'I Tried Running Linux On an Apple Silicon Mac and Regretted It' (msn.com) 157
Installing Linux on a MacBook Air "turned out to be a very underwhelming experience," according to the tech news site MakeUseOf:
The thing about Apple silicon Macs is that it's not as simple as downloading an AArch64 ISO of your favorite distro and installing it. Yes, the M-series chips are ARM-based, but that doesn't automatically make the whole system compatible in the same way most traditional x86 PCs are. Pretty much everything in modern MacBooks is custom. The boot process isn't standard UEFI like on most PCs. Apple has its own boot chain called iBoot. The same goes for other things, like the GPU, power management, USB controllers, and pretty much every other hardware component. It is as proprietary as it gets.
This is exactly what the team behind Asahi Linux has been working toward. Their entire goal has been to make Linux properly usable on M-series Macs by building the missing pieces from the ground up. I first tried it back in 2023, when the project was still tied to Arch Linux and decided to give it a try again in 2026. These days, though, the main release is called Fedora Asahi Remix, which, as the name suggests, is built on Fedora rather than Arch...
For Linux on Apple Silicon, the article lists three major disappointments:
This is exactly what the team behind Asahi Linux has been working toward. Their entire goal has been to make Linux properly usable on M-series Macs by building the missing pieces from the ground up. I first tried it back in 2023, when the project was still tied to Arch Linux and decided to give it a try again in 2026. These days, though, the main release is called Fedora Asahi Remix, which, as the name suggests, is built on Fedora rather than Arch...
For Linux on Apple Silicon, the article lists three major disappointments:
- "External monitors don't work unless your MacBook has a built-in HDMI port."
- "Linux just doesn't feel fully ready for ARM yet. A lot of applications still aren't compiled for ARM, so software support ends up being very hit or miss." (And even most of the apps tested with FEX "either didn't run properly or weren't stable enough to rely on.")
- Asahi "refused to connect to my phone's hotspot," they write (adding "No, it wasn't an iPhone").
Over (Score:4, Insightful)
I would also regret running Linux on overpriced hardware.
Re: Over (Score:2, Informative)
Apple hardware is currently not overpriced, quite the opposite. That's because Apple Silicon is really efficient, especially if you take energy consumption into account. Check out the Mac mini for example. I was considering buying a laptop recently and considered the framework laptops, then I saw that the apple laptops are better by most (not all) criteria and also cheaper.
Re: Over (Score:3)
Regardless of pricing, does anyone considering a framework laptop really also consider a Macbook ? The whole point of the Framework is modularity/expandability. Whereas a Macbook is completely locked down hardware.
I don't have a preference. No one makes a laptop with a left handed trackball for me. Maybe some day Framework will allow it.
Re: Over (Score:2)
I know several people who have frameworks just because they think itâ(TM)s nice hardware. The upgradability is just a nice bonus for them. So yes, they were considering Macs too.
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Most all laptops can swap the touchpad buttons, but the poster stated "trackball" and not touchpad. That's a whole different thing and not generally found on consumer laptops.
Re: Over (Score:2)
If we are talking about a keyboard trackball, A touchpoint controller is way better than a trackball if you allow yourself to get used to it. The cursor can be moved the full extent of multiple screens with constant pressure. With a trackball you have to do many swipes eventually.
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But you have to fight Apple to do anything not authorized by Apple, like run a different OS, or upgrade the hardware in any meaningful way. Even with the current RAM/SSD pricing issues, is the TCO better? Apple charges a lot for upgrades and they can only be bought up front, so no adding some cheap RAM and a big SSD five years down the line.
Re: Over (Score:2)
I think we generally agree. Buying a framework laptop means being willing to pay more for modularity, which might translate to cost benefits in the distant future. Considering to buy one is balancing whether it's worth the price now. What I'm saying is that Apple Silicon is weighing further in that balance. Apple used to be expensive relative to the PC market, at least when disregarding hardware robustness and life expectancy; nowadays I don't think it's still true. Which is why I disagreed with OP saying i
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I think we generally agree. Buying a framework laptop means being willing to pay more for modularity, which might translate to cost benefits in the distant future. Considering to buy one is balancing whether it's worth the price now. What I'm saying is that Apple Silicon is weighing further in that balance. Apple used to be expensive relative to the PC market, at least when disregarding hardware robustness and life expectancy; nowadays I don't think it's still true. Which is why I disagreed with OP saying it's overpriced.
