This project is impressive but I wonder if those efforts would not have been better spent on an open platform that actually respects its users and that is less likely to kill the whole project on a whim. It seems like building a house on someone's else property.
I use MacBook anyway, this project brings open platform to my MacBook, I'm happy with that. I guess many people have the same situation like me. I don't use other laptop because their hardwares aren't comparable to MacBook.
>I don't use other laptop because their hardwares aren't comparable to MacBook.
Yes, because being non repairable, being non upgradable, having early thermal throttling due to subar cooling, and having a mediocre keyboard is SO much better than anything else that is out there.
I swear, the blatant lies that come out of supposed Mac fans on HN is almost like Apple is astroturfing this forum with shill accounts. Whats next, you are going to tell me that your Macbook is great for local LLM usage because 10 tok/sec while your laptop gets too hot to use on your lap and makes your fingers hot is all that anyone needs?
Many of the problems aren't cracked whatsoever. For instance, Apple Silicon's PSCI power management interface is a mystery. PSCI code exists in other Linux devicetrees, but nobody knows how Apple implements theirs. So for the better half of a decade, Asahi users have relied on a hack to prevent their battery from draining constantly. We still don't have any prospective solutions, to my knowledge.
This is the weal-and-woe of reverse engineering. It's awesome that these machines now have native Vulkan 1.2 drivers, but it took years to get there. There are still unsolved problems 7 years after Apple Silicon hit shelves, and most newer hardware is broadly unsupported. The lesson here is a reiteration of what Linux users have always said - proprietary drivers suck.
Apple's PSCI interface is not a mystery, and there is perfect knowledge on how it is implemented. It isn't. Which is the actual problem, Linux wants PSCI, Apple platforms do not have it.
marcan addressed this early on in the project, arguing that Intel platforms including some of those advocated for by the FSF are less open and more at risk of upstream abuse in some very significant ways.
> For example intel systems (and Android) run resident supervisor code you can't get rid of, and that can do remotely initiated updates you have no control over. That's not so on Apple silicon.
The Oxide Computer folks wrote their own AMD boot loader and have an entire chain of trust and apparently (?) basically got rid of the supervisor code (Ring -2 and -3). They also have custom motherboards with third-party BMCs.
What good does that bring if Apple shuts down the project?
Also, I don't believe Apple has no backdoors and such. They basically made it impossible to be root on your iPhone, so you don't think they have a almighty-super-superuser mode on their laptops that only they can use? Wishful thinking if you ask me.
Apple could also support open standards like UEFI/dt/acpi. Asahi uses lots of workarounds (including pretending to be MacOS) to be even able to boot the linux kernel. This would projects such as Asahi a lot easier and more reliable.
These people are singlehandedly saving _millions_ of laptops from going to the landfill one day. That's a valiant effort and they're doing it wonderfully. Regardless, one of the points of Linux is to install it on as much hardware as possible. Do you think people that managed to get it installed on iPods, PS5s, Wiis, Chromebooks, routers, Nintendo Switches, etc. should all stop just because they're doing something unsupported? Most of those cases were met with friction by the original OEM. If anything, Apple has been pretty laissez faire about the whole thing compared to Nintendo and Sony who will ban your console if you hack it.
Those laptops don't need to go to any landfill. They are much too precious to not recycle the metals and other materials and will be taken care of if you return them to the manufacturer. (by law, at least in the EU)
Yeah should they design their own computer chips? And do literally everything need for such a platform. That is literally 10000x the effort. There is no change the same group of people could create such an open solution. Hardware is just much harder in so many ways and no comparable OpenPlatform exists.
This project is impressive but I wonder if those efforts would not have been better spent on an open platform that actually respects its users and that is less likely to kill the whole project on a whim. It seems like building a house on someone's else property.
I use MacBook anyway, this project brings open platform to my MacBook, I'm happy with that. I guess many people have the same situation like me. I don't use other laptop because their hardwares aren't comparable to MacBook.
