[QGIS-Developer] QGIS for Apple: Intel vs. arm

Wed Jun 24 08:37:34 PDT 2020

In addition to what Even mentioned, QGIS might also hit some performance
issues/bugs on the new platform. For example, the rule-based rendering with
expressions that contains LIKE will make QGIS project completely unusable
on iOS:
https://github.com/lutraconsulting/input/issues/433

This could be an inefficient way of how the expression engine handles LIKE
and has not shown up in other platforms. So in addition to making the
binaries available, we should be prepared for some strange new issues
propping up on the new platform!

Kind regards
Saber

On Wed, 24 Jun 2020 at 14:51, Andreas Neumann <a.neumann at carto.net> wrote:

> Hi,
>
> Yes, I also heard about the better energy efficiency of the arm processor.
> That's probably the main reason why typical mobile devices almost never run
> on Intel processors. What effect the change to arm will have performance
> wise, esp. when libraries aren't yet optimized for that processor, is
> another matter.
>
> Even already confirmed that some gdal algorithms are optimized for Intel
> only, so far.
>
> And it will be significant work for some (Peter?) and will probably need
> additional funding to do this work.
>
> I don't blame Apple on this. It's a good move if hardware will go greener
> because of this. But I expect QGIS to perform worse on MacOS arm because of
> this change initially, until more optimizations towards arm processors are
> in place.
>
> Andreas
> Am 24.06.20 um 15:20 schrieb Tim Sutton:
>
> Hi
>
>
>
> On 24 Jun 2020, at 11:52, Andreas Neumann <a.neumann at carto.net> wrote:
>
> Hi Peter,
>
> Thanks for this feedback.
>
> I remember when Apple switched from PowerPC to Intel that they had kind of
> compatibility/abstraction layer that allowed old software to work on the
> new intel platform. Are there similar plans with the switch to arm?
>
>
> Yes they will support application bundles that ship both ARM and Intel
> architecture (“Universal Binary”) - see
> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Universal_binary
>
> They will continue to support their Intel based machines for years to come
> (no specific end of life indicated yet that I have seen) but they expect
> all new hardware to be sold to be based on ARM within 2 years.
>
> I wouldn’t bash Apple on this - Intel have been slow at rolling out small
> nanometer architectures and the whole world is moving towards ARM - Windows
> is already available for ARM though they kinda fluffed it. Plus they are a
> company who likes to periodically advance their platform with breaking
> changes - just like we did going from QGIS 2 to QGIS 3.
>
> Apple are good at making their developer tools work nicely at compiling
> software for the hardware they support. Since long ago Marco Bernasocchi
> started making QGIS ARM friendly, hence QGIS for Android, QField and INPUT.
>
> For me I welcome this - the ARM chips will use less power when under low
> loads (better green footprint) and the new platform promises being able to
> run iOS apps directly on macOS so e.g. we can run INPUT straight on the
> desktop if we want to use a lightweight QGIS (ok yes I know INPUT could
> already be compiled for macOS but not run using the same package as iOS
> built one).
>
> Regards
>
> Tim
>
>
> Andreas
> Am 24.06.20 um 11:53 schrieb Peter Petrik:
>
> Hi,
>
> As building on iOS already works (
> https://github.com/lutraconsulting/input-sdk/tree/master/ios), I imagine
> it would be possible to  run another architecture build for MacOS with a
> similar approach. It is in Apple's interest to facilitate transition to
> developers. To evaluate how hard it would be, that is more tricky at this
> point. First of all, Qt has to support this new architecture, I haven't
> found a statement from them yet if they plan it and when. So even Qt
> supports it (hopefully from Qt5 releases and not Qt6), we have to build all
> the deps with the new architecture, which takes some time to create
> recipes. And of course find a hardware where it all can be built (probably
> another machine , yes). Not saying that it is very frustrating to do
> development of such a new package if you do not own such hardware
> yourself...
>
> P.
>
>
> On Wed, Jun 24, 2020 at 11:33 AM Régis Haubourg <regis.haubourg at gmail.com>
> wrote:
>
>> Hi Andreas,
>> I'm also worried about this move.
>>
>> But one way to forward the cost to Apple is now to stop buying macs.
>> Sorry to troll, but the vendor lockin' nightmare they are building is not
>> of the same nature as of the powerpc era.
>> I sold mine because they stopped to support it though it worked very well
>> on the hardware side. And switching to linux on Mac is made hard on
>> purpose.. > never again for me, even if they do really good stuff.
>> I found in LENOVO some durable hardware, easy to repair, hardware that
>> works nicely and avoid me to trash a working computer.
>> Best
>> Régis
>>
>>
>> Le mer. 24 juin 2020 à 11:11, Andreas Neumann <a.neumann at carto.net> a
>> écrit :
>>
>>> Hi all, esp. Peter,
>>>
>>> So I wonder what the new announcement of Apple switching everything from
>>> Intel to arm architecture will mean for our project? According to Apple
>>> they will switch all of their devices to arm over the next 2 years.
>>>
>>> Will it be a lot of work to adapt the build system to the new processor
>>> architecture? It will probably mean that we will need an additional Mac
>>> build server for arm architecture in our infrastructure and will have to
>>> provide packages for both systems for many years to come ...
>>>
>>> Not so nice for us as a project - can we forward these costs to Apple
>>> for that move?
>>>
>>> Greetings,
>>> Andreas
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>
> —
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> *Tim Sutton*
>
> *Co-founder:* Kartoza
> *Honorary PSC Member and Ex-Project chair:* QGIS.org
>
> Visit http://kartoza.com to find out about open source:
>
> Desktop GIS programming services
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>
> *Skype*: timlinux
> *IRC:* timlinux on #qgis at freenode.net
>
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>
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-- 
Saber Razmjooei
www.lutraconsulting.co.uk
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