I do have a MacBook air from 2013, and while I don't use it every day, it still works perfectly. I have not upgraded the ram or the storage. So overall it wasn't that expensive for me, in hindsight. I'm sure some PC laptops last that long, but I know it's not the norm. And nowadays the buying price of Apple laptops is relatively lower than it used to be (at least that is my perception, taking other things like inflation and competition into account). I just don't think it's generally accurate to say that Apple hardware is over priced. Right now, you get much better hardware for significantly less money, and upgraded ram and storage in five years won't be enough to compensate for that. Battery life is also significantly in favour of Apple, and that won't be solved with modularity. I hope the PC hardware catches up, right now it's lagging behind.
Good to see that I'm not the only one who doesn't buy into the Overpriced Apple products. I keep my Macs longer than my Windows machines. Apple has trade-in programs. Customer service? I had a Magic Mouse go bad, called Apple. They made me convince them it wasn't something I could fix by making certain the Batteries were in right, and confirm the Mac Bluetooth was turned on and that it wasn't seeing the mouse. Standard troubleshooting stuff. After confirming the Mouse was indeed dead, They overnighted me a
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The Apple Stores have great customer service, and to be fair to them, they don't write the policies. But once a product is discontinued, they don't have to support it. A few years ago, I took my Apple Watch 3 to them, and while they did tell me that it was past the warranty, they did try to reset it - and succeeded (which is what I was trying to do). If the product is currently covered, their support is excellent!
My beef w/ Apple, aside from orphaning perfectly good old products, is making iCloud the o
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Good to see that I'm not the only one who doesn't buy into the Overpriced Apple products. I keep my Macs longer than my Windows machines.
You don't keep them as long as I keep my Linux machines, at least not as vaguely functional macs.
Right now, you get much better hardware for significantly less money, and upgraded ram and storage in five years won't be enough to compensate for that.
The CPU is faster and lower power, but otherwise the hardware is on a par, in some cases worse. And the lack of a range of por
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I have a 2021 M1max macbook (32GB). It has enough battery life to last (even now years later) well over 24 hours of actual use, it is faster than my brand new work lenovo (which also can keep my coffee warm and drown out all background noise while doing whatever it does while it's idling) and still provides more compute and memory than I need for any of the things I do.
I have no plans to replace it in the next few years and I find that a great investment. I would never buy a x86_64 machine for personal use.
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That's the point most people don't get.
On package memory allows for higher performance, lower cost, lower support headaches and better stability. It makes no sense from a commercial perspective to sacrifice all these points to allow 5% of customers to upgrade the memory later.
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On package memory allows for higher performance, lower cost, lower support headaches and better stability.
No, no, maybe, and no.
LPDDR is soldered, not DDR.
It does not give you any higher performance (the latency difference is far, far below a single DDR clock), LPDDR is almost always more expensive per Gbit than DDR. I will grant you probably less support headaches. Definitely not better "stability". In fact, signal-wise, it's far more "fragile".
It's done for power purposes.
LPDDR runs at a much lower voltage (which is why it needs to be so close to the controller), and supports power-saving modes that DDR
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But you have to fight Apple to do anything not authorized by Apple, like run a different OS, or upgrade the hardware in any meaningful way. Even with the current RAM/SSD pricing issues, is the TCO better? Apple charges a lot for upgrades and they can only be bought up front, so no adding some cheap RAM and a big SSD five years down the line.
I've bought expansion RAM and new drives for My Apple Machines. Not certain where you get the idea it isn't possible. Perhaps you are referring to specific models? Anyhow, I didn't buy an Apple to run a different OS, although golly Gee, I have Parallels on it. I didn't buy an Apple to run Linux, I reserve that for Windows machines and Raspberry Pi hardware.
