17 ms·

Linux 5.19

351 points by anpep 4y ago

deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
ranguna 4y ago
Checkout the Asahi repos in github: https://github.com/AsahiLinux https://github.com/AsahiLinux Didn't know it was fully usable right now, amazing work! I think one of the few last things missing is the gpu module, which is being developed with a help of a VTuber, she puts up full live coding session on YouTube: https://youtube.com/c/AsahiLina https://youtube.com/c/AsahiLina
henearkr 4y ago
And the news hidden in the news: this will be renamed Linux kernel 6.0.
- p_l 4y ago
  The next kernel will be 6.0, not the one that was just pushed out and tagged.
  - henearkr 4y ago
    Right, sorry.
MichaelRazum 4y ago
Anyone using it fulltime? Just curious how the simple things work for you. The biggest question for me would be the keyboard, since linux seems to be much more windows like. PS: Im on a p1 gen4 thinkapd very happy with it, BUT it is sometimes really noisy..
- david_allison 4y ago
  I'm running Ubuntu arm64 on my M1 MacBook Pro 14 inch via Parallels + a Bluetooth keyboard. Ubuntu's not a daily driver, there's a bit of initial effort in switching between macOS + Linux keyboards, but it's usable.
- dncornholio 4y ago
  Apple keyboards are the same as Windows, they just have different labels. The ALT key is called "option". CTRL is "control" and the windows key is "command".
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
  - hnlmorg 4y ago
    Lots more different than that: + Windows has the Windows key (which Linux called "super") + Windows also has the context menu key, which I think it pretty useless to be honest but others might get value from that + The Mac keyboard layout is US-like, even on European models. Which means a bunch of keys are in different places from their European IBM counterparts (like @ and "). The # and / keys I find particularly hard to locate on Macs. I often end up redefining my Mac keyboard to be an IBM keyboard even though it differs from the key caps. It's a nightmare for anyone using my Mac but much easier for me who's had ~40 years of muscle memory. Not the keyboard hardware (so somewhat out of scope for this context) but it's also worth noting that there's some macOS keyboard shortcuts that differ in really confusing ways too. Like + Ctrl+C vs Cmd+C + Text area navigation on a Mac is totally different too. Home and End buttons behave differently. Ctrl+Arrow keys don't work. Shift+Arrow keys don't select. etc Every time I spend a few months in Linux and then switch to a Mac (or visa versa) I inevitably have a few days of pain relearning short cut keys.
    - Hamuko 4y ago
      >The Mac keyboard layout is US-like, even on European models. Which means a bunch of keys are in different places from their European IBM counterparts (like @ and "). I just checked three external Apple keyboards, one integrated Apple Keyboard and a Logitech G15, and as far as I can tell, all of them have the @ and " in the same places.
      - hnlmorg 4y ago
        They do differ on the UK keyboards (examples below). Other keyboards for other European languages will differ in different ways (differ both from the UK layout and also from the US layout). UK Mac keyboard: https://www.apple.com/uk/shop/product/MMMR3B/A/magic-keyboard-with-touch-id-and-numeric-keypad-for-mac-models-with-apple-silicon-british-english-black-keys?fnode=128684b684e9520c37c3b8524ac050b9a97208600313a9b77f9e136b1854005da09fba8d18088cc2a010842ea66906080a21773f24b4372dfc9546c40739666d2459bd456df5c34f1767434a62ceac32dde26071511a9e5698a4f8483e1e1104d9ac100faa068b066d8b20bcb3abf561 https://www.apple.com/uk/shop/product/MMMR3B/A/magic-keyboar... A random UK "IBM" keyboard: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Ultra-Classic-style-keyboard-Black/dp/B009PKF9WK https://www.amazon.co.uk/Ultra-Classic-style-keyboard-Black/...
