4 ms·

I wish they would provide Linux support. I can't stand OSX.

deleted 8mo ago
[deleted]
saghm 8mo ago
It seems like there are a decent number of people finding Asahi stable enough for regular use: https://www.reddit.com/r/AsahiLinux/comments/1quko4w/how_viable_is_asahi_right_now/ https://www.reddit.com/r/AsahiLinux/comments/1quko4w/how_via... I imagine there are still some rough edges (and it seems like distro choices are probably a bit lacking at the moment if you prefer something outside of a few specific mainstream options) but given how niche ARM support was before the first M1 machines, the progress that's happened so far is honestly pretty astounding. Given that the iterations from M[n] to M[n + 1] seem less large than the initial leap from Intel to M1, it doesn't seem that crazy to imagine they'll end up closing the gap even further to the point where you could probably assume a similar level of hardware support from Asahi for a year-old Macbook as you would for a year-old non-Apple laptop. As for Apple "supporting" Linux, my perception is that if they wanted to make it harder than it was for the people working on Asahi to even get this far, they almost certainly could have. It seems like they're probably doing the same thing that most laptop vendors do, which is not explicitly support it but also not go out of their way to block it either. For a company with the reputation and history Apple has, I think that's a pretty huge win for the community, and even as someone who overall has a somewhat negative inclination to purchase from them, I have to admit that they seem way less hostile to Linux on their ARM machines than I would have predicted.
- TingPing 8mo ago
  Asahi is great on earlier models but it will certainly not support the M5 before its already multiple models behind.
  - wpm 8mo ago
    That's only because they are focusing on upstreaming all of their work into the kernel first. A handful of them spent a small amount of time building some device trees for M3 and it didn't take them long to get to the point M1's were at at the first release of Asahi. I imagine once a lot of the cleanup and maintenance is done on what they have, they'll be in a better spot to accelerate support for other SoCs, and it probably won't be half a decade before the M6 or whatever is supported. All said, Apple could just spend a tiny tiny amount of their warchest and just ship some goddamn drivers for Linux a la Boot Camp and save the Asahi team the time divining it from the tea leaves.
    - philistine 8mo ago
      Unfortunately, Apple is not one to revisit their previous decisions very often. With the move to Apple Silicon, the capabilities of the bootloader were locked in (chain-of-trust, ability to load other OS and keep chain-of-trust on macOS) and that was it. Apple is telling you what they support; there's never any damning secret with them. You want to run Linux? Run it in a VM on macOS. That's what marketing has been saying since day one of the M1. Them's the breaks.
      - sysworld 8mo ago
        I don't mind using Apple's native Hypervisor framework, it's better then QEMU (speed/overhead), but Apple has no support to passthrough USB ports. https://github.com/utmapp/UTM/issues/3778 https://github.com/utmapp/UTM/issues/3778
        philistine 8mo ago
        That is definitely something Apple must add.
  - allthetime 8mo ago
    Is it? I have my old M1 Air and I am very curious but don't want to go through the trouble of fiddling about with linux for a few days just to leave it rotting after. I would be inclined to maintain a dual boot situation as well and SSD space is at a premium.
    - 0xffff2 8mo ago
      As far as I can tell, Asahi actually requires dual boot. There doesn't seem to be an option to install it standalone. (But I have an M4 Air, so I'm not able to install it yet)
      - allthetime 8mo ago
        Just looked into it - MacOS is required for installation - and they firmly recommend leaving a minimal installation on the drive for things like firmware updates and disaster recovery.
    - TingPing 8mo ago
      I think it’s wonderful, go for it if the few rough areas don’t bother you: https://asahilinux.org/docs/platform/feature-support/overview/ https://asahilinux.org/docs/platform/feature-support/overvie...
    - lambdaba 8mo ago
      go for it, I installed NixOS on Asahi on a whim a few months ago and I only rebooted to MacOS to resize the partition
  - saghm 8mo ago
    Sure, I don't disagree. I feel like I was pretty explicit about what I was claiming though: > it doesn't seem that crazy to imagine they'll end up closing the gap even further to the point where you could probably assume a similar level of hardware support from Asahi for a year-old Macbook as you would for a year-old non-Apple laptop
- misswaterfairy 8mo ago
  It's worth watching the 39C3 talk about porting Linux to Apple Silicon earlier this year. https://media.ccc.de/v/39c3-asahi-linux-porting-linux-to-apple-silicon https://media.ccc.de/v/39c3-asahi-linux-porting-linux-to-app... The jist is that Apple don't want to prevent you from running your own bootable code on a Mac (which isn't true for iPhone and iPad, sadly), as long as you don't compromise the security of Apple's bootloader, code, etc.
theowaway213456 8mo ago
Agreed - I just can't get excited about the world's fastest CPU core running on the world's most locked-down and developer-unfriendly OS.
- virgildotcodes 8mo ago
  World's most developer-unfriendly OS seems a bit hyperbolic when such a large number of devs use MacOS as their primary dev OS.
  - jama211 8mo ago
    Agreed, it’s Unix like, homebrew is great, it’s like GP forgot about windows
sspiff 8mo ago
Same. I was on macOS for work for about 3 years. Never gelled with me. I was on an M2 Macbook Pro with Asahi and it was great. It's really hard to fault Apple's hardware for most use cases. I'm currently on a Strix Halo laptop (HP Zbook), which is about as expensive, and the hardware is great, but power efficiency and build quality lag leagues behind by Apple. A 4000 euro laptop still feels like a cheap toy.
- dcminter 8mo ago