>I don't use other laptop because their hardwares aren't comparable to MacBook.
Yes, because being non repairable, being non upgradable, having early thermal throttling due to subar cooling, and having a mediocre keyboard is SO much better than anything else that is out there.
I swear, the blatant lies that come out of supposed Mac fans on HN is almost like Apple is astroturfing this forum with shill accounts. Whats next, you are going to tell me that your Macbook is great for local LLM usage because 10 tok/sec while your laptop gets too hot to use on your lap and makes your fingers hot is all that anyone needs?
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Almost no hardware is open anyway. Plus all of the hard problems have been solved on typical pc hardware.
Many of the problems aren't cracked whatsoever. For instance, Apple Silicon's PSCI power management interface is a mystery. PSCI code exists in other Linux devicetrees, but nobody knows how Apple implements theirs. So for the better half of a decade, Asahi users have relied on a hack to prevent their battery from draining constantly. We still don't have any prospective solutions, to my knowledge.
This is the weal-and-woe of reverse engineering. It's awesome that these machines now have native Vulkan 1.2 drivers, but it took years to get there. There are still unsolved problems 7 years after Apple Silicon hit shelves, and most newer hardware is broadly unsupported. The lesson here is a reiteration of what Linux users have always said - proprietary drivers suck.
Apple's PSCI interface is not a mystery, and there is perfect knowledge on how it is implemented. It isn't. Which is the actual problem, Linux wants PSCI, Apple platforms do not have it.
Case in point. Devicetree drivers make this much harder than ACPI (say what you will about ACPI) and there's no documentation that fills the gap.
Is this something like Fable can help with?
This is something that documentation would help with. Fable doesn't know anything that human engineers don't.
[flagged]
marcan addressed this early on in the project, arguing that Intel platforms including some of those advocated for by the FSF are less open and more at risk of upstream abuse in some very significant ways.
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29307377
> For example intel systems (and Android) run resident supervisor code you can't get rid of, and that can do remotely initiated updates you have no control over. That's not so on Apple silicon.
The Oxide Computer folks wrote their own AMD boot loader and have an entire chain of trust and apparently (?) basically got rid of the supervisor code (Ring -2 and -3). They also have custom motherboards with third-party BMCs.
Could something similar be done on Intel?
2 replies →
What good does that bring if Apple shuts down the project?
Also, I don't believe Apple has no backdoors and such. They basically made it impossible to be root on your iPhone, so you don't think they have a almighty-super-superuser mode on their laptops that only they can use? Wishful thinking if you ask me.
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> last time I looked at the schematics for one of those
When was the last time they looked at the schematics for one of the Apple machines? Oh, wait.
These efforts will also save a lot of old macbooks from the landfill in the future.
What do you mean? You mean not on Apple hardware? That exists, that's basically every other Linux distro in existence.
Apple could also support open standards like UEFI/dt/acpi. Asahi uses lots of workarounds (including pretending to be MacOS) to be even able to boot the linux kernel. This would projects such as Asahi a lot easier and more reliable.
And I'm not even talking about drivers
7 replies →
These people are singlehandedly saving _millions_ of laptops from going to the landfill one day. That's a valiant effort and they're doing it wonderfully. Regardless, one of the points of Linux is to install it on as much hardware as possible. Do you think people that managed to get it installed on iPods, PS5s, Wiis, Chromebooks, routers, Nintendo Switches, etc. should all stop just because they're doing something unsupported? Most of those cases were met with friction by the original OEM. If anything, Apple has been pretty laissez faire about the whole thing compared to Nintendo and Sony who will ban your console if you hack it.
Those laptops don't need to go to any landfill. They are much too precious to not recycle the metals and other materials and will be taken care of if you return them to the manufacturer. (by law, at least in the EU)
2 replies →
Yeah should they design their own computer chips? And do literally everything need for such a platform. That is literally 10000x the effort. There is no change the same group of people could create such an open solution. Hardware is just much harder in so many ways and no comparable OpenPlatform exists.