- vladvasiliu 4y ago
  As the sibling said, the keyboards are basically the same, especially the US ANSI variant (horizontal Enter). Localized versions can be different, the French for example has some symbols in very different places. Also, the ALT (Option, key to the right of the left CTRL) and Super (Command, key to the left of the space bar) are reversed, but you can tell Linux to swap them. I use `options hid_apple fnmode=2 swap_opt_cmd=1` to have function keys register as Fx without the FN and to have the ALT key next to the space bar.
- throwntoday 4y ago
  Not using full-time but have a partition for it. I went no DE on my install, figured I'd hold off until we got GPU support. I'm on an M1 Pro and all the essential hardware works so it's fine for my purposes (C++ development).
Omniusaspirer 4y ago
Title correction: From an M2 MacBook Air, which was impressively supported before it had even shipped. https://mobile.twitter.com/AsahiLinux/status/1553968394734813184?cxt=HHwWgIDShbKB55ArAAAA https://mobile.twitter.com/AsahiLinux/status/155396839473481... https://mobile.twitter.com/AsahiLinux/status/1550866042183974918?cxt=HHwWjIC8qdqc5IUrAAAA https://mobile.twitter.com/AsahiLinux/status/155086604218397...
a3w 4y ago
Linus' third time using ARM64, once ``a decade+ ago when the Macbook Air was the only real thin-and-lite [machine] around'', confuses me. The original Macbook Air and successor a decade ago used Intel IIRC? <edit>Wikipedia agrees with my memory.</>
- Lukasa 4y ago
  Quoting directly from the text: > It's the third time I'm using Apple hardware for Linux development No mention of ARM64 there.
  - a3w 4y ago
    Oh, I misinterepreted. How do I delete my old posting... Although Apple branded hardware is not apple developed hardware, so I read that in a different way. But now I realize that PowerPC was not an Apple Development, too, so he means Apple branding. So in my head, this is his first time of using Apple hardware (CPU, not keyboard, casing, etc.) for kernel compilation. Thanks Apple for insisting that "this is the first Apple hardware" for clamshell laptops in your PR statements.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- kzrdude 4y ago
  He said "It's the third time I'm using Apple hardware" (i.e macs, not arm64)
- jdhawk 4y ago
  Third time using Apple Hardware.
OJFord 4y ago
> I'll likely call [the next release] 6.0 since I'm starting to worry about getting confused by big numbers again. I'm not sure whether to read this as a joke, or if there's really no semantic difference between x & y version numbers for the Linux kernel? [Edit: that was a sincere question, not 'what a joke', I didn't mean anything against it.] If I hadn't seen that I'd have been very cautious, a bit worried even, about upgrading to :shocked-face: six point oh, scoured for news & changelogs (yes yes as I should anyway.. actually what I do is assume patch will be fine, and check /r/archlinux for minor bumps - that is, I thought they were 'minor' and 'patch' rather than arbitrary) etc.
- moonbas3 4y ago
  The first number being changed doesn't mean anything in particular, it's just like another release. Check the release post for 5.0: https://lkml.org/lkml/2019/3/3/236 https://lkml.org/lkml/2019/3/3/236
  - nicce 4y ago
    So we can conclude, that the the big star of open source is not enforcing the child of open source :( Ref SemVer: https://semver.org/ https://semver.org/
    - dual_dingo 4y ago
      I don't think SemVer is an appropriate versioning scheme for the Linux kernel due to the extremely large number of subsystems that make up the whole.
    - dcminter 4y ago
      The unofficial motto of the Linux kernel is "Don't break userspace" so semver wouldn't be useful.
      - mort96 4y ago
