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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?

#61

Post by lotsofpulp »

osigurdson wrote: post #59
lotsofpulp wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have always been curious why I have been seeing people with MacBooks close their lids and walk away at a moment’s notice for nearly 20 years, but I still do not expect to be able to do that from any non Macbook. Such a killer feature that one would think Microsoft would prioritize.

Microsoft has traditionally believed in abstractions (i.e. interfaces) while Apple believe in concrete implementations. Abstractions are flexible but always leak and therein lies the problems. I think the interface approach made sense I earlier days of computing. These days it is better to make a zillion, exactly the same computer like Apple does.

So it is technically impossible with Microsoft’s software?

Surely Microsoft has the resources to coordinate hardware and software with Dell/HP/Lenovo on making at least 1 reliable line of laptops where you can close the lid and reliably expect it to instantly sleep and not randomly wake up.

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

#62

Post by judge2020 »

cultofmetatron wrote: post #15
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…

> I've literally burned myself / That can't be good for the longevity of the device.... or of you for that matter

> for the longevity of the device....

I doubt it's really baking itself; most devices have a lower temperature target set in the software/firmware so that the user doesn't burn their lap, but the default thermal management behavior is done completely on-die.

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

#63

Post by bestouff »

rowanG077 wrote: post #22
bestouff wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

Nope, it's power management. It's not implemented yet, so the laptop doesn't sleep and doesn't even throttle. "In the future" it should work though.

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

#64

Post by folkrav »

csdvrx wrote: post #56
pimeys wrote: post #29

You might want to check the new ThinkPad Z13 and Z16 models with latest Ryzen CPU. You get similar performance and battery life as you'd expect from an M1. https://www.notebookcheck.net/Lenovo-ThinkPad-Z13-laptop-rev... No need to change the CPU architecture.

> No need to change the CPU architecture. But you need to relearn the keyboard as it's not a standard ThinkPad keyboard (no PageUp and PageDown above Left and Right) That detail alone means I won't buy it. Emulation or recompilation has fewer drawbacks than changing habits.

Being constrained to a single keyboard layout all your life sounds awfully limiting. I literally swap between completely different keyboards often (ortholinear/standard staggered/split layouts/etc). It takes some getting used to in the first couple of weeks, but once you're used to swapping layouts often, your brain just adjusts automatically.

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

#65

Post by lordgroff »

Context: first laptop in circa 20 years that doesn't run Linux (m1 air).

I don't like OSX and after a year I'm still not really used to it. But... It's still a much better choice to deal with it than Asahi right now (emphasis on right now, I expect it will get there and I will gladly use it at that point). No GPU, no sleep, no audio, no real power management. If you need arm Linux for something concrete, VM is the way to go right now unfortunately.

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

#66

Post by capableweb »

lordgroff wrote: post #65

Context: first laptop in circa 20 years that doesn't run Linux (m1 air). I don't like OSX and after a year I'm still not really used to it. But... It's still a much better choice to deal with it than Asahi right now (emphasis on right now, I expect it will get there and I will gladly use it at that point). No GPU, no sleep, no audio, no real power management. If you need arm Linux for something concrete, VM is the wa…

Yeah, if the option is between MacBook + macOS VS any other solid laptop with Linux, I'm gonna have to do with the second option. Any time I tried to use macOS (which, for many years before I did use daily), I end up getting frustrated...

Many thanks for sharing your experience!

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

#67

Post by aykevl »

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…

I believe the video decoder (h264 etc) is actually separate from the GPU.

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

#68

Post by drexlspivey »

mh7 wrote: post #36
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.

Well not even Windows can manage to sleep a 'modern standby' laptop reliably these days. I had to set hibernate on lid-close because Windows kept waking it up all the time even while closed.

My windows laptop is basically 24/7 on sleep and it’s still #1 in DNS requests on pihole.

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

#69

Post by csdvrx »

capableweb wrote: post #58
bestouff wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You didn't see a Mac keyboard then.

> standard ThinkPad keyboard They're talking about how ThinkPad keyboards have looked and worked since forever. Seems it changed recently.

It hasn't "changed", it's more like a variant that's been introduced for both the gamers and end-users laptops line (Z series)

The professional lines (ex: X series) are still using the standard ThinkPad keyboard.

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

#70

Post by csdvrx »

folkrav wrote: post #64
csdvrx wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> No need to change the CPU architecture. But you need to relearn the keyboard as it's not a standard ThinkPad keyboard (no PageUp and PageDown above Left and Right) That detail alone means I won't buy it. Emulation or recompilation has fewer drawbacks than changing habits.

Being constrained to a single keyboard layout all your life sounds awfully limiting. I literally swap between completely different keyboards often (ortholinear/standard staggered/split layouts/etc). It takes some getting used to in the first couple of weeks, but once you're used to swapping layouts often, your brain just adjusts automatically.

There are some gains from being able to adjust, and some other gains for being able to use any computer with the same shortcuts and the key where I expect them to be.

Personally, I prefer the gains from the latter approach: for example, I use ThinkPad bluetooth keyboards with eink tablets and Termux when I want to switch to something easier to my eyes.

Keeping the same environment (ssh + tmux + bash + vim) with similar keyboards layouts means my workflow and habits have become very independent from the hardware: I only have maintain separate shortcut remapping solutions based on the OS (AutoHotKey for windows, sds100 keymapper for Android)

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