> ThinkPad also has proprietary undocumented subsystems that are reverse engineered to work on Linux. Such double standards versus Apple.
The differentiator for decades now is intel-based laptops, including thinkpads, have been well-supported by mainline kernels including GPU support. Support that Intel has directly funded development and maintenance of.
Where are the @apple.com commits supporting Apple Silicon in mainline Linux?
Well supported by mainline kernels, thanks to reverse engineering undocumented proprietary Lenovo hardware. ThinkPads contain other components besides the GPU. Apple is not in the business of selling GPUs to other hardware vendors and the fraction of customers demanding Linux support is miniscule. Intel supports Linux as a business decision based on profitability, not open source idealism.
What components? Lenovo sells several ThinkPad models with Linux out of the box. The fingerprint reader is a source of trouble but it's not a Lenovo part.
Over the years I've seen numerous thinkpad tweaks for wifi, sleeping with the lid closed, restarting wifi on lid open, numerous tweaks for the function keys (audio up/down/mute, brightness up/down), clock speed/thermal management, reading battery levels, etc.
Seems like the #1 reason thinkpads are well supported is that they are relatively popular among the people who modify the OS and kernel for compatibility.
I don't recall that Lenovo is a particularly big contributor to the linux kernel.
> Well supported by mainline kernels, thanks to reverse engineering undocumented proprietary Lenovo hardware.
Such as? What "proprietary Lenovo hardware" is obfuscating my boot process, I'm really curious now.
> Intel supports Linux as a business decision
Yes. Intel supports Linux because the concept of selling Unix doesn't work. Take it from Apple, who gave up on selling their OS after realizing that people were really only in it for the hardware. If Intel is the begrudging neighbor to Open Source software, then Apple is holding them in a Mexican standoff with their userbase. Somehow, Intel's "business decision" manages to be the more civilized relationship between the two.
Sure it has some undocumented subsystems, but compared to the Macs, it has a much stronger claim to openness. Apple has released virtually no information on the internals of these machines, and they aren't standard PCs like the Lenovos. Calling them 'open' is absurd, it would be hard to imagine a publicly released general-purpose computer that is less open.
> but compared to the Macs, it has a much stronger claim to openness.
False. Lenovo hardware contains a lot of proprietary undocumented parts that required reverse engineering to get working on Linux/BSD. The parts that didn't require reverse engineering (Intel GPU) were not made by Lenovo.
Apple hardware is "open" as far as they don't try to prevent other operating systems to be installed. Apparently they made it reasonably straightforward for the Asahi team.
> False. Lenovo hardware contains a lot of proprietary undocumented parts that required reverse engineering to get working on Linux/BSD. The parts that didn't require reverse engineering (Intel GPU) were not made by Lenovo.
How is it false? Whether the parts were made by Lenovo or not is irrelevant. It may not be 100% open (and this is probably not due to parts that Lenovo themselves created), but it is substantially open, which is far more than can be said about the Macs, which are virtually undocumented system-architecture wise, and who knows what Apple will do in the future to hamstring efforts to use them outside the walled garden.
> Apple hardware is "open" as far as they don't try to prevent other operating systems to be installed. Apparently they made it reasonably straightforward for the Asahi team.
That is not "open", it's just "not openly hostile to reverse engineering...yet".
No it is not. I'm amazed that people just don't get this simple fact. The drivers were reverse engineered. ThinkPad is not an open platform. It contains some Intel and AMD stuff that is open, but you can't give credit to Lenovo for that.
You keep saying that, but you have yet to provide any evidence. What essential drivers were reverse engineered, exactly. As far as I can tell, everything required to boot to a working graphical desktop is well documented.
I'm not giving credit to Lenovo, I'm saying that the platform is mostly open because it is based on mostly open components. In contrast to Apple's devices, where the platform is closed because it is based on undocumented components. You could say the same about pretty much any standard PC, Lenovo is just one of many vendors, I have no idea why they got singled out here.
But they do sell boxes explicitly qualified and supported to run Linux, and they do contribute to the Linux kernel development process.
The fact remains that claiming any of Apple's hardware platforms are remotely open is laughable.
"ThinkPad linux driver reverse engineered" or "lenovo linux driver reverse engineered"
Power management, I2C devices, touchpad, touchscreen, audio, WiFi, bluetooth, etc. Many things besides the GPU. Maybe some of it is open now (Intel parts) but that wasn't always the case.
As another smart person (smoldesu) pointed out here, Lenovo has recently started contributing some updates to the kernel, but the vast majority has been reverse engineered over decades.
The attitude of Linux devs was always to accept that hardware is proprietary/undocumented and get to work on reverse engineering. Then users take it for granted that stuff just works and have no appreciation of the effort that it took to get it working.
> Apple hardware is "open" as far as they don't try to prevent other operating systems to be installed.
1. This is not true for "Apple hardware" as a rule.
2. Removing support for third-party OSes would be a shocking product regression for the Macbook.
3. If Apple's definition of "Open" excludes any transparent documentation or explanation, then they have provided precisely nothing.
You contradict yourself by praising Apple for keeping standard features while deriding Lenovo for doing the same thing. All of this ignores the Linux certification Lenovo offers on their products, their Linux support contracts and even the freely-provided firmware updates through fwupd (something Apple will never provide). Regardless of whether you characterize "open"-ness as non-hostility or constructive support, Lenovo is still the more open company by a country mile. And Lenovo doesn't even do that much to-boot.
>You contradict yourself by praising Apple for keeping standard features while deriding Lenovo for doing the same thing.
Putting words in my mouth. I never praised Apple and I never derided Lenovo. I am simply stating the facts. I am trying to explain that both companies have the same approach. Neither of them are open source idealists. Lenovo is not more open than Apple. Apple is not more open than Lenovo. I am pointing out the double standards and hypocrisy in this thread. I have owned many Lenovo and Apple products and I'm not a fanboy of any company.
> 1. This is not true for "Apple hardware" as a rule.
It is true for their laptops and desktops. iPhone/iPad are not relevant to this discussion.
Lenovo is doing what Apple doesn't, and publishing their contributions as GPL code. In this particular arena, they are provably more open in the sense that they make official Linux contributions and Apple does not.
I too have owned hardware from either company, and have plenty to complain about for both. One thing I cannot deride is the quality of first-party Linux support for my Lenovo hardware. It's not perfect and they're an ill-fit successor to IBM, but they make marked FOSS contributions that other companies would refuse. Because these changes are made freely available with an Open license, I think it's fully fair to say that Lenovo is shipping more Open systems than Apple is. Like I said in my other post, they don't even have to do much to cement themselves in that position either, just offer a few of their own patches.
> It is true for the current hardware. [sic]
> It is true for their laptops and desktops. iPhone/iPad are not relevant to this discussion.
Ah, there's the caveat. We can agree to disagree, frankly I'm more interested to see where the legislation takes this.
