> when they can just share a pdf.

I assume your question was in good faith, but the information needed to support an entire platform like this is not as simple as sharing a PDF. I’ve spent parts of my career working on much simpler platforms than an entire Apple laptop where we would have to work through 10,000 page PDFs documenting registers and even that was not enough to get the full picture of the system. You have to work through provided code samples and then eventually get the vendor’s engineers to look into problems that couldn’t be resolved through the documentation, where they would go look into the other teams and their sources to discover the answer.

The market for people who want to install Linux on a Mac laptop is very tiny. The honest answer is that it’s not worth the huge effort investment needed to document an entire platform for public consumption.

I don’t think many people realize how easily Apple could have locked down the laptop to be able to not run any alternate OS at all and the number of lost sales would be so negligibly small as to not matter. They chose to leave it open.

Apple's hypervisor.framework lets other OS instances run very very fast with the UTM app (open source on github, but i use the prebuilt version from the App Store). In my case i've used arm native linuxes (arch with various compositors, kde, gnome, fedora) all on M2, M2 Max, M5 and the experience is indistinguishable from native. MacOS is running too. I think hardcore graphics folks might want direct accelerator access, or there'd be curiously little reason for Asahi (other than that it's awesome work).

I use UTM in emulation mode, NOT Qemu simulation mode, which is wasteful.

just my $0.02.

Aside from the "they have no incentive" answer, I imagine it's not so easy even if they wanted to. I suspect most of it won't be solely Apple's IP to share in the first place.

It wouldn’t even be a problem for Apple to support Linux. Linux’s desktop market share has never been a threat to Apple at all. I hope Ternus, being the engineer he is, opens this up.

So that you have to keep buying Macs every few years of course. If they gave you a way to install linux easily then you could use it far past their intended lifespan and wouldnt keep you locked into the apple ecosystem. They have proved time and time again that Apple hardware running anything but MacOS or iOS is something they will work very hard to stop you doing.

They want control on the walled garden. When was the last time apple did anything for public unless forced by FCC. Now there is no hope since they can simply donate to trump.

Because that's not their business model. How is that not obvious?

Legal reasons. Lawyers say "no".

Competition could use it as well. Why make it easy.

Why would they?

I expect they don't actually care whether or not people run Linux on macs. I mean they used to let you run Windows!

Probably the real reason is just that it's extra work - both in terms of producing the docs, and in dealing with complaints when they change things. From their point of view it's extra work with no benefit to them.

Community... is what you have with family, neighbors and such. Being a user of a mass produced thing is not a community.

But to answer your question: Why would they? Apple hasn't asked anybody to put Linux on their machines. They deliver them with a fully functional OS already and there are thousands of other computer models you can purchase instead of a Mac.

> Why Apple does not at least provide the specs to the community?

Because then they'll have to compete with Linux, which opens them up to someone else making a cheaper computer that does the same stuff.

I mean, I'm typing this on a junky Raptor Lake laptop I found on eBay for $220. Would I buy a Neo or MBP to replace it just to run the same software stack? Probably not.

If you believe OS X is the best environment and Apple Silicon will remain the best hardware in perpetuity, it seems silly for Apple not to allow some experimentation. Apple executives, to be blunt, know better. Lean times are always ahead.