        And what's more, the second unofficial motto of the Linux kernel is "break kernel space"; they don't make any attempt at keeping in-kernel APIs stable. So if they followed semver for userspace, they'd be on 1.9000.0, if they followed semver for kernel space they'd be on 9000.0.0.
EbNar 4y ago
nicoburns 4y ago
Somewhat surprisingly, Linux support for Apple Silicon MacBooks seems to be shaping up to be better than that for pretty much any other laptop. The Asahi team don’t have support for everything yet (notably no GPU) but what they do have support for seems to be high quality, well integrated with Linux’s conventions, and upstreamed into the mainline kernel! How much other hardware can claim that? The Asahi developers have also stated that Apple tends to keep hardware peripheral interfaces stable across generations (they speculate that this is to keep things easy for their own OS dev teams), and that this has so far proven to be true for M2 (and several iPhone generations before that), and thus once support is available , it should stay relevant for some time. Given this, it seems like MacBooks could easily end up becoming the laptop of choice for Linux developers in the years to come.
- DJeuxg 4y ago
  > How much other hardware can claim that? You mean aside from system76 or of any of the other Linux first hardware sellers? > The Asahi developers have also stated that Apple tends to keep hardware peripheral interfaces stable across generations The Asahi team has made an assumption about apples implementation of mobile chipsets that hasn't had a Linux competitor working to exploit it. Nothing is stopping apple from rug pulling the project next cycle. Nobody should be relying on this.
  - EricE 4y ago
    >Nothing is stopping apple from rug pulling the project next cycle. Why would they do that? As others have pointed outed, Microsoft, Intel, Nvidia, etc. are indeed pulling the rug out on the other side (in the name of security). Locking the Mac down 100% would have zero benefit to Apple and just generate negativity.
- manholio 4y ago
  > MacBooks could easily end up becoming the laptop of choice for Linux developers That is, if they want to subsidize with their own wallets the dominance of consumer-hostile computing that open source was created to avert. Except for development such as this here, which aims at liberating users from a closed platform, I would have a philosophical problem to buy such hardware purely for my convenience. Let's not fool ourselves, when proprietary hardware from platform giants like Amazon and Apple becomes dominant killing open ecosystems, the end of road can only lead to consumer coercion, regardless if a negligible fraction of users would be able to still run Linux on such hardware.
ngcc_hk 4y ago
“ On a personal note, the most interesting part here is that I did the release (and am writing this) on an arm64 laptop.” Some comments seems not on this. It seems to a mac arm notebook he tried to use not in a big way. But will be for travelling. For the release itself tbh I am confused his last merge window (*) comment. Is it 6.1 or not I am not sure? ( should it be odd number if it replaces 5.x9?or it 6.0 as it is after 5.x9)
amelius 4y ago
Wait, if Linus is happy about supporting undocumented hardware, then does he like NVidia now too?
- rowanG077 4y ago
  Nvidia is actively hostile. Apple is slightly willing to get Linux to work. It's not comperable.
  - AshamedCaptain 4y ago
    But it's still discouraging to the companies that actually support Linux.
    - rhodysurf 4y ago
      Ok it’s on them to make a laptop that can compete with an Apple Silicon Air then
  - ztrww 4y ago
