So Apple strategy seems to be to commit as little resources as possible to their products knowing that "open source" developers will do their work for free thus Apple will not have to pay extra salaries and taxes? I don't understand why people bother working for free to e.g. run Linux or even write a GPU driver? I get this is a nice developer challenge, and being involved with Apple stuff is still being seen as "cool", but why don't those developers actually support some truly open source projects instead of helping filthy rich company for nothing?
> So Apple strategy seems to be to commit as little resources as possible to their products knowing that "open source" developers will do their work for free thus Apple will not have to pay extra salaries and taxes?
Apple has no Linux strategy. Nobody is working for Apple for free. People are working on their own time (or supporting the project with their own money) because they want to see this happen.
There is no skin in this for Apple either way.
What I don't understand is why people insist on criticizing a project which won't fundamentally affect them at all. Having Linux on Mac isn't going to hurt you and stands to benefit the community as a whole.
While the GPU port is unlikely to benefit others, it's very likely some of the other work will. Any improvements to the Broadcom drivers will be useful for the entire community. Improvements and optimizations to ARM64 support will likewise benefit the whole community.
Really tired of the mis-directed zealots who think they have the right to tell other people where to direct their time and energy.
macOS comes with a free built in hypervisor for running things in VMs. That's how Linux is supported. (Although I guess not if you want to use the GPU.)
Maybe because ... those developers want to use Linux on hardware they bought and own instead of the built-in operating system? The developers are helping themselves, not Apple.
Apple could save some money by selling bare metal M1's without an OS installed, but then it might get into the hands of people who want a "cheaper Mac but your hacker friend can get it working" and it would damage their brand, so I see why they don't do it.
Well, is this M1 really _that_ good to commit considerable amount of time into it instead of working on something more meaningful or benefitting ones personal life more? Are they able to make a commercial product out of it?
Unless it gives the person the same kick as fishing or building Lego - but these hobbies don't have a side effect of filling the pockets of a big co.
The idea about "cheaper Mac" is weak, because you can already buy a cheap Mac - it's not going to be the latest gen, but let's take into account that Intel has not made big progress in the last couple of years and then M1 is actually on the affordable side.
Isn't actually more damaging to their brand that they don't support their products that will benefit professional users and that they rely on people doing work for free and thus Apple is avoiding paying fair share?
> Well, is this M1 really _that_ good to commit considerable amount of time into it instead of working on something more meaningful or benefitting ones personal life more?
M1 is an ARM chip that's up there with Intel desktop PCs. That's awesome. It's possibly the real beginning of the end of the effective Wintel monopoly on personal computing and if we are going to continue to have Linux on hardware that's not locked-down phones it needs to happen. I'd certainly put my effort there if I had the skill.
> Isn't actually more damaging to their brand that they don't support their products that will benefit professional users and that they rely on people doing work for free and thus Apple is avoiding paying fair share?
Apple has $100 billion in cash. Whatever they are doing now, is working.
This is like building a house on a swamp. Without official Linux support, Apple can pull the plug anytime.
It's likely what is going to happen is that eventually a viable open source project emerges that Apple didn't pay anyone to build and then they will announce how they embrace open source and tell their own developers to contribute few lines for PR.
> Whatever they are doing now, is working.
If you are using child labour, avoid taxes, use anti-competitive measures, make stuff deliberately difficult to repair and easy to break and then have money to shut any politicians willing to look into their shady business then yes it is definitely working.
It's not about helping Apple. The M1 beats every x86 CPU in absolute single threaded performance, as well as multicore performance per watt. Hopefully AMD will close the gap (I don't have much hope for Intel), but for now it's an extremely attractive target for Linux.
The M1 beats every old x86 CPU in single threaded performance.
The M1 is slower in single threaded performance than any AMD Zen 3 CPU at 4.8 GHz or higher clock frequency and also slower than any Intel Tiger Lake or Rocket Lake CPU at 5.0 GHz or higher clock frequency.
For example the maximum recorded single-thread Geekbench 5 score for M1 is 1753, while Ryzen 9 59xx score above 1800 and up to 1876. The first Rocket Lake record at 5.3 GHz is 1896, but it is expected that it will score better than that, above 1900.
In benchmarks that unlike GB5 focus more on computational performance in optimized programs, Intel/AMD have an even greater advantage in ST performance than above. (For example, in gmpbench even the old Ryzen 7 3700X beats Apple M1, even when using on Apple a libgmp that was tuned specifically for M1.)
What is true is that Apple M1 is much faster (on average) in ST than any non-overclocked CPU launched before mid 2020.
I just want to say, I think we should also stop treating "performance/watt" as a mere "mobility" issue. It's also about the future of this planet and human survival. It's never okay to blow away energy, when we got alternatives.
I hope the M1 will bring a change to computation in general..
