r/linux • u/wickedplayer494 • 1d ago

Hardware Linux 7.4 To Introduce Initial Device Trees For Apple M4, A18 Pro For MacBook Neo

https://www.phoronix.com/news/Linux-7.4-Apple-Device-Trees
666 Upvotes

98% Upvoted

100 comments sorted by

88

u/HomsarWasRight 1d ago

I’m glad that people are making the Mac work with Linux. But what I’d kill for is Linux on the iPad.

Probably not going to happen, but a man can dream.

35

u/BrightFoundation4864 1d ago

I believe there is some work being done on the older A-series chips vulnerable to checkra1n. If you’re fine with older devices, it should eventually be a thing

7

u/HappyAd4998 1d ago

would need a boot loader exploit then someone putting enough effort into porting it

6

u/plugcurve 23h ago

Genuine question - why would someone want to run linux on a mac or an iPad?

28

u/New_Enthusiasm9053 21h ago

Their arm laptops have some of the best battery life on the market with pretty competitive pricing these days for the quality(though still anti repairability). 

The hardware is good and the OS is not so why wouldn't you want to put Linux on it.

4

u/_TheProStar_ 19h ago

and 2nd hand the pricing is not even that bad. 

2

u/Forever_Playful 21h ago

Intel’s latest panther lake cpu seems to finally close that gap

4

u/New_Enthusiasm9053 21h ago

Whilst true you can't buy them 2nd hand yet. They're also still not as efficient under load so for compiling etc not as great but yeah anyone who's laptop is mostly idle can use panther lake for sure. 

Even then though the M3 air 16gb model is frequently $999 new which is cheap compared to any decent quality panther lake laptop. 

A thinkpad t series will typically cost more new especially with a new gen CPU.

1

u/global-gauge-field 13h ago edited 13h ago

I dont have how did you arrive at this claim about 2nd but. Here, quick looking at turkish market store for second hand laptops gives me this. Maybe, not as avaiable as mac laptops would be a better claim.

-https://www.sahibinden.com/ilan/ikinci-el-ve-sifir-alisveris-bilgisayar-dizustu-notebook-asus-expertbook-ultra-x7-358h-64gb-1tb-1340545024/detay

1

u/New_Enthusiasm9053 13h ago

You can't check that site outside turkey without signing in, but if you can find them then that's great. Last place I went too only had 1-2 gen back so no 3rd gen ultras. But that's good to hear, eventually they'll come through.

Sure, less available probably was the better wording.

1

u/DMNCS 14h ago

I've been really impressed with Intel's latest offerings. Even lunar lake was close enough in battery life, though it's performance isn't great.

1

u/nightblackdragon 11h ago

They reduced the gap but not quite closed it. Macbook Air have no active cooling at all but it can handle a lot of work without throttling. There is nothing really comparable to that in the x86 world.

2

u/TheAfricanViewer 20h ago

What’s wrong with the OS

6

u/New_Enthusiasm9053 20h ago

No proper tiling window manager is a big one.(yes you can snap and move stuff but you can do that on all OS'). 

I also just don't like their UIs, I don't need a million animations just open the fucking thing.

Mostly though there's no value. Sure it mostly does the same as the other OS' but why would I waste time learning the details of another OS when I can just not and use Linux. I don't want to fuck about when I get home with something that's different for no real reason. 

3

u/WalkMaximum 18h ago

not free (as in freedom)

1

u/donjulioanejo 13h ago

It's not restricted, though? You have full admin on your computer. Just have to use the terminal and some arcane commands to change settings that aren't in system settings, but that's the same as on Linux.

5

u/WalkMaximum 13h ago

you can't review the source code of the system components, nor modify them, if apple decides to spy on you or shove it full of ads there's not much you can do

1

u/donjulioanejo 13h ago

you can't review the source code of the system components, nor modify them

And do you personally actually do that? 99% of people using Linux don't.

