Live data from Hacker News

Asahi Linux Progress Linux 7.0

asahilinux.org

71–80 of 385 posts

Re: Asahi Linux Progress Linux 7.0

#71
While I absolutely love the technical write-up from the Asahi team, and being absolutely impressed by their accomplishment, to the risk of being an overly negative contrarian, I remain a bit skeptical.

I'm concerned that after all these years, it's still a separate project and not an effort sustained directly within the kernel mainline and mainstream distributions like Ubuntu, Debian or Fedora.

These kinds of reverse engineering projects are extremely challenging. With skills & field knowledge, it's "easy" to get to "80%" and have something useful for you and the most dedicated users. But reaching the "95%" required for a polished & general public ready experience needs nearly as much effort, often on tedious and time consuming tidbits.

Re: Asahi Linux Progress Linux 7.0

#72
post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was trying to come up with a response but you're right. It would be easy for Apple and Apple would get so much goodwill from the community in return.

They get more public goodwill from a single ad. The chronically online Linux-using engineer community is too small to matter.

And let’s be honest, they still wouldn’t be satisfied. The goal post would move to something else. Why don’t my AirPods seamlessly handoff to my Linux MacBook?

Re: Asahi Linux Progress Linux 7.0

#73

"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 managed to get close enough w/ kde. I just asked claude code to implement it for me, and it web searched and built config files.

Re: Asahi Linux Progress Linux 7.0

#74
post #4

When I think about it, I don't understand why Apple wouldn't want to help this effort and just provide all the documentation. All the classic reasons ("competitive advantage", "secrets", etc) do not hold water in this day and age.

[deleted]

Re: Asahi Linux Progress Linux 7.0

#75

I really hope this project continues to gain momentum. Apple Hardware + Linux is the least fscked OS running on the best hardware. MacOS continues to be a tire fire with endless bugs and churn between versions.

I've run all 3 major OSes before. MacOS by far has the least bugs and kinda just works. My variosu Linux adventures have always resulted in doing random patches for audio or screen incompatibility. My windows days were plagued with battery issues. I feel like most Linux ricers wishs for a MacOS-like experience, except with more customisation. (Which is entirely possible now with the ricing on Mac)

Liquid Ass enters the chat, Apple can’t even make rounded corners anymore.

I was burned by the 2016 MacBook Pro keyboard, and once Liquid Ass was announced I knew it was time to get out.

Sold my MacBook Pro M2 Pro, which has a stupid gigantic notch that blocks the menu bar items with no built-in mechanism for getting to them when they overflow.

Now I’m on a Framework 13” and I’ve had zero issues with Linux. Everything just works. KDE Plasma is way more customizable than macOS or Windows. I’m finally able to ditch slow Homebrew and use a real package manager. I can finally play light PC games on my laptop without dealing with streaming or Crossover.

My preorder is in for the Framework 13 Pro, which looks to get even closer to delivering a MacBook Pro for Linux. Meanwhile, Apple hasn’t changed their chassis design in 5 years, while Framework updates their hardware constantly while maintaining cross-compatibility. A company with less than 500 employees is catching up to a trillion dollar corporation.

I’ve already got my fully modular LPCAMM RAM delivered and ready with no Apple tax. I’ll get better battery life watching YouTube videos than a MacBook Pro and the graphics are just as powerful as the M5 base chip.

And if something breaks I won’t have to deal with the nightmare I went through with my 2016 MacBook Pro.

Re: Asahi Linux Progress Linux 7.0

#76

I really hope this project continues to gain momentum. Apple Hardware + Linux is the least fscked OS running on the best hardware. MacOS continues to be a tire fire with endless bugs and churn between versions.

I've run all 3 major OSes before. MacOS by far has the least bugs and kinda just works. My variosu Linux adventures have always resulted in doing random patches for audio or screen incompatibility. My windows days were plagued with battery issues. I feel like most Linux ricers wishs for a MacOS-like experience, except with more customisation. (Which is entirely possible now with the ricing on Mac)

Not a problem I have had on Linux.

Some people seem to get better battery life with Windows than with Linux.

Most users on any OSes are not ricers. Most of my customisation is functional - panels and widgets placed for practical reasons. A lot of people do not seem to customise at all, or barely.

Re: Asahi Linux Progress Linux 7.0

#77

I really hope this project continues to gain momentum. Apple Hardware + Linux is the least fscked OS running on the best hardware. MacOS continues to be a tire fire with endless bugs and churn between versions.

I've run all 3 major OSes before. MacOS by far has the least bugs and kinda just works. My variosu Linux adventures have always resulted in doing random patches for audio or screen incompatibility. My windows days were plagued with battery issues. I feel like most Linux ricers wishs for a MacOS-like experience, except with more customisation. (Which is entirely possible now with the ricing on Mac)

MacOS is also optimised for M series chips in a way that realistically no linux distribution ever will be.

Definitely good to have the option, but you'll most likely never get quite the same performance or battery life on linux

Re: Asahi Linux Progress Linux 7.0

#78
post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

so they don't care about users, they care about themself?

Apple's whole thing is hardware + software working together. Endless other options available to Linux users. They'd also need to be prepared for people bringing laptops to stores with hardware problems that aren't running macOS. Again, more burden for Apple for no gain other than winning over a couple of dozen users.

Do you seriously think someone who installed Asahi is gonna walk into a genius bar and ask for help with it? And often enough that it becomes a burden??

And according to their stats page that sibling linked it’s more like a few tens of thousands of users.

Re: Asahi Linux Progress Linux 7.0

#79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If they think macOS is one great idea, that's a terrible misjudgment.

And yet it’s incredibly popular and successful. Windows is also ass, and the year of the Linux desktop is perpetually a few years away.

Being the least bad doesn't make something good. macOS is the least bad choice for the majority of people that just want a machine to mostly browse the Internet, look at their photos, do some light productivity work, and participate in their ecosystem. It also arguably hosts has the best software options for creative work (although that's reaping the fruits of seeds planted long ago - not sure there's much about macOS that makes it inherently better for those tasks these days). For development, its advantage is the hardware it's running on. To achieve any level of customization or to define my own workflow that isn't what Apple wants me to do or to work across multiple systems, I have to fight macOS rather than work with it. Linux on the other hand does what I tell it to do.

Re: Asahi Linux Progress Linux 7.0

#80

I really hope this project continues to gain momentum. Apple Hardware + Linux is the least fscked OS running on the best hardware. MacOS continues to be a tire fire with endless bugs and churn between versions.

I've run all 3 major OSes before. MacOS by far has the least bugs and kinda just works. My variosu Linux adventures have always resulted in doing random patches for audio or screen incompatibility. My windows days were plagued with battery issues. I feel like most Linux ricers wishs for a MacOS-like experience, except with more customisation. (Which is entirely possible now with the ricing on Mac)

> My variosu Linux adventures have always resulted in doing random patches for audio or screen incompatibility.

Is that on Mac hardware? I run a 14 year old Mac Book Air, and it works flawlessly with the latest Nixos, and has done for the last 11 years.

If you have issues on random PCs, it's because there are an enormous variety of them out there, with all kinds of incompatibilities that have to be worked around. On Mac hardware, there tends to be a more restricted number of variants, and after a few years, Linux becomes rock solid on them.

So the OP is correct, Linux on Mac hardware is the best combo.

Post reply on HN