Asahi Linux Still Working on Apple M3 Support, M1n1 Bootloader Going Rust • Hacker News Board

Re: Asahi Linux Still Working on Apple M3 Support, M1n1 Bootloader Going Rust

#171

Post by einsteinx2 » Fri, Oct 24, 2025, 6:50 PM UTC

Lammy wrote: post #157

einsteinx2 wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The tide does seem to be turning that way, though I do think it will be possible to buy general purpose computers for the foreseeable future. Also as a minor counter point, the only reason Asahi is even possible is that Apple explicitly designed in support for booting other operating systems into the M-series chips. They certainly could have locked them down just like they did the iPhone and iPad, but they didn't. Th…

> Apple explicitly designed in support for booting other operating systems into the M-series chips Is it possible to buy a compatible M-whatever Mac and install Linux on it without network access, without it phoning home to Apple for permission? Sincere question since I have only used one Apple Silicon Mac ever, and it was a work machine so I never tried Asahi on it. I am curious about the privacy implications of non…

Hmm you know I’m actually not sure. I think at least currently you have to do the install from macOS so I guess you have to set it up once at least, but I’m not sure if that actually requires internet access.

I so know that once you have Asahi installed you never need to boot into macOS again if you don’t want to and don’t require network checkins or anything like that to keep using it.

Also unlike Windows 11, it’s trivial to set up macOS without ever creating an account with Apple, so you don’t have to give them personal info or even an email or anything to do the initial macOS setup.

Re: Asahi Linux Still Working on Apple M3 Support, M1n1 Bootloader Going Rust

#172

Post by einsteinx2 » Fri, Oct 24, 2025, 6:53 PM UTC

DannyBee wrote: post #94

einsteinx2 wrote: post #2

I really love what Asahi Linux is doing, but given Apple’s yearly release cadence of new chips, it feels like a Sisyphean task. Though in the plus side, even the base M1 is so capable that even if they stopped there it would be useful for years to come.

"I really love what Asahi Linux is doing, but given Apple’s yearly release cadence of new chips, it feels like a Sisyphean task." This is more true on the gpu side than the cpu/soc side for sure. Speaking as someone who worked on this (i did a bunch of the m3 work here, and some wifi work) - it's not anywhere near as bad as embedded work i used to do many eons ago. Apple doesn't like to spend tons of time/energy eith…

Thanks for the insight!

Re: Asahi Linux Still Working on Apple M3 Support, M1n1 Bootloader Going Rust

#173

Post by ActorNightly » Fri, Oct 24, 2025, 6:55 PM UTC

mort96 wrote: post #5

I have a 2021 MacBook Pro with an M1 Pro. It's getting a bit old, so it would be nice to replace it with a new MacBook Pro in not too long. But honestly, losing Linux support would be pretty devastating. Docker and virtualization just isn't the same. There's lots of interesting stuff you can do with your hardware in Linux, there's for example Linux-specific software which puts the WiFi card in promiscuous mode and do…

>I'm not really sure what to do.

Get any of the modern laptops with good battery life, install linux + Elementary OS without any hacks or workarounds (or better yet, i3wm which is the best window manager for laptops), and never look back.

Or do what I do, which is buy $200 dells/thinkpads of ebay, and for anything requiring CPU, just ssh into your home server.

Personally I went a step further and use a lapdock with a samsung phone - acts like a laptop with Termux, and I can do pretty much everything with good battery life, because lapdock battery also charges the phone.

Re: Asahi Linux Still Working on Apple M3 Support, M1n1 Bootloader Going Rust

#174

Post by anonymous908213 » Fri, Oct 24, 2025, 6:56 PM UTC

wara23arish wrote: post #22

intrasight wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Honest question: why would you care about battery in your daily driver? aren't you sitting or standing at a desk?

which begs the question why even get a laptop as a daily driver people do it all the time for gaming laptops etc when probably 99% of their usage is at the same desk

For my case, and probably the case of many such people, that's closer to 90%. The 10%, however, is a big deal. When you need to take it somewhere, you need to take it somewhere, and a device you can use in that 10% of the time is better than a device you can't use in that 10% of the time, regardless of how superior the latter is in the happy path cases.

