5 ms·

> Is there anything that doesn’t work? > To quote Hamlet, Act 3, Scene 3, Line 87: “No.” > Everything works… and works perfectly. That is impressive and real

> Is there anything that doesn’t work? > To quote Hamlet, Act 3, Scene 3, Line 87: “No.” > Everything works… and works perfectly. That is impressive and really hard to believe! I guess I'll have to find an M1 mac Mini to try myself!

gbN025tt2Z1E2E4 4y ago
Not that hard to believe when you consider the hardware specs for Apple machines are so heavily locked down to a very specific set of mobo, cpu, and only variability in core count, ram amount, hard drive size, etc. It's not like PC world of mix and match everything.
- runjake 4y ago
  It's hard to believe because virtually none of the proprietary Apple Silicon platform (except the CPU instruction set itself) is documented and involved a tremendous amount of reverse-engineering effort by some very bright volunteers.
  - sixothree 4y ago
    And yet open source community embraces the hardware with fervor.
    - sliken 4y ago
      It's an appealing platform. Entry level is $600, nice memory systems (66GB/sec to 800GB/sec), and nice iGPU. The laptops have nice keyboards, nice trackpads, nice screens, and great battery life. The desktops are built in a solid aluminum chassis and have a single fan (instead of the normal 4-8) and are small and quiet. I do wish apple did a native apple port, but the community is making good progress on that front.
      - sixothree 4y ago
        > but the community is making good progress on that front You mean in reverse engineering hardware?
        sliken 4y ago
        Yes. Marcan, Asahi Lina, and related folks have been working on improving 3d accelerations. It's good enough for desktop use and some gaming so far, games like tuxracer, video playback, minecraft, etc. First the driver was in user space in python, then in the kernel with rust, and recent improvements have increased parallelism (from Lina) and removing Mailboxes (from Marcan). OpenGL and Vulkan compliance has been increasing. Last I heard OpenGL was at 99-100% (almost all tests passing) and Vulkan wasn't as good, but improving. I believe Alyssa Rosen is doing much of that work. Last published update I've seen is: https://asahilinux.org/2022/12/gpu-drivers-now-in-asahi-linux/ https://asahilinux.org/2022/12/gpu-drivers-now-in-asahi-linu... There are some posts on Twitter and/or Mastodon, and regular updates on YouTube from "Asahi Lina" and Marcan, often by Live stream and Patreon. Oh, and Neal Gompa is working on getting the GPU working with Fedora. One problem is most ARM linux distros default to 4k pages. But the GPU (which shares memory with the CPU) requires 16k pages. Seems like a performance win (less TLB thrashing), with a marginal increase in memory use.
    - Mike_12345 4y ago
      Vast majority of hardware used by the open source community is proprietary and undocumented, and always has been. They embrace the challenge of reverse-engineering.
      - sixothree 4y ago
        I don't understand the draw to something so hostile to the core values of Linux.
        Mike_12345 4y ago
        GNU / Linux and BSD would never have started with that attitude. Most hardware was proprietary back in the day, and still is proprietary today. Even Thinkpads (a favourite among BSD devs) have proprietary subsystems that are reverse engineered. The alternative would have been to sulk and whine about it and do nothing. The hardware vendors truly do not give a f**k. They are run by business people, not open source idealists.
      - matheusmoreira 4y ago
        I hope I get to be a badass challenge-embracing reverse engineer like the people behind Asahi one day. I've done some USB stuff but have no idea how they're tackling all the other hardware.
  - morrbo 4y ago
    Agreed, if anyone wants some good insight, this video is fantastic. It gets to the tech stuff about 20 mins in iirc and explains some quite surprisingly open aspects of the apple ecosystem and some approaches to funky stuff with the closed bits. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=COlvP4hODpY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=COlvP4hODpY
  - Mike_12345 4y ago
    That's typically been the case since Linux started in 1991. Reverse-engineering undocumented proprietary hardware has been the norm.
  - hotpotamus 4y ago
    Your italics are strange and makes me wonder if you are trying to convey something. My first thought is that if the reverse engineering was done anonymously or pseudonymously, then the ones best positioned to do it would be actual Apple engineers who have insider information and feel like sharing with the world.