  One of us! :) Currently in a brief macos phase before I can be issued my Linux laptop at work. It's so clunky. A major annoyance for me right now is the lack of MST multi-screen over USB which means my nice daisy-chained home setup is fine on my near-decade-old Dell but doesn't work at all on the fancy Macbook. They have the hardware to support it, they just don't. Generally the hardware with Apple is amazing but I'll take the hit on that and things like battery life just to get an OS that feels like it's on my side. I'd maybe consider Asahi for home use but I'd be wary of it for work. Perhaps in a few years.
elxr 8mo ago
Good news, intel panther lake (and the laptops they come in) are on par with M5 macbooks in almost every way. This year is a lot more competitive than any of the past ~4 years for premium laptops. The asus expertbook ultra even has a much better screen, a much better keyboard, and a very similar haptic trackpad. Weighs less than a 13 inch macbook air too. There's cheaper options too that are close to as good (minus the screen).
- junofan 8mo ago
  For something like my daily personal laptop the warranty is a big factor. I’d rather not deal with shipping it off to Asus for a couple months when it doesn’t boot or whatever.
  - BeetleB 8mo ago
    Would warranty cover a Macbook with Linux on it?
- deleted 8mo ago
  [deleted]
- lotsofpulp 8mo ago
  Are there any non-Apple laptops yet where you can just close the lid and put the laptop in your bag and not worry about it being on?
  - brokencode 8mo ago
    It’s funny that this is even remotely a concern in 2026. We have computers you can talk to but Windows laptops maybe won’t go to sleep in your backpack. I do hope that it’s fixed though. I haven’t followed Windows laptops that closely, but my work laptop from a few years ago does lose battery surprisingly quickly when “sleeping”.
    - elxr 8mo ago
      I don't think going with windows is the move if you're trying to have sleep working like in a macbook. Too many stories of laptops waking up for no good reason. Linux on the other hand has always been able to sleep as expected. I'm definitely advocating for panther lake + linux. Not panther lake + windows, which I hoped was clear given the context of the parent comment.
pjmlp 8mo ago
Then support companies like Tuxedo, System 76, Dell, Asus,.... The only time Apple supported first class Linux on their consumer hardware was with MkLinux, and that was when everything was going down in flames and they needed to survive somehow.
w10-1 8mo ago
No support needed. Run Linux in a VM. Devices are limited, and you can't save/restore your state, but there's no real performance hit: my code runs faster on macOS(VM(Linux)) than macOS. https://developer.apple.com/documentation/virtualization/running-gui-linux-in-a-virtual-machine-on-a-mac https://developer.apple.com/documentation/virtualization/run... Buy the mac, try Linux in an hour, take it back if you don't like it.
myHNAccount123 8mo ago
Perhaps macOS would suffice?
cromka 8mo ago
I believe they'll enable it, actually, fairly soon. With this hardware at these prices, if they offered BootCamp again for Linux and Windows, they'd basically own the market almost overnight. Considering they have long-term contracts on RAM and SSDs and that they steep margin on their Mac hardware, there is hardly any reason to not make money off of those who actually wouldn't buy Mac hardware otherwise. Plus, there's a chance they'll also buy AirPods, mouse, keyboard, etc.
- oblio 8mo ago
  You must be new to the Apple world. Unless Apple starts failing again as a company (bad financials), they won't provide any official support for Windows or Linux.
  - cromka 8mo ago
    Use some arguments. Also, 15 years into the ecosystem.
    - oblio 8mo ago
      I'm actually not an Apple user but I've seen them do their thing for close to 30 years now. Apple is notoriously a control freak. They want to control the hardware, they way to control the software, they want to control the services, they want to control the entire experience. What you're saying goes against everything they stand for. Every time they open up, they do it because they're forced to. They moved away from PowerPC (more control) to Intel (less control) because PowerPC couldn't keep up (despite them lying for half a decade about its performance, at some point it became too hard to distort reality). They provided Windows dual-boot because they had to, their PC market share was too low and they couldn't get many applications so they had to accept it. After the iPhone took off and Mac started having a bigger marketshare and things were ported to it, they didn't need it as much so they stopped trying, they ditched dual boot for ARM. They never provided any real support for Linux, just some random hints and kind words, basically. They have more than enough money to sponsor an official port. If anything, it's amazing that someone presumably technical can be "15 years into the ecosystem" and not understand these larger patterns so that I have to explain them like this :-) Every time they open up, it's because they're weak. Once they're in a position of power: * only XCode as an official IDE * no JIT on iOS * no first-class support for Ruby, Python, JS, etc to build iOS applications * AppStore, no sideloading * must use Mac to build for iOS * ... They're basically PC Nintendo. Always have been. The mega genius Jobs didn't want fans in a PC from the 1980s because they weren't cool, leading to said PC melting. I find it funny that people keep excusing a multi-trillion dollar company for not finding pocket change to fund official porting efforts (such as Linux on Apple hardware, or Swift on Linux and Android) across decades. They're not doing it because they don't want to. They never will. The purpose of a system is what it does: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_purpose_of_a_system_is_what_it_does https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_purpose_of_a_system_is_wha...
a456463 8mo ago
Same. Virtualization is worse than on windows. OSX is garbage made by wannabe designers who don't know anything about human design