1

u/WalkMaximum 13h ago

the point isn't that you will do it personally, but that it's possible and someone will do it, and find the spying code, or remove the ads for you (if that ever happened on linux)

1

u/WldHunt 9h ago

Window management mostly. Moving fullscreen windows (such as video playback) to a separate desktop yields the video playing in background if one opens a window on the same screen, and there are apps that blatantly ignore the screen they're supposed to open on - such as Firefox opens on primary screen most of the time if it was maximized. Also you can't click to minimize on dock, and window dodge functionality would go a long way. Granted, this is solvable with third-party apps, but installing a separate app for a feature that every other desktop has out of the box is counterproductive.

Having said that, Aqua with a proper window management would be goat. If vanilla macOS can match Gnome with DashToDock, this would be a massive improvement, I'm not even talking about Plasma with its WM scripts or Hyprland and such.

1

u/plscallmebyname 15h ago

Can't run macos headless.

2

u/New_Enthusiasm9053 15h ago

Can't run it easily in CI either self hosted. I don't want to use an OS that makes it hard to test code I write. 

And I've had people get mad at me for claiming that but even GitHub Actions charge 10x of a Linux runner so it's clearly the case that even large corporations struggle with running MacOS in CI easily. 

1

u/notthatsocrates 11h ago

The battery life is not just the hardware. It's the hardware plus an OS that knows how to drive it into its deepest low-power states, whether idle or suspended. Linux has to reimplement all of that for each chip, and until it does, the battery life you paid for stays behind on macOS. I see it on my XPS 13 with a Snapdragon X Elite: excellent battery life on Windows, much worse on Linux. Apple silicon has the same problem, and Apple publishes no documentation, so everything has to be reverse-engineered.

2

u/New_Enthusiasm9053 10h ago

It's still good battery life compared to alternative laptops simply because the processors inherited significant low power heritage with wide pipelines and are on cutting edge TSMC nodes usually a year or two before AMD(or even Intel for those they manufacture on tsmc). 

But sure. It'd be a bit worse. Still good though.

1

u/notthatsocrates 10h ago edited 10h ago

During normal operations, I see your point. During sleep... ouch.

EDIT: Actually, I have the numbers for my Dell XPS 13, Snapdragon X1E801000: under light ops 6.9-7.2W. S3-like sleep is 1.2W. Windows Energy Star report shows 0.6W for this exact model.

1

u/New_Enthusiasm9053 10h ago

It's not like they're not reverse engineering that stuff. Checking idle power isn't inherently hard so it's pretty obvious if their baseline is roughly the same.

But yeah if they haven't gotten around to it it's not done yet. But I can understand why people want Linux on Mac but that sorta implies it's properly implemented to a degree. 

11

u/fake_agent_smith 22h ago

My iPad is just amazing for ebooks, it’s one of my favorite things to do after a long day to just lay down and read a chapter or two on it. But it’s not going to get iPadOS 27 and will soon-ish go eol while being a perfectly good device I could keep using for years if I could get security updates. Also one of the last software updates made it somewhat slow and less responsive than it originally was.

-4

u/Cry_Wolff 17h ago

You don't need latest OS to read books though.

4

u/xour 18h ago

I own a MacBook M1 Pro, which is the best laptop I have used. The user ergonomics are one of the worst experiences I have had with a computer.

I spent several hours trying to make it look and feel like my Linux computers (Arch and CachyOS + Niri/Noctalia on both of them).

Honestly, if I could get everything to work well and smoothly on my Mac (same battery life, screen resolution/quality, sound, etc), I would completely wipe macOS in favor of Linux

1

u/donjulioanejo 13h ago

Why, though? I find OS UX the best part of Mac OS. The only Linux GUI that came close was Unity, but, well, Canonical deprecated that in favour of a half-baked Gnome distribution that still has visual and control glitches despite decades of development.

My only complaint is Finder - Windows explorer is better. Linux ones are somewhere in the middle.

2

u/xour 13h ago

I honestly find OS UX the worst, by a mile. It is clunky, limited and VERY mouse driven. I very much favor the use of my keyboard's home row to interact with my system, and Linux gives me the freedom to customize the UI/UX to my liking.

I also don't appreciate the amount of crap that gets installed by default, and how little control you have over various settings out of the box.

