Meh, I’ve only had trouble with TouchBar MacBooks: because TouchBar, sound and webcam processing are delegated to a secondary chip, they do not work natively on Linux.
My daily driver is an M2 Macbook air running Asahi Linux. There are certainly some hardware parts I wished worked better right now, but its fully for my needs usable as is. Improvements are occurring regularly by the development team. Apple hardware really is solid, and I’m very happy that in the rare cases I do have to use a commercial OS (Netflix streaming for example), I don’t have to use Windows. Its a dual boot machine (Linux/OSX).
Overall I’m pretty happy with Linux on this M2. Theres a handful of us here on Lemmy running it. You can find us at [email protected]
A quick question before research: is it fully working by now? Or are there some things you can live without?
E.g. I remember Thunderbolt wasn’t working, and wasn’t sure what that means. Either the port is not functioning or it works slower. I’d like to have a functioning display, so that matters to me. I’ve got an impression that Linux can work on Apple Silicon, if you’re ready to abandon some things here and there. I’d love to have it at least mostly functioning.
A quick question before research: is it fully working by now?
Is every hardware function in the laptop that works in OSX available in Asahi? No.
I’d like to have a functioning display
I think you’re asking about “DisplayPort Alt Mode” which is where you can plug a dongle into one of the USB-C ports and output the local GPU to DP or HDMI. The answer to that is “yes, depending on how adventurous you are”. There’s an experimental kernel that does support it today. I don’t think its in the main branch yet. I intentionally run version 43 (1 behind the current 44). However, I use a USB-C DisplayLink HDMI adapter for an external display and it does most of what I want right now without the experimental kernel. I do want “DisplayPort Alt Mode”, and will use it when its available though.
If you have an M1 or M2 Macbook Pro with HDMI port built-in, those work right now. The challenge being worked through is a display port that gets unplugged, which only happens on the USB-C port Display Port.
I’ve got an impression that Linux can work on Apple Silicon, if you’re ready to abandon some things here and there.
I wouldn’t use the word “abandon” but rather “wait for”. Power management efficiency doesn’t come close to native Apple OSX, but under Asahi it has enough battery for my needs. I only charge to 80% (supported natively in Fedora KDE) and get about 3 hours of runtime on battery for light to moderate use. I also read that this has improved a chunk in version 44, but again, I’m not running that version yet.
Another piece of hardware not supported on Asahi yet is the MLX engine. I’ve been experimenting with running local LLMs, and they do run under Asahi Linux, but the hardware includes MLX in OSX. There are some models specifically made to utilize MLX which result in significant performance improvements in inferencing speeds. The unified memory of the Macbooks means system RAM is available for LLM use, so I can run 16GB models while still having 8GB of RAM left over for other applications and OS functions on this Macbook Air. The RAM footprint for LLM works in both Asahi and OSX.
Keep in mind, this is a dual boot system. I still have OSX available if I need one of those Apple OSX specific function or extended battery life only one reboot away.
The main stopper from merging the fairy dust branch (the one with thunderbolt/dp over usbc) is the fact that upstreaming will require a large refactor to the entire Thunderbolt system in the kernel because the entire thunderbolt system is apparently designed with a single manky implementation for an Intel chip iirc
I’m not having an Apple Silicon machine at the moment, but I’m eyeing one. Mostly to use Linux. I’m not in real need here (still running an Intel model with Linux, which is plenty for me right now, including okayish battery life). But I think of getting one to play around either this year, or early next year. Initially I thought of waiting for M1 models to be phased out of the macOS support and get one then. Which would make them an ideal Linux laptop in my book, as the price would drop significantly, while providing outstanding value. But I think I’d get at least one earlier.
The dual boot is the default install. The installer is a single terminal command in OSX with the installer being the guided setup. The installer is right on the front page of the distro web site: https://asahilinux.org/
The biggest decisions you have to make are how you want to partition the SSD between OSX and Linux.
I’ve been installing Linux in various ways since the late 90s using Slackware, and the Asahi installation experience was the easiest and seamless installation of Linux I’ve ever experienced. It on only occurred to me later why the installer could be so good. Asahi only runs on M1/M2 hardware. The developers knew exactly what the hardware would be and could tailor the experience around it.
I wouldn’t really recommend Asahi if you only have 8GB of RAM and a 256GB SSD in your Mac. It will certainly run, but is cramped in daily use.
Good thing almost all flavors of Linux run flawlessly on the x86 models.
Meh, I’ve only had trouble with TouchBar MacBooks: because TouchBar, sound and webcam processing are delegated to a secondary chip, they do not work natively on Linux.
