[HN Gopher] Coming Soon: Fedora for Apple Silicon Macs ___________________________________________________________________ Coming Soon: Fedora for Apple Silicon Macs Author : TangerineDream Score : 177 points Date : 2023-08-02 16:40 UTC (6 hours ago) (HTM) web link (fedoramagazine.org) (TXT) w3m dump (fedoramagazine.org) | WaffleIronMaker wrote: | This is so exciting! The Asahi team has done some really | impressive work. I can't wait for it to start to make its way | into mainstream distributions. | AdmiralAsshat wrote: | Battery life would be the big thing, I think. There's not a | single person I know who wouldn't like having Linux on their | M1/M2 Macbooks--they're beautiful devices--but if you're not | getting something approaching MacOS's battery life, then there's | not that much separating it from another similarly-specced | ultrabook. | maccard wrote: | I'm perfectly content not having Linux on my M1 MacBook. | | That said, I don't want that to stop someone else from having | it! | SxC97 wrote: | >There's not a single person I know who wouldn't like having | Linux on their M1/M2 Macbooks | | Well... OP probably doesn't know you... /s | AdmiralAsshat wrote: | I should probably have clarified, there's not a single person | I know _who uses Linux as their daily driver_ that wouldn 't | want the option of having it run on an M1 MacBook. I'll grant | that the vast majority of _Apple_ users probably don 't care | about running Linux on it. | starfallg wrote: | Yeah, all I want for Christmas is just Linux on hardware | with good battery life. | dangus wrote: | Even if Linux kills 50% of battery life compared to macOS | you're still looking at a system that's in the top tier of | longevity compared to x86 Ultrabooks. | aaomidi wrote: | Why would battery life be impacted? | | The main reason for bad battery life is hardware acceleration | for certain tasks. Once that's settled, the computer shouldn't | start producing more heat out of the blue. | jtietema wrote: | Because the linux drivers might not support all the power | saving states for all the hardware in the device. | | For example: I bought a Dell XPS 9 months ago. With the | earlier Fedora 37 kernels, it didn't put the Nvidia card into | power saving mode, causing battery life to be less than an | hour. Now it seems to work correctly and battery life is 3-4 | hours for me. | dev_tty01 wrote: | >The main reason for bad battery life is hardware | acceleration for certain tasks. | | I guess this was a typo. MacOS/Apple Silicon (and other CPU | architectures) save a lot of power via hardware acceleration. | For instance, there are dedicated hardware video decoding | blocks that use much less power than implementing video | decoding with software. | | The MacOS kernel takes advantage of all of these hardware | specifics. MacOS also uses a number of other techniques like | process wakeup coalescing, dedicated hardware for memory | compression, process specific efficiency/performance core | choices, ... | | Apple is getting a lot of power improvements via codesign of | the processor and the OS. | | To do the same set of tasks with a similar power profile, | Asahi will have to include system hooks that take advantage | of all the dedicated lower power hardware functions and do a | similar set of optimizations. They have done great work so | far and will likely continue, but it isn't the simple | tradeoff you are suggesting. | callalex wrote: | Hardware acceleration is not some binary state these days, | there are a ton of specialized bits of hardware under the | Apple M chip umbrella. | CharlesW wrote: | Additionally, Apple's always1 been insanely great at power | management even pre-Apple Silicon by virtue of (1) | prioritizing it more highly than other vendors, and (2) | implementing it in a way that takes advantage of the | complete hardware and software stack. | | 1 https://blog.codinghorror.com/why-does-windows-have- | terrible... | brundolf wrote: | From anecdotes I've heard, battery life on Asahi Linux is | already great | input_sh wrote: | Annecdotaly, it'll last you through an entire work day, but | probably not into double digits. | pleb_nz wrote: | My m1 pro has never has into double digits. 6 to 8 hours is | all I get. So if be happy if it stays that with Linux. | malermeister wrote: | I'd love to see some benchmarks! I have an M1 device and | don't really love macOS, but the battery life is just sooo | good. | | I'd be super happy if I could just run Arch on this thing | instead. | a1o wrote: | I imagine a repurposed MacMini M1 will also be like raspberry | pi on steroids. | NovaDudely wrote: | I doubt there would ever be parity but it could be good enough. | | Have to hand it Apple OS team, they know how to squeeze a lot | out of there hardware. | | A while back I was trying to get an old G5 running and looking | at the various OS options, many said just go with MacOS 10.4 - | it was the most optimized OS for the system even today. When | software and hardware work together, it can be pretty cool. | xp84 wrote: | I mean, for a kind of museum piece, to get the true | experience of using the computer I'd agree for sure just use | original OS. But if one wanted to be able to use it for most | functional purposes, it's sad how the complete lack of | backcompat in MacOS makes using an old MacOS tough -- which | is sad because new Linux often can work surprisingly fine on | the same hardware. Like, current Debian on a 2008 