    Apple provides no documentation or any other resources. Nvidia at least provides their closed source drivers and has put in some effort in open sourcing some parts of them. Obviously Nvidia is not great but it is still much, much better than Apple which just totally ignores Linux and there is no guarantee some exec might decide that they need to patch the ‘security holes’ which allow Linux to even run on m1 at some point in the future.
    - mattl 4y ago
      I believe Apple has been making changes to actively support the Asahi community in regards to bootloaders and such.
      - bombcar 4y ago
        They have, though it's not clear if it's "engineer at Apple realizes with one small change they can make it easier for Linux" or "internally Apple is fine with supporting Linux on their hardware but they're not openly doing so". I'm actually moderately surprised they are not actively helping, as often having a second OS option allows for various fun legal tricks when importing, bidding on government contracts, etc.
colomon 4y ago
Nothing against the Asahi team, it sounds like they're doing fantastic work. But I'm a little surprised at the talk (which I've seen before) which indicates theirs is the first approach allowing you to use Linux on ARM Macs. A few months ago I used UTM Virtual Machines (which itself uses QEMU) to get ARM Linux up and running on my M1 Mini, and it worked brilliantly. Admittedly I only use the command line interface for working on Linux -- maybe the GUI is lacking? -- but I effortlessly got G++, Perl 5, and Raku working on it, and used that to get a full build of my $work up and running. It was actually easier than getting the same setup working on the MacOS side of things, with great performance.
- saghul 4y ago
  That's not comparable. Asahi is about running natively on the hardware.
- Twisell 4y ago
  I guess working on bare metal was implied. Virtualization have always been useful but it's another use case. Asahi enable user to bypass MacOS entirely which I guess is the only satisfying way to use apple silicone for Linus Torvalds.
  - tekknik 4y ago
    What would happen in Linus decided he likes MacOS better? He’s kinda stuck at this point no?
    - capableweb 4y ago
      Why would he be stuck? Many people are pragmatists over purists, wouldn't be far out if Linus was as well. I've written many tools myself that were better than anything I could find, but at a later point I found a "competitor" that did something better than me, and subsequently dumped my tool in favor of the better one. I for one don't care who writes the software, if it's better it's better.
- mattl 4y ago
zinekeller 4y ago
While the main focus is on the surprising compatibility of M2, I still laughed a bit at this: > (*) I'll likely call it 6.0 since I'm starting to worry about getting confused by big numbers again. It seems that he ran out of fingers and toes again.
- Cthulhu_ 4y ago
  REAL developers only need to count from zero to one.
alexeiz 4y ago
So Linus wants to use an arm64 to build and test kernel. Why not use AWS Graviton instead? Graviton3 may be slightly less powerful than M1 for single core workloads, but for multicore workloads like building the kernel it's much better suited. In fact, I don't understand why Linus uses a laptop for development. You can easily configure a more powerful cloud instance for the type of work he does. It may be costing more than the Macbook Air M1, but I'm sure the Linux Foundation can afford it.
- viraptor 4y ago
  You're assuming that he does the work using a good internet connection, is not physically mobile, and doesn't care about latency if you're proposing AWS as a replacement for a laptop. Which may happen to be true... but these are still serious assumptions.
- zirak 4y ago
  Maybe Linus wants to work on his laptop and not the cloud, because that's just the way he wants to work. And he wants an M1 / M2 because he likes something about them. That doesn't feel very controversial, someone wanting to work the way they want to and not some other way.

