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Linux Desktop on Apple Silicon in Practice (2022)

36 points by jakogut 1y ago

William_BB 1y ago
How does this compare to Asahi in 2025? In my experience, Asahi's been great
- jakogut 1y ago
  One of the problems is Asahi lacks significant support for the M3/M4, including any kind of graphics acceleration. https://asahilinux.org/docs/platform/feature-support/m3/#soc-blocks https://asahilinux.org/docs/platform/feature-support/m3/#soc...
- orangea 1y ago
  Asahi is useless to me, and I would assume many others, without USB-C display support.
- 2OEH8eoCRo0 1y ago
  Still no thunderbolt on M1
Aurornis 1y ago
Parts of this gist have been updated in May, but sections date back to 2022 and earlier. Some of the links I clicked are no longer relevant, such as the sections about upstreaming parts of code. Since they didn't link the actual patches (just a search query for their author name) I don't know exactly which patches they were referring to or what their status is. Does anyone have a more up to date resource?
porphyra 1y ago
Asahi Linux totally has graphics acceleration on M1 and M2.
- 2OEH8eoCRo0 1y ago
  What about Thunderbolt or DisplayPort alt mode?
  - eighthourblink 1y ago
    IIRC, those are not supported as of now. I have been running Asahi on my M2 MacBook Air for the last ~9 months or so and actually really enjoy it. Showed me the world of aarch64. Battery life could be better but normal low level power usage ranges in the 6 to 7 hour mark. But nothing close to official Apple battery usage.
righthand 1y ago
What does the Venn diagram look like for: “Linux is too much work so that’s why I use Apple products” AND “I’m putting in the work to install partially working Linux on my Apple Mx laptop and loving it”? Do they share members?
- airstrike 1y ago
  it's more like "Apple makes great hardware and I prefer Linux pain over macOS pain"
- porphyra 1y ago
  Apple Macbooks are still class leading in efficiency and build quality, so some Linux tinkerers may still be drawn towards them.
  - deleted 1y ago
    [deleted]
  - righthand 1y ago
    I would expect that to be the entire case for the 2nd group. My only Apple laptop is a one for work, and my IT department can’t pick a password manager without contracting an agency, so I’m definitely not allowed to install Linux.
- dbtc 1y ago
  More like, "Apple hardware is fantastic but I wish I had more control over the software."
bri3d 1y ago
A gist is such a weird way to run a project like this! Basically what this seems to be about is adding full native acceleration support for Mac OS hosts to QEMU (audio, GL, etc.), to enable running a desktop Linux guest effectively, but it's so hard to follow what's going on that I'm not certain what to actually do to get the Best Possible QEMU on OSX Host.

36 points by jakogut 1y ago

William_BB 1y ago

How does this compare to Asahi in 2025? In my experience, Asahi's been great

jakogut 1y ago
One of the problems is Asahi lacks significant support for the M3/M4, including any kind of graphics acceleration. https://asahilinux.org/docs/platform/feature-support/m3/#soc-blocks https://asahilinux.org/docs/platform/feature-support/m3/#soc...
orangea 1y ago
Asahi is useless to me, and I would assume many others, without USB-C display support.
2OEH8eoCRo0 1y ago
Still no thunderbolt on M1

Aurornis 1y ago

Parts of this gist have been updated in May, but sections date back to 2022 and earlier. Some of the links I clicked are no longer relevant, such as the sections about upstreaming parts of code. Since they didn't link the actual patches (just a search query for their author name) I don't know exactly which patches they were referring to or what their status is. Does anyone have a more up to date resource?

porphyra 1y ago

Asahi Linux totally has graphics acceleration on M1 and M2.

2OEH8eoCRo0 1y ago
What about Thunderbolt or DisplayPort alt mode?
- eighthourblink 1y ago
  IIRC, those are not supported as of now. I have been running Asahi on my M2 MacBook Air for the last ~9 months or so and actually really enjoy it. Showed me the world of aarch64. Battery life could be better but normal low level power usage ranges in the 6 to 7 hour mark. But nothing close to official Apple battery usage.

righthand 1y ago

What does the Venn diagram look like for: “Linux is too much work so that’s why I use Apple products” AND “I’m putting in the work to install partially working Linux on my Apple Mx laptop and loving it”? Do they share members?

airstrike 1y ago
it's more like "Apple makes great hardware and I prefer Linux pain over macOS pain"
porphyra 1y ago
Apple Macbooks are still class leading in efficiency and build quality, so some Linux tinkerers may still be drawn towards them.
- deleted 1y ago
  [deleted]
- righthand 1y ago
  I would expect that to be the entire case for the 2nd group. My only Apple laptop is a one for work, and my IT department can’t pick a password manager without contracting an agency, so I’m definitely not allowed to install Linux.
dbtc 1y ago
More like, "Apple hardware is fantastic but I wish I had more control over the software."

bri3d 1y ago

A gist is such a weird way to run a project like this! Basically what this seems to be about is adding full native acceleration support for Mac OS hosts to QEMU (audio, GL, etc.), to enable running a desktop Linux guest effectively, but it's so hard to follow what's going on that I'm not certain what to actually do to get the Best Possible QEMU on OSX Host.