Expense. Except for my most recent purchase When I traded in my last generation intel iMac for a M4 Mac Mini, I keep my Macs on average, two years lo
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All the ARM ones have the RAM soldered not just to the motherboard, but to the CPU substrate. Upgrading involves removing the chips with hot air rework.
I think the desktop ones still have some storage upgrade options, but the laptops are all soldered SSDs now I believe.
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Apple don't explicitly block you from running another OS, they just don't actively support you doing so either.
Running Linux on a Mac will become more attractive when the M1 systems reach EOL and stop being supported by the latest macOS, by which time the hardware should be quite well supported. While the hardware is still supported by macOS there's very little to be gained from running Linux, as both are unix based anyway.
Process, Not silicon (AI will make this worse) (Score:3, Interesting)
That's because Apple Silicon is really efficient, especially if you take energy consumption into account.
Mostly due merely because Apple used to hog the finest process(*) available at TSMC (e.g. producing their M chips on "3nm" process while AMD uses "5nm" for their flagship), not as much due to some magic design skills.
And BTW, with the current AI bubble, this advantage of Apple is going to evaporate as now the silicon fabs are going to prioritize buyers with even more (investors', not income) money to burn on the latest and bestest processes. Within a year or so, you could expect the "really efficient, espec
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The biggest problem with Macs for performance is actually the operating system, not the hardware:
* Context switching. MacOS has been extremely slow with context switches since its inception. It's why, even on ARM, you still experience apps hanging hard on IO and blocking pointer input. The hardware architecture of Apple Metal is vastly superior and the memory bandwidth help hide a lot of this, but the underlying issue remains. It's been a problem for over a decade (and I know this because it bit me in the a
Re: Over (Score:5, Insightful)
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I buy 3 years of apple care when I buy a macbook. Then it's nothing if it dies. If it dies outside of 3 years it has lasted longer than any work machine running windows I"ve been provided. That said I've personally never had one fail. My 2021 macbook pro is happily my daily laptop and is as fine as the day i bought it. My wife really really needs to trade in her intel macbook but she refuses. I think that will get forced this year because apple will no longer provide OS updates.
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And, when did he buy his 2011 Mac? 2023?
I've been a Mac user since 1984 (and use Windows machines for work).
Every Intel based laptop and desktop I've used over the years has, eventually, failed.
I still own a 2017 MBP. Aside from a dying battery,,.it still runs.
After I replace the battery, it will become a Linux machine simply because it has reached Apple's expiration date.
I've replaced it with a 2019 MacMini to run the Parallels VMs that won't run on M4 Max MBP.
I blame that issue on Microsoft not supporti
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I currently have 3 M1 Air 16GB and an M2 Ultra 64GB in my house, 2 iPads, and 3 iPhones (all 2018 era) in my house.
Aside from the 1 iPhone Xs that took a dive from my hand and got smacked like a birdie into the cement floor of my shop when I tried to catch it, there have been zero failures.
I also have 2 newer x86 laptops (newer than the macbooks) sitting in a pile next to me. They haven't suffered any failures, but they're effectively useless compared to the Macs due to relative performance for comparable w
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If what you want is a budget style machine, then the Apple machines are very good for that. But they are fully soldered, so they are in practice disposable once they age unless you are personally good at SMD repair. And Apple has component DRM that complicates that as well.
But then the problem becomes, do I really want the most expensive and capable budget machine? Or if I am buying a budget machine anyway, why shouldn't I buy less machine? If I want to do real things I will use a desktop. All I really need
Re: Over (Score:2)
The ad hominem is unnecessary. I did look at both Framework and Apple a while ago, and concluded that I could either get good but non upgradeable hardware and give money to Apple, or pay more to get significantly inferior but modular hardware. I ended up doing neither, for reasons that I believe are obvious to everyone here. It's fine if you don't work this way, that doesn't mean I'm bullshitting. I'm unsatisfied by the two options I considered, for different reasons, and it turns out that I can live withou
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Apple hardware is currently not overpriced, quite the opposite. That's because Apple Silicon is really efficient, especially if you take energy consumption into account. Check out the Mac mini for example. I was considering buying a laptop recently and considered the framework laptops, then I saw that the apple laptops are better by most (not all) criteria and also cheaper.
