I don't understand this. Buy something else to run Linux, as in anything other than Apple M series laptops. And if you want to do AI stuff, suffer with OSX using too much RAM, or again, buy something appropriate.
Asahi Linux on M3
191–200 of 359 posts
Re: Asahi Linux on M3
#192Earlier quoted context omitted.
2 more years and your mac will not install the latest MacOS version, which then means you will no longer be able to update any software on your own computer or install any new software either. If you could install linux or any other OS on it you would be able to use it for decades to come, but instead you will be forced to buy another new shiny Apple box. You will probably argue thats ok because you would have wanted…
That's not how macs work. You don't suddenly lose the ability to run new binaries just because they're not on the latest MacOS version. Using your own conservative estimate, 8 years seems like a fine lifespan for a laptop, far longer than the "few years" you initially said. And in practice, there are plenty of macbooks that have been running even longer.
Intel macs suddenly will lose the ability to run programs because Apple has dropped the requirement to ship an intel build. And from experience, as soon as Apple stops requiring devs support old hardware, nothing works anymore.
Re: Asahi Linux on M3
#193Earlier quoted context omitted.
The hardware is designed to last, the software is designed to force you to buy a new device after 7 years at most.
Is it a "a few years" or 7 years?
Depends on your expectations. Throwing a perfectly working laptop out after 7 years because apple cut off software support is wasteful to me. It might not be for you.
Re: Asahi Linux on M3
#194The reason this amazing project exists is the same reason my current Mac will be my last Mac.
I wish the team every success.
Re: Asahi Linux on M3
#195Why Apple does not at least provide the specs to the community? So much wasted effort when they can just share a pdf.
So that you have to keep buying Macs every few years of course. If they gave you a way to install linux easily then you could use it far past their intended lifespan and wouldnt keep you locked into the apple ecosystem. They have proved time and time again that Apple hardware running anything but MacOS or iOS is something they will work very hard to stop you doing.
My family continues to use my old 2009 MacBook Pro.
YMMV
Re: Asahi Linux on M3
#196Earlier quoted context omitted.
Is there anything stopping this from being thrown some investment plus LLM tokens? I wonder what a KVM connected to the machine plus a few thousand in Astra/Fable tokens could do here. It seems funny to think of software feature defects in OSS software now if people are building full recombinations of closed source software daily now!
It's hard to debug sleep in a VM or some self contained system. You need to physically interact with the laptop, reboot it after it gets stuck, etc.
Add a tool to the harness you use that can ping you on Telegram/whatever when it gets stuck and need you to do stuff physically, tell it to use it in the workflow with you. Used this approach a bunch with Codex to work on and debug hardware stuff. Once every 5-15 minutes I receive my command, and as a good r̶o̶b̶o̶t̶ human I moved the resistor/patch cable in the way the agent instructed me, eventually it got things working in the way I wanted it to.
Re: Asahi Linux on M3
#197This is great news. Hoping for M4 to the latest chip. We need Ashai to support more chips.
we need to be supporting asahi if we want these things. their funding has fallen off.
Re: Asahi Linux on M3
#198Why Apple does not at least provide the specs to the community? So much wasted effort when they can just share a pdf.
They want control on the walled garden. When was the last time apple did anything for public unless forced by FCC. Now there is no hope since they can simply donate to trump.
Yes but: Apple has no incentive to open up.
Absent that, it'd take some kind of sustained right-to-repair, EU morality, many sternly worded letters pressure campaign.
Plus, once they did (officially), they're kinda committed to keep doing it. That's explains why they remain okay with emoloyees helping on their own time; all the upside, none of the down.
Re: Asahi Linux on M3
#199Earlier quoted context omitted.
If you’ve ever tried to lock down a mac and dealt with the 100s of system services, you’d know why. I like the hardware and base os, but I have no idea what those services are doing. Many are undocumented. A lot can’t be disabled, even with SIP disabled. And, they’re chatty and persistent in trying to communicate out. You can kind of disable communication of TCP/IP but they’ll find alternatives - like low power bluet…
> A lot can’t be disabled, even with SIP disabled. Sure you can > You can kind of disable communication of TCP/IP but they’ll find alternatives - like low power bluetooth or even lower in the network stack. No
So many daemons. And while a lot can be disabled, some of them cause important stuff to break if you disable them, or even cause the OS to crash in a Heisenbugian fashion. And there's no documentation. So debugging this crap is anything but simple.
Re: Asahi Linux on M3
#200Why Apple does not at least provide the specs to the community? So much wasted effort when they can just share a pdf.
> when they can just share a pdf. I assume your question was in good faith, but the information needed to support an entire platform like this is not as simple as sharing a PDF. I’ve spent parts of my career working on much simpler platforms than an entire Apple laptop where we would have to work through 10,000 page PDFs documenting registers and even that was not enough to get the full picture of the system. You hav…
> The market for people who want to install Linux on a Mac laptop is very tiny.
It's only going to grow every year as apple stops releasing OS updates for perfectly functioning hardware.