351 points by anpep 4y ago

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]

Checkout the Asahi repos in github: https://github.com/AsahiLinux https://github.com/AsahiLinux Didn't know it was fully usable right now, amazing work! I think one of the few last things missing is the gpu module, which is being developed with a help of a VTuber, she puts up full live coding session on YouTube: https://youtube.com/c/AsahiLina https://youtube.com/c/AsahiLina

henearkr 4y ago

And the news hidden in the news: this will be renamed Linux kernel 6.0.

p_l 4y ago
The next kernel will be 6.0, not the one that was just pushed out and tagged.
- henearkr 4y ago
  Right, sorry.

MichaelRazum 4y ago

Anyone using it fulltime? Just curious how the simple things work for you. The biggest question for me would be the keyboard, since linux seems to be much more windows like. PS: Im on a p1 gen4 thinkapd very happy with it, BUT it is sometimes really noisy..

david_allison 4y ago
I'm running Ubuntu arm64 on my M1 MacBook Pro 14 inch via Parallels + a Bluetooth keyboard. Ubuntu's not a daily driver, there's a bit of initial effort in switching between macOS + Linux keyboards, but it's usable.
dncornholio 4y ago
Apple keyboards are the same as Windows, they just have different labels. The ALT key is called "option". CTRL is "control" and the windows key is "command".
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- hnlmorg 4y ago
  Lots more different than that: + Windows has the Windows key (which Linux called "super") + Windows also has the context menu key, which I think it pretty useless to be honest but others might get value from that + The Mac keyboard layout is US-like, even on European models. Which means a bunch of keys are in different places from their European IBM counterparts (like @ and "). The # and / keys I find particularly hard to locate on Macs. I often end up redefining my Mac keyboard to be an IBM keyboard even though it differs from the key caps. It's a nightmare for anyone using my Mac but much easier for me who's had ~40 years of muscle memory. Not the keyboard hardware (so somewhat out of scope for this context) but it's also worth noting that there's some macOS keyboard shortcuts that differ in really confusing ways too. Like + Ctrl+C vs Cmd+C + Text area navigation on a Mac is totally different too. Home and End buttons behave differently. Ctrl+Arrow keys don't work. Shift+Arrow keys don't select. etc Every time I spend a few months in Linux and then switch to a Mac (or visa versa) I inevitably have a few days of pain relearning short cut keys.
  - Hamuko 4y ago
    >The Mac keyboard layout is US-like, even on European models. Which means a bunch of keys are in different places from their European IBM counterparts (like @ and "). I just checked three external Apple keyboards, one integrated Apple Keyboard and a Logitech G15, and as far as I can tell, all of them have the @ and " in the same places.
    - hnlmorg 4y ago
      They do differ on the UK keyboards (examples below). Other keyboards for other European languages will differ in different ways (differ both from the UK layout and also from the US layout). UK Mac keyboard: https://www.apple.com/uk/shop/product/MMMR3B/A/magic-keyboard-with-touch-id-and-numeric-keypad-for-mac-models-with-apple-silicon-british-english-black-keys?fnode=128684b684e9520c37c3b8524ac050b9a97208600313a9b77f9e136b1854005da09fba8d18088cc2a010842ea66906080a21773f24b4372dfc9546c40739666d2459bd456df5c34f1767434a62ceac32dde26071511a9e5698a4f8483e1e1104d9ac100faa068b066d8b20bcb3abf561 https://www.apple.com/uk/shop/product/MMMR3B/A/magic-keyboar... A random UK "IBM" keyboard: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Ultra-Classic-style-keyboard-Black/dp/B009PKF9WK https://www.amazon.co.uk/Ultra-Classic-style-keyboard-Black/...
vladvasiliu 4y ago
As the sibling said, the keyboards are basically the same, especially the US ANSI variant (horizontal Enter). Localized versions can be different, the French for example has some symbols in very different places. Also, the ALT (Option, key to the right of the left CTRL) and Super (Command, key to the left of the space bar) are reversed, but you can tell Linux to swap them. I use `options hid_apple fnmode=2 swap_opt_cmd=1` to have function keys register as Fx without the FN and to have the ALT key next to the space bar.
throwntoday 4y ago
Not using full-time but have a partition for it. I went no DE on my install, figured I'd hold off until we got GPU support. I'm on an M1 Pro and all the essential hardware works so it's fine for my purposes (C++ development).

Omniusaspirer 4y ago

Title correction: From an M2 MacBook Air, which was impressively supported before it had even shipped. https://mobile.twitter.com/AsahiLinux/status/1553968394734813184?cxt=HHwWgIDShbKB55ArAAAA https://mobile.twitter.com/AsahiLinux/status/155396839473481... https://mobile.twitter.com/AsahiLinux/status/1550866042183974918?cxt=HHwWjIC8qdqc5IUrAAAA https://mobile.twitter.com/AsahiLinux/status/155086604218397...

a3w 4y ago

Linus' third time using ARM64, once ``a decade+ ago when the Macbook Air was the only real thin-and-lite [machine] around'', confuses me. The original Macbook Air and successor a decade ago used Intel IIRC? <edit>Wikipedia agrees with my memory.</>

Lukasa 4y ago
Quoting directly from the text: > It's the third time I'm using Apple hardware for Linux development No mention of ARM64 there.
- a3w 4y ago
  Oh, I misinterepreted. How do I delete my old posting... Although Apple branded hardware is not apple developed hardware, so I read that in a different way. But now I realize that PowerPC was not an Apple Development, too, so he means Apple branding. So in my head, this is his first time of using Apple hardware (CPU, not keyboard, casing, etc.) for kernel compilation. Thanks Apple for insisting that "this is the first Apple hardware" for clamshell laptops in your PR statements.
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
kzrdude 4y ago
He said "It's the third time I'm using Apple hardware" (i.e macs, not arm64)
jdhawk 4y ago
Third time using Apple Hardware.