Yeah, Framework laptops are more expensive, but once you factor in upgrades vs trading in for a new computer, Framework is a better deal. One can upgrade the RAM, storage, determine how many ports of each type one wants - Thunderbolt, USB, HDMI, Display Port, .... Not sure whether one can swap out GPUs, but I do think that they allow for motherboard upgrades within the same form factor
If one is using Linux, then one is best off looking at either an x86 PC or an Arm PC. Preferably the latter, if one is
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Wow. You live in the past. Macs are now probably the best in both performance and performance/price. This is from someone who, despite having to work on them, would never spend any of their own money on a Mac before the M1 came out. I would still not suggest Apple hardware though for those who don't want to use MacOS.
But I am very puzzled about the summary talking about Linux not being ARM ready. I use ARM with Debian on the Cloud for most things as they are the most cost effective. That's the whole point o
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Wow. You live in the past. Macs are now probably the best in both performance and performance/price. This is from someone who, despite having to work on them, would never spend any of their own money on a Mac before the M1 came out.
I agree that the M-Series is a performance workhorse. But I've used Macs for years as daily drivers because of their ecosystem integration.
I would still not suggest Apple hardware though for those who don't want to use MacOS.
I definitely agree. I mean why? There are plenty of old Windows machines that we can install Linux on. And having to jump through hoops to install on Apple ARM is kinda silly IMO.
But I am very puzzled about the summary talking about Linux not being ARM ready. I use ARM with Debian on the Cloud for most things as they are the most cost effective. That's the whole point of open source, everything builds fine. Are they using some sort of proprietary binaries for something? Because that's definitely not Linux's fault.
I have the same question. The only ARM Linux machines I have at present are Raspberry Pi's. The latest, a Rpi 5, runs Linux very well. Actually, a person could use it for a daily driver, being
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I think the problem in the article is that the people installing Linux on a ARM Mac didn't set their expectations low enough.
The expectation should have been that of Gentoo, where you install everything from source, and never expect an ARM build.
Same with the "No external monitor without HDMI"... how else did you expect to cconnect it? USB? DisplayLink is a proprietary standard. HDMI/DP over USB-C? Ask Nintendo why they don't standardize that either. You likely need in a Mac connect a real USB-C or TB docki
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"Linux just doesn't feel fully ready for ARM yet. A lot of applications still aren't compiled for ARM"
If only there were a way to solve uncompiled software.
An Apple would not be most peoples' choice (Score:3)
Re: An Apple would not be most peoples' choice (Score:2)
Yeh, except that at least at the moment, Macs are the cheepest things out there. Even their normally exorbitant memory prices are âoereasonableâ just now because PC RAM prices have gone so nuts.
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It did seem like a very odd thing to want to do, people pay the huge premium for Apple
Give us the numbers of what you call a huge premium. You must have the numbers amirite? Dollars for similar machines of similar performance.
Define huge. I would define huge as 3 times the price for similar performance. Including manufacturer trade in, and length of service.
You of course can use a different metric, but I'm asking the expert here.
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People often make the mistake of comparing a macbook pro to the cheapest consumer line from dell or similar. Apple don't have any offerings for the budget laptop market.
If you compare it to the higher end models the macs end up similarly priced or often a bit cheaper for similar spec, and often do a lot better since the M-series came out.
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I think it's more like buying a 911 and then complaining about not being able to replace the engine with a Ford V8 easily.
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With Apple, you are paying more for software-hardware integration. With their hardware, I see it as the same as the Apple pentalobe screw or Windows secureboot; no, they probably did not want you doing that.