deleted 8mo ago

[deleted]

saghm 8mo ago

It seems like there are a decent number of people finding Asahi stable enough for regular use: https://www.reddit.com/r/AsahiLinux/comments/1quko4w/how_viable_is_asahi_right_now/ https://www.reddit.com/r/AsahiLinux/comments/1quko4w/how_via... I imagine there are still some rough edges (and it seems like distro choices are probably a bit lacking at the moment if you prefer something outside of a few specific mainstream options) but given how niche ARM support was before the first M1 machines, the progress that's happened so far is honestly pretty astounding. Given that the iterations from M[n] to M[n + 1] seem less large than the initial leap from Intel to M1, it doesn't seem that crazy to imagine they'll end up closing the gap even further to the point where you could probably assume a similar level of hardware support from Asahi for a year-old Macbook as you would for a year-old non-Apple laptop. As for Apple "supporting" Linux, my perception is that if they wanted to make it harder than it was for the people working on Asahi to even get this far, they almost certainly could have. It seems like they're probably doing the same thing that most laptop vendors do, which is not explicitly support it but also not go out of their way to block it either. For a company with the reputation and history Apple has, I think that's a pretty huge win for the community, and even as someone who overall has a somewhat negative inclination to purchase from them, I have to admit that they seem way less hostile to Linux on their ARM machines than I would have predicted.