OJFord 4y ago

> I'll likely call [the next release] 6.0 since I'm starting to worry about getting confused by big numbers again. I'm not sure whether to read this as a joke, or if there's really no semantic difference between x & y version numbers for the Linux kernel? [Edit: that was a sincere question, not 'what a joke', I didn't mean anything against it.] If I hadn't seen that I'd have been very cautious, a bit worried even, about upgrading to :shocked-face: six point oh, scoured for news & changelogs (yes yes as I should anyway.. actually what I do is assume patch will be fine, and check /r/archlinux for minor bumps - that is, I thought they were 'minor' and 'patch' rather than arbitrary) etc.

moonbas3 4y ago
The first number being changed doesn't mean anything in particular, it's just like another release. Check the release post for 5.0: https://lkml.org/lkml/2019/3/3/236 https://lkml.org/lkml/2019/3/3/236
- nicce 4y ago
  So we can conclude, that the the big star of open source is not enforcing the child of open source :( Ref SemVer: https://semver.org/ https://semver.org/
  - dual_dingo 4y ago
    I don't think SemVer is an appropriate versioning scheme for the Linux kernel due to the extremely large number of subsystems that make up the whole.
  - dcminter 4y ago
    The unofficial motto of the Linux kernel is "Don't break userspace" so semver wouldn't be useful.
    - mort96 4y ago
      And what's more, the second unofficial motto of the Linux kernel is "break kernel space"; they don't make any attempt at keeping in-kernel APIs stable. So if they followed semver for userspace, they'd be on 1.9000.0, if they followed semver for kernel space they'd be on 9000.0.0.

EbNar 4y ago

nicoburns 4y ago

Somewhat surprisingly, Linux support for Apple Silicon MacBooks seems to be shaping up to be better than that for pretty much any other laptop. The Asahi team don’t have support for everything yet (notably no GPU) but what they do have support for seems to be high quality, well integrated with Linux’s conventions, and upstreamed into the mainline kernel! How much other hardware can claim that? The Asahi developers have also stated that Apple tends to keep hardware peripheral interfaces stable across generations (they speculate that this is to keep things easy for their own OS dev teams), and that this has so far proven to be true for M2 (and several iPhone generations before that), and thus once support is available , it should stay relevant for some time. Given this, it seems like MacBooks could easily end up becoming the laptop of choice for Linux developers in the years to come.

DJeuxg 4y ago
> How much other hardware can claim that? You mean aside from system76 or of any of the other Linux first hardware sellers? > The Asahi developers have also stated that Apple tends to keep hardware peripheral interfaces stable across generations The Asahi team has made an assumption about apples implementation of mobile chipsets that hasn't had a Linux competitor working to exploit it. Nothing is stopping apple from rug pulling the project next cycle. Nobody should be relying on this.
- EricE 4y ago
  >Nothing is stopping apple from rug pulling the project next cycle. Why would they do that? As others have pointed outed, Microsoft, Intel, Nvidia, etc. are indeed pulling the rug out on the other side (in the name of security). Locking the Mac down 100% would have zero benefit to Apple and just generate negativity.
manholio 4y ago
> MacBooks could easily end up becoming the laptop of choice for Linux developers That is, if they want to subsidize with their own wallets the dominance of consumer-hostile computing that open source was created to avert. Except for development such as this here, which aims at liberating users from a closed platform, I would have a philosophical problem to buy such hardware purely for my convenience. Let's not fool ourselves, when proprietary hardware from platform giants like Amazon and Apple becomes dominant killing open ecosystems, the end of road can only lead to consumer coercion, regardless if a negligible fraction of users would be able to still run Linux on such hardware.

ngcc_hk 4y ago

“ On a personal note, the most interesting part here is that I did the release (and am writing this) on an arm64 laptop.” Some comments seems not on this. It seems to a mac arm notebook he tried to use not in a big way. But will be for travelling. For the release itself tbh I am confused his last merge window (*) comment. Is it 6.1 or not I am not sure? ( should it be odd number if it replaces 5.x9?or it 6.0 as it is after 5.x9)

amelius 4y ago

Wait, if Linus is happy about supporting undocumented hardware, then does he like NVidia now too?

