I know I'm not totally crazy.

I think because I used to play on private servers, I don't have that long-standing connection to a group, which is probably what keeps many people still there. But yeah, I'd jump on a WoW 2 but the gameplay and quest system is so outdated that just doesn't give me good vibes anymore.

I don’t know. I still fire up FF14 every couple of weeks for a few dungeon runs. No more social interactions with the various channels, I barely talk to my party even.

I think it’s just familiarity and not wanting to learn a whole new system when I’m looking to shut my brain down for a couple hours.

You pay an $1k extra just to get the model with 1TB disk. How is that a steal?

pro tip: don't

Good Mac Pro models are still spendy, but the M3/M4 laptops are great if your software use-cases are met. =3

I’m still doing great even with an M2!

Still loving my M1 to be honest!

It’s super annoying. I’m salivating over all the new announcements but my M1 16GB 1TB will likely last another 5 years.

Same here. I've never had a machine feel so great for so long before!

The SSD don't last forever, after about 3 to 4 years of daily use the drive/system should be replaced. At >5 years, one could hit retention issues and corruption losses.

Good excuse to upgrade though, as a $1500 recovery bill would not be cool. Best regards =3

Never used a computer less than 8yrs and never had an ssd have an issue in that time.

This advice brought to you by the "change your oil every three months" crowd.

I removed my anecdote and flash wear explanation, because of cranky folks like yourself.

The corrosion inhibitors in petrol engine oil get fully depleted within about a year with most brands. One may certainly sell the machine before you see acidified lubricant related problems, but the motor will not reach its full operational lifespan ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bathtub_curve .)

I do agree that anyone with a CVT style transmission likely won't have to worry, as that entire section will probably need replaced before you see significant hydrodynamic bearing damage.

"Buy cheap, buy twice" as they say...

ymmv, best of luck. =3

As a side note, I absolutely cannot imagine being upset of having a machine lasting long.

Sure it's nice the shiny new thing but has capitalism infiltrated people's mind that much? All my previous laptops died on me several times and became frankestein's monsters before I let them rest for a final time (to be often repurposed to other family/friends' machines).

With intermittent use one may get a lot more life out of the SSD than other users, but eventually flash will run out of spare-sectors and start to fail.

Most M1 systems I saw use on-board BGA110 NAND flash, and thus maintenance/upgrades on the SSD are difficult. Most users don't have a hot air rework station or x-ray inspection machines to do this modification correctly.

The MTBF statistics can move around a lot depending on the use-case, but eventually people will run out of luck ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mean_time_between_failures .)

Not sure why people get upset by this fact, as not all Apple hardware models were built to be disposable. =3

The AMD395+ PCs have unified memory and since it's not tied to a garbage OS nor reasonably affected by future dram costs, it's a better choice for reasonable people, unless you're going for greater than 128GB

I mean they're still expensive, they just seem relatively good value because everything else has gotten more expensive.

Yeah, that's what @SlightlyLeftPad said.

All value is relative, so everything else getting more expensive is essentially the same as macs getting cheaper.

Just a matter of time until Apple also increases the price...

It's not the same, unless you are simultaneously also getting richer.

Other electronics have gotten more expensive, yes. But other hobbies haven't.

Not really a steal, just that the price differences have narrowed.

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