6 ms·

Most laptops are more or less in the same situation as M1. Maybe they different quantitatively, but not qualitatively: devices do not have (sufficient) specs av

Most laptops are more or less in the same situation as M1. Maybe they different quantitatively, but not qualitatively: devices do not have (sufficient) specs available and people need to reverse engineer them if you want to run any free OS on them. Yet people want to do that and often manage. Why is M1 different? What I really would like to see is hardware manufacturers (Apple and anybody else) releasing the specs, so that people are free to do whatever they want with the metal they buy. I might event consider appropriate a legislative intervention in this field.

xorcist 6y ago
Not all laptops. Regular stock Intel components, for example, have solid Linux support because Intel nowadays hire kernel developers to support them. Some even have upstream drivers before the hardware is even commercially available.
- waheoo 6y ago
  Yup found this remark super weird. Mac users seem to live under a rock or something. Got some weird idea that anything not a Mac must be windows like it's the 90s or something. Both AMD and Intel hardware supports Linux and wouldn't ship without it. NVIDIA is really the only hold out I this space.
  - udp 6y ago
    Anecdotal counterpoint: I bought a cheap Intel SoC laptop in 2019 thinking it would make a nice ultraportable writing machine. Things that it shipped without Linux support for: the trackpad, wifi, Bluetooth, and disk (eMMC controller). It just about works now with the latest kernel version and some manually compiled drivers, nearly two years later.
  - coldtea 6y ago
    >Both AMD and Intel hardware supports Linux and wouldn't ship without it. NVIDIA is really the only hold out I this space. So just the most important graphics vendor huh?
    - vinay427 6y ago
      It doesn't matter much for laptops which increasingly seem to depend on Intel/AMD integrated graphics, which are more capable than ever in laptops with more stringent size and power constraints. How many MacBooks sold have discrete graphics cards by any manufacturer? I'd like to see data on this but I couldn't find any relevant statistics after a bit of searching.
- giomasce 6y ago
  And that's great, but there is more in a laptop than Intel components. And you're not always lucky on that side.

xorcist 6y ago

Not all laptops. Regular stock Intel components, for example, have solid Linux support because Intel nowadays hire kernel developers to support them. Some even have upstream drivers before the hardware is even commercially available.

waheoo 6y ago
Yup found this remark super weird. Mac users seem to live under a rock or something. Got some weird idea that anything not a Mac must be windows like it's the 90s or something. Both AMD and Intel hardware supports Linux and wouldn't ship without it. NVIDIA is really the only hold out I this space.
- udp 6y ago
  Anecdotal counterpoint: I bought a cheap Intel SoC laptop in 2019 thinking it would make a nice ultraportable writing machine. Things that it shipped without Linux support for: the trackpad, wifi, Bluetooth, and disk (eMMC controller). It just about works now with the latest kernel version and some manually compiled drivers, nearly two years later.
- coldtea 6y ago
  >Both AMD and Intel hardware supports Linux and wouldn't ship without it. NVIDIA is really the only hold out I this space. So just the most important graphics vendor huh?
  - vinay427 6y ago
    It doesn't matter much for laptops which increasingly seem to depend on Intel/AMD integrated graphics, which are more capable than ever in laptops with more stringent size and power constraints. How many MacBooks sold have discrete graphics cards by any manufacturer? I'd like to see data on this but I couldn't find any relevant statistics after a bit of searching.
giomasce 6y ago
And that's great, but there is more in a laptop than Intel components. And you're not always lucky on that side.