1

u/donjulioanejo 11h ago

Fair. I treat computers/OS installs as near-disposable (i.e. only the data matters), so I want it to work well out of the box with minimum tweaking.

For me, however, a big thing is software compatibility. Linux works well for dev tools, but not much else. I can't run Adobe on it (I do a lot of photography), a lot of regular/commercial tools only run Windows/Mac (i.e. Office if you need it), and a lot of other things simply don't work that well (i.e. streaming video on Netflix/etc you don't get full quality, Zoom is extremely slow and buggy, etc).

Also Mac shortcuts like Cmd-C are way easier to type than Windows/Linux ones and don't interfere with native terminal commands. What's easier, Cmd-C/Cmd-V, or Ctrl-Shift-C/Ctrl-Shift-V? For most people it's the first.

3

u/stronkbiceps 17h ago

As a developer I love the hardware Apple makes and have a Macbook for work.

At the same time I hate it cause I can't customize shit without disabling SIP and it doesn't even support proper containerization (it literally runs a Linux VM if you do anything docker related... Fills up a big chunk of the outrageously expensive storage).

There's a lot of stuff that Linux does better than macOS and I would gladly dual boot them.

I also have an iPad Pro, mostly as a second screen for my DAW. It has great technical specs, but iPad OS is a kids toy. It's truly a waste of the hardware running mobile apps on it as opposed to making it more akin to Macbook running desktop apps.

1

u/donjulioanejo 13h ago

and it doesn't even support proper containerization (it literally runs a Linux VM if you do anything docker related

Err, old news. Orbstack runs native. Apple's new container runtime (not sure if it's out yet or not) runs native as well.

1

u/stronkbiceps 13h ago

That’s not the same though.

1

u/donjulioanejo 13h ago

It is for any and all dev work you would do. The only difference is, you're running ARM containers, but.. you would do that on Linux on M-series Macs anyway if people get it working.

1

u/stronkbiceps 13h ago

You'll need to check again to what level macOS actually implement containerization. AFAIK both Apple's 'native' container runtime as well as Orbstack still run in VMs, they just go about it a bit smarter than Docker Desktop does.

It's still containerization through a Linux VM.

Not to mention any feature gaps you'll find VS Apple's native container runtime, or any edge cases / minor behavioural differences when you try to replace your Docker setup with either. (port forwarding, filesystem handling... although I'll give you that for Orbstack those differences are mostly bugs that might have already been ironed out since last time i tried it)

1

u/donjulioanejo 12h ago

You'll need to check again to what level macOS actually implement containerization. AFAIK both Apple's 'native' container runtime as well as Orbstack still run in VMs, they just go about it a bit smarter than Docker Desktop does.

Does it actually matter, though, if performance is native/near-native?

Not to mention any feature gaps you'll find VS Apple's native container runtime, or any edge cases / minor behavioural differences when you try to replace your Docker setup with either.

Which doesn't really matter because 90% chance your app is going to run in Kubernetes, ECS, or on a similar platform once it hits production. They all have their own quirks and handling.

Docker on your local is pretty much just there to run a bare-bones version of the app while abstracting away OS and runtime level dependencies.

7

u/wowsomuchempty 19h ago

I like mac hardware.

I loathe mac OS.

I love Linux.

The machines will be supported at least a decade after Apple drop support.

5

u/throwaway49164 20h ago

why not? it's ridiculous how these iPads have m series chips and are basically glorified youtube watching machines

1

u/Kat-in-pajamas 10h ago

Apple creates really interesting hardware, but Mac OS just has gotten in the way of its self in last 10 plus years. Also all of UI is flat, basic and stale. The OS is rather slow and they do zero optimizations for older year models.

1

u/matjoeman 2h ago

I have an old iPad mini that isn't getting support anymore.

2

u/WinResponsible9977 21h ago

What I killed is fucking compute acceleration via thunderbolt for eGPU in arm Mac’s with Linux.

