The Rough Story Of Intel Sandy Bridge Graphics For Mac OS X

[kgonzales]

The singular non-detail issue I have with Mac hardware is their continuing use of a proprietary EFI rather than fully standardized implementation of UEFI 2.x. Because their proprietary EFI is only supported by Mac OS X, it means we have to use the CSM (BIOS emulation) to boot all other OS's which means those OS's have inherited: slower boot times, have to use MBR instead of GPT, have a 2TB volume limitation, do not support USB booting.

I think for the premium we pay for Apple hardware, it's not too much to ask to get a standardized UEFI implementation for use with other operating systems.

That is a legitimate complaint. Are there hardware examples in the desktop/laptop world that do have the standard UEFI 2.x implementation?

I wonder if Coreboot works on Mac hardware? I have never investigated it. I did find this to boot OSX on standard hardware using Coreboot: http://www.coreboot.org/DirectHW

[cmurphy]

don't know

From what nouveau developers have suggested, they are unable to extract necessary information from Apple's EFI at boot time to properly initialize graphics mode. So on much of Apple's hardware you can EFI boot e.g. Linux, but without a GUI. To boot with a GUI requires BIOS boot (with the CSM) which apparently does have the necessary information. I'm guessing that Apple is able to make a wide assortment of assumptions at boot time, because it's their hardware, so even they don't need certain information in firmware at boot time.

Since Apple's EFI is the base firmware at boot time, I would think anything that comes after it would have dependencies on EFI, including coreboot. But I know very little about it. And also don't know what OS's support it in any event.

[Kano]

Why not boot live with nvidia binary enabled? Thats also possible with Kanotix and for usb boot you just copy the content of the kanotix 64 bit iso (32 bit would be useless on newer macs for efi boot) + efi bootloader onto a fat32 stick. it can have got mbr, does not matter. I did not test it myself with mac, just with a snb board:

http://kanotix.com/files/fix/efi/readme.txt

[cmurphy]

nvidia proprietary drivers don't work, seems they too aren't getting what they want at boot time. So GUI boot is straight out at this point, including on the latest Core i7 Macbook Pros.

[Hey! Dojo]

You don't like Macs, we get it.

Great! But you then you misinterpret my statement by then posting the following :

There's plenty of hate going around for Apple, and some of it is justified.

I don't have any hate for Apple products whatsoever and that's just not what I posted. To make my point clearer : I have seen first hand Apple computers fail. I have seen them fail because of poor design and cheap components.
I have seen them fail so catastrophically that it was cheaper to replace the entire computer than it was to repair it. That is my point about why I do not like Apple computers. Dislike is a passive way of saying I just don't trust them. Hate is an extreme term which is not applicable to my opinion about Apple computers.

OS X is a slick OS. A polished GUI on top of a BSD base is hard to argue with (although I do tri-boot my 13" 2009 Core 2 Duo MBP with Win7, Mac 10.6, and Ubuntu 11.04). I bought my MBP specifically because I was sick of instability in my Ubuntu installs getting in the way of getting things done. At the same time, the BSD base gives a familiar system that I can write all of my C/Java/OpenCL code on.

I argue that a walled garden operating system that I cannot modify and inspect the entire source code for is neither polished or slick. It is something I have no trust in. Especially as every major update costs you more money. Updates that in part contain security fixes to the core OS. You don't pay, your system remains exploitable.
I also argue that OSX is expensive and restrictive. It does have shiny icons though
OSX is not BSD either. It is Darwin. Darwin uses a hybrid kernel that combines a mach 3 micro kernel and only some elements of BSD. See wikipedia.

Their hardware does occasionally have issues, but every manufacturer does at some point.

I'm saying I've seen issues with way more Mac stuff than you.

That said, I've replaced many more batteries, chargers, hard drives, keyboards, CD-ROMs, and other assorted hardware in Dells/HPs than in Apples.

You can't replace batteries on Apples without invalidating the warranty. They solder the battery to the main board. You've likely replaced lots of Dell hardware but I disagree that HP hardware is as poor quality as Dell's. Even HP's cheapest models.

