> Through Mesa and Gallium3D, we benefit from thirty years of OpenGL driver development, with common code translating OpenGL into the much simpler Gallium3D. Thanks to the incredible engineering of NIR, Mesa, and Gallium3D, our ragtag team of reverse-engineers can focus on what’s left: the Apple hardware.
The Linux graphics folks have really achieved something.
In the case of AMD, the Gallium-based open-source OpenGL drivers also manage to compete very well with AMD's proprietary OpenGL drivers, both in terms of performance and features, despite the fact that the proprietary drivers are much more mature. See: https://www.phoronix.com/review/radeon-spvp2020-linux
There's even a working Direct3D 9 driver based on Gallium3D. With an appropriately patched WINE, you can use it to run old Windows games quite nicely even on integrated graphics or with low core count CPUs. Here's some reporting: https://www.phoronix.com/news/Gallium-Nine-Better-2021
I hope that with NVIDIA's new open-source kernel drivers, now Nouveau can push forward and get good performance like Mesa's open-source drivers for AMD. That'd be awesome, and it could pave the way for mainlining NVIDIA's new kernel driver.
I watched the hardware support evolve with each major update and remember when the first builds of specific software (e.g., Chromium and VSCode) that supported the 16K page size were first available.
The last few months were incredibly interesting to watch - especially the live coding sessions. And throughout the whole time, Asahi was rock solid as a daily driver. I find it a stellar example of the power of open source and the people in the community that drive it.
> And throughout the whole time, Asahi was rock solid as a daily driver.
I'm also in awe and respect for the Asahi team, but please don't overstate things just to celebrate their work. Even according to your own posts, there are huge dealbreakers like sound or external HDMI.
I bought an M1 based on HN posts like this, because I need linux and not OS X. I soon returned it when I realized how it could not come close to being my daily driver.
> I might even start contributing once Rust is more common!
as someone who's recently experimenting with Rust, why is that so? I mean if you have something in the kernel where you could give valuable contribution, why letting the language stop you? guess any dev who can write Rust today is also a good C dev, ain't it?
I've been running Linux Mint on my MacBook Pro (2011 model) for the last year relatively issue-free.
For a couple weeks, I had DNS issues with the /etc/resolv.conf file, but I added a rule to the Network Manager to not touch that file upon reboot so everything works correctly now (except pinch to zoom on the touchpad).
I wish someone could somehow make a laptop with the internals of an MacBook (mainly the CPU), but with the externals of a Thinkpad, including the far-superior Thinkpad keyboard and far better aesthetics. And while they're at it, make it easy to pop the back cover off and replace components (esp. the HD) as needed.
I don't want to put down their achievements but I somewhat agree with you. And doing free work for a corporation the size of apple that could've just supported Linux from the start. I don't think it's a waste of life necessarily, but it is a shame.
Not really. Wouldn't it be a shame if nothing could be released without thorough documentation, to avoid the need for someone, sometime, to maybe have to reverse engineer it?
Is anyone using this as a daily driver? If this is your case, what is your experience?
I'm a linux user looking for a new laptop. My preference would be a thinkpad but the Apple machine looks way superior. Migrating to Apple OS is a no go for me.
My mainly use will be internet browsing, js development with vim + running docker containers.
About 20 days ago I asked the same question ("How ready for daily driving is Asahi Linux?") as a Ask HN, resulting in ~100 comments about it. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33607994
Conclusion seems: depends on how ready you are to live with the various drawbacks. Personally, I wasn't, but I'm hopeful the day will come soon as I like Apple hardware in general, but can't stand Apple software.
I vastly prefer my Thinkpad X1 Nano to my work MacBook Pro. I pair it with a desktop, so keep that in mind…
The nano is very, very lightweight, which makes it an amazing portable device for packing up and carrying around.
The display is matte, which reduces glare when working outside.
The keyboard feels significantly better to type on. This is the biggest pro for me.
