5 ms·
Liberating an M1 MacBook Air in another 4-5 years is going to be quite something. Asahi is making really good progress and in a couple of years maybe you may be
by trustingtrust 4y ago
Liberating an M1 MacBook Air in another 4-5 years is going to be quite something. Asahi is making really good progress and in a couple of years maybe you may be able to hand out M1 MBAs with Linux like candy. My M1 MBA is already so fast compared to my intel DESKTOP from 2018 that I can’t wait to daily drive Linux on it.
- gambiting 4y agoPresumably the M1 Linux distro won't have access to the Rosetta translation layer to run X86 programs? Or will that work anyway?
- baq 4y agoIn 5 years it might not be that big of a deal
- pharmakom 4y agoLinux app ARM support is generally better since they're open source
- illiarian 4y agoBeing open source doesn't magically make them better at ARM support. Someone still has to do the work of actually adding ARM support.
- jandrese 4y agoFor most applications ARM support should just be a recompile.
- alophawen 4y agoARM has been a mainstream target for Linux years before Asahi linux. See Raspberry Pi for example.
- illiarian 4y agoI tried to use RaspberryPi last year. Quite a few apps weren't available for it because there are no ARM versions. Can't remember which (calibre was one of them, maybe?), but it was enough for me to reconsider using it
- sleepycatgirl 4y agoIIRC Calibre supports ARM architecture since 6.0 release, which was July 2022
- illiarian 4y agoIt was probably not available at the time I needed it :)
- anonymous_sorry 4y agoIf the source is available, how much work is there to add ARM support, other than compile it for ARM? Some package managers compile from source at install time anyway. I'm sure there are various "I-think-you'll-find-it's-a-bit-more-complicated-than-that"s. I'm interested to learn what they are.
- ben-schaaf 4y agoIt depends heavily on the project. Maybe it's using a bespoke/old build system that doesn't support targeting arm, obviously any uses of assembly need translation, bugs/compilation issues regarding signed-ness of char in C/C++, or page size. Those are at least all the issues I've encountered.
- macintux 4y agoWhen Itanium was new, HP contracted with Progeny Linux to help them port Linux software. Despite the fact that Alpha had paved the way for 64-bit support it was a long effort.
- diffeomorphism 4y agoIt practically makes them much better, no magic required. https://wiki.debian.org/Arm64Port https://wiki.debian.org/Arm64Port > 98% of Debian is currently built [for arm64]
- swexbe 4y agoRosetta binaries for linux are provided by Apple for use in VMs. https://developer.apple.com/documentation/virtualization/running_intel_binaries_in_linux_vms_with_rosetta https://developer.apple.com/documentation/virtualization/run...
- qbasic_forever 4y agoLinux has a similar tech with the combo of binfmt_misc and qemu. It's pretty straightforward to setup and then any architecture can run any other architecture in an emulated manner. My ARM Android phone can actually run x86 (slowly) in its Termux Linux environment for example.
- duffyjp 4y agoI tried running a Terraria server on my PowerPC Mac Mini running Void a few years ago with the user mode QEMU trick. I managed to get the server started but it crashed if a client tried to connect.
- pantalaimon 4y agoThere is FEX emu which already works for Steam games
- orhmeh09 4y agoI would really like this. I opened up my 2018 t480 thinkpad with arch and xfce on it today, after half a year of using the M1 MBA exclusively, and I realized how much I truly miss using Linux. I don't get a good computingfeel out of macOS -- the last time I did was circa snow leopard. It's someone else's system that I'm allowed to use. The t480 is really noticeably slower than the MBA though it has twice the RAM. I didn't think there was anything wrong with that at the time, though. I have got a more powerful computer now -- but how much of that power is for me to wield?
- kreetx 4y agoIf it's ok to run graphics on CPU (it supposedly is good enough) then we might have Mx MBAs running linux fairly soon. Hopefully not in 4-5 years anyway! FYI, "liberating" Intel macbooks has been possible for years, my 2015 mbp has been running Linux since 2019.
- nicoburns 4y agoThe GPU driver is already available.
- kreetx 4y agoBut it's an alpha, right? ARM is a architecture, so it's much easier to get working while maturing the GPU driver will take time. EDIT: Nevermind, development status summarized here https://github.com/AsahiLinux/docs/wiki/Feature-Support https://github.com/AsahiLinux/docs/wiki/Feature-Support
- nicoburns 4y agoI mean the whole of Asahi is still quite immature, but my understanding is that the GPU driver has hit usable status.
- goosedragons 4y agoThe T2 models don't run Linux well still and probably never reach amazing levels. I don't think the keyboard/mouse driver is in the kernel yet still despite it being 5 years on for those models.
- pantalaimon 4y agoThere is just not as much invest in the T2 models because otherwise they are just boring old x86 machines.
- oblio 4y agoI wish I could be as optimistic as you when people here mention that their 8 year old Mac laptops still don't work as well with Linux and some other people mention that their 15 year old Mac laptops do work well. I mean, if you can wait 15 years for something, more power to you :-)
- skyyler 4y agoMy 8 year old Mac laptop works great with Linux! :D