I am interested in what cheap components you found in the Sony and Apple laptops, and what components should have been used instead. Then compare that to Dell or HP which you consider superior and what components they used that made them more reliable. Especially interested in your testing on the laptop casings.

Hitachi hard drives. The cheapest RAM modules they could get a sub-contractor to make. The cheapest NIC and wireless NIC cards they could get a sub-contractor to make. Mitsubishi and NEC optical drives. Lower power processors than their similarly priced and specked competitor's products. In particular Sony went through a phase of adding things to their vaio range of latops which was done in software on the main board to save money by not using hardware to do it. Best of all binaries to activate some of these things were only available for Windows with no source code. They may still be doing so.
When a laptop or imac is in pieces and you see how little space there is for air flow to cool not just the processor but also the main board because the thing over heated, it is quite easy to understand why the product was a bad design and was most likely crafted in such a way deliberately so that it did not last much longer than the warranty it was legally required to have.

Finally, I am very interested to know why I should consider your opinion meaningful at all. Do you have some experience to base this off of, other than a hate of all things Apple?

10 years+ building and repairing computer and electronic devices. See point one about - I do not hate Apple. Assumption or lack of a dictionary is apparently now a problem two people on here suffer from unfortunately. :P

You telling someone to grow up is the pinnacle of irony. I laughed. Alot.

Ironic how? Because you were offended and you need to grow up.

None of this apple fan boy trumpet blowing and chest beating is not on topic at all. I mention that I don't like Apple from first hand experience and you decide that you will tell me that I am either wrong or lying because you love Apple sooo much. Num num num.
I am neither.

So to try to get focus back on track, here are again my points :

1. You won't get any of the new Sandybridge macs to work with the current Ubuntu.
2. Even with good Sandybridge support as found in Fedora it still won't work yet because of the bios/ufi/uefi (Whatever the hell they are using now) implementation in the new macs.
3. A mac is a waste of money if you want to run Linux because : the new ones won't yet. A similarly priced HP, Asus or Leveno machine will have a higher spec and will actually work with Fedora's current release.

[cmurphy]

[QUOTE=Hey! Dojo;222388]To make my point clearer : I have seen first hand Apple computers fail.

So have I, but very few in comparison to the proportion of non-Apple hardware. But in either case it's not a scientific sample so I fail to see the relevance of this anecdote.


[QUOTE=Hey! Dojo;222388]I have seen them fail because of poor design and cheap components.

Pure and utterly useless conjecture, unless you can demonstrate you design hardware and/or spec components that are being used and alternatives that would have better reliability. What you are doing without proof is called smearing. Show your data. The only way you could arrive at this conclusion is if you had data.


[QUOTE=Hey! Dojo;222388]I have seen them fail so catastrophically that it was cheaper to replace the entire computer than it was to repair it.

That's fine and rather unremarkable, especially for laptops where failure usually means the problem is on the motherboard and isn't going to be fixed piecemeal.


[QUOTE=Hey! Dojo;222388]Dislike is a passive way of saying I just don't trust them. Hate is an extreme term which is not applicable to my opinion about Apple computers.

And either emotion is fine and can be justified any number of ways, but this one is a pretty silly justification.

[QUOTE=Hey! Dojo;222388]I argue that a walled garden operating system that I cannot modify and inspect the entire source code for is neither polished or slick. It is something I have no trust in. Especially as every major update costs you more money. Updates that in part contain security fixes to the core OS. You don't pay, your system remains exploitable.
I also argue that OSX is expensive and restrictive.

The core operating system is open source, you can modify and inspect it. It is true you don't get to inspect higher level frameworks that make up Cocoa, Carbon, and a rather substantive bulk of how most GUI apps function. But that's true to an even greater degree on Windows. So to be consistent, you'd have to have even more "dislike" for Microsoft, Oracle, and what about EMC and numerous other security related companies (even before the EMC hack?). Much of that technology is proprietary and isn't open to outside scrutiny. If you're going to argue that only open source is trustworthy, you have an uphill battle. It certainly has the potential for more transparency, but the overwhelming majority of technology users do not, and will not inspect source code, ever. They need a company and brand they can trust - it's why those things exist.

