Hacker News Reader

Comment by jackosdev | Hacker News Reader

I have Asahi Linux installed on mine, it works great including the GPU, I’m mainly developing for ARM64 AWS Lambdas now as well so it’s nice having the same arch. Some things are still missing like webcam, microphone and speakers, but the headphone Jack works and Bluetooth is OK just a bit choppy, incredible project.

View on HN

I know this isn't an Asahi Linux thread, but I cannot help to ask about it. Plus I am big fan of Alyssa Rosenzweig's work (and Justine Tunney), so I pay close attention to Asahi Linux (and LibCosmo/politan) progress.

First, it's great to hear from Real World people like you about their Asahi Linux experience. It sounds like the baseline is done and now they will pick away at the remaining pieces.

Real question: What is the driver for Asahi Linux to exist at all? Please don't think I am trolling when I ask this question. At 10,000ft, any sane person would say: "Why? It's Apple. Let them do them: Mac OS X." I expect Asahi Linux folks to reply: "Well, duh: Because."

Is it unlocking the insane performance per watt of Apple Mx chips for Linux?

Is it enabling the world's greatest laptops for Linux?

Is it the pure technical challenge of reverse engineering a closed hardware system?

Is it everything?

I am really curious to hear what people think.

Because your choice of hardware should be independent of the choice of software that you run on it.

This has been the world we've had since the concept of "IBM compatible" existed. Some people prefer Windows (because of available software, or ease of use) and some people prefer Linux (e.g. for efficiency, customisability or desire to run open source software). Why should that choice be tied to whether you've bought, HP, Lenovo or another manufacturer?

Apple has made some amazing laptop hardware, but Mac OS doesn't suit everyone. So well done to the Asahi Linux team for trying to take us back to that world of choice.

It wasn't that long ago all Apple hardware was PowerPC.

I'm not disagreeing with your point, but Apple's foray into broadly standard hardware is the exception for them. Sadly.

> It wasn't that long ago

...almost 20 years?

I'm still young damn it!

PowerPC was an attempt to standardize (at a least a subset of) the industry on a common RISC processor. There were even two attempts at industry standards for PowerPC motherboards (PreP and CHRP, the latter with Apple's active participation).

You still 100% should choose your hardware for Linux even on 'Windows' laptops.

Ideally it should run everywhere but in my experience you'll never get a positive Linux Desktop experience unless you tailor your hardware purchases to the Linux world - this usually means choosing a laptop that tons of other linux users are using, so the bugs are getting found and fixed, and documentation exists.

The key here is that it should at least run on the most popular laptop brands. It should run on Macbook Pro because it's incredibly popular hardware choice for software/technical people.

I have a ThinkPad with Linux on it that I bought for programming and software development and a 16" Macbook Pro w/ an M1 Pro chip that I bought for photography.

I only use the Macbook Pro. The speed, battery life, coolness (to the touch), and quietness make it extremely difficult to have any desire to pick up the ThinkPad.

But I'd still be more productive with Linux.

A good motivation for Asahi is hardware longevity. Apple supports hardware for a reasonable amount of time while I want to use a system as a primary computer but is obviously the worst among the 3 major operating systems and it curtails the long tail life of a system. In 7-9 years from now Asahi (or some other linux distro) will probably be the best way to keep an M1 Mac on an up to date and secure operating system.

So it works great except half the hardware doesn't work and it's entirely unsupported by Apple, to whom you paid a significant premium for the hardware?

That tends to be how Linux works outside of standard platforms, yes. It takes time for developers to write drivers.

It works great on my custom built PC, and my store bought laptop. Both are perfectly normal pieces of hardware, not apple's weird stuff.

It's a work in progress, users are generally confident that the remaining hardware will gain Asahi support sooner or later.

The fact that Asahi is such a popular project is a pretty strong indicator of how much room for improvement MacOS has, to put it as politely as I can. Personally, I wouldn't even consider buying a new Mac if there wasn't any good alternate native OS available.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com