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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

#211

Post by xoa »

dreamcompiler wrote: post #175
xoa wrote: post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not saying your VM approach isn't right for you, but: > and because there's no performant way to share disk space for data with MacOS Have you tried a ZFS partition? If it's a desktop system use iSCSI to network storage (I'm not running Linux directly on my Studio or M4 mini but I still put my Home folder on the network)?

I haven't. ZFS might be the answer for my laptops.

It's worth a spin. Before moving to iSCSI I had my home folder as well as lots of projects and data on ZFS for macOS for almost a decade, and it was extremely reliable and performant within reason [0]. ZoL of course is also quite solid at this point too. Life gets a lot more complex if you want to boot off of it, but a shared data partition for two separate OS boots could be a good match.

----

0: By which I mean, for equivalent features. It's possible to go really far out of the normal with ZFS in terms of silly compression and multiple copies of data even within a single OS and checksumming and so on in ways that add computational overhead, but I don't hold that against it vs APFS.

Re: Asahi Linux Progress Report: Linux 7.2

#212

Post by skohan »

simonask wrote: post #183
skohan wrote: post #161

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As someone who does a lot of work with local LLM's, today's systems feel woefully under-powered. I'm looking forward to a future where my laptop has 10x the memory, 100x the memory bandwidth, and optimized cores to make inference workflows that currently take minutes or hours go down to seconds or milliseconds. While we're at the point where traditional software is pretty much fast enough for all but extreme use-case…

Right now there isn’t really a convincing use case for local LLMs outside of enthusiast or specific niches. It takes a lot of expensive hardware, and most people don’t have extreme enough requirements to recoup that investment. That might change, but it would require either that hardware gets much cheaper or everyone’s demands for LLMs increase significantly.

That's what I mean though. The comment I was responding to was talking about "forever laptops" - my point is there's plenty of room for new capabilities which will make current hardware obsolete. Just like how GPU's didn't exist at all, and became a standard part of computing.

And given how fast the hardware and software is evolving, I can easily imagine a future where we all have very capable models running on our own devices for an embedded intelligence layer that's doing most of the day-to-day tasks, and only have to outsource to a super-smart cloud model for specific things.

Re: Asahi Linux Progress Report: Linux 7.2

#213

Post by darkwater »

maccard wrote: post #87
darkwater wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have a M1 Pro from work and it surely won't last that while working. Throw some video calls at it and working outside (so, screen at the brightest level) and at the end of the work day I have to plug it in

Your M1 Pro is 5 years old presumably?

Indeed it is, but batteries don't degrade 60% over 5 years.

Re: Asahi Linux Progress Report: Linux 7.2

#214

Post by psd1 »

Gud wrote: post #144
danw1979 wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ummm if repairability is a concern, I’ve got some news to share about your new Macbook.

No, repair ability is only important if it’s crappy quality to begin with.

I try to buy good hardware for practical reasons. I insist on repairability for emotional reasons around ownership and independence. You do not have to value the same things as me, of course.

Re: Asahi Linux Progress Report: Linux 7.2

#215

Post by newdee »

stiray wrote: post #91
stiray wrote: post #69

I hope they will support M4 soon, I cant stand macos and its desire to be different than everything else by custom keyboard shortcuts etc. After 2 years of usage, I still have issues with basic actions like copy paste. edit: omg, writing this post, i checked if there is some way to use linux shortcuts and there is (Kanesh/KMonad or Karabiner-Elements). Maybe my suffering will finally stop.

If someone needs it, https://github.com/Fuzzy-and-Fluffy/windows-keyboard-for-mac (to replies, yes, i understand that macos keyboard shortcuts might objectively be better, but if you are using multiple computers and macos is the only one of OSs, those shortcuts become pain in the neck)

Dunno, my experience has been different. I cycle between macOS, Linux and Windows all day every day and it’s just automatic muscle memory for me now as I switch between each. Thanks for the link though, keeping that stashed.

Re: Asahi Linux Progress Report: Linux 7.2

#216

Post by preg_match »

randusername wrote: post #154
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…

Yeah, I'm optimistic we're getting really close to "forever laptops" once competing hardware catches up on efficiency. What do I need any higher specs for, other than battery life?

> What do I need any higher specs for, other than battery life?

To run poorly made software. Despite Apple having the best hardware around, they still manage to slow down M1 devices on Sequoia. Somehow.

I think it’s a double-edged sword. Powerful hardware means powerful hardware. But it also means developers get lazy, and start writing poor quality software because it still runs OK on the latest and greatest.

