Asahi Linux goes from Apple Silicon port project to macOS bug hunters Asahi Linux, a project to port Linux to Apple Silicon Macs, has reported a combination of bugs in Apple's macOS that could leave users with hardware in a difficult-to-recover state. The issues revolve around how recent versions of macOS handle refresh rates, and MacBook Pro models with ProMotion displays (the 14 and 16-inch …
Because we have a bunch of dickhead devs who insist that they know what they're doing, that they have to be allowed to manage their own machines or it's impossible for them to work, and a bunch of spineles managers who equally insist that we let them. Funnily enough these two circles overlap remarkably well on the venn diagram of "people who demand mac laptops" and with the circle of "will complain bitterly if we don't fix their broken machine for them even tho it was them that broke it."
《Because we have a bunch of dickhead devs who insist that they know what they're doing, that they have to be allowed to manage their own machines or it's impossible for them to work, and a bunch of spineles managers who equally insist that we let them. 》
I would guess these same devs aren't actually coding for an OSX target - Windows if there is any justice. ;)
I suspect a decent DELL laptop with Ubuntu installed would probably be more appropriate and a lot cheaper.
"I would guess these same devs aren't actually coding for an OSX target - Windows if there is any justice. ;)"
Three main types of (mostly lovely) MacBook wielding techies in my organisation. These are front end app developers, cloud and platform engineers, and OpenGL application developers. The latter two are the ones who insist on it. The front end people will use whatever you tell them to but prefer Mac, if for no other reason than the company issued Macs are a lot less restictive.
Also, I'd like to expand that not all of our devs are dickheads. Many of them are consummate professionals who are not only very good at their jobs, but also understand the importance of corporate security and doing their bit to help us meet our legal compliance requirements and have gone above and beyond to help us understand their needs and get them the tools they need to do their jobs in a way that makes everyone happy.
...but we do also have quite a few extremely vocal dickheads.
Hello, I need to install a new version of Python.
Or Perl.
Or a file comparer.
Or a new shell.
Or a new terminal.
Or a debugger.
Or a plug-in for an IDE.
Or a FUSE filesystem.
No, I do not need to open a ticket, wait for two weeks, and get a reply back saying it's not on the approved software list and it has to go through approval. You see, the project's overrunning and/or production is going up in flames now.
I couldn't give a crap about a MacBook. I'd actually prefer to install Linux on the laptop I have, but that's not allowed either even though we are a Linux software shop.
I know you'd like your job just to be clicking somewhere to install Office 365 or the latest patches, but developers aren't marketing, they actually have to use the computer as a tool. If this a such a problem for corporate IT then maybe they're not doing it right.
dickhead devs who insist that they know what they're doing, that they have to be allowed to manage their own machines
Only a couple of our devs have Macs. However, given that they all have local admin on their PCs and, in general, haven't screwed them up (easier to do on a PC than on a Mac because the Mac won't let even an admin do some stuff that will brick the machine) I'm happy for them to have local admin.
The majority of our Mac users are photoshop types - some of whom I trust to have local admin and some I really, really don't. Fortunately, there are few circumstances where they need local admin..
In our case it's not the dickhead devs but dickhead IT wonks who insist on forcing everyone to update to the latest release *and* the latest point release as soon as it is released by Apple through some process that obstructs more than it helps. And guess what... some devs would very much prefer to wait until all these early bugs are ironed out before upgrading.
So, yeah... rather rephrase this to "a bunch of dickheads who insist they know what they're doing" because those dickheads are found on both sides of the aisle.
We didn't at work. We updated to 14.1 (which appears to still have the issue if the article is correct (eg 14.0+)) due to the security patches (not sure why 13.6.1 (security patches back-ported) wasn't an option). However, afaik, nobody at work has run into this issue (possibly everyone had the ProMotion refresh rate?).
A few select settings are stored on the NVRAM such as which boot disk to use, screen brightness, volume level, time zone and screen resolution.
The issue seams to be with the screen resolution setting (since refresh rate is stored as part of the resolution for example 1920x1080x60), by enabling pro motion is is storing a screen resolution in a format which the recovery mode doesn't understand.
"...by enabling pro motion is is storing a screen resolution in a format which the recovery mode doesn't understand."
Then any sensible recovery mode should fall back on a sensible default resolution. And if this is due to NVRAM, then zapping that should be a solution. I'm left to wonder why it's not.
There is no key combo to reset the NVRAM on ARM Macs, they added a system that is meant to automatically reset it if it detects an invalid configuration or you can use the terminal. But enabling ProMotion is a valid configuration, it's just that recovery mode doesn't support it.
And if this is due to NVRAM, then zapping that should be a solution
A lot of the "oooh, shiny" Mac crowd probably don't know it's an option..
(Got quite a few of the old startup key combos memorised. Shame that most [1] of them don't work on an Apple Silicon Mac..)
[1] Maybe all of them - can't remember..
The Mini (like all macOS) does communicate with the monitor (using the I2C pin) - and thus can detect what display is connected and adjust resolution accordingly (automatically).
This is an issue one of our meeting rooms, where the very large display has a VGA connector only (don't understand, but Windows laptops used VGA until reccently) and the signaling pin was not connected on the display (tried with another cable). The result is that a Mac will not "see" the display, and it won't show up in display settings. On Windows, were every setting is allowed, you set a resolution for the external VGA plug - and off you go.
The SAMSUNG 17" TV has a similar issue: my old (2011) Mini would often not "detect" the display - and as such not show a pciture. The issue was that the ancient Mini was so bloody slow to start up, that once the OS was running, the TV had decided there was no host, activated sleep and disabled the HDMI port. On my M1 Mini, this is no longer an issue (same TV).
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