Windows costs much much more for upgrades than Mac OS X. Older versions of Mac OS X are provided with security updates long after their last release (10.5.8 is now nearly 2 years old and has been receiving security updates even into this year). Does it get new security enhancements like sandboxing? No because that's a very fundamental change in behavior of the OS, so that feature goes into a new major version. Rather unremarkable. And each of those have been costing $30 for some time now. Not anything like Windows upgrades.

The cost argument is pretty much a crap argument at this point, unless your sole metric for acceptable cost is free. Which still doesn't get you trust automatically.


[QUOTE=Hey! Dojo;222388]OSX is not BSD either. It is Darwin. Darwin uses a hybrid kernel that combines a mach 3 micro kernel and only some elements of BSD. See wikipedia.

Darwin is a derivative of BSD. OS X is a bunch of other stuff on top of Darwin. I don't know why the more esoteric aspects of kernels is relevant. For some people POSIX compliance is important and in that context Mac OS X is fully POSIX compliant whereas FreeBSD and most Linux distros are not. OK, now what?


[QUOTE=Hey! Dojo;222388]You can't replace batteries on Apples without invalidating the warranty. They solder the battery to the main board.

Why would you replace it if it's under warranty? If you replace it, it would be not free. If they replace it, it's free. And if you go to an Apple Store it's same day.



[QUOTE=Hey! Dojo;222388]Hitachi hard drives.

In aggregate their drives are the most reliable of any manufacturer. This article cites a Storlab article on the subject.

http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/hdd-reliability-storelab,2681.html

[QUOTE=Hey! Dojo;222388]The cheapest RAM modules they could get a sub-contractor to make. The cheapest NIC and wireless NIC cards they could get a sub-contractor to make. Mitsubishi and NEC optical drives. Lower power processors than their similarly priced and specked competitor's products. In particular Sony went through a phase of adding things to their vaio range of latops which was done in software on the main board to save money by not using hardware to do it. Best of all binaries to activate some of these things were only available for Windows with no source code. They may still be doing so.
When a laptop or imac is in pieces and you see how little space there is for air flow to cool not just the processor but also the main board because the thing over heated, it is quite easy to understand why the product was a bad design and was most likely crafted in such a way deliberately so that it did not last much longer than the warranty it was legally required to have.

I don't know how Sony relates to your argument at all. It's like spaghetti being thrown at the wall and you're just seeing what will stick at this point. The one item of note that annoys me to no end is Apple RAM and warranties. Where the premium suppliers like Kingston, Newer, Crucial, etc. offer RAM at less than 1/2 the price for lifetime warranties? It's pretty abyssmal what Apple does, but it was far worse in the recent past where it would be 4x what premium suppliers charged, and if you bought 3rd party RAM Apple was notorious for blaming all problems on 3rd party RAM, and basically giving people warranty crap until they removed all 3rd party RAM and put in only Apple RAM, and then reproduced the problem. Funny thing is, as annoying and abrasive as that policy was, it also occurred in an era of rampant shit RAM that actually did cause many problems.


[QUOTE=Hey! Dojo;222388]None of this apple fan boy trumpet blowing and chest beating is not on topic at all. I mention that I don't like Apple from first hand experience and you decide that you will tell me that I am either wrong or lying because you love Apple sooo much. Num num num.I am neither.

Your appeal to a non-emotional position does not improve the reliability of your anecdotes. Your argument is still based on conjecture, and you are conflating numerous factoids as though they are related to your argument, yet still where there is relevance they lack citation and data to conclusively prove your primary assertion, which even that is vague, loosely having to do with Apple build quality to reliability compared to other hardware. I'm seeing only conjecture and anecdotes here, there is no sample, no data, no analysis. It's yet another useless opinion. And you might be correct but without proof this is an unoriginal argument.