Even aside from that, macOS is already based on FreeBSD (more precisely, FreeBSD userland and XNU kernel). So as long as it is being supported - and I suspect that Apple will support everything in the M-series for a while: it's only the x86 Macs that macOS 26+ no longer supports - why would anyone want to replace that w/ Linux? This is not the same case as w/ certain versions of Windows that came along, such as Windows 8 or now Windows 11
Apple would actually be a great choice for centering all of one's
An interesting project (Score:2)
And useful if you want to dual boot something other than windows, but if all you want is a version if *nix just stick with MacOS. It has its quirks and the use of objective C for a lot of system calls is royal PITA if you're a C/C++ dev like me, but other than that it has little benefit over linux if you just want a nix enviroment and I write as someone who uses and develops on both in a daily basis.
Re:An interesting project (Score:5, Interesting)
I admin a bunch of Linux servers and workstations, and my daily driver for that has been a Mac. Admittedly mine is a simpler use case than what you're doing - I mean, mostly I just need a terminal, python to run ansible, ssh, and I like bbedit for editing - but macOS works as well as Linux for my particular use case.
My biggest complaint is - I feel like Apple's software quality has been gradually trending downhill over the past decade or more. The hardware engineering is still first-rate, but the OS and Apple-developed tools are just 'meh' at best. Some of the Tahoe bugs, even at 26.3, are absurd... which is why I'm sticking w/ Sonoma as long as it gets support.
But as to the actual topic: The Asahi folks are quite clear regarding what works and what doesn't work, and with which Apple processors. None of that should've been a surprise for the author, IMHO.
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but the OS and Apple-developed tools are just 'meh' at best.
This started happening in 2012 when product managers took over the development teams at Apple.
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My next desktop is going to be a Mini. It's fine for my needs and some windows software that I still have to use will be running in a remote VM. The only downside is to keep my 10gb ethernet connection I have to buy an expensive thunderbolt to SFP adapter.
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The mini has an option for 10GB built in, has done for several years now.
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You might be able to run your x86 Windows software via Crossover, on a Mac... or even vanilla wine.
(even if it's 32 bit)
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From what friends who've left Apple have told me, the place has become completely overrun by less-than-capable midwit DEI and H1B hires on the software side of the business. To get anything done, you've got to not only fight against the incompetence of people who shouldn't be in software, but navigate a billion levels of DEI affinity nonsense. They're designing by committee and real issues like performance and bug fixes (for things which have been present for 10+ years at this point!) don't get attention be
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And useful if you want to dual boot something other than windows, but if all you want is a version if *nix just stick with MacOS.
Bingo - we have a winner! You are exactly correct.
I was having a few issues back in the day, adapting to Linux, until my mentor noted "MacOS is just the shiniest version of the Unix/Unix-y universe. Some implementation differences, but under the hood, it's mostly the same engine."
Seems hostile but has a point (Score:3)
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I cantfigure out how to make paragraphs in Slashdot comments.
Use HTML. <p> paragraph</p>
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> PS. I cantfigure out how to make paragraphs in Slashdot comments.
Either select Plain Old Text as your posting mode (press the Options button), or if you're using HTML mode then use <P>
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I think the idea was the same as the idea of runnng MacOS on generic Intel. People wanted to do that because they liked the OS but did not want to pay over the odds for generic hardware. The Mac people always claimed that the Apple hardware was premium quality, but it never has been, its always just been commodity stuff at an inflated price.
So finally Apple comes up with what seems to be genuinely better hardware - faster, lower power consumption in packages that are at least as good as premium Intel mach
Yep (Score:2)
Tried it a year ago, tried it again recently. Even on an M1 macbook, hardware still isn't supported or is poorly supported. Performance is poor, battery life is bad, you can't use all the hardware. You're much better served by selling it and buying a cheaper laptop with full Linux support.
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Tried it a year ago, tried it again recently. Even on an M1 macbook, hardware still isn't supported or is poorly supported. Performance is poor, battery life is bad, you can't use all the hardware. You're much better served by selling it and buying a cheaper laptop with full Linux support.
Out just use that perfectly Good Windows 10 laptop that Microsoft won't support nor upgrade.
Gotta admit, trying to run a Unix-y OS on a computer that is Unix is about as dopey as they come.