rowanG077 4y ago
Nvidia is actively hostile. Apple is slightly willing to get Linux to work. It's not comperable.
- AshamedCaptain 4y ago
  But it's still discouraging to the companies that actually support Linux.
  - rhodysurf 4y ago
    Ok it’s on them to make a laptop that can compete with an Apple Silicon Air then
- ztrww 4y ago
  Apple provides no documentation or any other resources. Nvidia at least provides their closed source drivers and has put in some effort in open sourcing some parts of them. Obviously Nvidia is not great but it is still much, much better than Apple which just totally ignores Linux and there is no guarantee some exec might decide that they need to patch the ‘security holes’ which allow Linux to even run on m1 at some point in the future.
  - mattl 4y ago
    I believe Apple has been making changes to actively support the Asahi community in regards to bootloaders and such.
    - bombcar 4y ago
      They have, though it's not clear if it's "engineer at Apple realizes with one small change they can make it easier for Linux" or "internally Apple is fine with supporting Linux on their hardware but they're not openly doing so". I'm actually moderately surprised they are not actively helping, as often having a second OS option allows for various fun legal tricks when importing, bidding on government contracts, etc.

colomon 4y ago

Nothing against the Asahi team, it sounds like they're doing fantastic work. But I'm a little surprised at the talk (which I've seen before) which indicates theirs is the first approach allowing you to use Linux on ARM Macs. A few months ago I used UTM Virtual Machines (which itself uses QEMU) to get ARM Linux up and running on my M1 Mini, and it worked brilliantly. Admittedly I only use the command line interface for working on Linux -- maybe the GUI is lacking? -- but I effortlessly got G++, Perl 5, and Raku working on it, and used that to get a full build of my $work up and running. It was actually easier than getting the same setup working on the MacOS side of things, with great performance.

saghul 4y ago
That's not comparable. Asahi is about running natively on the hardware.
Twisell 4y ago
I guess working on bare metal was implied. Virtualization have always been useful but it's another use case. Asahi enable user to bypass MacOS entirely which I guess is the only satisfying way to use apple silicone for Linus Torvalds.
- tekknik 4y ago
  What would happen in Linus decided he likes MacOS better? He’s kinda stuck at this point no?
  - capableweb 4y ago
    Why would he be stuck? Many people are pragmatists over purists, wouldn't be far out if Linus was as well. I've written many tools myself that were better than anything I could find, but at a later point I found a "competitor" that did something better than me, and subsequently dumped my tool in favor of the better one. I for one don't care who writes the software, if it's better it's better.
mattl 4y ago

zinekeller 4y ago

While the main focus is on the surprising compatibility of M2, I still laughed a bit at this: > (*) I'll likely call it 6.0 since I'm starting to worry about getting confused by big numbers again. It seems that he ran out of fingers and toes again.

Cthulhu_ 4y ago
REAL developers only need to count from zero to one.

alexeiz 4y ago

So Linus wants to use an arm64 to build and test kernel. Why not use AWS Graviton instead? Graviton3 may be slightly less powerful than M1 for single core workloads, but for multicore workloads like building the kernel it's much better suited. In fact, I don't understand why Linus uses a laptop for development. You can easily configure a more powerful cloud instance for the type of work he does. It may be costing more than the Macbook Air M1, but I'm sure the Linux Foundation can afford it.

viraptor 4y ago
You're assuming that he does the work using a good internet connection, is not physically mobile, and doesn't care about latency if you're proposing AWS as a replacement for a laptop. Which may happen to be true... but these are still serious assumptions.
zirak 4y ago
Maybe Linus wants to work on his laptop and not the cloud, because that's just the way he wants to work. And he wants an M1 / M2 because he likes something about them. That doesn't feel very controversial, someone wanting to work the way they want to and not some other way.