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ARM64 Linux Workstation

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Re: ARM64 Linux Workstation

#121

Post by VBprogrammer »

nicce wrote: post #37
snazz wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That seems like a wonderful opportunity to use QEMU since it's not all that performance-sensitive (I think?) and you're not running random pre-built binaries directly on your computer.

I ran all my stuff inside non-root non-volume container so prebuilt binary it is not really a problem. I used QEMU through Podman machine in the end, but the performance is terrible. Even on MacOS side QEMU does not support Rosetta 2. Docker for Desktop supports and gives significant boost, but I don’t want to use it.

This stuff makes me super nervous. I've just gotten an M1 MacBook Pro at work because my old touchbar Mac was showing signs of impending battery death (and I only got that because IT didn't want to support Linux and I didn't want Windows). I've already had a few battles with some python libraries and today I've found that the Oracle container image doesn't run.

I love the battery life and the keyboard is much better than the old one. It feels snappy running native code but I just know it's going to cause me more issues than it's worth.

Re: ARM64 Linux Workstation

#122

Post by eqvinox »

eatonphil wrote: post #2

> Is there anything that doesn’t work? > To quote Hamlet, Act 3, Scene 3, Line 87: “No.” > Everything works… and works perfectly. That is impressive and really hard to believe! I guess I'll have to find an M1 mac Mini to try myself!

per statement from Asahi Linux [https://social.treehouse.systems/@AsahiLinux/109931764533424...] - you'll have to do a lot of your own legwork [EDIT: on upstream/"standard" Linux] to get there.

Not having to deal with an entire custom laptop (i.e. getting a lot of standard peripherals for "free" after only getting USB to work) also helps a whole lot, and note the article specifically talks about a desktop mac.

Re: ARM64 Linux Workstation

#123

Post by eatonphil »

rmorey wrote: post #71
eatonphil wrote: post #2

> Is there anything that doesn’t work? > To quote Hamlet, Act 3, Scene 3, Line 87: “No.” > Everything works… and works perfectly. That is impressive and really hard to believe! I guess I'll have to find an M1 mac Mini to try myself!

It's not obvious if you skim the post, but they mention getting the Mini in the first paragraph, but later mention they got a tricked out mac studio. so just be aware the fawning notes are about the Studio, not the Mini (although the mini does rock I love it)

Good point. I only noticed the bits about the studio.

Re: ARM64 Linux Workstation

#125

Post by jlarocco »

It's cool that Arm64 chips are catching up in speed, but the software support has been there for a long time.

When I bought my Raspberry Pi several years back, I was able to comfortably develop using Emacs, gcc, and SBCL Common Lisp - the same software I use on my AMD desktop. Everything I needed "just worked"; compiling just wasn't very fast.

Re: ARM64 Linux Workstation

#126

Post by karmakaze »

I wasn't planning to switch to ARM anytime soon, but I was looking for a new Linux distro with Ubuntu heading off in it's own 'Canonical' way.

Debian seemed to be a natural default but I'm leaning toward an Arch distro so would prepare me if I should switch to ARM down the road.

Re: ARM64 Linux Workstation

#127

Post by birken »

synergy20 wrote: post #107
birken wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have a relatively mid-to-top tier linux desktop (i5-13600K, 64 GB ram) and an M2 Macbook pro (M2 max, 32GB ram). The linux desktop comfortably outperforms the M2 in any CPU based benchmarks while also being significantly cheaper (though the M2 desktop machines are cheaper than the laptops, but still more expensive than the alternatives). If I were doing GPU heavy work than I assume the M2 would have a leg up, but t…

I saw 64GB vs 32GB here, many apps are memory intensive, thus the linux desktop will win no matter how faster M2 is, it will be interesting to run cpu intensive benchmark between them and see how that goes. for ML training or 3D graphics, I wonder how M1 and M2's NPU and GPU are supported under Linux, unless they're optimized and verified to be superior, I will grab a machine with RTX 3090Ti instead.

I have a very CPU intensive single threaded program that runs about 15% faster on the intel CPU. Other CPU benchmarks out there show my particular processor is slightly ahead of the M2 (and there are faster intel/amd processors than the one in my machine). But if you look at power consumption I believe the intel CPU uses something like 3-5x the power to generate that slightly better performance.

At the high end of performance, the M2 is just light years better than any other chip (other than the M1) in terms of performance per watt. But if that stops being a concern to you then I think most linux desktop users are better off just getting a "normal" intel machine, which also will have 100% driver support for everything, cost less, and probably be faster.

Re: ARM64 Linux Workstation

#128

Post by highwaylights »

nicce wrote: post #8
eatonphil wrote: post #2

> Is there anything that doesn’t work? > To quote Hamlet, Act 3, Scene 3, Line 87: “No.” > Everything works… and works perfectly. That is impressive and really hard to believe! I guess I'll have to find an M1 mac Mini to try myself!

Not everything will work. Once upon time I tried to make CTF with M2 Pro, and I seriously wished that I had x86_64 Linux instead. Many of the penetration testing tools are not mainstream and they include pre-build x86_64 binaries, or are configured just to not compile with ARM, for reason unknown. And there is no time to figure out what is wrong. I know this might be a niche scenario, but still...

“Once upon a time I tried to make CTF with M2 Pro”

Wasn’t the M2 Pro released like a month ago?

Am I that old that a few weeks now counts as once upon a time?

Re: ARM64 Linux Workstation

#129

Post by smackeyacky »

karmakaze wrote: post #126

I wasn't planning to switch to ARM anytime soon, but I was looking for a new Linux distro with Ubuntu heading off in it's own 'Canonical' way. Debian seemed to be a natural default but I'm leaning toward an Arch distro so would prepare me if I should switch to ARM down the road.

Pop!OS is worth looking at if you like Ubuntu but don't like where Ubuntu is going.

Plain debian is fine though - unless you have a recent laptop and need nvidia drivers. You can make it work, but it's fiddly and the Pop! guys already figured everything out for you. I use debian on an old HP deskside server as a workstation and it's been fantastic.

Re: ARM64 Linux Workstation

#130

Post by Maursault »

> This January, I installed Asahi Linux on Apple’s most powerful ARM64 system: the Mac Studio with a 20-core M1 Ultra processor and 128GB of RAM

Sucker. For the same price, OP could have had TWO Mac Studios Max 10-core with 64GB RAM each, which together would absolutely spank the Mac Studio Ultra 20-core with 128GB RAM. Why are people falling for this!?

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