The camera has a privacy shutter, which gives me a greater peace of mind.
And of course, it works well with Fedora Linux.
I also optioned mine to have a 5G modem, which is convenient, although I rarely use it due to costly data plans. I have only managed to get the modem to work on the Windows side, but I’m optimistic it will have better Linux support one day.
The MacBook Pro is an impressive piece of hardware. The M1 chip is powerful, the battery life is amazing, and the build quality is high. However, I find it to be a much better experience exclusively using it at home docked in my setup due to its weight and glossy screen. At home, I can use my own mechanical keyboard when it’s docked to get around its mediocre keyboard. At that point, I’d rather just use my desktop. But if you’re only getting one device and are fine with MacOS, it is a good option. I prefer the more flexible desktop + lightweight laptop setup personally.
A minor thing I’ll note in favor of Apple is that the MacBook Pro is capable of driving my nicer Sennheiser headphones with ease. It’s something most people wouldn’t care about, but Apple excels in the audio department and deserves praise.
In another year or two you’ll be able to buy an M1 Air refurb on eBay for maybe 400$ and once this thing is stable, that would probably the best bang for your buck Linux laptop you can buy.
I work at a network VAR and use it regularly though not exclusively. The big remaining limitation at the moment is the speakers are still disabled while the Asahi team works on volume safety. Other than that it's reasonably stable for non critical use but not something to be relied upon to work right by any means. I'd say give it another year unless "I want to get it to tinker" is higher on the list of reasons for getting a laptop than "I want to do work". If you need a laptop sooner than that one of the commonly recommended x86 laptops recommended by HN'ers would probably be the way to go.
truly incredible, for less than two years, a group of talented engineers managed to release the world's first GPU driver in Rust by reverse engineering apple hardware known for its opacity. oh, they also happened to have the free time to port Linux to Apple hardware.
now I just have one question - when this wonderful work will be merged into the mainline kernel.
(PLEASE - no one cares who is Lina, we've been there many times, let's don't do it again here in this thread. thanks!)
Apple Silicon machines cannot boot from external storage. While it may look like they do when you choose an external macOS volume, behind the scenes parts of its boot components are being copied to the internal drive to make this work. It’s unclear whether this mechanism will ever be usable by third party OSes, for technical reasons.
Instead, we recommend using the UEFI environment only installer option to install only a UEFI bootstrap to your internal drive. This only requires around 3GB of disk space, and it will then automatically boot from any connected USB drive with a UEFI bootloader. Note: installing the Asahi Linux desktop images to a USB drive automatically isn’t supported right now, though if you’re adventurous enough it’s not terribly hard to do manually :-)
Sadly no, and it's unlikely for any OS to be livebooted on Apple ARM systems (effortlessly, like on x86 BIOS/UEFI). macOS does this cheat of "copying bootfiles it needs in internal storage", and it'll be likely that Asahi (and any other OS) would need to set up a permanent partition just so they can pretend to boot up external drives.
M1 boot sequence requires some code to be installed on the system. Once the execution jumps to the bootloader the rest can be run from anywhere, such as USB stick.
It still requires adding a new partition with bootloader and some other files required by Apple for successfully verifying the signatures on everything, so it's not a "live mode".
Apple Hardware is starting to look attractive to me, as a diehard Linux user. But not sure if I'd want to do this to myself at this stage of development.
I will say do it if your confortable with something like arch or Gentoo but with less documentation on what to do when something goes wrong. Right now it's a little bit raw, don't take me wrong the progress so far it's amazing, but the task itself it's gigantic too
How's M2 looking? Noticed this in release notes from a few months back
> Only the M2 MacBook Pro 13” is tested. We’ve added completely untested M2 MacBook Air support (because we can), but none of us have one yet! If you do, only try it if you’re feeling very adventurous (and don’t blame us if things go wrong).
It has been fascinating to watch the progress being made on this in the past few months. Makes me wish I had continued studying Computer Science at uni...
