Live data from Hacker News

Fedora Asahi Remix first impressions

jasoneckert.github.io

21–30 of 138 posts

Re: Fedora Asahi Remix first impressions

#21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Fedora contributors are the ones maintaining the packages and they might have more work now if something breaks on the M1. This only "helps" Red Hat in that they can get more testing on ARM.

Exactly. And users help them by testing and submitting bug reports, posting on forums/lists, etc. So my question stands, why help IBM at all in any way when you know what that is feeding into?

From TFA

"But the main reason is that there have been many issues surrounding the maintenance of ARM packages for Arch Linux, and that the Fedora team is both capable and willing to provide provide the support needed to provide a truly polished Linux experience on modern Macs (the main goal of the Asahi Linux project). By moving to Fedora, the Asahi team can focus on reverse engineering Apple hardware while the Fedora team can focus on maintaining the distribution itself on the Apple Silicon platform. This combination of Fedora with the Asahi boot components and drivers for Apple Silicon is called Fedora Asahi Remix."

This is a bidirectional relationship, the Asahi linux developers also benefit from the people and infrastructure in Fedora.

Re: Fedora Asahi Remix first impressions

#23

I have never used Fedora, I use Arch on my desktop and really enjoyed it on my macbook. It's kind of sad the Arch developers didn't want to put more effort into supporting alarm. If Arch is totally dropped by Asahi team it's unlikely I'll continue using linux on my macbook at all. I just have better things to do than manage multiple distros.

Shouldn’t this distro require little management?

Re: Fedora Asahi Remix first impressions

#24

I have never used Fedora, I use Arch on my desktop and really enjoyed it on my macbook. It's kind of sad the Arch developers didn't want to put more effort into supporting alarm. If Arch is totally dropped by Asahi team it's unlikely I'll continue using linux on my macbook at all. I just have better things to do than manage multiple distros.

Having used Arch heavily in the past, “better things to do” is heavily at odds with “using arch”

Re: Fedora Asahi Remix first impressions

#26

Nice post. Wondering if/when dependence on macOS will be eliminated? I don’t mind a small recovery partition on disk for… what, firmware updates? But otherwise would prefer macOS get completely out of the way. Is that a thing that is possible, or will we always be reliant on an “activated” macOS?

It is technically possible to remove macOS after installing Fedora Asahi Remix, leaving Linux as the sole OS, but this is not recommended to ensure that you can always update the firmware and recover the system. To install Fedora Asahi Remix, however, you must have macOS to run the installer script and prepare the system for use. So, the best solution is to shrink macOS to the minimum possible size during installatio…

Thanks. How does Apple bootstrap the system in the first place when inserting a blank SSD? Or perhaps you bought a replacement part?

I don't see how that could be done if it is true—that the system is bricked/unrecoverable if the macos partition is lost. Surely it can boot from USB or something?

Perhaps not, this wiki page linked above implies the iboot can't handle usb or external storage:

https://github.com/AsahiLinux/docs/wiki/M1-vs.-PC-Boot

Re: Fedora Asahi Remix first impressions

#29

What does "container" mean in this context? It is used often and it seems to mean partition, but perhaps not exactly. Is this new overloaded APFS terminology?

> seems to mean partition

> Is this new overloaded APFS terminology?

Yes and yes. It's like a PV in LVM, or a partition in ZFS or BTRFS. What Apple calls an APFS volume is like a logical volume in LVM, or a BTRFS subvolume.

Edit: Had this backwards, at first.

Re: Fedora Asahi Remix first impressions

#30

Nice post. Wondering if/when dependence on macOS will be eliminated? I don’t mind a small recovery partition on disk for… what, firmware updates? But otherwise would prefer macOS get completely out of the way. Is that a thing that is possible, or will we always be reliant on an “activated” macOS?

You’ll need it for firmware updates.

Can you not do that from recovery on external media, just like installing the OS?
Post reply on HN