Re: Asahi Linux Still Working on Apple M3 Support, M1n1 Bootloader Going Rust

#175

Post by mort96 » Fri, Oct 24, 2025, 6:56 PM UTC

tomnipotent wrote: post #164

mort96 wrote: post #158

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hm? My claim is that they back Omarchy and DHH, I think my links back that up?

And that is not a transitive property which then means Framework supports fascism. The US buys from China, does that mean we support communism?

International trade is extremely complex, funding and publicizing a project is not. Framework supports DHH, both financially and in terms of publicity. That's not something I wanna support.

Re: Asahi Linux Still Working on Apple M3 Support, M1n1 Bootloader Going Rust

#176

Post by einsteinx2 » Fri, Oct 24, 2025, 6:58 PM UTC

bluedino wrote: post #48

einsteinx2 wrote: post #2

I really love what Asahi Linux is doing, but given Apple’s yearly release cadence of new chips, it feels like a Sisyphean task. Though in the plus side, even the base M1 is so capable that even if they stopped there it would be useful for years to come.

> even the base M1 is so capable that even if they stopped there it would be useful for years to come. My M1 Air is 4 years old and it's by far the most capable 4 year old Mac I've owned.

Yeah when I got the first gen base model M1 Air, I put it to the test against my maxed out i9 MacBook Pro (basically the last Intel model they released, so it was the “best of the best” they had to offer on the Intel side).

I tried out using Handbrake to CPU encode the same video on both devices. Amazingly the M1 Air was slightly faster than the i9, while comparatively sipping power, and staying relatively cool without even having a fan. The i9 on the other hand drained its battery super fast, sounded like a jet plane taking off, and was too hot to sit on my lap.

That’s when I knew it was really a massive leap forward.

Re: Asahi Linux Still Working on Apple M3 Support, M1n1 Bootloader Going Rust

#177

Post by philistine » Fri, Oct 24, 2025, 6:58 PM UTC

morshu9001 wrote: post #131

philistine wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The various Hackintosh projects are on life support not because the interest for that kind of thing has died; it's because Apple doubled down on chain-of-trust and is abandoning x86. Apple made it impossible to use iMessage on a Hackintosh without spoofing another Mac that's not in use. That pushed A LOT of people away from using a Hackintosh. The second thing is abandoning x86. Apple has already announced that macOS…

Even before the AS transition, GPUs were becoming more important and Mac OS GPU support was becoming even worse. At some point you were basically limited to a few AMD options. Very unattractive OS for a custom tower by then. Like I did put a Nvidia 650ti? in my Mac Pro, and it sorta worked initially under OSX, but way slower and glitchier than in Windows and eventually just fully incompatible.

Yeah, Nvidia was forsaken by Apple after a kerfuffle where Apple blamed Nvidia for problems and Nvidia didn’t want to take that blame.

Only Nintendo and the OEM PC companies have been able to make an integration relationship work.

Re: Asahi Linux Still Working on Apple M3 Support, M1n1 Bootloader Going Rust

#178

Post by einsteinx2 » Fri, Oct 24, 2025, 7:03 PM UTC

Rohansi wrote: post #91

einsteinx2 wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The tide does seem to be turning that way, though I do think it will be possible to buy general purpose computers for the foreseeable future. Also as a minor counter point, the only reason Asahi is even possible is that Apple explicitly designed in support for booting other operating systems into the M-series chips. They certainly could have locked them down just like they did the iPhone and iPad, but they didn't. Th…

> Apple explicitly designed in support for booting other operating systems into the M-series chips Don't you think it's interesting that it's an option for Macs but not iPad Pros? They both use the same SoC. > So while they may not be sharing technical documentation/drivers or otherwise making it easy on the Asahi devs, even the famously "walled garden" Apple seems to have explicitly not restricted their new line of…

> Don't you think it's interesting that it's an option for Macs but not iPad Pros? They both use the same SoC.

