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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."
This proves it for once and for all. Apple is evil!!! What?
http://www.acetonestudio.com
Why in the world would you even try to do it? What is the goal of this endeavour?
Linux doesn't exactly have a reputation for working well on brand-new hardware. The new MacBooks only came out a couple months ago, give Linux some time!
There's no -1 for "I don't get it."
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.
Let's trash linux a little more by complaining how this Ubuntu DVD fails to load on this sundial. There you have it, linux can't even run on one of the most primitive time-keeping devices. It must suck.
Seven puppies were harmed during the making of this post.
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)
You spent $3000 on a laptop to run linux. You are a strange person.
Why waste so much time/effort with a BOS install? Run it in VMware Fusion full-screen like I do. Pick your battles, my friends.
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.
That's too bad, 'cause, like most people, I was looking forward to buying overpriced hardware bundled with an expensive operating system and then just running free open source software on it instead.
I'm an American. I love this country and the freedoms that we used to have.
I have the new Retina MBP... and it's a fantastic machine. But WHY would you buy it just to install Linux on it anyway? It's a very expensive computer for that - you can get other laptops with similar specs (other than the display, yes) for a lot less. In almost all cases I'd suspect that people want to use both OSX and Linux - and in that case, I'd highly suggest running Linux in a virtual machine anyway (Parallels/VMWare).
Sure it'd be nice to have a pure dual boot for Linux, but until drivers are written and fine tuned for that specific platform it will do just fine.
I use Parallels for that, and for running WinXP (believe it or not) for one old app I need. The new MBP is so fast that I can cold-boot WinXP in 3 seconds! - making it a breeze to get to the one app I need when I need it.
MadCow.
I used to have a sig, but I set it free and it never came back.
The same reason you would run Windows on a MacBook. If the thing that matters most to you is the screen there are precious few other options in the market, even if you ignore the high resolution. Just finding an IPS laptop that has basic features and doesn't require a furniture dolly to move is hard to find. Also, if you work in both OSX and Linux environments, you are going to want a MacBook. The cases are not numerous, but they're out there.
Is it just my observation, or are there way too many stupid people in the world?
Package contained a retina MacBook pro. Would not buy again.
How well does it run Windows 7 with Boot Camp?
Apple currently has the high resolution screens. Too bad you can only get 1GB of video RAM on the MacBook Pros though. What is the point of having such a high resolution screen if you run out of VRAM for textures etc? I'm thinking about a Retina Mac to replace my existing Mac but at the lack of video ramm is putting me off.
Why does this matter? Because I'm developing a cross-platform OpenGL flight simulator and I would like to have plenty of Video Ram to go around (many flight sim gamers have very high end Windows rigs with 2-4GB of Video RAM, and this is my target [TBH, I don't care about those who want to game on less capable hardware - profit limiting I know, but I'm writing the sim for myself first and foremost and I have great hardware that is poorly utilized by many mainstream games]).
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).
It is flamebait because it makes blatantly false statement the Retina MBP is not in any sense "locked down." Apple does not block installation of 3rd party or open source software or operating systems on any of its desktop or laptop computers. So its merely a matter of an open source OS not yet having been tweaked to run perfectly on a new, and somewhat different, hardware design.
See his blog post -
http://mjg59.dreamwidth.org/15948.html
As for "why try to do it?" - well, probably because liking Apple hardware and high-res displays does not automatically create a liking for XNU/Darwin. Some people prefer Open Source.
Why in the world would you even try to do it? What is the goal of this endeavour?
When I first got into Mac, it was still a rare thing. And so that made me better than everyone else. I got to look down on PC users and call everyone who came after me poseurs. Then, as Mac's became more and more popular, I started noticing that EVERYONE was carrying them. I even saw people using them in Starbuck's, for Christ's sake (as I passed by the window on my way to an indie coffee shop that you've probably never heard of).
This forced me to do something to set myself once more off from the pack, so that I might reaffirm my moral and intellectual superiority. Obviously, I couldn't go to Windows. So naturally I turned to Linux, and an obscure distro than only a few of us know about (if you have to ask which one, don't bother).
It was perfect. Now when people saw I was using a Mac and asked me about it, I could tell them "Yeah, it's a Mac, but not the kind YOU'RE using" and blow off any subsequent questions with "I could tell you more, but you wouldn't get it." Once more, I was whole!
I would talk more about it, but I've got to get to a Semertian Poetry reading. Not that I expect you to know what Semertian Poetry is.
What political party do you join when you don't like Bible-thumpers *or* hippies?
What a captivatingly sharp image of a walled garden topped with razor wire! Look at it glisten in the sunlight coming through the walls of our crystal cathedral!
Could you please link to a cheap non-apple laptop with a 2880x1800 display? Thanks!
whatever comes after (HouseCat?) will probably be more IOS-likeâ"i.e., sucky on a laptop.
People have been saying that for years, even though Apple has repeatedly said that a desktop OS is different than a mobile device OS and held to that statement through a number of OS releases.
Meanwhile Microsoft is the only company that has gone ahead and said "no, both platforms should run the same OS".
You can always install Linux later IF Apple turns that way as well.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Oh, so that's why you have to use 3rd party "hacks" to enable native 2880x1800
Wrong, the OS is running at 2880x1800 all the time.
The hacks are all about turning on use of the higher resolution for apps that have not provided graphics for the higher res, so the text will look better. By default so OS X does not mess with the look of an app, it will keep the whole app running at the older resolution and simply scale up the display.
All of the system apps (like Mail and Safari) of course support native 2880x1800, and all the other apps really have to do is re-compile (it's optional to add higher resolution image assets, though of course a good idea).
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Mac OS X is Unix, and then there's virtualization, why even bother getting Linux native to a Mac anymore?
Never say never. Ah!! I did it again!
I install over 20 Dell servers a year running CentOS. I've never needed a single driver update. All of them are fully supported. Dell manufactures their servers specifically to be Linux supported.
cf. http://linux.dell.com/
- Michael T. Babcock (Yes, I blog)
Fixed that for you.
Other than proving it can be done, why would you drop that amount of money on a retina display macbook pro and then install linux on it? OS X is already *nix and has a much, much cleaner and better looking gui than anything available for linux.
Intel Thunderbolt drivers are particularly poor - not supporting hot-plug in windows yet.
This is not really a problem with the hardware itself just Intel/Microsofts priorities are not aimed on thunderbold, considering it isn't on that much hardware at the moment.
How would you then expect that it will work immediatly on linux - where typically the developers don't get pre-release hardware or even specs.