On the other hand, if a person is into Windows, it's a way to shit on MacOS and Linux at the same time. A stupid way for certain.
Linux fully ready for ARM??? (Score:5, Insightful)
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Going to have to disagree.
Linux still has significant compatibility issues with hardware, and with software. Massive issues with various toolkit/desktop enviornment integration with X and/or Wayland, which is only amplified by petty politics and lack-of-completion within the Wayland and xorg teams.
There was a recent widely-discussed issue where a screenshot app couldn't take screenshots - it's little things like this which cause a great deal of consternation for users and simply shouldn't happen at all.
I in
Re: Linux fully ready for ARM??? (Score:2)
Yeah itâ(TM)s not arm, itâ(TM)s all the secondary hardware (a) being proprietary by (b) a company that zealously hoards IP.
Oh... (Score:2)
'I Tried Running Linux On an Apple Silicon Mac and Regretted It'
There there... ;-)
Sheer, unadulderated bollocks (Score:5, Informative)
The difficulties described are consequences of Apple’s proprietary platform design, not evidence that Linux or ARM are immature ecosystems. Conflating ISA compatibility with platform openness is a fundamental misunderstanding of how hardware enablement works.
“Linux doesn’t feel ready for ARM yet. Many apps aren’t compiled for ARM.”
This is the weakest argument in the article.
ARM Linux is widely deployed on:
Billions of Android devices (Linux kernel)
Most cloud hyperscalers (Graviton, Ampere)
Raspberry Pi ecosystem
Embedded and industrial systems
Major distros eg:
Fedora, Ubuntu, Debian have mature AArch64 support.
And today most open-source software compiles cleanly for ARM64.
Browsers, compilers, containers, dev tools are fully native.
Even Steam supports ARM via translation layers.
The real issue is x86-only proprietary binaries.
That’s not Linux-on-ARM immaturity.
That’s legacy x86 ecosystem inertia.
Even Apple solves this via Rosetta — a translation layer.
Linux uses FEX or box64 for similar purposes.
Translation instability platform immaturity.
I guess the source is MSN though ...
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The real issue is x86-only proprietary binaries.
Thatâ(TM)s not Linux-on-ARM immaturity.
Thatâ(TM)s legacy x86 ecosystem inertia.
Or, worse yet, software with "features" that actively screw you from working in anything other than winsh1t, often DRM. As an amateur radio op, there is commercial programming software called RT Systems. Only recently have they started supporting Mac but they outright refuse to support Linux even through an emulator. This isn't an ARM-specific problem but just a guy being an asshole. I try not to it, but there's no real choice for some radios and it's makes the job ridiculously easy. A friend who programs a
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Think about how people actually want to use their computers. They want to be able to play Steam games, for example. They want to be able to run a few apps under WINE maybe, or some commercial software that is only distributed as a binary. Even some of the open source stuff can have issues on ARM, as I have found with embedded Raspberry Pi stuff.
Whatever the reason, whoever is to blame, the bottom line for the user is that stuff doesn't work.
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Think about how people actually want to use their computers. They want to be able to play Steam games, for example. They want to be able to run a few apps under WINE maybe, or some commercial software that is only distributed as a binary. Even some of the open source stuff can have issues on ARM, as I have found with embedded Raspberry Pi stuff.
Whatever the reason, whoever is to blame, the bottom line for the user is that stuff doesn't work.
Most people just need a web browser these days, oddly enough we can thank Apple for hurrying that up. For this, something like a Chromebook is more than powerful enough, just not comfortable to use for extended periods (which is the problem phones and tablets have). ARM have struggled to break into the laptop/desktop space because X86-64 has been cheap enough and powerful enough that we haven't needed a cheaper architecture and the drawbacks haven't been a hinderance. It's less about the blame (on the user
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I'm finding the biggest problems I'm having are trying to migrate my libraries from Windows to Linux (to be fair, I'm trying to use my existing Steam library on NTFS drives
I've done this and it can work ok but you really don't want to be using NTFS with Linux. At some point your filesystem will wind up with corruption that the Linux tools can't fix. On the other hand, migrating your Steam library from Windows to Linux usually works really well. If you just copy the files and then install the games, most of them will detect that their files are installed and not redownload, even if you are installing the Linux version. But since most games don't have one, it's the same softwar
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You're going to have compatibility problems whatever you do. A lot of that binary software might have been compiled for older systems so doesn't work on current ones even if you are using a compatible processor.