Core 2 Duo | is a fine computer that you can browse the Web and do basic | office tasks on. It was shocking to me! | IntelMiner wrote: | As a Quad G5 owner, might I recommend OS X "Sorbet" It's an | unofficial merging of OS X 10.5 with PowerPC builds of 10.6 | components. Even on ancient G3's it out-performs both 10.4 | _and_ 10.5 in benchmarks | hollandheese wrote: | Wait... how'd you get it working on G3 machines? As far as | I know, 10.4 was the last release for G3s. | psanford wrote: | I've been running Asahi for a full year on my m2 air. The | battery life is quite good. Yes, I think macOS has batter | battery optimizations than linux, but compared to other laptops | running linux it really is quite good. | beebeepka wrote: | Talk with numbers. My cheap 6800H 14 inch laptop can do 12 | hours. | kccqzy wrote: | They achieved 23 hours. https://social.treehouse.systems/@A | sahiLinux/110548137464042... | paddim8 wrote: | It's good, but not amazing. With these laptops, you expect | amazing. | psanford wrote: | Its better than any Dell or HP laptop that I've owned. | fredski42 wrote: | Would something like KVM work? | wmf wrote: | Yes, KVM works (but only to run ARM VMs). | Octabrain wrote: | After the painful experience I've had with the last ThinkPad I | purchased (and before that, a Dell XPS, if Linux reaches a point | where widely used distros are able to run on Mac M* | flawlessly...personally I'm not gonna think it twice. | based_gigachad2 wrote: | I wonder when we'll have fully functional HDR and neural engine | so that the creative professionals could try using Linux on their | Apple silicon Macs (software support is another story, though | Davinci Resolve is already there) | dmvdoug wrote: | This is awesome news. I have been trying to tinker with getting | Ubuntu working on both an older Intel Mac and my M1, but it's an | almighty pain in the ass hardware-wise. And I ran across more | than one person who felt it necessary to point out that me buying | an Apple computer was what the problem was. Like, really? That's | a real effective way to win people over. | defer wrote: | Well, it's understandable. If you talk about it with other | linux-on-MacBook tinkerers I'm sure they'll be more sensible to | your cause. | | But generally, if you pointed that out to me I'd say the same, | picking that hardware puts you in a harder path. Also, I'm not | sure if Linux users in general have any interest in winning | people over. | dmvdoug wrote: | I'm not talking about Linux users in general. I'm talking | about the subset who hang around forums and other online | spaces and purport to help newbies with problems. | | Ironically enough, then, I figured out on my own that the | biggest obstacle I was encountering with my Intel MPB was | Ubuntu's distribution of firmware, where they officially | pretend not to know about certain non-free device drivers, | even though they vaguely gesture at the process of acquiring | them in their respective official docs. Whereas Debian | straight-up distributes them in their ISOs. | | Can't say I'm a big fan of Ubuntu's wink-wink, nudge-nudge | approach to "standing up for free software," where they get | you started down a path then steadfastly refuse to help | because VIRTUE! Debian's approach is saner. And so I'll be | tinkering with Debian, I guess. | alphanullmeric wrote: | I used to hate on Macs until I was given one by my employer. Then | I realized that despite how awful macOS is, the laptop itself is | completely unrivalled. There is no | Lenovo/xps/framework/tuxbook/tongfang/clevo/whatever that comes | close to the overall package of a MacBook. It has the stiffest | body, the quietest fans, the biggest battery, the best screen and | trackpad, etc. Even worse is the fact that a framework 16 is more | than an M2 pro with an education discount. And now, the biggest | flaw of a MacBook (macos) is fixed. | totallywrong wrote: | Still rocking a 2015 MBP with Fedora here. Screen, body, | keyboard, and trackpad are so good. This news make me consider | buying Apple silicon, which I'd never do if I had to use MacOS. | unethical_ban wrote: | Does the trackpad function mac-like? Is it still overall | better than a Lenovo, for example, or does the software bring | it down? | totallywrong wrote: | It's better than a Lenovo (I've used many) because the | trackpad itself is better, the software doesn't have an | impact. It's just the usual synaptics driver so you could | configure it the way you like. | mdasen wrote: | Part of it is that Apple has the margins that they can spend a | little more on parts. They know they don't have to compete on | price as much as PCs do. People aren't going to ditch the Mac | over $25 or $50. However, people do regularly compare prices on | PC laptops looking to save small amounts of money. That means | that Apple can spend a little more designing and ordering a fan | that's quieter with a better design and more premium parts. | | Also, because there are so many PC laptops, it's really hard to | get a good review of a PC laptop. There are so many | configurations and PC makers often make small (but meaningful) | changes to designs during a product's lifecycle. All of a | sudden, the one you bought has a less bright display or the | cooling system isn't as good or whatever. It makes it hard to | reward companies for creating good products. There are premium | PC laptops, but they still suffer from some of these decisions | and they