The MacBook Neo is an important, landmark device.

[securitywriter@infosec.exchange]

RE: https://hachyderm.io/@samhenrigold/116216357692725093

The MacBook Neo is an important, landmark device. You just don’t know it yet.

I say this as someone for whom the sheen of Apple has worn off, and I’ll look to move to different, open hardware in the coming years.

A good read from Sam.

[pibert@bertha.social]

@SecurityWriter What's open hardware?

[pibert@bertha.social]

@SecurityWriter if so, there is a commercially avaliable open hardware laptop that runs like Linux "Debian-Like" with like 8 or 16 gigs of ram?

[nocturnalnessa@infosec.exchange]

@SecurityWriter
"The kid who tries to run Blender on a Chromebook doesn’t learn that his machine can’t handle it. He learns that Google decided he’s not allowed to. Those are completely different lessons."
i like this take a lot insofar as the significance of hackability, but i wish i shared the authors faith in apples commitment to it.

[nocturnalnessa@infosec.exchange]

@SecurityWriter i was an apple kid. the closest thing to creative awakening that gave me came from jailbreaking, something apple has enthusiastically decided i am not allowed to do

[fuzzyfuzzyfungus@cyberplace.social]

@SecurityWriter It seems true enough that this is what an iPad pointedly and cryptographically is not; but the comparison with chromebooks seems unfair. The ones orgs hand out are usually locked down(just as the Neos orgs hand out will be); just just Linuxing around in crostini is easy and readily supported unless an org admin is blocking you.

[sboots@mastodon.sboots.ca]

@SecurityWriter This is such a great post. Thanks for sharing it.

[csolisr@hub.azkware.net]

As an attempt to make an affordable entry point into the Apple ecosystem, it makes some sense. A shame that it's unexpandable though - if only there was a model with 16 GB RAM, I'd probably fetch one as soon as Linux managed to boot on it. And who knows, by the time it does, that specific SKU might be finally on the market

[david_chisnall@infosec.exchange]

@SecurityWriter

I ran Final Cut on a 1.25 GHz PowerBook with 2 GiB of RAM. At the time, it was about the fastest laptop you could buy. The internal 80 GB disk wasn’t really big enough for DV camera footage (10 GB/hour) so I also got an external disk (also spinning rust).

Not only is the Neo more powerful in every respect than that machine, but that version of Final Cut was CPU-only. Newer versions offload most of the rendering to the GPU.

[markdennehy@mastodon.ie]

@SecurityWriter That review is a fantastic promotion for running linux...

[securitywriter@infosec.exchange]

@Pibert when I say open, I’m referring to something that doesn’t have the manufacturer’s restrictions like Apple’s products do. Sure, you can run Linux on Apple’s silicon, but it’s not fun.

There’s people like Framework doing good work, although I know they’ve been problematic (but more problematic than Apple? Probably not?)

My main issue with these devices is I need far more RAM than 8 or 16GB for my usage.

[securitywriter@infosec.exchange]

@david_chisnall my first foray into Mabooks had a 500MHz processor. I upgraded to Core2Duo, 1-2GB RAM (sounds like yours maybe).

I had a FireWire disk hanging off the side at all times, and that thing was absolutely hammered with workloads. And it delivered… albeit slowly.

We used to do more with less. Not because we had to, but because you could.

The new generation of silicon should deliver so much more, but is held back by the likes of Windows. Those that are able to make it go further are surely the ones who will thrive.

My iPhone 15 Pro Max has more number crunching power than my gaming PC. Aside from gaming and media production, computing requirements haven’t really increased for the average user.