These days mobile games are very popular, and most of these are natively compiled for ARM. A mac can run most iOS software, and Linux/ARM can run most Android software.
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That's one of the issues with Linux in general, not just on ARM. Binary compatibility between versions is poor, and you get dependency hell on top. I can run a binary Windows app written in the 90s without issues.
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It ain't that bad.
I've got static binaries from the early 2000s which still run (I checked). The main cause of compatibility problems is if the program has some dependency and doesn't ship that dependency then yeah it won't run. This was always the case (and hey I remember searching the web for random DLLs on Windows to get something old to run).
The kernel itself has maintained a very high level of compatibility.
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I exclusively use arm based containers for cloud solutions I design. AWS Lambda, Fargete, etc. Even if I have to run a VM I use arm.
Don't reward Apple with your hard earned! (Score:2)
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Linux can be good with older 2nd hand Macs.
In 2017 a friend was throwing away their 2007 iMac (an Intel-based computer-in-a-monitor model). I installed Ubuntu on it and used it for a while as a home desktop computer - nothing too heavy. I liked using Ubuntu on what felt like a solid, well designed computer.
Even worse if you're a dev (Score:2)
...and need binary components for certain popular packages (database connectors, system-level bindings, etc.). They either don't exist or you've got to build them from scratch just to realise that you can't because they don't support arm.
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There is very little that doesn't support ARM these days.
Pretty much all the open source databases have long been ported to ARM and work just fine. Even things like Oracle have official support for ARM.
ARM is becoming increasingly popular in datacenter use, and RiscV is becoming more widely known too. If you're a developer working on a new project you should absolutely be building architecture agnostic code that can be deployed onto whatever hardware provides the best value.
If you're maintaining legacy code
Re: Even worse if you're a dev (Score:2)
I'm building for the target architecture but my local, bare-metal dev env runs on my local arch.
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Isn't a problem with ARM that there's multiple binary architectures? arm64/AArch64, armhf, armel, plus a classic unsupported architecture - my understanding is these aren't compatible with one another, though maybe I'm wrong on that?
Linux _IS_ ready for ARM.... (Score:2)
....It just isn't ready for ARM-powered Macs, perhaps. ARM-based systems aren't tied to standards to the same degree x86 systems are. Thus one has to be more careful and ensure their hardware is supported. It's like Linux back in the mid-'90s on Intel.
External monitor support (Score:2)
That means I can use a Thunderbolt-attached monitor with my MBP that has an HDMI port, right? What, no, it really means "External monitors only work via built-in HDMI port" and "This article was written poorly"? I am shocked, shocked.
Why even want it on a Mac... (Score:2)
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I run Linux on several old Macs. The reason is Apple's famously short OS support span. And that is the issue here. The Intel mac Minis were sold through 2022. They do not support Tahoe, and Sequoia will only get the normal two years of security updates and half of that is gone already.
So the last ever update for a 2022 PC will be about September of 2027. As the man said, "I am not impressed." Installing Linux would solve the problem which you can do with an Intel box. The same issue will come up with the
Other routes... (Score:3)
It's worth noting that there are plenty of ways to run Linux virtual machines/containers under MacOS (Parallels, Fusion, QEMU/UTM, Ubuntu Multipass, Docker, Orbstack,...) which largely avoid the hardware support problems of trying to run Linux on bare, Apple Silicon, metal & let you run most of the major Linux distros (which have Arm64 versions) and container systems.