nicce 4y ago
Not everything will work. Once upon time I tried to make CTF with M2 Pro, and I seriously wished that I had x86_64 Linux instead. Many of the penetration testing tools are not mainstream and they include pre-build x86_64 binaries, or are configured just to not compile with ARM, for reason unknown. And there is no time to figure out what is wrong. I know this might be a niche scenario, but still...
- jeffbee 4y ago
  I cannot imagine a worse idea than downloading a binary artifact promulgated by someone in the competitive infosec community.
  - nicce 4y ago
    Not much different than installing any random pip package. They include pre-build binaries too. Infosec tools might be even safer.
    - jeffbee 4y ago
      That’s exactly what I’m always telling people about pip.
  - saagarjha 4y ago
    They’re inviting you to tear it apart, so
- snazz 4y ago
  That seems like a wonderful opportunity to use QEMU since it's not all that performance-sensitive (I think?) and you're not running random pre-built binaries directly on your computer.
  - nicce 4y ago
    I ran all my stuff inside non-root non-volume container so prebuilt binary it is not really a problem. I used QEMU through Podman machine in the end, but the performance is terrible. Even on MacOS side QEMU does not support Rosetta 2. Docker for Desktop supports and gives significant boost, but I don’t want to use it.
psanford 4y ago
I've got an M2 Air. It is very usable, but its far from everything working perfectly. Builtin speaker support is still a work in progress. It works if you know what you are doing and are not afraid to damage your speakers if you make a mistake. There's been progress on this though, so I expect this to be resolved sooner than later. There's no builtin speakers in the author's mac studio though, so I'll give them a pass for this one. Bluetooth and wifi both work, but their drivers are still buggy. I see a lot of errors in dmseg from these drivers and occasionally things stop working and require a reboot to fix. GPU acceleration works, but there is still a lot of work to do on that driver. External displays over the thunderbolt ports don't work yet. Other things that don't work on the laptops: webcam, touch-id / Secure Enclave, some miscellaneous software. Don't get me wrong, I've been able to daily drive linux only on my m2 air since August. I love the hardware and the current state of Asahi meets my needs. And its been steadily improving over the course of time. But its far from "work[ing] perfectly" yet.
- lmedinas 4y ago
  Do you have a dual boot ?
  - psanford 4y ago
    Yes
  - noloblo 4y ago
    yes No need to use flash usb drive just enter in terminal curl https://alx.sh https://alx.sh | sh to install asahi linux Dual boot on m1 or m2 MacBook apple silicon
- TimTheTinker 4y ago
  OP's requirements pretty much uniquely match what Asahi on a desktop M2 provides -- heavy compute, not heavy graphics, no onboard speakers, one big display, no webcam/touch-id, etc. It sounds like if you're developing services hosted in a cloud, Asahi Linux is a great fit for a desktop Mac.
rmorey 4y ago
It's not obvious if you skim the post, but they mention getting the Mini in the first paragraph, but later mention they got a tricked out mac studio. so just be aware the fawning notes are about the Studio, not the Mini (although the mini does rock I love it)
- eatonphil 4y ago
  Good point. I only noticed the bits about the studio.
sys_64738 4y ago
I thought the sound and trackpad didn't work although maybe that isn't an issue for the Mac Studio.
eqvinox 4y ago
per statement from Asahi Linux [https://social.treehouse.systems/@AsahiLinux/109931764533424795 https://social.treehouse.systems/@AsahiLinux/109931764533424...] - you'll have to do a lot of your own legwork [EDIT: on upstream/"standard" Linux] to get there. Not having to deal with an entire custom laptop (i.e. getting a lot of standard peripherals for "free" after only getting USB to work) also helps a whole lot, and note the article specifically talks about a desktop mac.
- dougall 4y ago
  That toot is about upstream Linux 6.2, not Asahi Linux. If you run Asahi Linux (as in the blog post) you get decent (but not complete) legwork-free hardware support. Detailed breakdown here: https://github.com/AsahiLinux/docs/wiki/Feature-Support https://github.com/AsahiLinux/docs/wiki/Feature-Support
  - eqvinox 4y ago
    Good point, Thanks for the correction!

