Asahi Linux On The Apple M1: "Usable As A Basic Linux Desktop" Sans GPU Acceleration

[tildearrow]

It's just very, very sad that Apple has to be the only vendor in the market that provides affordable low-power Arm-based computers that can go head-to-head with the x86 ones.
Ampere doesn't want to try even though they have the ONLY high-performance Arm design that's not Apple (#Ampere8CorePls), NUVIA died, Qualcomm doesn't feel like trying to make powerful CPUs, Intel and AMD still are on x86 land even though Intel tried once with XScale and AMD can't resist...........

[Mario Junior]

If I had an M1 Mac I sure as hell won't put Linux on it.

Same here.

[elatllat]

Apple hardware now smells like toxic waste, so I'm less keen on this than I was.

[sophisticles]

"With these drivers, M1 Macs are actually usable as desktop Linux machines! While there is no GPU acceleration yet, the M1’s CPUs are so powerful that a software-rendered desktop is actually faster on them than on e.g. Rockchip ARM64 machines with hardware acceleration."

1) Just another example that either the Linux community is smoking something hallucinogenic or they do much of this type of work as a resume builder. The thought that anyone would spend the cash on an M1 based system then wipe OSX just to install Linux is laughable.

2) To me the fact that the system as "usable" as desktop Linux machine even without GPU acceleration just shows the sad shape of Linux desktops.

3) If M1 CPU's running software rendered desktops are faster than Rockchip ARM64 machines with hardware acceleration than that is a damning indictment of Rockchip systems.

[pWe00Iri3e7Z9lHOX2Qx]

It's just very, very sad that Apple has to be the only vendor in the market that provides affordable low-power Arm-based computers that can go head-to-head with the x86 ones.
Ampere doesn't want to try even though they have the ONLY high-performance Arm design that's not Apple (#Ampere8CorePls), NUVIA died, Qualcomm doesn't feel like trying to make powerful CPUs, Intel and AMD still are on x86 land even though Intel tried once with XScale and AMD can't resist...........

Isn't NUVIA (now part of Qualcomm) focused on exactly the market you want? When the acquisition closed they said the first product would be for high performance laptops sampling in mid 2022.

[tildearrow]

3) If M1 CPU's running software rendered desktops are faster than Rockchip ARM64 machines with hardware acceleration than that is a damning indictment of Rockchip systems.

A Raspberry Pi 4B from 2019 is as fast as my Phenom server from 2007 and consumes 10 times less power.
An Apple M1 from 2020 is as fast as my 6700K desktop from 2015 and consumes 10 times less power.

Even my smartphone with a Snapdragon 845 is only 33-50% as fast as my desktop.

[Sonadow]

1) Just another example that either the Linux community is smoking something hallucinogenic or they do much of this type of work as a resume builder. The thought that anyone would spend the cash on an M1 based system then wipe OSX just to install Linux is laughable.

I rather see more industry effort in making UEFI + ARM64 a de facto standard so that there is no need for SoC-specific device trees and I can compile my own updated mainline kernels for any ARM hardware like we can with UEFI + x64 right now.

2) To me the fact that the system as "usable" as desktop Linux machine even without GPU acceleration just shows the sad shape of Linux desktops.

Ehh, it can mean a lot of things. It can also mean the M1's CPU is really so fast that there is practically no noticeable performance dip when running a software-rendered desktop like Gnome Wayland or Plasma Wayland.

[akira128]

"With these drivers, M1 Macs are actually usable as desktop Linux machines! While there is no GPU acceleration yet, the M1’s CPUs are so powerful that a software-rendered desktop is actually faster on them than on e.g. Rockchip ARM64 machines with hardware acceleration."

1) Just another example that either the Linux community is smoking something hallucinogenic or they do much of this type of work as a resume builder. The thought that anyone would spend the cash on an M1 based system then wipe OSX just to install Linux is laughable.

2) To me the fact that the system as "usable" as desktop Linux machine even without GPU acceleration just shows the sad shape of Linux desktops.

3) If M1 CPU's running software rendered desktops are faster than Rockchip ARM64 machines with hardware acceleration than that is a damning indictment of Rockchip systems.

1) Why is that laughable? I plan on buying an M1 macbook air and putting Linux on it. You can laugh all you want....but have you actually used macOS before?! I'm forced by my company to develop on a macbook pro, and it's just a horrible OS. You can't do basic things like dragging and snapping windows. There's no decent terminal emulators. The default terminal emulator + iterm2 suck balls. I never appreciated gnome-terminal until I used a mac. Homebrew is horrible package manager, the filesystem isn't logically laid out. I hate the bouncing docks icons, and why am I constantly being asked to create an apple id. I could go on and on. Most of what I do on that macbook is via the command line. I never login to it directly (after the first boot) I just ssh in from my Linux machine. I also use my Linux file manager to connect to a few directories via sftp --so I can modify files using a (Linux) editor if I need to. To each their own. Everyone's got their own thing going on. But I certainly wouldn't find the idea that someone would want a usable OS to develop on laughable.

2) What!? The fact that Linux can run fine using less resources sounds like a win to me. Never much cared for bloated, resource intensive operating systems.
It could also be a testament to how well the M1 SOC performs. Maybe, it's just a really well-designed SOC that performs exceptionally well.

3) I agree with you on that one ; )

[vb_linux]

It's just very, very sad that Apple has to be the only vendor in the market that provides affordable low-power Arm-based computers that can go head-to-head with the x86 ones.
Ampere doesn't want to try even though they have the ONLY high-performance Arm design that's not Apple (#Ampere8CorePls), NUVIA died, Qualcomm doesn't feel like trying to make powerful CPUs, Intel and AMD still are on x86 land even though Intel tried once with XScale and AMD can't resist...........

I would say Qualcomm's purchase of Nuvia for 1.4 Billion dollar signals they want to produce high-performing chips but they have not been able to do it yet.

[spanky]

Apple hardware now smells like toxic waste, so I'm less keen on this than I was.

That has been the case for at least 10 years. It smells like some highly carcinogenic solvent, imagine what the factory smells like.