Plus, MacOS is Unix so it's a relatively easy port for Linux software: A large proportion of the major open source Unix/Linux projects can be installed using Macports or Homebrew - even if there aren't fully-Mac-ified ready built packages. (TFA does mention this as one of the reasons for not bothering with Linux on Mac)
Reality is that there's no justification for buying a new or recent Mac unless you want to run MacOS - or if you really, really want ARM and are frustrated by the lack of any ARM hardware to fill the gap between Rapberry Pi-a-likes and expensive industrial server stuff.
Asahi Linux is a very ambitious project to produce a "bare metal" Linux for Apple Silicon - but it will be a constant battle to keep reverse-engineering Apple's hardware changes with each generation of M-series processors. However, even if they're always 5 years behind Apple, that's still going to be good news: In a couple of years, Apple will probably start dropping support for M1 processors - if Asahi can get solid support for M1/M2 by then, all those cast-off M1/M2 Minis could make nice little better-than-a-Pi mini servers (even if they have to use HDMI displays...)
Re: (Score:2)
Reality is that there's no justification for buying a new or recent Mac unless you want to run MacOS - or if you really, really want ARM and are frustrated by the lack of any ARM hardware to fill the gap between Rapberry Pi-a-likes and expensive industrial server stuff.
Sorry, you're mistaken. There's easily a half dozen reasons why a person would pick Apple hardware which have nothing to do with MacOS itself:
- high performance CPU/memory bandwidth unavailable on x86 or any other ARM consumer product
- consi
Same on a Chromebook (Score:2)
I had similar problems on a 3 year old Chromebook. Basically PC hardware but a non standard bios. Nothing worked right under linux including sleep mode and sound.
Re: (Score:2)
Feels like an Apple issue and not an ARM one (Score:2)
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You're mistaken. It's ARM, because ARM is not standardized for BIOS like x86 is. Everything has a different BIOS.
rpi foundation just put a lot of effort in making their specific tooling work correctly. That makes sense, because the only OS their hardware runs is linux.
Why bother? (Score:2)
Can't imagine why (Score:2)
Overpriced hardware, designed to only run Apple crap, with non-standard connections... and Apple does *everything* they can to keep you from using other than their own software.
Your fault (Score:3)
You are holding it wrong.
And? (Score:2)
If hardware doesnt run linux super well, the hardware is garbage. Simple as.
I ran (Score:2)
Also, applications on Linux on ARM.... (Score:2, Insightful)
Also, from the article:
Linux just doesn't feel fully ready for ARM yet. A lot of applications still aren't compiled for ARM, so software support ends up being very hit or miss
ROFLMFAOzors.
There has been Linux distros on ARM hardware with vast selection of software available for ages. At no point in the past half decade of using ARM-based hardware Linux have I run into "doesn't work on ARM".
Actually, quite the opposite in my experience: the open source world has been very fast at adopting new arches (e.g. ARM, or more recently RISC-V) or newer extensions: x86_64 was available of Linux distributions almost immediately (among other: thanks to experience accum
Re: Also, applications on Linux on ARM.... (Score:2)
The few cases Iâ(TM)ve met for this are closed source software someone wants to run like the Minecraft server for example (which is a shame, because it needs single core performance where Appleâ(TM)s CPUs excel). The best way to deal with that on an AppleSilicon Mac is to run Linux in a VM on top of Appleâ(TM)s virtualisation framework. Then you can use Rosetta to run it.
Re: (Score:2)
Isn't the minecraft server java based? That should run just fine so long as you're using an ARM JRE.
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I would probably run Linux if I had the time to set it up on my gaming PC as gaming is all I use it for these days.
But since running Windows 11, I have migrated back to MacOS, I can run all the tools I need for my work. SSH, web brower based tools, Office 365 that customers use to communicate(incl Teams), Teamviewer etc etc.
Windows is a mess and I swapped back to Mac. If it wasn't because i work 12 hours a day, I would probably start checking Linux as a desktop again.
Re: (Score:2)
...and was having to fight the anti-Rust people in the Linux group too. At least one was intentionally sabotaging Rust bindings the project needed until Torvalds stepped in.
They've had a whole bunch of unnecessary push back which shouldn't happen in an open source project.