TingPing 8mo ago
Asahi is great on earlier models but it will certainly not support the M5 before its already multiple models behind.
- wpm 8mo ago
  That's only because they are focusing on upstreaming all of their work into the kernel first. A handful of them spent a small amount of time building some device trees for M3 and it didn't take them long to get to the point M1's were at at the first release of Asahi. I imagine once a lot of the cleanup and maintenance is done on what they have, they'll be in a better spot to accelerate support for other SoCs, and it probably won't be half a decade before the M6 or whatever is supported. All said, Apple could just spend a tiny tiny amount of their warchest and just ship some goddamn drivers for Linux a la Boot Camp and save the Asahi team the time divining it from the tea leaves.
  - philistine 8mo ago
    Unfortunately, Apple is not one to revisit their previous decisions very often. With the move to Apple Silicon, the capabilities of the bootloader were locked in (chain-of-trust, ability to load other OS and keep chain-of-trust on macOS) and that was it. Apple is telling you what they support; there's never any damning secret with them. You want to run Linux? Run it in a VM on macOS. That's what marketing has been saying since day one of the M1. Them's the breaks.
    - sysworld 8mo ago
      I don't mind using Apple's native Hypervisor framework, it's better then QEMU (speed/overhead), but Apple has no support to passthrough USB ports. https://github.com/utmapp/UTM/issues/3778 https://github.com/utmapp/UTM/issues/3778
      - philistine 8mo ago
        That is definitely something Apple must add.
- allthetime 8mo ago
  Is it? I have my old M1 Air and I am very curious but don't want to go through the trouble of fiddling about with linux for a few days just to leave it rotting after. I would be inclined to maintain a dual boot situation as well and SSD space is at a premium.
  - 0xffff2 8mo ago
    As far as I can tell, Asahi actually requires dual boot. There doesn't seem to be an option to install it standalone. (But I have an M4 Air, so I'm not able to install it yet)
    - allthetime 8mo ago
      Just looked into it - MacOS is required for installation - and they firmly recommend leaving a minimal installation on the drive for things like firmware updates and disaster recovery.
  - TingPing 8mo ago
    I think it’s wonderful, go for it if the few rough areas don’t bother you: https://asahilinux.org/docs/platform/feature-support/overview/ https://asahilinux.org/docs/platform/feature-support/overvie...
  - lambdaba 8mo ago
    go for it, I installed NixOS on Asahi on a whim a few months ago and I only rebooted to MacOS to resize the partition
- saghm 8mo ago
  Sure, I don't disagree. I feel like I was pretty explicit about what I was claiming though: > it doesn't seem that crazy to imagine they'll end up closing the gap even further to the point where you could probably assume a similar level of hardware support from Asahi for a year-old Macbook as you would for a year-old non-Apple laptop
misswaterfairy 8mo ago
It's worth watching the 39C3 talk about porting Linux to Apple Silicon earlier this year. https://media.ccc.de/v/39c3-asahi-linux-porting-linux-to-apple-silicon https://media.ccc.de/v/39c3-asahi-linux-porting-linux-to-app... The jist is that Apple don't want to prevent you from running your own bootable code on a Mac (which isn't true for iPhone and iPad, sadly), as long as you don't compromise the security of Apple's bootloader, code, etc.

theowaway213456 8mo ago

Agreed - I just can't get excited about the world's fastest CPU core running on the world's most locked-down and developer-unfriendly OS.

virgildotcodes 8mo ago
World's most developer-unfriendly OS seems a bit hyperbolic when such a large number of devs use MacOS as their primary dev OS.
- jama211 8mo ago
  Agreed, it’s Unix like, homebrew is great, it’s like GP forgot about windows

sspiff 8mo ago

Same. I was on macOS for work for about 3 years. Never gelled with me. I was on an M2 Macbook Pro with Asahi and it was great. It's really hard to fault Apple's hardware for most use cases. I'm currently on a Strix Halo laptop (HP Zbook), which is about as expensive, and the hardware is great, but power efficiency and build quality lag leagues behind by Apple. A 4000 euro laptop still feels like a cheap toy.

dcminter 8mo ago
One of us! :) Currently in a brief macos phase before I can be issued my Linux laptop at work. It's so clunky. A major annoyance for me right now is the lack of MST multi-screen over USB which means my nice daisy-chained home setup is fine on my near-decade-old Dell but doesn't work at all on the fancy Macbook. They have the hardware to support it, they just don't. Generally the hardware with Apple is amazing but I'll take the hit on that and things like battery life just to get an OS that feels like it's on my side. I'd maybe consider Asahi for home use but I'd be wary of it for work. Perhaps in a few years.

elxr 8mo ago

Good news, intel panther lake (and the laptops they come in) are on par with M5 macbooks in almost every way. This year is a lot more competitive than any of the past ~4 years for premium laptops. The asus expertbook ultra even has a much better screen, a much better keyboard, and a very similar haptic trackpad. Weighs less than a 13 inch macbook air too. There's cheaper options too that are close to as good (minus the screen).