Luckily Linux doesn’t have that problem, which is why you can easily add 10 years to a laptops lifespan just by using Linux.

Re: Asahi Linux Progress Report: Linux 7.2

#217

Post by psd1 »

randusername wrote: post #154
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…

Yeah, I'm optimistic we're getting really close to "forever laptops" once competing hardware catches up on efficiency. What do I need any higher specs for, other than battery life?

I do family tech support. Hardware refresh is driven by facebook adware js knobbery. Proof-of-work bot countermeasures, too, although i don't really resent that.

If you run noscript then yeah, why not keep rocking your pentium.

Re: Asahi Linux Progress Report: Linux 7.2

#218

Post by preg_match »

fooker wrote: post #82
monegator wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

i snatched a lenovo yoga slim aura with a core 5 226 for 650 euro. Its build quality is on par if not better than the colleague's macbook, it's pretty good for working, runs fedora natively, battery last at least 12 hours unless i'm playing games.

The build quality is not even close. And macbooks are reaching 18-20 hours usage on battery nowadays, I have stopped carrying the power adapter most of the time. Of course it’s significantly more expensive, but you do get what you pay for.

On the battery life front, both Intel and AMD have caught up. Apple greatly inflates their battery numbers; to get 18 hours, you need the lowest spec model and you need to basically not use it. Chromium or Firefox open? Bluetooth active? Yeah, you’re looking at 12 hours, not 20.

12 is still good, but intel as of lunar lake (2 generations ago!) matched that. Now, the performance is still behind, particularly single core. But the efficiency is there, and these are standard x86 chips.

The efficiency doesn’t come from ARM, it comes from the process node and chip design. Apple uses the latest process nodes with an SOC design. When intel does the same, as they have done, they match the efficiency easily on x86.

The real gain is the SOC. When you shove the ram and chipset into the CPU you save massive battery.

Re: Asahi Linux Progress Report: Linux 7.2

#219

Post by fooker »

preg_match wrote: post #218
fooker wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The build quality is not even close. And macbooks are reaching 18-20 hours usage on battery nowadays, I have stopped carrying the power adapter most of the time. Of course it’s significantly more expensive, but you do get what you pay for.

On the battery life front, both Intel and AMD have caught up. Apple greatly inflates their battery numbers; to get 18 hours, you need the lowest spec model and you need to basically not use it. Chromium or Firefox open? Bluetooth active? Yeah, you’re looking at 12 hours, not 20. 12 is still good, but intel as of lunar lake (2 generations ago!) matched that. Now, the performance is still behind, particularly single co…

You are saying multiple unrelated things.

> On the battery life front, both Intel and AMD have caught up.

Intel and AMD's cpus don't have batteries ;)

Their chips are approximately as efficient as Apple's chips from ~2 years ago, but that's not their fault, it's Apple getting the entire allocation of new chips for about 1.5 years.

> to get 18 hours, you need the lowest spec model and you need to basically not use it. Chromium or Firefox open? Bluetooth active? Yeah, you’re looking at 12 hours, not 20.

I work on compilers, often maxing out all the CPU cores, and have stopped carrying the power adapter altogether. I plug it in maybe once in three days.

> The efficiency doesn’t come from ARM, it comes from the process node and chip design. Apple uses the latest process nodes with an SOC design. When intel does the same, as they have done, they match the efficiency easily on x86. The real gain is the SOC. When you shove the ram and chipset into the CPU you save massive battery.

Yes, I agree. IDGAF about whether the battery lasts longer because of ARM or magic pixie dust.

Re: Asahi Linux Progress Report: Linux 7.2

#220

Post by astrange »

JLO64 wrote: post #171
msto wrote: post #152

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There might be no reason while the hardware is latest and greatest, but installing a different OS can keep old hardware going for longer. My 2014 Macbook Pro is uncomfortably slow on the last supported MacOS but works perfectly fine when running the latest Fedora.

This exactly sums up my long term feelings. Even now I’m annoyed by all the background bloat/tasks that are running on it, and I’d prefer being able to have more control over what runs on it for battery/performance reasons. Additionally, even though I’ve had it for years at this point, I think I’d still be more comfortable if I could use i3 with it.

Background processes almost never really use expensive resources on macOS or Linux. Certainly they can cause symptoms sometimes, but it's typically no worse than extra fan noise.

All the wasted resources on most people's machines are going to a) pixel buffers b) browser tabs c) both.

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