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Asahi Linux Progress Report: Linux 7.2

asahilinux.org

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Re: Asahi Linux Progress Report: Linux 7.2

#31

Post by gehsty »

dgunay wrote: post #21

I have immense respect for the incredible work that the Asahi team does, but at the rate that Intel and AMD have been catching up on power efficiency I wonder whether anyone will really _have_ to run Linux on M series laptops. There was a clear case for it back when Apple silicon absolutely dominated anything else you could buy but with Panther Lake I'm not so sure that Apple's lead will continue to be big enough to…

Does anyone have to run Linux on an M series? I’m fairly confident it’s one of the most complex ways of running Linux…

Re: Asahi Linux Progress Report: Linux 7.2

#33

Post by oblio »

LoganDark wrote: post #7
djfergus wrote: post #4

Fantastic to see the progress and a fascinating detailed write-up. You have to appreciate the effort Apple puts into security - goes some way to understanding why they won't endorse/support installing an alternative operating system.

Apple has gone through tremendous effort to enable alternative operating systems on Apple Silicon Macs: https://asahilinux.org/docs/platform/open-os-interop/

> tremendous efforts

Tremendous efforts would be to publish reference manuals for all their hardware components.

Apple is doing the bare minimum, which is to not build 10km tall walls around its walled garden.

But in the modern day of walled gardens, that's viewed as generosity.

Re: Asahi Linux Progress Report: Linux 7.2

#34

Post by LoganDark »

oblio wrote: post #33
LoganDark wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Apple has gone through tremendous effort to enable alternative operating systems on Apple Silicon Macs: https://asahilinux.org/docs/platform/open-os-interop/

> tremendous efforts Tremendous efforts would be to publish reference manuals for all their hardware components. Apple is doing the bare minimum, which is to not build 10km tall walls around its walled garden. But in the modern day of walled gardens, that's viewed as generosity.

This is Apple we're talking about. What may be the bare minimum for you was a lot of work for them. Work they could have passed up and we would've all had to simply deal with it. They do that all the time, and there's nothing we can do about it. But here they didn't. Here they did "the bare minimum" to allow custom operating systems on their newer hardware. That should be commended. Yes, we should celebrate that hardware we purchase and own still allows us to run code we wrote. Because the alternative is that it could not. Their non-macOS devices already don't.

To be perfectly clear, Apple is like a lifeline to a lot of people. They are one of the last bastions of quality in the hardware and software world. This is why it's such a disappointment that they've been faltering lately: we had high expectations of them, which hasn't been quite so true for the rest of the industry for a while. So it is a big deal that hidden gems like this continue to crop up from them: it is a sign that some of their core values still remain. And I really hope the new CEO will bring back some of what they lost after Steve Jobs.

Re: Asahi Linux Progress Report: Linux 7.2

#35

Post by alberth »

laidoffamazon wrote: post #32

Is Asahi an LLM-hostile project? I'd imagine this is something that would be benefitted tremendously with a Fable class model

> Meanwhile, donations and pledges kept slowly decreasing, and have done so since the project launched. Not enough to spell immediate doom for my dream of working on Asahi full time in the short term, but enough to make me wonder if any of this was really appreciated. The all-time peak monthly donation volume was the very first month or two. It seemed the more things we accomplished, the less support we had.

I think the issue is funding is so low the developers don’t even have access to newer Apple Siicon, let alone funding for token costs, etc.

https://marcan.st/2025/02/resigning-as-asahi-linux-project-l...

Re: Asahi Linux Progress Report: Linux 7.2

#36

Post by happosai »

JLO64 wrote: post #5

> Thanks to the combined efforts of mildsunrise and chaos_princess, we discovered that ACE3 has pretty much the same register set as CD3217, only wrapped in a SPMI interface instead of addressed over I2C. Both the SPMI interface and ACE3 itself are now working in Asahi Linux, bringing USB 3.0 and Thunderbolt support to all M3 series devices. When I got my M3 Pro MBP, I got it with the intention of eventually installi…

[flagged]

Re: Asahi Linux Progress Report: Linux 7.2

#37

Post by LoganDark »

bigyabai wrote: post #8
LoganDark wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Apple has gone through tremendous effort to enable alternative operating systems on Apple Silicon Macs: https://asahilinux.org/docs/platform/open-os-interop/

Most of those accommodations are for macOS, and make very few (if any) concessions for alternative operating systems. We're talking Qualcomm-tier effort. Intel and AMD set the standard for "tremendous effort" bringing up support for alternative OSes. Nvidia follows behind, and Apple's support is (somehow) behind Nvidia's foot-dragging.

I see a lot of dual-purpose here. Maybe you don't, or maybe you figure it's just a coincidence that Linux can also benefit from this. Apple definitely had it in mind, and designed for it, even if they don't release documentation.

Re: Asahi Linux Progress Report: Linux 7.2

#39

Post by soganess »

gehsty wrote: post #31
dgunay wrote: post #21

I have immense respect for the incredible work that the Asahi team does, but at the rate that Intel and AMD have been catching up on power efficiency I wonder whether anyone will really _have_ to run Linux on M series laptops. There was a clear case for it back when Apple silicon absolutely dominated anything else you could buy but with Panther Lake I'm not so sure that Apple's lead will continue to be big enough to…

Does anyone have to run Linux on an M series? I’m fairly confident it’s one of the most complex ways of running Linux…

Yeah, but there was a time when running Linux on a laptop was one of the most complex ways of running Linux. Now I just expect everything to work, especially if I buy from Lenovo, Dell, or HP.

There was a time when Wi-Fi, or Wayland, or XComposite, or Linux gaming, or just accelerated graphics at all or, or, or... People get excited, they work on it, other people get excited and mess about, and eventually it just works.

I would love to one day pick up a decommissioned M1 Ultra and use my OS of choice on it, and I'm grateful for the people who are doing the hard thing now.

Re: Asahi Linux Progress Report: Linux 7.2

#40

Post by ksec »

>The ARM specification mandates that cores in WFI loops should preserve all state. This is not the default mode on Apple Silicon.

I sometimes do wonder at what point do ARM find and test these stuff and ask Apple to follow. Obviously this is not the first time we see such thing happened.

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