junofan 8mo ago
For something like my daily personal laptop the warranty is a big factor. I’d rather not deal with shipping it off to Asus for a couple months when it doesn’t boot or whatever.
- BeetleB 8mo ago
  Would warranty cover a Macbook with Linux on it?
deleted 8mo ago
[deleted]
lotsofpulp 8mo ago
Are there any non-Apple laptops yet where you can just close the lid and put the laptop in your bag and not worry about it being on?
- brokencode 8mo ago
  It’s funny that this is even remotely a concern in 2026. We have computers you can talk to but Windows laptops maybe won’t go to sleep in your backpack. I do hope that it’s fixed though. I haven’t followed Windows laptops that closely, but my work laptop from a few years ago does lose battery surprisingly quickly when “sleeping”.
  - elxr 8mo ago
    I don't think going with windows is the move if you're trying to have sleep working like in a macbook. Too many stories of laptops waking up for no good reason. Linux on the other hand has always been able to sleep as expected. I'm definitely advocating for panther lake + linux. Not panther lake + windows, which I hoped was clear given the context of the parent comment.

pjmlp 8mo ago

Then support companies like Tuxedo, System 76, Dell, Asus,.... The only time Apple supported first class Linux on their consumer hardware was with MkLinux, and that was when everything was going down in flames and they needed to survive somehow.

w10-1 8mo ago

No support needed. Run Linux in a VM. Devices are limited, and you can't save/restore your state, but there's no real performance hit: my code runs faster on macOS(VM(Linux)) than macOS. https://developer.apple.com/documentation/virtualization/running-gui-linux-in-a-virtual-machine-on-a-mac https://developer.apple.com/documentation/virtualization/run... Buy the mac, try Linux in an hour, take it back if you don't like it.

myHNAccount123 8mo ago

Perhaps macOS would suffice?

cromka 8mo ago

I believe they'll enable it, actually, fairly soon. With this hardware at these prices, if they offered BootCamp again for Linux and Windows, they'd basically own the market almost overnight. Considering they have long-term contracts on RAM and SSDs and that they steep margin on their Mac hardware, there is hardly any reason to not make money off of those who actually wouldn't buy Mac hardware otherwise. Plus, there's a chance they'll also buy AirPods, mouse, keyboard, etc.

oblio 8mo ago
You must be new to the Apple world. Unless Apple starts failing again as a company (bad financials), they won't provide any official support for Windows or Linux.
- cromka 8mo ago
  Use some arguments. Also, 15 years into the ecosystem.
  - oblio 8mo ago
    I'm actually not an Apple user but I've seen them do their thing for close to 30 years now. Apple is notoriously a control freak. They want to control the hardware, they way to control the software, they want to control the services, they want to control the entire experience. What you're saying goes against everything they stand for. Every time they open up, they do it because they're forced to. They moved away from PowerPC (more control) to Intel (less control) because PowerPC couldn't keep up (despite them lying for half a decade about its performance, at some point it became too hard to distort reality). They provided Windows dual-boot because they had to, their PC market share was too low and they couldn't get many applications so they had to accept it. After the iPhone took off and Mac started having a bigger marketshare and things were ported to it, they didn't need it as much so they stopped trying, they ditched dual boot for ARM. They never provided any real support for Linux, just some random hints and kind words, basically. They have more than enough money to sponsor an official port. If anything, it's amazing that someone presumably technical can be "15 years into the ecosystem" and not understand these larger patterns so that I have to explain them like this :-) Every time they open up, it's because they're weak. Once they're in a position of power: * only XCode as an official IDE * no JIT on iOS * no first-class support for Ruby, Python, JS, etc to build iOS applications * AppStore, no sideloading * must use Mac to build for iOS * ... They're basically PC Nintendo. Always have been. The mega genius Jobs didn't want fans in a PC from the 1980s because they weren't cool, leading to said PC melting. I find it funny that people keep excusing a multi-trillion dollar company for not finding pocket change to fund official porting efforts (such as Linux on Apple hardware, or Swift on Linux and Android) across decades. They're not doing it because they don't want to. They never will. The purpose of a system is what it does: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_purpose_of_a_system_is_what_it_does https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_purpose_of_a_system_is_wha...

a456463 8mo ago

Same. Virtualization is worse than on windows. OSX is garbage made by wannabe designers who don't know anything about human design