Slashdot Mirror
Linux Is a Lemon On the Retina MacBook Pro
An anonymous reader writes "It turns out that Linux doesn't work too well on the Apple Retina MacBook Pro. Among the problems are needing special boot parameters to simply boot the Linux kernel, graphics drivers not working, no hybrid graphics support, WiFi requiring special firmware, Thunderbolt troubles, GNOME/Unity/KDE not being optimized for retina displays, and other snafus, including 20% greater power consumption with Linux over OS X. According to Michael Larabel, it will likely not be until early next year when most of the problems are ironed out for a clean 'out of the box' Linux experience on the Retina MacBook Pro."
Why in the world would you even try to do it? What is the goal of this endeavour?
Linux doesn't work completely on brand new hardware!!
This is totally shocking to me. This has only been a problem since the 90's.
It is so shocking to think that an operating system doesn't work well on hardware for which no drivers have yet been written?
And yes, folks have been working on this. It's all up on the G+.
But seriously, until somebody is paid to write the drivers prior to hardware release, why expect it to work?
Support FSF: Stop thinking with your wallet, and think with your imagination. (cc/non-commercial)
But also all devices made by Samsung, LG, and HT....
But saying that doesn't draw any attention - mentioning Apple does. It's like when people talk about Foxconn. Nobody mentions they make stuff for HP, Dell, Lenovo, and others - they only mention the Apple connection.
#DeleteChrome
Don't buy a Mac.
Don't get me wrong fan boys... Apple does make good gear, and it isn't Apple's fault it doesn't run Linux all that well on this particular device. However despite having a good operating system for a workstation I'm just not a big fan of OSX at home. I use Linux primarily at work and I am quite happy with it. Given the choice between Windows and OSX at work it will be OSX every time. However, I DO have a better choice in workstation OS that more closely mirrors our production servers on which to develop software.
I also don't care much for Apple as a company. I find Microsoft more trustworthy, and that really does say quite a bit.
It would be nice if Apple contributed to Linux. I know that is asking a lot of them as they throughly enjoy tieing two products together by virtue of license and copyright law. It is something they are unfortunately unlikely to change and as a result I try to avoid purchasing their hardware. Much like I will try to avoid any "secure boot" BIOS gear in the future.
First you say ...
And then you say ...
So, it's ok if you want to ignore people with smaller systems, but it's a bad thing that Apple isn't interested in selling niche devices to people like you?
They're not interested in chasing "trely powerful users of laptops" -- they're interested in chasing as many people as possible. You likely represent a tiny fraction of the market.
Lost at C:>. Found at C.
Well for my anecdotal hyperbole it sounds like every Windows installation I've ever done. Seems I need to download the network card drivers and change the display setting from VGA in a box that doesn't fit in VGA. Seriously, installing an operating system is never a piece of cake unless you have an OS image that is specific to the hardware you're installing it to. In that case it's always a piece of cake regardless of which OS it is.
It's been a while since you tried Linux, hasn't it? If not, you've chosen the wrong distro, which is what I suspect happened here (haven't RTFA yet). It's been five years since I've had any such issues.
That's the thing -- there is no Linux, there are a lot of Linuxes. For an example, in another thread a while ago someone was complaining that he couldn't play MP3s on his Linux box... of course not, he was running Red Hat.
OK, I'm back, just read the iApple ad (RTFA in this case means "read the fucking ad"). There's nothing there but pretty pictures of the macbook, descriptions of what a fine piece of equipment it is, and just says "Linux" without saying what distro, how he tried to install it, etc.
In short, TFA is bullshit. Tell me what distro you're trying to run! What drivers are lacking. If you've ever installed any OS on any computer.
Free Martian Whores!
Linux has shipped with more hardware support out of the box than Windows for ages now. You just don't care that you have to download Windows drivers for hardware because its normal to you.
- Michael T. Babcock (Yes, I blog)
So, my point is while Apple has a lovely display resolution that will probably soon be matched by others. Other laptop manufacturers (eg. HP) produce machines with 2 GB of Video RAM, which is unlikely to be matched by Apple (none of their latops have more than 1 GB of RAM, Apple don't seem to be interested in trely powerful users of laptops - I guess that's what they have the Mac Pro for - but it doesn't help folks like me).
In most cases, higher quantities of VRAM tend to be a part of beefier graphic chipsets. In basically every one of *those* cases, beefier GPUs sit on the same motherboard as beefier CPUs. In every one of *those* units, you end up with extra runs of copper and beefier fan motors to keep them cool. Add all of that together, and you end up with a laptop that is powerful, but is large, heavy, and lacks battery life. There's definitely a market for this; Alienware, Origin, and Falcon Northwest all pay their bills based on catering to that market. HP has a wide enough product line that they can throw enough Jell-O at basically any wall and some of it will ultimately stick.
Apple, on the other hand, seems to have no desire to cater to people who are alright with a laptop that has only an hour of battery life and weighs 7 pounds. My best guess is that they feel that even having a monster-sized performance laptop would be impossible to make appear sexy, but I'm certain the Apple folk are aware of the Alienware/Origin market and have chosen not to attempt to cater to them. I've yet to meet a Macbook user who expressed unhappiness with their older graphics chipset, or one who was sufficiently unhappy as to express willingness to sacrifice half of their 2.5-hour battery life for the added performance. Ratcheting back the resolution and easing the antialiasing to 2X will get acceptable performance from most games Mac users are likely to play. After Effects comps of any consequence are generally rendered overnight, when the difference between 4 hour render times and 6 hour render times are effectively meaningless. Now granted, I have an Origin monster of a laptop that gets less than an hour of battery life and I'm okay with that, but getting acceptable performance by bumping down graphics detail is a lot easier to do than squeaking out extra battery life when you have a CPU/GPU that eats through it very quickly.
Installing Ubuntu has been a piece of cake on every system I've done it on over the years.
When I was asked by some friends to assist with a Windows installation, I was very surprised at how much manual work it was (getting the wireless drivers to work, for instance - that used to be a problem on Linux around 2003).
It's no surprise Ubuntu is easier to install than Windows, because Microsoft would much rather you have the OEM do it for you.
xkcd is not in the sudoers file. This incident will be reported.
Where is the "find drivers" button? Or right its called "Google your damned ass off" and you had BETTER know the exact make/rev/model of driver you need and pray to a statue of RMS someone has one. Even if they DO have one you better have enough skillz to be able to tweak that sucker, because it'll no doubt be written for make f, rev g, firmware h and you'll have make F, rev I, firmware j and the picky bastard just won't work.
It's not 1997 anymore...the kernel has 99% of the drivers you'll need, unless you need a proprietary one or something that's up for inclusion in the kernel that hasn't made it into the stable version yet.