[QUOTE=Hey! Dojo;222388]Even with good Sandybridge support as found in Fedora it still won't work yet because of the bios/ufi/uefi (Whatever the hell they are using now) implementation in the new macs.[*]

I seriously doubt that this is true. The CSM is not substantially changed if at all in the newest computers, as far as Fedora 15 is concerned it is still a BIOS based boot and has nothing to do with EFI. Getting Fedora 15 to EFI boot on any hardware, let alone on a Mac, takes some effort. It's not the default behavior, unlike Ubuntu which tries to boot EFI machines as EFI without the CSM.

[QUOTE=Hey! Dojo;222388]A mac is a waste of money if you want to run Linux because : the new ones won't yet.

If you want to run it natively, at least on my new Macbook Pro 8,2 it doesn't finish booting either the Fedora 15 DVD or Live CD, and must be panicking because I have no access to a terminal prompt. But I also haven't tried a text only boot to see where it's failing. It's just not working "out of the box" which isn't exactly a rare experience with new Linux distros and new hardware. But I can confirm that I can run Fedora 15 just fine in VBox which is more convenient anyway.

[Veerappan]

I don't have any hate for Apple products whatsoever and that's just not what I posted. To make my point clearer : I have seen first hand Apple computers fail. I have seen them fail because of poor design and cheap components.
I have seen them fail so catastrophically that it was cheaper to replace the entire computer than it was to repair it. That is my point about why I do not like Apple computers. Dislike is a passive way of saying I just don't trust them. Hate is an extreme term which is not applicable to my opinion about Apple computers.

Most of the laptops I've seen fail have been cheaper to replace than repair, but that's usually due to the exorbitant prices that the OEMs charge for replacement parts, hence why I usually eBay my personal replacement parts and hope for the best. I will say that I'm sorry that I assumed the hatred. I have seen so many forum users, and even users on this forum, which start foaming at the mouth and screaming any time that anyone implies that Apple has ever done something right. Disliking them with your stated reasons makes sense, even if I don't necessarily agree with the idealogical ones.

I argue that a walled garden operating system that I cannot modify and inspect the entire source code for is neither polished or slick. It is something I have no trust in. Especially as every major update costs you more money. Updates that in part contain security fixes to the core OS. You don't pay, your system remains exploitable.
I also argue that OSX is expensive and restrictive. It does have shiny icons though
OSX is not BSD either. It is Darwin. Darwin uses a hybrid kernel that combines a mach 3 micro kernel and only some elements of BSD. See wikipedia.

Yay for the shiny! I'll give you the closed-source aspect of OSX. It is, and it will likely remain that way for the foreseeable future. For me, it's one of the 3 operating systems that I use on a daily basis, the others being Windows 7 and Ubuntu Linux (in a tri-boot setup on my Macbook, Windows/Linux on desktops). I like that Ubuntu is open, but I'm not completely opposed to Windows/MacOS because I find them to be useful enough to offset the closed-source aspects. And yes, I get to pay for major upgrades, but at least MS/Apple release security updates for a few years after the next version comes out. This is long enough for me to either replace the machine, or wipe it and install Linux when support is discontinued.

I'm saying I've seen issues with way more Mac stuff than you.

Fair enough. I've only had to support my 2009 MBP, my wife's G4 iBook and CRT iMac, and her siblings/parents' stuff. My family have all been Windows/PC people.

You can't replace batteries on Apples without invalidating the warranty. They solder the battery to the main board. You've likely replaced lots of Dell hardware but I disagree that HP hardware is as poor quality as Dell's. Even HP's cheapest models.

I've replaced pre-aluminum Apple batteries. I agree that it's a pain that you can't easily replace the newer Macbook batteries when they die.

10 years+ building and repairing computer and electronic devices. See point one about - I do not hate Apple. Assumption or lack of a dictionary is apparently now a problem two people on here suffer from unfortunately. :P

It's mostly fatigue in my case. I see so much Apple-bashing every day, and most of it is people just hopping on the bandwagon because they think it's the new cool thing to do. I consciously chose an Apple product knowing full-well what I was getting myself into, but some people think that I must have been a brain-dead idiot who knows nothing about computers if I got 'tricked' into buying a Mac.