gbN025tt2Z1E2E4 4y ago

Not that hard to believe when you consider the hardware specs for Apple machines are so heavily locked down to a very specific set of mobo, cpu, and only variability in core count, ram amount, hard drive size, etc. It's not like PC world of mix and match everything.

runjake 4y ago
It's hard to believe because virtually none of the proprietary Apple Silicon platform (except the CPU instruction set itself) is documented and involved a tremendous amount of reverse-engineering effort by some very bright volunteers.
- sixothree 4y ago
  And yet open source community embraces the hardware with fervor.
  - sliken 4y ago
    It's an appealing platform. Entry level is $600, nice memory systems (66GB/sec to 800GB/sec), and nice iGPU. The laptops have nice keyboards, nice trackpads, nice screens, and great battery life. The desktops are built in a solid aluminum chassis and have a single fan (instead of the normal 4-8) and are small and quiet. I do wish apple did a native apple port, but the community is making good progress on that front.
    - sixothree 4y ago
      > but the community is making good progress on that front You mean in reverse engineering hardware?
      - sliken 4y ago
        Yes. Marcan, Asahi Lina, and related folks have been working on improving 3d accelerations. It's good enough for desktop use and some gaming so far, games like tuxracer, video playback, minecraft, etc. First the driver was in user space in python, then in the kernel with rust, and recent improvements have increased parallelism (from Lina) and removing Mailboxes (from Marcan). OpenGL and Vulkan compliance has been increasing. Last I heard OpenGL was at 99-100% (almost all tests passing) and Vulkan wasn't as good, but improving. I believe Alyssa Rosen is doing much of that work. Last published update I've seen is: https://asahilinux.org/2022/12/gpu-drivers-now-in-asahi-linux/ https://asahilinux.org/2022/12/gpu-drivers-now-in-asahi-linu... There are some posts on Twitter and/or Mastodon, and regular updates on YouTube from "Asahi Lina" and Marcan, often by Live stream and Patreon. Oh, and Neal Gompa is working on getting the GPU working with Fedora. One problem is most ARM linux distros default to 4k pages. But the GPU (which shares memory with the CPU) requires 16k pages. Seems like a performance win (less TLB thrashing), with a marginal increase in memory use.
  - Mike_12345 4y ago
    Vast majority of hardware used by the open source community is proprietary and undocumented, and always has been. They embrace the challenge of reverse-engineering.
    - sixothree 4y ago
      I don't understand the draw to something so hostile to the core values of Linux.
      - Mike_12345 4y ago
        GNU / Linux and BSD would never have started with that attitude. Most hardware was proprietary back in the day, and still is proprietary today. Even Thinkpads (a favourite among BSD devs) have proprietary subsystems that are reverse engineered. The alternative would have been to sulk and whine about it and do nothing. The hardware vendors truly do not give a f**k. They are run by business people, not open source idealists.
    - matheusmoreira 4y ago
      I hope I get to be a badass challenge-embracing reverse engineer like the people behind Asahi one day. I've done some USB stuff but have no idea how they're tackling all the other hardware.
- morrbo 4y ago
  Agreed, if anyone wants some good insight, this video is fantastic. It gets to the tech stuff about 20 mins in iirc and explains some quite surprisingly open aspects of the apple ecosystem and some approaches to funky stuff with the closed bits. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=COlvP4hODpY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=COlvP4hODpY
- Mike_12345 4y ago
  That's typically been the case since Linux started in 1991. Reverse-engineering undocumented proprietary hardware has been the norm.
- hotpotamus 4y ago
  Your italics are strange and makes me wonder if you are trying to convey something. My first thought is that if the reverse engineering was done anonymously or pseudonymously, then the ones best positioned to do it would be actual Apple engineers who have insider information and feel like sharing with the world.