Wow, that’s really exciting. I’m looking forward to having the option to run linux. I’ve been eyeing elementaryOS for years, but it will be hard to leave some macOS-only apps behind.
I wonder if it can run Solvespace (CAD). It's fairly simple but IIRC requires ES 3 or similar. I'm kind of embarrassed not knowing our GL requirement myself ;-)
[+] [-] uluyol|3 years ago|reply
The Linux graphics folks have really achieved something.
[+] [-] pxc|3 years ago|reply
There's even a working Direct3D 9 driver based on Gallium3D. With an appropriately patched WINE, you can use it to run old Windows games quite nicely even on integrated graphics or with low core count CPUs. Here's some reporting: https://www.phoronix.com/news/Gallium-Nine-Better-2021
I hope that with NVIDIA's new open-source kernel drivers, now Nouveau can push forward and get good performance like Mesa's open-source drivers for AMD. That'd be awesome, and it could pave the way for mainlining NVIDIA's new kernel driver.
[+] [-] oblio|3 years ago|reply
That was an amazing feat, this is also very impressive.
I think at some point Linux was as good as Solaris, if not better, on SPARC systems.
I really wish this were true at some point for Apple hardware.
[+] [-] jasoneckert|3 years ago|reply
I watched the hardware support evolve with each major update and remember when the first builds of specific software (e.g., Chromium and VSCode) that supported the 16K page size were first available.
The last few months were incredibly interesting to watch - especially the live coding sessions. And throughout the whole time, Asahi was rock solid as a daily driver. I find it a stellar example of the power of open source and the people in the community that drive it.
[+] [-] humanistbot|3 years ago|reply
I'm also in awe and respect for the Asahi team, but please don't overstate things just to celebrate their work. Even according to your own posts, there are huge dealbreakers like sound or external HDMI.
I bought an M1 based on HN posts like this, because I need linux and not OS X. I soon returned it when I realized how it could not come close to being my daily driver.
[+] [-] yazaddaruvala|3 years ago|reply
I’m also really looking forward to the changes in Asahi getting upstreamed. The Rust in Linux work has me really excited for the future of Linux.
I might even start contributing once Rust is more common!
[+] [-] aulin|3 years ago|reply
as someone who's recently experimenting with Rust, why is that so? I mean if you have something in the kernel where you could give valuable contribution, why letting the language stop you? guess any dev who can write Rust today is also a good C dev, ain't it?
[+] [-] INeedMoreRam|3 years ago|reply
For a couple weeks, I had DNS issues with the /etc/resolv.conf file, but I added a rule to the Network Manager to not touch that file upon reboot so everything works correctly now (except pinch to zoom on the touchpad).
[+] [-] midoridensha|3 years ago|reply
I wish someone could somehow make a laptop with the internals of an MacBook (mainly the CPU), but with the externals of a Thinkpad, including the far-superior Thinkpad keyboard and far better aesthetics. And while they're at it, make it easy to pop the back cover off and replace components (esp. the HD) as needed.
[+] [-] Tepix|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] yellow_lead|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] CGamesPlay|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] olakease|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] capableweb|3 years ago|reply
Conclusion seems: depends on how ready you are to live with the various drawbacks. Personally, I wasn't, but I'm hopeful the day will come soon as I like Apple hardware in general, but can't stand Apple software.
[+] [-] pwpw|3 years ago|reply
The nano is very, very lightweight, which makes it an amazing portable device for packing up and carrying around. The display is matte, which reduces glare when working outside. The keyboard feels significantly better to type on. This is the biggest pro for me. The camera has a privacy shutter, which gives me a greater peace of mind. And of course, it works well with Fedora Linux. I also optioned mine to have a 5G modem, which is convenient, although I rarely use it due to costly data plans. I have only managed to get the modem to work on the Windows side, but I’m optimistic it will have better Linux support one day.
