>In other words: get an actually Linux supported laptop for Linux.
For a lot of people the point is to extend the life of their already-purchased hardware.
For a lot of people the point is to extend the life of their already-purchased hardware.
If your vendor is hostile like Apple, it will be hard to make it keep on working.
For the boot process, apple went out of its way to support booting alternative OSs without compromising on security.
And mind you, most other laptops are no friends either. E.g. the often beloved ThinkPads have a bunch throttling issues on non-windows OSs.
Yes. The existence of a proprietary escape hatch is not evidence of goodwill.
> ThinkPads have a bunch throttling issues on non-windows OSs.
That is an ACPI issue. Intel Macbooks also exhibit this behavior on Linux and BSD, and it's not even close to how incomplete power management is on Asahi.
Why are some of y'all so hostile to this idea?
Intel Macs supported Linux because they used Intel's Linux drivers and supported bog-standard UEFI. There are no preexisting drivers or DeviceTree files published by Apple for Linux. There is no UEFI implimentation, just a proprietary bootloader that can be updated post-hoc to deny booting into third-party OSes.
> Why are some of y'all so hostile to this idea?
I would love for Linux to support as many ARM devices as possible. Unfortunately, it requires continuous effort from the OEM to be viable. I've bought Qualcomm, Rockchip and Broadcom boards before, none of them have been supported for half as long as my x86 machines are. Nevermind how fast ARM architectures become obsolete.
It feels like Apple is really the only hostile party here, and they coincidentally decide whether or not you get to use third-party OSes.
Apple is very hostile to it. It won’t stop everyone though. It’ll continue to be niche but it’s happening.
Except, you can't. The bootloader is the same iBoot process that your Apple Silicon machine uses, with mitigations to prevent unsigned OSes or persistent coldboot. All the Cydia exploits in the world won't put Linux back on the menu for iPhone or iPad users. And the same thing could happen to your Mac with an OTA update.
It is entirely possible for Apple to lock down the devices further. There's no guarantee they won't.
Apple cannot lockdown the Mac. You can’t have a development machine that is incapable of running arbitrary code. Back when they still did WWDC live they said that software development was the biggest professional bloc of Mac users. I’m certain that these days development is the biggest driver of the expensive Macs. No one has ever made a decent argument as to why Apple would lock down the Mac that would also explain why they haven’t done it yet.
Passivity isn’t hostility. There isn’t any evidence that Apple is considering locking down the Mac. They could have easily done that with the transition to their own silicon but they didn’t despite the endless conspiracy theories.
> They could have easily done that with the transition to their own silicon
They already did, that's what my last comment just outlined. Macs do not ship with UEFI anymore, you are wholly at the mercy of a proprietary bootloader that can be changed at any time.
Why people continue to think Apple will treat the Mac like the iPhone I have no idea. Will Microsoft take the same approach with Windows as they did with Xbox? Different product, different strategy.
There is literally an apple-developed way to boot securely into alternative OSs. How would asahi work otherwise?
Also, if only apple is hostile, where is my Xbox/ps/switch/any random Android tablet/million other device's running Linux?
This is not a good thing! You do not want a proprietary bootloader as your only way to launch Linux, it's not a safe or permanent solution. Apple Silicon could have implemented UEFI like the previous Macs did, but Apple chose to lock users into a bootloader they controlled. This is markedly different from most ARM device bootloaders which aren't changed by an OTA update in another OS partition.
> if only apple is hostile
I did not say that at any point in my comment. Forgeties original claim was that Apple Silicon would eventually have support comparable to Intel Macbooks on Linux. I am telling them point-blank that it is impossible, because Apple and Intel have fundamentally different attitudes towards Linux.
> where is my Xbox/ps/switch/any random Android tablet/million other device's running Linux?
Your Switch and Android tablet is already running the Linux kernel. The past 2 generations of Xbox and PS chipsets have upstream support from AMD in the Linux kernel, so you really only need a working bootloader to get everything working.
Ironically, this does mean that the Nintendo Switch has more comprehensive Linux support than Apple Silicon does.
My point still stands, Apple does not trust their customers.
It's getting very tiresome to hear complaints about things that don't work on Linux, only to find that they're trying to run it on hardware that's poorly supported, and that's something they could have figured out by doing a little research beforehand.
Sometimes old hardware just isn't going to be well-supported by any OS. (Though, of course, with Linux, older hardware is more likely to be supported than bleeding-edge kit.)
This is very true. I've been asked by lots of people "how do I start with Linux" and, despite being 99.9% Linux user for everything everyday, my advice was always:
1. Use VirtualBox. Seriously, it won't look cool, but it will 100% work after maybe 5 mins mucking around with installing guest additions. Also snapshots. Also no messing with WiFi drivers or graphics card drivers or such.
2. Get a used beaten down old Thinkpad that people on Reddit confirm to be working with Linux without any drivers. Then play there. If it breaks, reinstall.
3. If the above didn't make you yet disinterested, THEN dual boot.
Also, if you don't care about GUI, then use the best blessing Microsoft ever created - WSL, and look no further.
I'd probably recommend against dual booting, but I understand it's controversial. I like to equate it to having two computers, but having to fully power one off to do anything* on the other one. Torrents stop, music collection may be inaccessible depending on how you stored it, familiar programs may not be around anymore. I dual booted for a few years in the past and I found it miserable. People who expected me to reboot to play a game with them didn't seem to understand how big of an ask that really was. Eventually things boiled over and I took the Windows HDD out of that PC entirely. Much more peaceful. (Proton solves that particular issue these days also)
That being said, I've had at least two friends who had a dual boot due to my influence (pushing GNU/Linux) who ended up with some sort of broken Windows install later on and were happy to already have Ubuntu as an emergency backup to keep the machine usable.
*Too old might be a problem these days with major distros not having 32bit ISOs anymore
2. If your priority is system lifespan, you are already using OEM macOS.
Every thread about Linux inevitably someone says “it gave new life to my [older computer model].” We’ve all seen it countless times.
This post is about the MacBook Air M2. The discussion has been about silicon MacBooks - laptops - from the start.
2. By all means start with macOS, but eventually Apple will stop supporting your machine. And y'know what will still work and get updates then? Linux.
Which old hardware? You're circling around to the grandparent's point again; Linux support is hardware dependent.
> And y'know what will still work and get updates then?
No, I don't. Depreciated iPads lay dead in piles, and they don't run Linux for shit. You want me to believe the M4 will graduate to the big leagues?