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Ask HN: How ready for daily driving is Asahi Linux?

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Re: Ask HN: How ready for daily driving is Asahi Linux?

#21

Post by allisdust »

osigurdson wrote: post #12
bestouff wrote: post #4

Hint: it's not. I'm not asking much though: I just need a linux laptop which is fast (lots of rust compilations) and can stay for a whole day unplugged. Thunderbolt connectivity to dock it at home (and use bigger screens) would be perfect. I don't need the GPU, I'm mainly using the terminal and the CPU in fast enough for that. But it's not even there: the CPU is heating even when doing nothing, the laptop doesn't sle…

>> the laptop doesn't sleep when closed Linux is amazing but doing the right thing when you close the lid is a seemingly intractable problem for it. Maybe we need a hardware spec and a paid distro to finally solve these kinds of problems.

Dell XPS is the only laptop where I have seen this working reliably. Worst part is that thanks to zram, many distros removed hibernate functionality. So its not possible now to either sleep or hibernate on many laptop/distro combinations. This makes Linux unusable in most cases due to battery drain (and some times even dangerous as laptop gets super hot inside bag etc).

Re: Ask HN: How ready for daily driving is Asahi Linux?

#22

Post by rowanG077 »

bestouff wrote: post #14
reacharavindh wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm interested in this as well. I don't have a personal M* MacBook to test it myself(Writing this on a M1 Pro MacBook Pro provided by work, but I'm obviously not trying to boot Asahi Linux on a work machine). I'm thinking about getting a laptop for personal use, and I'd love for a M1 machine if it runs Linux decently. 1. It needs to be able to sleep/resume like a Mac (shut the lid, and it goes to sleep without suckin…

See my other comment; wifi works well, power management doesn't work at all.

Is this really a power management issue and not the issue that the CPU is constantly hard at work rendering the UI?

Re: Ask HN: How ready for daily driving is Asahi Linux?

#23

Post by NateEag »

Mizza wrote: post #17
worldsavior wrote: post #2

In my opinion, not ready enough, but usable. Speakers are still not safe to use, no use of security components, no Touch-ID, no GPU support, no mics and many more[1]. Though its still very impressive what they got so far, and hope in the near future it will become a full functioning OS. [1] https://github.com/AsahiLinux/docs/wiki/Feature-Support

I don't think speakers are totally safe to use on OSX either. I've blown out speakers on two machines with VCV Rack. :[

I wasn't able to find it just now, but I remember a warning several years ago in a SuperCollider tutorial to the effect of "Mac OS X does not hard-limit maximum volume, so BE VERY CAREFUL! You can damage your ears and hardware!"

I'm sorry you lost internal speakers to that.

Re: Ask HN: How ready for daily driving is Asahi Linux?

#24

Post by bestouff »

allisdust wrote: post #21
osigurdson wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>> the laptop doesn't sleep when closed Linux is amazing but doing the right thing when you close the lid is a seemingly intractable problem for it. Maybe we need a hardware spec and a paid distro to finally solve these kinds of problems.

Dell XPS is the only laptop where I have seen this working reliably. Worst part is that thanks to zram, many distros removed hibernate functionality. So its not possible now to either sleep or hibernate on many laptop/distro combinations. This makes Linux unusable in most cases due to battery drain (and some times even dangerous as laptop gets super hot inside bag etc).

"Dell XPS" is too generic a term to be useful.

I've got an old XPS 13 which works perfectly; I also got a newer XPS 15 (top of the line, 4500€) which never managed to sleep correctly (thanks to Intel s0ix hybrid-suspend) and often overheated in the bag. I got rid of the latter after 1 year, it was a mess to use.

Re: Ask HN: How ready for daily driving is Asahi Linux?

#26

Post by bestouff »

yewenjie wrote: post #9

Related question: does anybody exclusively use any Linux distro on MacBooks in a VM? What is the tradeoff and how is your experience? I want the MacBooks for the battery backup, but I cannot live without NixOS, and seems like Asahi is still a few months away.

You could install NixOS on your Mac. I've installed Debian, some use Fedora; you just use the Asahi installer to repartition and install the kernel, and after that you can isntall your distro of choice (not super easy though).

Re: Ask HN: How ready for daily driving is Asahi Linux?

#27

Post by cwaffles »

How is the battery life on Asahi (eg 16in MBP)? I'm debating this versus the HP Elitebook 865[0], which has 64GB ram, top spec Ryzen, and a 72whr battery. They claim 22h battery life, and 13h of youtube playback.

[0]: https://www.hp.com/us-en/shop/mdp/hp-elitebook-865

Re: Ask HN: How ready for daily driving is Asahi Linux?

#28

Post by easytiger »

osigurdson wrote: post #12
bestouff wrote: post #4

Hint: it's not. I'm not asking much though: I just need a linux laptop which is fast (lots of rust compilations) and can stay for a whole day unplugged. Thunderbolt connectivity to dock it at home (and use bigger screens) would be perfect. I don't need the GPU, I'm mainly using the terminal and the CPU in fast enough for that. But it's not even there: the CPU is heating even when doing nothing, the laptop doesn't sle…

>> the laptop doesn't sleep when closed Linux is amazing but doing the right thing when you close the lid is a seemingly intractable problem for it. Maybe we need a hardware spec and a paid distro to finally solve these kinds of problems.

I've had no issues with his on ubuntu on my previous lenovo x1 carbon or on my recent dell xps 15. (Nor on my desktop)

Re: Ask HN: How ready for daily driving is Asahi Linux?

#30

Post by viraptor »

notpushkin wrote: post #10

No GPU means it gets pretty hot sometimes (don't even try watching videos, I've literally burned myself :'). Otherwise I'd say I could use it as a daily driver: a bit clunky, needs some tinkering, but everything I personally need (VSCodium, Firefox, Docker, wifi, audio in the headphones) already works and works well. If you already have a MacBook you could use, just give it a try – you can dual-boot, so if it doesn't…

FTR, GPU support is very close now and if you really want to you can try it yourself. Basic OpenGL and all desktops should work. (https://vt.social/@lina/109346469312488886) but yeah - definitely not working ootb yet.
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