The first Asahi Linux alpha release [LWN.net]

The first alpha release of Asahi Linux, a distribution for Apple M1 silicon, has been released.

Keep in mind that this is still a very early, alpha release. It is intended for developers and power users; if you decide to install it, we hope you will be able to help us out by filing detailed bug reports and helping debug issues. That said, we welcome everyone to give it a try - just expect things to be a bit rough.

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The first Asahi Linux alpha release

Posted Mar 19, 2022 20:27 UTC (Sat) by flussence (guest, #85566) [Link] (4 responses)

When this effort was first announced last year I was on the fence - why would anyone go to all the effort to make Linux work on this hardware? It's almost a textbook ARM experience, just a bunch of silicon thrown over the wall, no user-serviceable parts or upgrade slots, and a bunch of not-that-great blobs running it. The manufacturer has complete vertical integration and infinite money and still doesn't even have working OpenGL drivers!

But over time I've also begun to wonder… why would anyone go to all the effort to make Linux work on half-assed, buggy UEFI PCs? My desktop's forever going to be kneecapped because of a faulty BIOS the manufacturer (Gigabyte) is either too incompetent or too lazy to fix, and it's never going to get a kernel-side workaround if one is even possible, because who cares if functionality doesn't work as long as it boots a generic Gnome distro, right? And that's been the case for the last 4 or 5 PCs I've owned. Caveat emptor does nothing here, there's always something broken.

I built that box to last at least 5 years; thanks to the Asahi devs' work so far I'm hopeful by the end of that time I mightn't need another x86. Maybe there'll be some decent competition in the ARM space by then too.

The first Asahi Linux alpha release

Posted Mar 20, 2022 6:31 UTC (Sun) by oldtomas (guest, #72579) [Link] (3 responses)

Absolutely.

That's why I think we [1] are responsible to support those hardware shops trying to do the right thing. Be it traditional box pushers offering pre-installed Linux, be it dedicated integrators (like System76) or more corageous ones like Pine who make their own boards -- or those going all the way down to chips (Risc-V).

Most of the time it's less convenient. Price/performance is lower (if you discount "works well with Linux from the performance). But who's going to support those shops if we don't? Are we just a bunch of stupid consumers with no notion of long time strategy?

[1] for some suitable value of "we". Complex, I know.

The first Asahi Linux alpha release

Posted Mar 20, 2022 17:28 UTC (Sun) by jhoblitt (subscriber, #77733) [Link]

I got a system76 laptop last year. Replacing Pop!_OS with Fedora was relatively straight forward after some googling for the system76 specific utilities. One irritation is that system76 has its own firmware distribution system instead of using LVFS, which means you will probably end up needing both if you want to update external USB devices.

The first Asahi Linux alpha release

Posted Mar 21, 2022 6:50 UTC (Mon) by nilsmeyer (guest, #122604) [Link]

I bought a Dell Precision notebook last year, it came shipped with Ubuntu which I promptly replaced with my own install. Everything just works (though I'm not using the NVIdia GPU - the Intel GPU is sufficient for me), including the Thunderbolt Docking station. I used to buy from Tuxedo before where I can get the device without any OS pre-installed.

The first Asahi Linux alpha release

Posted Mar 24, 2022 6:17 UTC (Thu) by developer122 (guest, #152928) [Link]

Some other outfits worth mentioning: 0xide computers, LibreSoC (formerly LibreRISC-V before they were snubbed), Betrusted. Oh, and Raptor computing systems of course.

Pleasant experience

Posted Mar 19, 2022 23:35 UTC (Sat) by debaser (guest, #9047) [Link]

The installer for their Arch based system guided me well through the installation process: starting with shrinking the macOS installation, every step to a dual boot system is automated or described in detail. And everything that was promised seems to work in the provided KDE Plasma installation.

16k pages

Posted Mar 20, 2022 9:54 UTC (Sun) by TheGopher (subscriber, #59256) [Link] (1 responses)

I find that quite exciting to be honest. Changing something that has been that fundamental for a long time.
I am also happy that alternate CPU platforms are moving forward in general. This in many ways paves the way for risc-v. Just moving distributions to making ARM a first class citizen makes rethinking build pipelines around multiple architectures a done thing. Of course, Debian was already there!

16k pages

Posted Mar 24, 2022 6:19 UTC (Thu) by developer122 (guest, #152928) [Link]

RISC-V is going to need a lot more paving.....if anyone ever gets around to actually building an "open" RISC-V chip. All the current ones are positively _loaded_ with blobs and secret sauce.

Open standards mean nothing when companies are still free to make complaint-but-closed chips.

The first Asahi Linux alpha release

Posted Mar 21, 2022 15:33 UTC (Mon) by rsidd (subscriber, #2582) [Link] (3 responses)

I've never been tempted by Apple hardware... until M1.

I got a new (work) laptop a year ago, specced so that it should last me 5+ years. At that point, hopefully, either Asahi will work pretty well with Apple hardware, or there will be equivalent Windows machines on which I can run Linux.

Caveat: my non-negotiable requirement is touchscreen+stylus on a "real" laptop. (Current one is a Thinkpad Yoga.) Apple's view seems to be, if you want a touchscreen get an iPad, laptops don't need it. If that's still the case after 5 years, no Apple for me.

The first Asahi Linux alpha release

Posted Mar 24, 2022 6:23 UTC (Thu) by developer122 (guest, #152928) [Link] (2 responses)

I don't think you'll have any easier of a time running linux on a Windows+ARM computer than an Apple+ARM computer. The standard interface on x86 is the BIOS, which is pretty much unique to x86 (weird ARM "UEFI" implementations not withstanding).

Fun fact: IBM invented the BIOS to be a software/copyright lock that would keep other companies out of the x86 market....until someone cloned it.

The first Asahi Linux alpha release

Posted Mar 24, 2022 17:15 UTC (Thu) by deater (subscriber, #11746) [Link] (1 responses)

> Fun fact: IBM invented the BIOS to be a
> software/copyright lock that would keep other companies
> out of the x86 market....until someone cloned it.

do you have a citation for this "fact"? As far as I know it wasn't even known if you could copyright a BIOS firmware until the Apple vs Franklin case in 1983, which is after the IBM PC was released. I think early IBM machines actually shipped with source listings for the BIOS.

The first Asahi Linux alpha release

Posted Mar 24, 2022 20:06 UTC (Thu) by klossner (subscriber, #30046) [Link]

I think early IBM machines actually shipped with source listings for the BIOS.

Confirmed. The binders included with the original IBM PC included user manuals and a listing of the BIOS. This was back in the day when assemblers generated source code listings and a cross-reference table for the line printer.