Re:The 13-Inch MacBook Air
by nixpulvis on Saturday July 16, 2022 @07:55AM
(#32117186)
This comment shouldn't be downvoted. People have just forgotten what a general purpose computer is. We used to take much more pride and spend a lot more effort making hardware cross compatible with each other. It was never perfect, but more and more these days we seem to be given vendor locked, non-general devices.
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By all accounts, a brand new m1/m2 mac is a general purpose computer. It allows arbitrary execution of code, it can be used generally for multiple purposes. This is contrast to special purpose computers, who were designed specifically for a computational task and cannot perform tasks of "general purpose." A Raspberry Pi, a Vic-20, an Apple II, the framework laptop, and yes, the current generation of Macs all qualify.
You're trying to narrow the definition of "general purpose" to mean something else entirely.
I agree. But if one doesn't define a "general purpose computer" as being a piece of hardware, then all kinds of different conclusions can be drawn.
If what Amelius pointed out here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32116822 is true, i.e. the documentation is junk. Then, IMHO, Apple is no longer trying to sell "a good piece of hardware"; because they're not documenting its operation.
And, in reality, I find this to be true... what Apple really sells is "an experience".
Whether it's a good or bad experience is likely in the eye of the beholder.
The Asahi Linux team lead don't seem to agree that this is a fair assessment.
>People have just forgotten what a general purpose computer is.
OK, tell me what it is.
I had the same question because I’m interested in osdev and would ideally like to be able to boot something from machine language that I created from scratch. Currently targeting Raspberry Pi which is also ARM, but the laptop form factor would be nice.
Then check out the Asahi Linux project. From my understanding, it consists of two parts. First, kind of a boot loader, which makes it easy to boot any code on your Mac. This they use to run a Linux kernel, customized for the hardware of the Apple Silicon machines. Most of the kernel customizations are already part of the main Linux kernel or in process of being added.