[dead]
Asahi Linux Progress Linux 7.0
361–370 of 385 posts
Re: Asahi Linux Progress Linux 7.0
#362Earlier quoted context omitted.
Pretty rude to call this ex Apple Nuvia. I don't think any of those lawsuits by Apple or ARM have been won. Qualcomm declares this to be a new chip. But yes it has talent from those places. Still, let's not try to tip the scales of perception quite so indelicately? I am curious what the boot situation is. It seems like Qualcomm actually has pretty good support for their cores. But since these PC systems sort of lack…
> these PC systems sort of lack a bios, each one needing a hand built DeviceTree: it makes supporting them kind of a nightmare. Modern PC ARM systems like Snapdragon Elite X use UEFI and ACPI. This is actually what makes them difficult, because they're trying to operate in a "new world" while most ARM SOC IP and peripheral drivers work in the "old world." The issue with ARM has never _really_ been early boot; yes, it…
While it's true that early Linux ARM devices where embedded and generally only supported a single configuration, they didn't actually use devicetree.
Originally, embedded Linux ARM devices used a board file with a platform bus and hard-coded device metadata. The bootloader had to pass a machine id which told the kernel which hardware you were running on and which board file to use.
You can see remenants of this in the kernel still, though it's quickly being removed. I'm actually working on a hybrid kernel with the goal of bringing modern Linux support (on an lts branch) to old MSM7x300 devices, like the Evo 4G Shift I intent to use a tmux console/cyberdeck.
On another note, ACPI/UEFI doesn't always give you a clean abstract surface to work with either. ACPI is notorious for building in OS checks into it's compiled bytecode to the point that Linux often lies to it about what OS is running.
Re: Asahi Linux Progress Linux 7.0
#363Re: Asahi Linux Progress Linux 7.0
#364Earlier quoted context omitted.
> these PC systems sort of lack a bios, each one needing a hand built DeviceTree: it makes supporting them kind of a nightmare. Modern PC ARM systems like Snapdragon Elite X use UEFI and ACPI. This is actually what makes them difficult, because they're trying to operate in a "new world" while most ARM SOC IP and peripheral drivers work in the "old world." The issue with ARM has never _really_ been early boot; yes, it…
While it's true that early Linux ARM devices where embedded and generally only supported a single configuration, they didn't actually use devicetree. Originally, embedded Linux ARM devices used a board file with a platform bus and hard-coded device metadata. The bootloader had to pass a machine id which told the kernel which hardware you were running on and which board file to use. You can see remenants of this in th…
I remember that era (and it's still present on some other architectures) - devicetrees were at least a huge improvement over compile-time board config!
> ACPI/UEFI doesn't always give you a clean abstract surface to work with either.
That's putting it lightly. I think the best abstraction would probably land somewhere inside the big gap in the board config headers -> devicetree --------------> ACPI complexity continuum, but I'm not sure it's possible to do that at this point in the game as both sides are so entrenched.
> ACPI is notorious for building in OS checks into it's compiled bytecode to the point that Linux often lies
The problem with ACPI in this dimension is that there's a bidirectional errata game: the bytecode tries to work around the OS and the OS tries to work around the bytecode.
Unfortunately, there was never a real version standard for the Linux firmware interface early on (the _OSI("Linux") debacle), so the only testable versioned ACPI interface is Windows. This means that Linux is basically forced to become a Windows ACPI emulator. I think there are political reasons for this (obviously the 90s and 2000s were a bad time for Linux/Microsoft coexistence) but also just some decisions that look like big engineering mistakes in hindsight - the historic allergy of Linux maintainers to any kind of specified or versioned interface aimed at anything but user land definitely strikes again here.
I think that the versioning/errata issue and the native code trapdoor are the two biggest issues with ACPI (and admittedly both are large enough to drive a bus through); otherwise it's a kind of nasty thing but it fills in nicely for a lot of much nastier ideas and covers a really broad problem space reasonably well.
Re: Asahi Linux Progress Linux 7.0
#365"Amaze, amaze, amaze!" I wonder if there would be interest in an Asahi Remix spin focused on a more Mac-like out-of-the-box experience: cmd as the main modifier key, Mac-like keyboard shortcuts, theming, gestures, etc. Of course, you can tweak any distro however you want, but I think a curated default experience is a different thing.
Cmd as a “main” modifier? Ok typical X/Wayland setups, Cmd is already the main modifier for DE features, while Ctrl is the modifier used at an application level. There would be a lot of weird overlap with changing that.
[deleted]
Re: Asahi Linux Progress Linux 7.0
#366"Amaze, amaze, amaze!" I wonder if there would be interest in an Asahi Remix spin focused on a more Mac-like out-of-the-box experience: cmd as the main modifier key, Mac-like keyboard shortcuts, theming, gestures, etc. Of course, you can tweak any distro however you want, but I think a curated default experience is a different thing.
I’ve had the same thought and would love this. MacOS shortcuts are too deeply ingrained in my fingers.
But every attempt of mine to make Linux shortcuts Mac-like has had too many sharp edges to be useable. Toshy didn’t seem to work well with Wayland and felt heavy. Probably the best so far I’ve found has been keyd and custom configs for your most used apps.
A community effort might get us there. Distribute the hours of tinkering across many passionate users instead of everyone doing it in a vacuum.
Re: Asahi Linux Progress Linux 7.0
#367Genuine question: can't LLMs be used to accelerate this project?
Probably for tasks that are laborious to do, but easy to verify; not sure what percentage of such work is at hand here.
Re: Asahi Linux Progress Linux 7.0
#368Earlier quoted context omitted.
They could, but that wouldn't change that there's still no legal basis that jeopardizes anything that's already been contributed.
Sure, there is no legal issue with these contributions. The problem is why would a project like Debian spend a bunch of work stewarding the Asahi project when Apple can just make the project impossible to progress if they so desire? The Debian project already is strapped for resources to build their distribution and stewarding a possibly throw away project is probably not the best use of their time.
Your entire argument is based on a random hypothetical. Why should Debian steward any work if a meteor could collide with our planet and wipe out all life?
Re: Asahi Linux Progress Linux 7.0
#369Earlier quoted context omitted.
I'm still on Ubuntu 22 because everything works. Got enough packages that still request I don't use wayland that I don't want to risk an upgrade. Sad because I really want the better One drive integration that Ubuntu 24+ comes with.
I sympathize. But it seems so weird to me to be a Linux open source adopter, who is also so am conservative. Heck yes KDE, sway, Niri, and so many other new desktops are so so so nice. I can't imagine staying in the old world. But who should AMD for example target? It seems obvious to me. Personally I think if you are trying to make tools like ai acceleration software, you should 100% be focused on the alpha geeks. T…
I like this quote from warp people, on why they are open sourcing. Parallels to what I'm saying above even though it's a different matter:
> * we need to build our business by offering the best possible product to the most excited community.*
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47936612
TheRock is so close but there just doesn't seem to be an eye on the ball for actually making this usable. This stack of issues blocking even vaguely modern systems has been sitting untouched for months.
Re: Asahi Linux Progress Linux 7.0
#370Earlier quoted context omitted.
Hacker news also attracts those already driven insane. Virtually none of us can socialize normally or have healthy human values
Again, wildly incorrect and just the old 'nerd' stereotype.
I never called hacker news residents rapists; that was your implication.