Asahi Linux Nears Release "Real Soon" For Apple M2 Hardware

[phoronix]

Phoronix: Asahi Linux Nears Release "Real Soon" For Apple M2 Hardware

While Apple just recently introduced their first M2-powered Apple Silicon devices, thanks to the dedication of Hector Martin with Asahi Linux and not too many breaking changes over the M1, Asahi Linux is looking at "soon" having a Linux release to support the new platform...

https://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=Apple-M2-On-Linux-Asahi-Soon

[anarki2]

Awesome

[schmidtbag]

I'm not surprised this is happening so soon. I remember in another thread someone was saying that by the time the M1 Macs get polished, they'll be irrelevant, but I believed a lot of the effort is transferable to newer platforms. Seems to me that is the case.

[pWe00Iri3e7Z9lHOX2Qx]

The impression you get about running Linux distros on Apple silicon when reading any Phoronix article about it: It's almost ready!!!

The actual current state: Most shit doesn't work.

Power management, Thunderbolt, and GPU are certainly big ticket gaps, but they are joined by sound, display brightness, webcams, bluetooth, microphones, USB3, etc. At this rate there's a chance we'll have fully working Linux as an option on whatever Qualcomm / NUVIA release at the end of next year before all of the Apple hardware is sorted out.

[Developer12]

Thwarted? This entire exercise (running linux on the M1/M2) is only possible because apple invested HUGE developer time and effort explicitly in making it possible.

They COULD have used the same secure boot system as on their iphone chips (which these are derived from) but they didn't. Instead they spent the time and energy developing a boot system that explicitly allows booting (or dual-booting) unsigned third-party OSs.

Then there are the bugs they've fixed for asahi which only affect linux. They care a lot about linux running on their hardware, even if they don't say so.

[Developer12]

Power management, Thunderbolt, and GPU are certainly big ticket gaps, but they are joined by sound, display brightness, webcams, bluetooth, microphones, USB3, etc. At this rate there's a chance we'll have fully working Linux as an option on whatever Qualcomm / NUVIA release at the end of next year before all of the Apple hardware is sorted out.

Sound? Works find on the 3.5mm jack. Don't care about webcam(ew)/bluetooth(ew)/microphones(ew)/thunderbolt($$$)/brightness(external display).

TBH, I don't use any of the things you list on my current computer, aside from the GPU (I have like maybe two USB 3.0 devices?). Power management would be nice, but these chips are already efficient enough. The M1 mini would be a perfect daily-driver for me with the current support. For at least one of the devs, they already daily drive it and do 100% of their work on it, asahi-related and otherwise.

[luno]

The impression you get about running Linux distros on Apple silicon when reading any Phoronix article about it: It's almost ready!!!

The actual current state: Most shit doesn't work.

Power management, Thunderbolt, and GPU are certainly big ticket gaps, but they are joined by sound, display brightness, webcams, bluetooth, microphones, USB3, etc. At this rate there's a chance we'll have fully working Linux as an option on whatever Qualcomm / NUVIA release at the end of next year before all of the Apple hardware is sorted out.

Those are very specific and fancy features, I think after GPU acceleration, Asahi is good shape for daily drive and fix these features. More users = more devs to fix those issues

[Dukenukemx]

I'm not surprised this is happening so soon. I remember in another thread someone was saying that by the time the M1 Macs get polished, they'll be irrelevant, but I believed a lot of the effort is transferable to newer platforms. Seems to me that is the case.

That statement is still on course. Getting things like GPU acceleration working properly is going to take like 90% of the development in getting Linux working. Nouveau is very broken, especially for newer Nvidia cards but that might change now that Nvidia released their source code. Did Apple ever release their GPU drivers source code? According to Hector Martin, they did not. You could excuse all the other missing functionality, but likely it would take a few years just to get them semi working.

To give you an idea of the situation Apple is in, later this year AMD will have their Zen4 CPU's ready using 5nm. Their laptop chips will be manufactured on TSMC’s 4nm node, next year, along with RDNA3. Both Zen4 and RDNA3 will have significant decrease in power consumption. The moment those systems are released you can probably run Linux just fine with all functionality working 100%. Intel bought 2 years of TSMC's 3nm and paid a big price for it. So I expect Intel to have something using that 3nm next year, along with their ARC GPU which btw does have working GPU drivers on Linux. Most likely Intel's 7nm will be used for desktops just like AMD will be using 5nm for their Zen4 desktop chips. Apple will have 3nm M series based chips by next year, but by then I think Apple's power efficiency advantage will be gone. They probably have their video encoder accelerator advantage. By then Linux on Apple's M series won't be in any better position than it is now.

[OneTimeShot]

That statement is still on course. Getting things like GPU acceleration working properly is going to take like 90% of the development in getting Linux working. Nouveau is very broken, especially for newer Nvidia cards but that might change now that Nvidia released their source code. .

Nvidia haven't released squat - just an undocumented pipe from user space into the PCI bus. If we're really good, *maybe* they will add their firmware BLOBS to the Linux firmware tree. In any case GPU acceleration isn't really required outside games, which isn't why people get an ARM laptop and install Linux on it...

When the TODO list is down to volume and screen brightness control stuff, then it's already perfectly viable as a Linux desktop for many people...

[Dukenukemx]

Nvidia haven't released squat - just an undocumented pipe from user space into the PCI bus. If we're really good, *maybe* they will add their firmware BLOBS to the Linux firmware tree.

Then I will continue to raise my middle finger at Nvidia. I use primarily AMD and Intel GPU's anyway.

In any case GPU acceleration isn't really required outside games, which isn't why people get an ARM laptop and install Linux on it...

Games, web browser, video encoding, UI, and many more. You don't need it but you wouldn't want to use it without it. I don't know why anyone gets ARM other than to think they bought a RISC CPU that can finally beat x86. ARM is not in any open platforms, and that includes Apple. Nobody has an ARM system that uses ATX motherboards and a UEFI boot loader. The only ARM systems that are linux friendly are the RaspberryPI's, and they are still working on GPU acceleration.

When the TODO list is down to volume and screen brightness control stuff, then it's already perfectly viable as a Linux desktop for many people...

Yea, I'm sure you overpaid for an Apple MacBook to have key missing features like GPU acceleration and Media Encoder acceleration. I'm not even sure how long it'll take Hectar Martin to get Apple's Media Engine working, if at all. Without source code or help from Apple this is a fools errand.