Is this someone that only wants to run Linux and wants to use their GPU on Linux? Seems like this is not the case, yet.
Or, is this for someone that wants to dual boot and use Linux sometimes, and then reboot into MacOS when they want to use the GPU?
The goal is "Linux on Mac". In a commercial product, specific details of what gets built usually stem from a more detailed vision that can be articulated as one. In open source projects those details are determined by what individual contributors are motivated to work on.
That doesn't means a cohesive vision can't emerge, there might be one for Asahi actually. But I think the default position is that it's kinda just a mob of people doing what they each feel like doing.
When M1 drops out of support I bet Asashi for the M1 machines will be pretty polished.
More info: https://alyssarosenzweig.ca/blog/asahi-gpu-part-n.html
It runs macOS, but I have no particular interest in the operating system, nor do I own any other Apple hardware. (So no synergies.) It is alright (and better than Win11) but the preinstalled software does not even properly update without an Apple account. As soon as I can switch over to Linux, I will. ... I would just wait for all the ports to work.
So, if there are five translation layers, why not run a Linux VM using UTM and play there? Is there a technical reason that does not work?
The hardware is super capable and will make a great fileserver, TV box or HomeAssistant instance once I‘m done using it as daily driver.
Similarly, because of distros like Fedora and Ubuntu, I can keep using a 15y old Samsung notebook with a modern firefox, whereas Windows 8 already broke Samsung‘s display brightness driver and thermal management, and 10&11 are entirely unusable.
If you want to run bare metal Linux on Apple's hardware (instead of running it in a virtual machine) you are the target audience.
My current linux PC cuda machine is the latest Intel Ultra 9 mini PC from minisforum, and it still isnt quite as fast as a years old M1/M2. The only thing it has that the mac doesnt is cuda egpu support.
(Though I’m sure people outside the project get value from it as well, like OpenBSD using Asahi bootloader)
As much as I like Linux this kind of tinkering is only for people with more time and less expectations about the experience
If I need Linux I can always go for UTM or something similar
1) for the longest time, but no longer, Google did not ship an official chrome linux arm64 package. Chromium Browser also has not included google sync for years now. But now, google chrome does ship for arm64 linux so its all good.
2) usb-c video still doesn't work, so not ideal for a laptop without hdmi that you'd want to dock
Otherwise, it works really well.
Case in point, any form of package management. Or then you have Flatpack, with its own list of issues