Pfft you should try installing arch or Proxmox on a t2
True but also sadly as all the new models are a struggle to get working. So locked down they will likely end up much more in the landfills.
My daily driver is an M2 Macbook air running Asahi Linux. There are certainly some hardware parts I wished worked better right now, but its fully for my needs usable as is. Improvements are occurring regularly by the development team. Apple hardware really is solid, and I’m very happy that in the rare cases I do have to use a commercial OS (Netflix streaming for example), I don’t have to use Windows. Its a dual boot machine (Linux/OSX).
Overall I’m pretty happy with Linux on this M2. Theres a handful of us here on Lemmy running it. You can find us at [email protected]
A quick question before research: is it fully working by now? Or are there some things you can live without?
E.g. I remember Thunderbolt wasn’t working, and wasn’t sure what that means. Either the port is not functioning or it works slower. I’d like to have a functioning display, so that matters to me. I’ve got an impression that Linux can work on Apple Silicon, if you’re ready to abandon some things here and there. I’d love to have it at least mostly functioning.
Is every hardware function in the laptop that works in OSX available in Asahi? No.
I think you’re asking about “DisplayPort Alt Mode” which is where you can plug a dongle into one of the USB-C ports and output the local GPU to DP or HDMI. The answer to that is “yes, depending on how adventurous you are”. There’s an experimental kernel that does support it today. I don’t think its in the main branch yet. I intentionally run version 43 (1 behind the current 44). However, I use a USB-C DisplayLink HDMI adapter for an external display and it does most of what I want right now without the experimental kernel. I do want “DisplayPort Alt Mode”, and will use it when its available though.
If you have an M1 or M2 Macbook Pro with HDMI port built-in, those work right now. The challenge being worked through is a display port that gets unplugged, which only happens on the USB-C port Display Port.
I wouldn’t use the word “abandon” but rather “wait for”. Power management efficiency doesn’t come close to native Apple OSX, but under Asahi it has enough battery for my needs. I only charge to 80% (supported natively in Fedora KDE) and get about 3 hours of runtime on battery for light to moderate use. I also read that this has improved a chunk in version 44, but again, I’m not running that version yet.
Another piece of hardware not supported on Asahi yet is the MLX engine. I’ve been experimenting with running local LLMs, and they do run under Asahi Linux, but the hardware includes MLX in OSX. There are some models specifically made to utilize MLX which result in significant performance improvements in inferencing speeds. The unified memory of the Macbooks means system RAM is available for LLM use, so I can run 16GB models while still having 8GB of RAM left over for other applications and OS functions on this Macbook Air. The RAM footprint for LLM works in both Asahi and OSX.
Keep in mind, this is a dual boot system. I still have OSX available if I need one of those Apple OSX specific function or extended battery life only one reboot away.
The main stopper from merging the fairy dust branch (the one with thunderbolt/dp over usbc) is the fact that upstreaming will require a large refactor to the entire Thunderbolt system in the kernel because the entire thunderbolt system is apparently designed with a single manky implementation for an Intel chip iirc
Thank you for taking time for a detailed review!
I’m not having an Apple Silicon machine at the moment, but I’m eyeing one. Mostly to use Linux. I’m not in real need here (still running an Intel model with Linux, which is plenty for me right now, including okayish battery life). But I think of getting one to play around either this year, or early next year. Initially I thought of waiting for M1 models to be phased out of the macOS support and get one then. Which would make them an ideal Linux laptop in my book, as the price would drop significantly, while providing outstanding value. But I think I’d get at least one earlier.
Thank you for this excellent long answer. I had the same questions and you addressed them all.
EDIT: One question. Did you follow a guide to setup the dual boot and if you did, can you link it?
The dual boot is the default install. The installer is a single terminal command in OSX with the installer being the guided setup. The installer is right on the front page of the distro web site: https://asahilinux.org/
It is literally just:
curl https://alx.sh/ | sh
The biggest decisions you have to make are how you want to partition the SSD between OSX and Linux.
I’ve been installing Linux in various ways since the late 90s using Slackware, and the Asahi installation experience was the easiest and seamless installation of Linux I’ve ever experienced. It on only occurred to me later why the installer could be so good. Asahi only runs on M1/M2 hardware. The developers knew exactly what the hardware would be and could tailor the experience around it.
I wouldn’t really recommend Asahi if you only have 8GB of RAM and a 256GB SSD in your Mac. It will certainly run, but is cramped in daily use.
M1&2 are pretty much fully implemented in Asahi.
3 and 4 much less so. I hope the Asahi team can keep it up. But there’s no guarantee.
Which was the reason to buy a well specced MacMini before the M1 switch