AMD's Zen 3 + RDNA2 Products Dominated November Along With The Apple M1

[phoronix]

Phoronix: AMD's Zen 3 + RDNA2 Products Dominated November Along With The Apple M1

Another month of the tumultuous year that is 2020 is now in the books... At least in November were several exciting hardware announcements to help pass the time along with the exciting evolution of open-source software...

http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=Phoronix-November-2020

[Jumbotron]

Linux Support for Apple Silicon? This Dev is Working on it

The developer who brought Linux to the PS4 has a new target in his sights: Linux on Apple Silicon.

Bringing up Linux support for Apple’s M1 chips won’t be an easy overnight task, but it’s a task that developer Hector Martin is willing to take on. He’s launched a fundraising campaign on Patreon to help support his work on a Linux port to Apple silicon.

It’s possible to run Linux on the Sony PlayStation 4 (with 3D acceleration, no less) and the Nintendo Switch because of his efforts.

“Running Linux on things is easy, but making it work well is hard. Drivers need to be written for all devices. The driver for the completely custom Apple GPU is the most complicated component, which is necessary to have a good desktop experience.”

If you’re keen to see Linux ride on Apple’s new tech wave you can contribute to his Patreon project. Pledges start from as little as $3 a month.

https://www.omgubuntu.co.uk/2020/12/apple-silicon-linux-support-project

[jaxa]

"Zen 3 + RDNA2" in the title brings to mind an unannounced APU instead of the separate CPUs and GPUs.

[Brane215]

Key point: "along with M1".
Which should be nowhere close.
AMD would be smart to dust off the K12, take some ideas and materialize them on RISC-V.

[mmsX]

If you want to use GNU/Linux on a M1 system, you will need to buy an Apple device. And I won't do that. I will rather buy another laptop from Purism. Or buy a Pinebook Pro from PINE64. That's an ARM based laptop which is underpowered for anything besides email and web surfing. But until there is Linux support for the M1 there will be a more powerful successor of the Pinebook Pro.