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The Forgetful CPU (Linux on M4)

267 points · 203 comments · signa11

  1. PunchyHamster · · focus · HN ↗
    Weird to buy machine with company actively hostile to anything open to run open stuff
    1. inventor7777 · · focus · HN ↗
      Is Apple taking steps to purposefully blocking open stuff, or are they just pointedly ignoring it and continuing to develop new hardware? I am genuinely asking, I don't know myself.

      edit: speaking mostly about macOS here, mobile OSes are much more locked down

      1. lmz · · focus · HN ↗
        The fact that they still allow this would point towards the latter. They are quite capable of locking it down like they do the iPhones.
        1. londons_explore · · focus · HN ↗
          And I suspect they will lock it down in a year or two.

          It was only really open to ease the transition between intel and arm.

          1. musictubes · · focus · HN ↗
            Give it up. People have been predicting this for 15 years.

            You can’t have a development machine locked down like iOS. As long as the Mac is the development machine at apple it will need to be able to run arbitrary code.

            1. londons_explore · · focus · HN ↗
              It will still run arbitrary code... Within macos...

              But they'll remove support for other OS's

              1. GeekyBear · · focus · HN ↗
                The company making locked down laptops is Google.
              2. willy_k · · focus · HN ↗
                What support? Asahi had to fight to exist, especially early on when they essentially had to reimplement much of the graphics pipeline. And now its in mainline linux - short of a complete hostile lockdown of the bootloader, it’s not like they support other OS’s very much as is.
                1. londons_explore · · focus · HN ↗
                  Asahi appears to be dead. It wont even boot on anything apple released in the past 2 years.

                  Sure, their M1-M3 support is okay (as long as you're fine with no hibernate or sleep support, so have to plug in the laptop or risk losing all your open stuff), and it was a lot of work by lots of volunteers... But at this point it's starting to look more like a retrocomputing project. As time ticks on, it'll become less and less viable using an ancient laptop, especially if local AI becomes commonplace.

                  1. [deleted] · · focus · HN ↗

                    [deleted]

                  2. LoganDark · · focus · HN ↗
                    Wtf do you mean? They just enabled M3 in the official installer and they're working on M4 bringup too. Keep in mind it took them like 16 months to even support M1 at first. Then they supported M2 within a few months, then M3 threw in a wrench that they're still working on, but there is no evidence of death at all, just a lot of work left to do.
                    1. londons_explore · · focus · HN ↗
                      M4 has no support and was released in May 2024, over 2 years ago, and looks at least a year from usability - doesn't yet boot. M5 also has no support. M6 also has no support.
                      1. LoganDark · · focus · HN ↗
                        I did say they're working on M4 bringup, which means it doesn't boot yet, yes. I don't see how that means they're "dead" though. Or that they'll never catch up ever. In fact, the very recent progress in this area suggests the exact opposite.
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