1

u/SnappyChunck 20h ago

Same, but you can at least run MacOS via Virtual Mac on Ipad tough this only works on a few specific versions. But maybe its possible to so the same with Linux

179

u/UnluckyDouble 1d ago

Device tree work is often overlooked, but it can be one of the biggest barriers to porting Linux precisely because no one wants to do it. Let's continue to liberate Apple hardware from overpriced FreeBSD.

32

u/Laufabraud43 14h ago

overpriced FreeBSD

Finally, PaidBSD.

3

u/ThinDrum 10h ago

overpriced FreeBSD

How much do you pay for your FreeBSD?

1

u/UnluckyDouble 9h ago

Nothing, because I don't use the version with Apple branding on it.

Actual FreeBSD running on Macs would also be nice, but I don't know if it's possible.

8

u/ThinDrum 9h ago

Nothing, because I don't use the version with Apple branding on it.

While Darwin is partly derived from FreeBSD, it is highly misleading to say that Darwin is a version of FreeBSD.

38

u/No_Practice_9597 1d ago

FreeBSD and macOS are free 

78

u/ohaiibuzzle 23h ago

macOS is only free in the sense that you can download it for free. The cost of the OS is actually attached to the cost of the Mac you purchased as the only way to legitimately get it is through Mac App Store on a real Mac.

39

u/just_here_for_place 23h ago

Well yeah, but if you want to put Linux on it you also need to buy the hardware.

2

u/No_Practice_9597 22h ago

Yeah but the Linux for apple silicon will have the same cost … I was replying someone saying “liberate apple hardware “

25

u/RealModeX86 22h ago

Free as in libre and free as in cost are two different things.

With MacOS, you're beholden to however Apple decides the system should work, and subject to whatever end-of-life date they decide on for your hardware. The "walled garden". In exchange, the expensive gadgets they sell will generally work well together.

On Linux, you don't have that. If you don't like how a particular distro works, you can move to a different one or change how it works. But of course, depending on what you want to do, you might have to tinker a bit.

There are advantages and disadvantages to both approaches.

Having more choice is a good thing, and having a viable way to use it after Apple's EOL reduces e-waste. So yes, liberate Apple hardware.

7

u/dingwinger1225 22h ago

Yes but “overpriced” which is what the original comment says doesn’t refer to free as in freedom

That said, totally agree, if nothing else this keeps Macs out of landfills when Apple decides they’ve had enough

1

u/ShotgunShine7094 16h ago

Free as in libre and free as in cost are two different things.

True, but we are obviously talking about cost. The original comment was about "overpriced FreeBSD".

1

u/aidencoder 20h ago

You can run it in a VM iirc

1

u/ohaiibuzzle 17h ago edited 15h ago

That's because the Apple license do allow up to two (2) VMs instances of macOS running at the same time on real Mac hardware.

It's why in the Intel days you can only run macOS on a real Mac officially, as virtualization programs has to pulls the SMC keys to decrypt the OS. Anything else uses FakeSMC which is technically piracy.

-7

u/[deleted] 23h ago

[deleted]

2

u/Zaev 22h ago

They're talking about MacOS, which is BSD-based

-3

u/[deleted] 22h ago

[deleted]

2

u/derpface360 22h ago

You’re misunderstanding. They’re calling MacOS an overpriced version of FreeBSD.

25

u/blackhawk00001 20h ago

My only complaint about my m4 air is that it runs Mac OS, but it’s better than windows. Linux would make it the perfect little machine.

4

u/sCeege 17h ago

I feel like post Lunar Lake and Strix Halo, x86 laptops running Linux are just as good as macOS is on Macbooks. If you don't like macOS, there are tons of thin and light X86 platforms to choose from nowadays with the same performance/efficiency profile.

2

u/owenthewizard 16h ago edited 13h ago

I don't see how x86 can ever win. It's like a carburetor trying to compete with internal combustion EFI.

3

u/sCeege 15h ago

I think that's true in 2021, but I don't think it's true now. The original Apple silicon release was a wake up call, and Intel really caught up. Plus all the form factors that arm64 enabled were unbeatable back then, but again, all the __Lake series are pretty amazing right now, there's good choices in all budget ranges now that Apple raised their price again.