The MacBook Pro is an impressive piece of hardware. The M1 chip is powerful, the battery life is amazing, and the build quality is high. However, I find it to be a much better experience exclusively using it at home docked in my setup due to its weight and glossy screen. At home, I can use my own mechanical keyboard when it’s docked to get around its mediocre keyboard. At that point, I’d rather just use my desktop. But if you’re only getting one device and are fine with MacOS, it is a good option. I prefer the more flexible desktop + lightweight laptop setup personally.
A minor thing I’ll note in favor of Apple is that the MacBook Pro is capable of driving my nicer Sennheiser headphones with ease. It’s something most people wouldn’t care about, but Apple excels in the audio department and deserves praise.
[+] [-] trustingtrust|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] zamadatix|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] unknown|3 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] tiffanyh|3 years ago|reply
As a reminder, especially during this holiday season - to donate to your favorite OSS project.
https://asahilinux.org/support/
[+] [-] neonsunset|3 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] tw1984|3 years ago|reply
now I just have one question - when this wonderful work will be merged into the mainline kernel.
(PLEASE - no one cares who is Lina, we've been there many times, let's don't do it again here in this thread. thanks!)
[+] [-] aulin|3 years ago|reply
I couldn't care less who she is, but I'm pleased they're giving more status updates in written form.
[+] [-] bartvk|3 years ago|reply
Last year, they already merged part of their work: https://www.theregister.com/2021/04/09/asahi_linux_merged/
But I haven't seen anything since. It's the stated goal, though.
[+] [-] anakaine|3 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] oblio|3 years ago|reply
Edit: honest question...
[+] [-] tiahura|3 years ago|reply
Merging code from an unverified source that is purportedly submitting a clean room implementation would be quite irresponsible.
[+] [-] reacharavindh|3 years ago|reply
I’d love to try it for fun on a computer that is not mine…
[+] [-] gavinsyancey|3 years ago|reply
Apple Silicon machines cannot boot from external storage. While it may look like they do when you choose an external macOS volume, behind the scenes parts of its boot components are being copied to the internal drive to make this work. It’s unclear whether this mechanism will ever be usable by third party OSes, for technical reasons.
Instead, we recommend using the UEFI environment only installer option to install only a UEFI bootstrap to your internal drive. This only requires around 3GB of disk space, and it will then automatically boot from any connected USB drive with a UEFI bootloader. Note: installing the Asahi Linux desktop images to a USB drive automatically isn’t supported right now, though if you’re adventurous enough it’s not terribly hard to do manually :-)
> https://asahilinux.org/2022/03/asahi-linux-alpha-release/
[+] [-] zinekeller|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] dottedmag|3 years ago|reply
It still requires adding a new partition with bootloader and some other files required by Apple for successfully verifying the signatures on everything, so it's not a "live mode".
[+] [-] blackMysticCat|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] yewenjie|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] abujazar|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] sva_|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] javchz|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] aliqot|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] dottedmag|3 years ago|reply
Also various accelerators: video decoder, video encoder, neural engine.
Unless I'm mistaken all of it is in progress, but not yet ready.
[+] [-] fulafel|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] urthor|3 years ago|reply
There's actually a humongous list of peripherals, power states, and the speakers which don't work at all, to support.
[+] [-] blackMysticCat|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] OJFord|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] worldsavior|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] _joel|3 years ago|reply
> Only the M2 MacBook Pro 13” is tested. We’ve added completely untested M2 MacBook Air support (because we can), but none of us have one yet! If you do, only try it if you’re feeling very adventurous (and don’t blame us if things go wrong).
I think it's time to give it a go on my M2 air :)
[+] [-] drooopy|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] tgtweak|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] koeng|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] bla3|3 years ago|reply
Does anyone know if it supports variable refresh rate? Apple's marketing term for it is "ProMotion", which is hard to search for.
[+] [-] jolexxa|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] phkahler|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] SpaghettiX|3 years ago|reply