often cost about the same. | | I've looked for alternatives to the Mac, but at this point I've | stopped. I'm sick of doing research on junk to try and save a | few bucks, I'm sick of trackpads that are unusable, and with | the new M-series processors I simply never want to go back to a | high-wattage processor. | | I actually like macOS, but I'm really glad happy to see Linux | advancing on Apple hardware. The Asahi Linux developers are | amazing and I love reading their write-ups. | lotsofpulp wrote: | >Part of it is that Apple has the margins that they can spend | a little more on parts. | | This part is duplicated by the business or professional | branded products of Dell/HP/Lenovo/etc. | | I think the part that cannot be duplicated (without very | significant time and money) is the tight integration between | software and hardware. Even if the other companies spend a | little more for the premium components, they are not able to | squeeze out the same performance. | andrekandre wrote: | > how awful macOS is | | just curious, but what parts are awful? customization? or just | generally bugs? | AbacusAvenger wrote: | Personally I have two major issues with macOS: CPU usage and | bugs. | | There are a ton of background services that periodically spin | up for no obvious reason, consuming a ton of CPU for a few | minutes at a time, then go back to idle. I don't know what | they're doing or why. Luckily since they're background | services, they're bound to the efficiency cores on Apple | Silicon, so they don't hurt battery life or thermals too much | most of the time. | | And as far as bugs go, the worst part is that bug reports | through the Feedback app go largely ignored and bugs seem to | keep accumulating. Even for bugs with clear and well- | documented repro cases, Apple doesn't seem to pay any | attention. | | I'm a game developer, so the majority of my bug reports come | from issues I've experienced with the graphics drivers or | with Xcode. Here's a few examples: | | - On macOS devices with > 60Hz displays, there is some awful | stuttering with Metal apps in full screen mode. For some | reason, CAMetalLayer nextDrawable sometimes just takes a very | long time whenever it uses direct-to-display mode for | presentation. That mode is implicitly enabled for full screen | Metal apps, in order to bypass the display compositor and | theoretically reduce latency. This bug also applies to | MacBooks with the built in "ProMotion" (120Hz) displays. I'd | be perfectly happy if there was just some flag to say "don't | use direct-to-display", but if there is one, it's not | documented anywhere. I haven't found a workaround yet. I | originally reported this in August 2022. Apple replied once | in October 2022 to say "we can't reproduce this, please | provide a demo app". I provided the app that reliably | reproduces the problem within an hour of their reply, but | they've been silent since. | | - Metal and OpenGL (the latter is emulated via Metal on Apple | Silicon Macs) both exhibit a bug with triangle merging that | causes partial derivatives to go very wrong along primitive | edges. There's a usable workaround for this on the Metal side | (just enable a [[sample_mask]] even if you're not doing | multisampling). There's no such workaround for the OpenGL | side, unfortunately. I was able to work with Asahi Lina to | fix this for Mesa on Asahi Linux, and the fix itself was | actually really trivial and didn't require a sample mask hack | (it took a lot of debugging to figure out, though -- but | that's how reverse engineering goes). To solve it, Apple | would simply need to set a particular bit to disable triangle | merging whenever the fragment shader uses derivatives. I | reported this issue in December 2022, and Apple hasn't | replied. | | - This one is not as egregious as some of the bugs I've | reported, and the Xcode team has responded reliably in the | past. This is the first Xcode bug report I've had where they | didn't acknowledge the report within ~14 days or so. In the | current Xcode beta, using the graphics debugger will suspend | the app but hitting "resume" leaves the app stuck suspended. | The normal application debugger path does not do this, just | the graphics debugger. I reported this in mid-June 2023, but | haven't heard anything yet. | alphanullmeric wrote: | The window management and workspaces are horrible compared to | gnome. nothing you expect to work actually works. Basic | things like putting more than 2 windows in the same workspace | are impossible. The animations are also worse than gnome, | which is very surprising considering how macOS is known for | its animations. | tristan957 wrote: | No window snapping. | aidos wrote: | Is...that it? There are apps that let you do that. If you | were feeling sadistic you could write some AppleScript to | do it for you. | red2awn wrote: | Just use the Rectangle app, problem solved. It would be | nice to have it built in, but it is not a big deal. | throwawayai2 wrote: | There are multiple apps for this. I've had window | management on my macs for a decade+. | binkHN wrote: | > It has ... the quietest fans... | | Part of this is related to having one of the most power | efficient CPUs. | omgmajk wrote: | Hell yeah, might finally buy a mac if I can run native linux on | it. I like the hardware but am allergic to MacOS. ___________________________________________________________________ (page generated 2023-08-02 23:00 UTC)