I have an 185H in my laptop with Ubuntu and it's amazing, especially now that S3 sleep is finally smooth, I find the mobile experience on par with my MBP.

In any event, I think if you buy a Macbook, you should enjoy macOS, it's kind of the point. Obviously I support doing what you like with your own devices, I just think Linux is really enjoyable on the newer x86 stuff that there's no reason to struggle with Asahi.

1

u/owenthewizard 15h ago

Are there viable arm64 options today? I checked last year or around there and nothing was viable at all for Linux, and only somewhat viable for Windows. You could technically run Linux but half the shit wouldn't work, e.g. sleep, power management, camera, ... anything other than "it boots" essentially.

1

u/sCeege 14h ago

Not that I'm tracking. Lenovo offers full support for Linux for their ARM laptops, but the price tags are huge.

I had high hopes for snapdragon but as usual, over promise and under deliver. There was a X2 announcement last week, but at this point I think it's just too late.

2

u/fryfrog 13h ago

You should edit "internal combustion" to "fuel injection". :)

1

u/InstanceTurbulent719 9h ago

In any case Microsoft already shot themselves in the foot. Windows for ARM will never have good software support and the good hardware from qualcomm came too late to compete for the average consumer

1

u/blackhawk00001 12h ago

If I had to buy a new laptop now it would likely be an LPCAMM2 framework. The fanless design of the air is part of what drove me to buy it and I needed something last year before prices took off. I've had too many laptops that scream under load and I'm using it to terminal into my linux machines from around the house. Going back and forth can get confusing at times but it works ok if I avoid mice and large screens.

1

u/sCeege 11h ago

fanless design

Fair enough. Fanless cooling is something really unique to apple silicon, I'll give it that. I'm on the other end of the curve with a 64GB M1 Max MBP lol, I wanted the M5 MBP, but just not at the current price trends, jfc. Maybe they'll come back down by the time M6/M7 comes out.

1

u/TheIncarnated 4h ago

I've had Linux Laptops, Windows Laptops, I got a M4 Max over a year ago. I don't see myself doing any other laptop but Mac moving forward.

I am looking forward to the MacBook Ultra for the M7. But anyways... Linux is great, especially on Thinkpads but battery life, sound, screen. Since they moved away from external batteries, it's been harder to buy the laptops and expect anything to be done away from the wall.

I wouldn't want Linux on a MacBook either. Already have a proper shell. I would definitely do the new Arm laptops with Linux otherwise, they crunch through data so quickly

•

u/sCeege 23m ago

Well, never say never and all that. I've had at least two Macs continuously for little over a decade, and I would say the desktop UX and their core design on hardware has been top notch, but they're always a secondary device to me, how Apple and Microsoft constantly update their OS just provides an inconsistent experience when you have a multi OS household. Up to the RAMagedon, I've been fortunate enough to buy a new laptop every year or so, usually a different brand each time, and the gap in build quality is basically non existent imo, I find at the mid price range, Windows OEM laptops are just as good as Macbooks.

I think Apple Silicon was a big step forward, but all the -Lakes and -Halo chips have caught up now. MacOS is the best shell experience out of the box, agree, but since I've been customizing my own Hyprland setups, that gap has also closed for me.

•

u/TheIncarnated 19m ago

Didn't say never ;)

And I can see Lake and Halo making waves but even still, I think ARM is going to get more interesting. X86 has ran its course. There is only so much to be done there

•

u/sCeege 15m ago

definitely rooting for ARM! I was really disappointed with the whole snapdragon situation, I really hope we see another player enter the race on a serious footing (I feel like the Snapdragon X/X2 laptops are novelties atm). Off in the long long distance, there's also RISC-V.

•

u/TheBendit 1m ago

It's just a pain to find something with a decent screen, and when you do, it costs more than the MacBook

-8

u/funforgiven 17h ago

it runs Mac OS, but it’s better than windows.