nicce 4y ago

Not everything will work. Once upon time I tried to make CTF with M2 Pro, and I seriously wished that I had x86_64 Linux instead. Many of the penetration testing tools are not mainstream and they include pre-build x86_64 binaries, or are configured just to not compile with ARM, for reason unknown. And there is no time to figure out what is wrong. I know this might be a niche scenario, but still...

jeffbee 4y ago
I cannot imagine a worse idea than downloading a binary artifact promulgated by someone in the competitive infosec community.
- nicce 4y ago
  Not much different than installing any random pip package. They include pre-build binaries too. Infosec tools might be even safer.
  - jeffbee 4y ago
    That’s exactly what I’m always telling people about pip.
- saagarjha 4y ago
  They’re inviting you to tear it apart, so
snazz 4y ago
That seems like a wonderful opportunity to use QEMU since it's not all that performance-sensitive (I think?) and you're not running random pre-built binaries directly on your computer.
- nicce 4y ago
  I ran all my stuff inside non-root non-volume container so prebuilt binary it is not really a problem. I used QEMU through Podman machine in the end, but the performance is terrible. Even on MacOS side QEMU does not support Rosetta 2. Docker for Desktop supports and gives significant boost, but I don’t want to use it.

psanford 4y ago

I've got an M2 Air. It is very usable, but its far from everything working perfectly. Builtin speaker support is still a work in progress. It works if you know what you are doing and are not afraid to damage your speakers if you make a mistake. There's been progress on this though, so I expect this to be resolved sooner than later. There's no builtin speakers in the author's mac studio though, so I'll give them a pass for this one. Bluetooth and wifi both work, but their drivers are still buggy. I see a lot of errors in dmseg from these drivers and occasionally things stop working and require a reboot to fix. GPU acceleration works, but there is still a lot of work to do on that driver. External displays over the thunderbolt ports don't work yet. Other things that don't work on the laptops: webcam, touch-id / Secure Enclave, some miscellaneous software. Don't get me wrong, I've been able to daily drive linux only on my m2 air since August. I love the hardware and the current state of Asahi meets my needs. And its been steadily improving over the course of time. But its far from "work[ing] perfectly" yet.

lmedinas 4y ago
Do you have a dual boot ?
- psanford 4y ago
  Yes
- noloblo 4y ago
  yes No need to use flash usb drive just enter in terminal curl https://alx.sh https://alx.sh | sh to install asahi linux Dual boot on m1 or m2 MacBook apple silicon
TimTheTinker 4y ago
OP's requirements pretty much uniquely match what Asahi on a desktop M2 provides -- heavy compute, not heavy graphics, no onboard speakers, one big display, no webcam/touch-id, etc. It sounds like if you're developing services hosted in a cloud, Asahi Linux is a great fit for a desktop Mac.

rmorey 4y ago

It's not obvious if you skim the post, but they mention getting the Mini in the first paragraph, but later mention they got a tricked out mac studio. so just be aware the fawning notes are about the Studio, not the Mini (although the mini does rock I love it)

eatonphil 4y ago
Good point. I only noticed the bits about the studio.

sys_64738 4y ago

I thought the sound and trackpad didn't work although maybe that isn't an issue for the Mac Studio.

eqvinox 4y ago

per statement from Asahi Linux [https://social.treehouse.systems/@AsahiLinux/109931764533424795 https://social.treehouse.systems/@AsahiLinux/109931764533424...] - you'll have to do a lot of your own legwork [EDIT: on upstream/"standard" Linux] to get there. Not having to deal with an entire custom laptop (i.e. getting a lot of standard peripherals for "free" after only getting USB to work) also helps a whole lot, and note the article specifically talks about a desktop mac.

dougall 4y ago
That toot is about upstream Linux 6.2, not Asahi Linux. If you run Asahi Linux (as in the blog post) you get decent (but not complete) legwork-free hardware support. Detailed breakdown here: https://github.com/AsahiLinux/docs/wiki/Feature-Support https://github.com/AsahiLinux/docs/wiki/Feature-Support
- eqvinox 4y ago
  Good point, Thanks for the correction!