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Comment by 3dfan | Hacker News Reader

Is it possible / does it make sense to use this as a Debian machine?

If you want a mini-ITX form factor Debian machine, you're probably better off skipping the Apple tax and building one yourself. Pros of this Mac mini appear to include: seamlessly runs macOS and high build quality. The internal components (with the exception of specific Apple chips) are commodity. So if you don't want macOS support, you can just make it yourself.

disk en-/decryption on the T2 chip would be interesting feature that you're missing out on - or is that kinda thing also commodity nowadays through accelerator cards?

Do you really need special hardware support? Apple's older FDE using Intel's AES-NI instructions available on all their CPUs was plenty fast.

Most SSDs support Opal although good luck finding Linux distro support for it.

Where would you find the software for the T2 chip without using macOS?

Wouldn't the T2 security chip mean an end to putting non-MacOS operating systems on Apples hardware? Honest question .. I don't know the answer .. but it seems like this is going to be a hurdle for Linux on Apple hardware going forward.

EDIT: from another thread discussing Apples release today:

>You can install Linux, if you can accept that a lot of functionality does not work. Even on most MacBook Pro 2016 models audio, suspend/hibernate, and WiFi don't work.

https://github.com/Dunedan/mbp-2016-linux

You can install Linux. Hardware not working is not a result of the T2 chip, since the 2016 MacBook Pro doesn’t have one.

A result of the T2 chip is, that you can't access the SSD under Linux yet, which makes running Linux on it pretty pointless.

The fundamental issue, that of Apple allowing you to boot alternative operating systems, is solved. The other problem of figuring out how to talk to the SSD is more of a technical (if important) issue.

In theory you should be able to install alternative operating systems by disabling "secure boot", but at least with Linux that isn't working properly yet. Trying to use the NVMe controller results in reboots, caused by the T2 chip. It's not clear so far if that's intended, a bug in the software running on the T2 chip, a bug in the NVMe implementation in Linux or if there is some logic necessary to properly initialize the T2 chip.

Perhaps but why pay the Apple premium just for the case design when you can also opt for something like https://www.pcworld.com/article/3267074/computers/intel-hade...

There is no NUC with a 6C/12T i7, though. An important question is whether the Mac mini will throttle the i7 much for thermal reasons.

I recently added a new heatsink to an older AMD CPU, hadn't realized how much it was being throttled previously.

Do any NUCs use the case as a heatsink ?

You can get some aftermarket cases like from e.g. Akasa that are one big heatsink.

I haven't tried running a Linux distro on any Mac with the T2 chip, but that might be a challenge if that chip is used for authenticating the boot process or something like that. Additionally, the fact that the thing is brand-new means that it might be a while before some of it works with Linux.

You should be able to install Linux by disabling verified boot.

Nope, at least not yet, as the NVMe controller in the T2 chip doesn't work with Linux yet. See https://github.com/Dunedan/mbp-2016-linux/issues/71 for details.

https://system76.com/cart/configure/meer3b is probably a better choice unless you need the 64GB.

That's only 7th gen processors though.

Fair enough. They have 8th gen in their laptops but they haven't refreshed the Meerkat in a bit.

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