Can't agree with that. Tons of unnecessary animations, trying to sleep at every opportunity when on battery, the dumbest keyboard layout/input handling I've ever seen, I couldn't get any mouse to work the way I wanted even after disabling acceleration, and dozens of other reasons I can't even recall right now. Even Windows is better than this shit.

9

u/nononoitsfine 16h ago

It’s a different paradigm, and the Microsoft one is far more hostile to its users than MacOS imo

1

u/funforgiven 8h ago

A lot of its opinionated defaults actively fight how I want to use my computer, and it often gives me fewer ways to change them. To me, that's much more hostile.

6

u/BiDude1219 17h ago

the one thing that may make me buy a neo

5

u/epicnicity 15h ago

Imagine linux running on an iPhone 16 Pro Max (it has the same cpu as macbook neo)

1

u/ThinDrum 10h ago

Imagine a Beowulf cluster of them!

15

u/Afraid_Butterfly_270 1d ago

Getting Linux to run on Apple hardware is a huge step forward. Device tree support and hardware-specific drivers may not be the most visible part of Linux development, but they're essential for making everything work properly.

Hopefully, we'll see more developers contributing to these efforts and better Linux support for Apple Silicon in the future. It's great to see progress like this!

-5

u/[deleted] 22h ago

[deleted]

12

u/PrismNexus 22h ago

Maybe, but can you provide any examples of other machines with the same build quality? I’ve really struggled to find a laptop with the power to actually do stuff that has a metal chassis, haptic trackpad, insanely good speakers, etc etc. more goes into laptops beyond the obvious specs

4

u/Paria_Stark 21h ago

It's quite annoying to get your hands on it, but having received my framework 13 pro, it is quite literally almost everything you ask for.

The one factor it really lags behind a MBP is speakers and single core performance, but nobody can match the M chips today. In terms of build quality I have been blown away. Still expensive though unfortunately, especially with the fucked up ram market.

3

u/KoolKat5000 21h ago

That competes with a normal MacBook not a neo.

-1

u/Mats164 22h ago

I’ve recently got a Samsung Book6 Pro for that very reason and I’m loving it so far! It ticks all the boxes!

1

u/KoolKat5000 21h ago

Competes with a MacBook pro not a neo.

2

u/Mats164 19h ago

My bad, I must’ve misinterpreted the original commenter! I thought they meant non-Apple laptops with the same build quality, but yes, the Book6 pro is unreasonably expensive.

-3

u/[deleted] 22h ago

[deleted]

3

u/PrismNexus 22h ago edited 22h ago

I have a zbook for some dev stuff and not really a fan. Machine doesn’t really feel nice, trackpad sucks.

I see thinkpads have a metal option in the Z line but doesn’t appear to have a dGPU so no demanding games.

0

u/[deleted] 22h ago

[deleted]

3

u/PrismNexus 22h ago

Yes, but unfortunately Dell has completely stopped including dGPU options in their XPS line. Otherwise I do like the XPS laptops. These laptops also have very similar pricing to MacBooks when you compare spec to spec so it’s not a good example of MacBooks being overpriced

1

u/[deleted] 22h ago

[deleted]

3

u/PrismNexus 22h ago

Framework has pretty bad build quality… also from what I hear their software support is pretty trash, at least for Windows. I know a lot of their devs personally use Linux

1

u/[deleted] 22h ago

[deleted]

3

u/PrismNexus 22h ago

Took a look, there is zero option for a dGPU. So this can only appeal to web browser users or devs whose workloads be done on a thin n light.

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4

u/marrone12 22h ago

They still have best in class processors for thermal efficiency and total processing power. Also great screens, aluminum chassis, and the best track pads. You might not care about all of those things, but in their category they have no real competition

1

u/ansibleloop 22h ago

I agree, however in my case my laptop I had for just shy of 10 years died and I needed a new laptop to last me 10 years with great build quality, excellent battery life and a nice screen

MacBook Air just ticked the boxes for me - £1100 for a refurbished unit that I'll keep for the next decade

And because it's actually a nice laptop I just naturally want to use it more

-7

u/Flashy_Pollution_996 17h ago

macOS > Linux

For productivity