<story><title>M1 Macs: Truth and Truthiness</title><url>https://daringfireball.net/2020/12/m1_macs_truth_and_truthiness</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>ekianjo</author><text>&amp;gt; But I think the overarching point is true: now desktop and laptop makers can&amp;#x27;t just pretend that having a hot and&amp;#x2F;or slow, clunky, noisy x86-based architecture is just a fact of life. I hope and expect that it&amp;#x27;ll help create a new generation of ARM-based laptops and maybe even desktops that will run cool and smooth.&lt;p&gt;Be careful what you wish for. X86 is the most open architecture right now. ARM, on the other hand, has locked bootloaders, messy device trees and so on. You can see that virtually every Linux distro running on an ARM SOC needs some specific tweaks.</text></item><item><author>simias</author><text>I&amp;#x27;ve never owned a Mac and don&amp;#x27;t intend to own one but I&amp;#x27;m very happy with this M1 move, mainly for the reasons highlighted in the introduction to the article:&lt;p&gt;&amp;gt;M1 Macs embarrass all other PCs — all Intel-based Macs, including automobile-priced Mac Pros, and every single machine running Windows or Linux. Those machines are just standing around in their underwear now because the M1 stole all their pants.&lt;p&gt;I think it&amp;#x27;s a bit unfair to lump Linux in there since it&amp;#x27;s been running on ARM and other embedded, low-power devices basically forever, but it is true that few of us run our Linux desktop on an ARM board.&lt;p&gt;But I think the overarching point is true: now desktop and laptop makers can&amp;#x27;t just pretend that having a hot and&amp;#x2F;or slow, clunky, noisy x86-based architecture is just a fact of life. I hope and expect that it&amp;#x27;ll help create a new generation of ARM-based laptops and maybe even desktops that will run cool and smooth.&lt;p&gt;I want to believe.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>ogre_codes</author><text>&amp;gt; X86 is the most open architecture right now.&lt;p&gt;x86 is not &amp;quot;Open&amp;quot; in any fashion. You can&amp;#x27;t license x86 even for a fee, let alone free.&lt;p&gt;While ARM isn&amp;#x27;t open either, it is by comparison far more available to license at reasonable cost.&lt;p&gt;&amp;gt;  ARM, on the other hand, has locked bootloaders&lt;p&gt;It also has open&amp;#x2F; unlocked boot loaders. One of the advantages of licensable technology like this is you can have a lot of different architectures with the same underlying core. With x86, you get whatever the Intel&amp;#x2F; AMD duopoly decide to ship you.</text></comment>
<story><title>M1 Macs: Truth and Truthiness</title><url>https://daringfireball.net/2020/12/m1_macs_truth_and_truthiness</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>ekianjo</author><text>&amp;gt; But I think the overarching point is true: now desktop and laptop makers can&amp;#x27;t just pretend that having a hot and&amp;#x2F;or slow, clunky, noisy x86-based architecture is just a fact of life. I hope and expect that it&amp;#x27;ll help create a new generation of ARM-based laptops and maybe even desktops that will run cool and smooth.&lt;p&gt;Be careful what you wish for. X86 is the most open architecture right now. ARM, on the other hand, has locked bootloaders, messy device trees and so on. You can see that virtually every Linux distro running on an ARM SOC needs some specific tweaks.</text></item><item><author>simias</author><text>I&amp;#x27;ve never owned a Mac and don&amp;#x27;t intend to own one but I&amp;#x27;m very happy with this M1 move, mainly for the reasons highlighted in the introduction to the article:&lt;p&gt;&amp;gt;M1 Macs embarrass all other PCs — all Intel-based Macs, including automobile-priced Mac Pros, and every single machine running Windows or Linux. Those machines are just standing around in their underwear now because the M1 stole all their pants.&lt;p&gt;I think it&amp;#x27;s a bit unfair to lump Linux in there since it&amp;#x27;s been running on ARM and other embedded, low-power devices basically forever, but it is true that few of us run our Linux desktop on an ARM board.&lt;p&gt;But I think the overarching point is true: now desktop and laptop makers can&amp;#x27;t just pretend that having a hot and&amp;#x2F;or slow, clunky, noisy x86-based architecture is just a fact of life. I hope and expect that it&amp;#x27;ll help create a new generation of ARM-based laptops and maybe even desktops that will run cool and smooth.&lt;p&gt;I want to believe.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>daenney</author><text>&amp;gt; Be careful what you wish for. X86 is the most open architecture right now&lt;p&gt;You might want to take a look at PowerPC&amp;#x2F;OpenPOWER.&lt;p&gt;ARM not being very open is mostly because there&amp;#x27;s been limited development interest in it, aside from specialised devices, and those companies have no real need or interest to have open things. Doesn&amp;#x27;t mean ARM itself can&amp;#x27;t evolve past it.</text></comment>