For the same reasons, I prefer Linux - but also like Apple Silicon platform.
As a result, I use Fedora Asahi Remix natively on the hardware. It's a few generations behind in support (M1- and M2-based systems right now), but I can't tell you how good it feels to be able to use Linux natively on Apple Silicon hardware. In my workflow, Fedora Asahi Remix runs at least twice as fast as macOS on the same hardware for any task (and 4-6 times faster for heavier tasks).
I Used Arch, BTW: macOS, Day 1
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Re: I Used Arch, BTW: macOS, Day 1
#12> Homebrew's filesystem permission handling is controversial, to say the least, and it has a tendency to fail at a package manager's main job: ensuring that new dependencies don't break the system. Homebrew user from day 1 it appeared. I have many many packages installed on multiple actively used systems and I have never had to deal with any kind of breakage. What is this myth? Yeah yeah I am just one data point ...
It's been five years for my data point, but every single time it came time to update brew, I hit something else I'd never seen before. Every time, it broke. And from what I can see, migrations are still causing issues. [0] [0] https://github.com/Homebrew/brew/issues/19951
Crazy, what kind of set up were you trying to do there? Been using it for probably 10 years and I can't remember the last time I had an issue and I run updates on it automatically every day. Biggest problem I remember is having to chown a directory again or something.
Re: I Used Arch, BTW: macOS, Day 1
#13[deleted… my disagreements about time allocation aside, there’s no reason to argue on the internet about it]
Re: I Used Arch, BTW: macOS, Day 1
#14[deleted… my disagreements about time allocation aside, there’s no reason to argue on the internet about it]
Did you actually read the article? Multiple times, they talk about how they're just trying to find a smooth, comfortable workflow and don't need every detail perfect (at least initially).
Re: I Used Arch, BTW: macOS, Day 1
#15I wouldn't try to make macOS into Arch, if Arch is what works for you.
Just run Arch in a VM on the mac, using Apple's virtualization framework [1]. (No need for other wrappers; the framework is often easier to use directly.) I find no significant performance issues; a lot of software actually runs faster in a Linux VM than when I compile and run it on the mac.
The limitations are that the Linux VM's don't support save/restore of state (i.e., you have to shut down to stop the VM) and the graphics and device support is limited.
You might get more performance if you compile your own Arch distribution with all the flags necessary to enjoy modern CPU features in M-series (particularly M4+ with SME extensions). With M4-Pro memory should run 273GB/second for JAX and PyTorch.
However, AFAICT, PyTorch supports vectorization on Apple silicon by delegating to Apple's Metal API's, and that wouldn't be available from the Linux VM, so you might prefer running those on macOS directly.
To me the biggest draw of the M4 processor is that it supports CPU tracing (at least for Xcode-run code): actual, direct (not sampled) data about CPU internals like branching, cache misses, etc. If you're into performance, this will take you from working with a black box to seeing exactly what's up.
[1] https://developer.apple.com/documentation/Virtualization/run...
Re: I Used Arch, BTW: macOS, Day 1
#16[deleted… my disagreements about time allocation aside, there’s no reason to argue on the internet about it]
Did you actually read the article? Multiple times, they talk about how they're just trying to find a smooth, comfortable workflow and don't need every detail perfect (at least initially).
Yes, but they’re over indexing on that imo. The smooth comfort they’re looking for is costing them multiples of how much time it will actually save
Re: I Used Arch, BTW: macOS, Day 1
#17>The macOS package management story is not great. Ummm... Homebrew has been around for at least a decade.
I think what you might be missing here is that compared to the package management in Arch, the package management in MacOS appears not great in comparison.
Re: I Used Arch, BTW: macOS, Day 1
#18Earlier quoted context omitted.
Did you actually read the article? Multiple times, they talk about how they're just trying to find a smooth, comfortable workflow and don't need every detail perfect (at least initially).
Yes, but they’re over indexing on that imo. The smooth comfort they’re looking for is costing them multiples of how much time it will actually save
A few days of work doesn't matter over years.
Re: I Used Arch, BTW: macOS, Day 1
#19Nix is downright awful on MacOS, even with the DetSys installer. Almost worse than Homebrew. If you ever sit down to play with a native NixOS install, the difference in functionality is night-and-day.
Care to elaborate on what you've found most painful? Since `nix-darwin` is anything but officially supported, I am expecting trouble, but it would be nice to know if there are specific things I should look out for. I'd love to use NixOS itself, of course, but it's not a native option on this machine due to the missing M4 support in Asahi. For now, I'm trying to see how much package/configuration management discipline…
I am running nix darwin and its a dream.
Don’t have any issues and things just work.
Setting everything up just the way I like it took ages but thats because I wanted to play with it.
I use most of the same configuration on nixos too
Re: I Used Arch, BTW: macOS, Day 1
#20Earlier quoted context omitted.
Did you actually read the article? Multiple times, they talk about how they're just trying to find a smooth, comfortable workflow and don't need every detail perfect (at least initially).
Yes, but they’re over indexing on that imo. The smooth comfort they’re looking for is costing them multiples of how much time it will actually save
The core initial setup here took about 2h30 from getting the laptop out of its packaging to being able to run and develop my main project's code within the environment I described.