I think that has more to due with product positioning. They see the iPad as an iPhone style device (though it’s slowly getting more Mac-like), so kept it locked down. Not saying I agree with their decision, but I get why they made it.

> Give it a few more years. Asahi will probably be so far behind that it wouldn't even matter. Eventually they can just turn off allowing third-party operating systems on new hardware.

Unfortunately I think this is probably going to be true, but fingers crossed.

I will say though that while I like the idea of Asahi in theory, I installed it for more than a year and ended up really never booting into it. When I needed Linux for something (which is pretty rare since most any tool I would want I can just run natively in macOS terminal) it was always more convenient to use a VM, so I personally won’t lose anything if I can only run macOS, but in principle I’d like it to stay open just like the Intel Macs were with Bootcamp.

Re: Asahi Linux Still Working on Apple M3 Support, M1n1 Bootloader Going Rust

#179

Post by wetpaws » Fri, Oct 24, 2025, 7:09 PM UTC

ActorNightly wrote: post #173

mort96 wrote: post #5

I have a 2021 MacBook Pro with an M1 Pro. It's getting a bit old, so it would be nice to replace it with a new MacBook Pro in not too long. But honestly, losing Linux support would be pretty devastating. Docker and virtualization just isn't the same. There's lots of interesting stuff you can do with your hardware in Linux, there's for example Linux-specific software which puts the WiFi card in promiscuous mode and do…

>I'm not really sure what to do. Get any of the modern laptops with good battery life, install linux + Elementary OS without any hacks or workarounds (or better yet, i3wm which is the best window manager for laptops), and never look back. Or do what I do, which is buy $200 dells/thinkpads of ebay, and for anything requiring CPU, just ssh into your home server. Personally I went a step further and use a lapdock with a…

[dead]

Re: Asahi Linux Still Working on Apple M3 Support, M1n1 Bootloader Going Rust

#180

Post by dangus » Fri, Oct 24, 2025, 7:09 PM UTC

notepad0x90 wrote: post #40

dangus wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My advice is if you’re truly a Linux user first, give up the idea that Mac hardware is the only best/acceptable hardware. Break the cycle and don’t just buy Apple because their hardware is 10% better than competitors. The market really isn’t limited to “buying a windows laptop and putting Linux onto it” anymore. Lots of OEMs support Linux as a first-class citizen. For me personally I’m enjoying my Framework laptop a…

I don't think any other competitor makes hardware of a similar class in terms of quality. Framework is great, but it doesn't even come close in terms of quality. Specs are one thing, how the product looks, feels, attention to detail, and most importantly: long term viability! even if you take away everything else, macbooks are though. I've used a couple for over a decade with no hardware repair (except when I broke a…

I can’t believe you’re gaslighting us all by claiming “long term viability” is better on a MacBook, a system with zero user-replaceable components, a glued-in battery, soldered-in memory, etc.

A MacBook loses software updates in 10 years. Sometimes less. You can install what amounts to reverse engineered Linux on one if you lose your macOS updates. You have a choice of basically one viable distro.

And this idea that no other competitor makes hardware in a similar class of quality is extremely outdated. I actually own both a modern MacBook and a Framework. This isn’t some HP shitbook from 2011. It’s all aluminum, like I said the keyboard is literally superior to Mac systems, and are we just going to gloss over 2016-2020 when Apple just shit the bed and made utter garbage? Are we going to gloss over how the current systems have a gigantic notch blocking the menu bar that’s somehow bigger than FaceID but only houses a middling webcam?

You admit you broke a screen on your MacBook. How much did that cost you to repair? How long did you wait without your system to repair it? Or did you just go off and buy a new one?