[HN Gopher] Linux 6.4 Bringing Apple M2 Additions for 2022 MacBo...
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Linux 6.4 Bringing Apple M2 Additions for 2022 MacBook and Mac Mini
Author : mfiguiere
Score : 92 points
Date : 2023-04-06 16:07 UTC (6 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.phoronix.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.phoronix.com)
| HopenHeyHi wrote:
| I've tried starting a new thread but I guess I don't have enough
| karma so I'll mention it here.
|
| By all means somebody else can post it and take the fake internet
| points. A discussion worth having in my opinion..
| Ask HN: Asahi Linux think HN is exhausting, blocks traffic -
| introspection opportunity? Hacker News is just
| exhausting... 227 comments on our newest blog, and every single
| main comment thread is derailed into misinformation or nonsense,
| half of which could be answered if they'd actually read the
| article. Every single comment actually about the
| article either gets no replies, or gets immediately derailed into
| something ridiculous. I really need to just block that domain on
| all my devices, there is just no value in the content left
| whatsoever.
|
| https://social.treehouse.systems/@marcan/110060225535294882
|
| I agree completely. I think the tone and quality of discussion
| here has taken a steep downturn.
| Damogran6 wrote:
| How well do these ports handle power? Part of the magic of the
| macs is the OS/hardware integration...and part of the power
| management is really deeply embedded between applications, the
| OS, and the hardware.
| ingenieroariel wrote:
| On my usage the battery lasts about half the time. (Apple
| MacBook Air M1, 16GB). NixOS on the other side and a lot of
| compilation. Sleep works.
|
| (edit) I misunderstood your question. I have charged my iPhone
| in a port and have also used an external audio card that drew
| power from it. Not sure it behaves as well as OSX but it works.
| mikae1 wrote:
| I'd love to know about this as well. Reports I found around the
| web are from the pre GPU driver era.
| nextos wrote:
| It seems like the parent post was asking something slightly
| different, but regarding energy usage Linux can get really
| close to macOS on m1 machines. I have tested this myself
| quite extensively. The keyword is can. No distribution ships
| with most optimizations enabled by default. Powertop can be a
| good starting point to see what you need to turn on. If you
| run stock settings, power usage is going to be disappointing.
|
| Powersaving is not turned on by default because lots of
| hardware, e.g. some audio cards and keyboards, misbehave on
| powersaving states. macOS has the advantage of dealing with
| tightly controlled hardware, and might use powersaving
| blacklists for peripherals.
|
| The distinguishing feature of Macs in terms of powersaving is
| IMHO Safari, which is an energy efficiency marvel, especially
| if you play videos. I don't play videos often, so Firefox is
| not that bad for me. Aside from this, my Linux desktop has a
| lot less services than macOS, so it compensates the
| difference. Someone should start a serious Firefox energy
| saving initiative. By simply tweaking compilation parameters,
| I am sure some significant savings can be accomplished.
| mikae1 wrote:
| _> It seems like the parent post was asking something
| slightly different, but regarding energy usage Linux can
| get really close to macOS on m1 machines. I have tested
| this myself quite extensively. The keyword is can. No
| distribution ships with most optimizations enabled by
| default. Powertop can be a good starting point to see what
| you need to turn on. If you run stock settings, power usage
| is going to be disappointing._
|
| Thanks! Perhaps you should write a guide with your findings
| and optimizations. It's sorely missing.
| gigatexal wrote:
| it's probably not as good but we know it will get better over
| time, i'd take 25% the battery life to run pure linux over
| macos at this point
| Takennickname wrote:
| Why even get a macbook at that point?
| MuffinFlavored wrote:
| It'll be interesting to see how many days it'll take from when
| this is merged to when "Wlan/BT/USB
| controller/keyboard/trackpad/display" support will be added
| (which is currently missing)
|
| I'm surprised M2 is so different than M1. M1 on Linux has WLAN +
| BT + USB + keyboard + trackpad + display, right?
|
| Admirable work as always. Amazing progress. How are they doing it
| with no documentation? Are they reverse engineering .kext files
| in Ghidra or something?
| gigatexal wrote:
| IIRC the gpu driver for example was reverse-engineered i guess
| from the macos driver. Asahi-Lina has a whole series of youtube
| videos and blog posts about it. I imagine the other drivers are
| largely similar.
| gpm wrote:
| M1 has all that I believe, but not in linux 6.4, some features
| are still in a fork
|
| https://github.com/AsahiLinux/docs/wiki/Feature-Support
| tracker1 wrote:
| Really hoping to see this progress well. I've still using MacOS
| on my M1 air, does anyone have any personal experience with Asahi
| on their M1? I'd like to shift to a Linux desktop distro, but
| really need some thing resembling "just works" ... dealing with
| my BT headset is about as much regular irritation as I put up
| with currently.
| jxhug wrote:
| It's really not bad. I've used it a fair bit on my M1 Mini, for
| me it wasn't enough to be my daily driver but it's making lots
| of progress and I would definitely recommend you give Asahi a
| try.
| tcmart14 wrote:
| Depends on your needs. I've been running it and I've been fine
| with. Most everything I need is support or supported well
| enough. You just need to look at the hardware support. If you
| absolutely can't live without the working webcam today, then
| you should wait because it doesn't have a driver yet. If you
| just need to run VS Code and write code, read documentation
| online and watch youtube videos, it can do all of that just
| fine as if your on an intel box running linux.
| zamadatix wrote:
| Asahi is far from a "just works" solution at the moment. I love
| it but there is a reason it doesn't have a stable release and
| important things like GPU are alpha opt in "-edge" packages.
| solarkraft wrote:
| Really? I haven't used it much, but when I first tried Asahi
| (almost a year ago at this point), the core functionality
| seemed to work perfectly well.
| brundolf wrote:
| It dual-boots by default and even uses Apple's own boot menu,
| so you can try it out yourself with very little cost (aside
| from some disk space)
| AceJohnny2 wrote:
| In case you're tempted: Asahi folks (who are doing all the Linux
| Apple Silicon work) recommend _against_ running mainline kernel
| on Apple Silicon.
|
| They're slowly working on upstreaming their work, but don't
| expect anything functional yet.
|
| If you want to run Linux on Apple Silicon, use Asahi.
| webaholic wrote:
| Any pointers to their advice as to what the reason is?
| mixmastamyk wrote:
| Takes a while to upstream, so is behind.
| AceJohnny2 wrote:
| For example:
|
| https://social.treehouse.systems/@marcan/110049540523616625
|
| or
|
| https://social.treehouse.systems/@alyssa/110049699088379305
|
| (these are just their most recent reactions to similar
| events. I didn't bother searching through the last 3 months
| of their Mastodon posts to find the one where they talk
| specifically about kernel-upstreamed stuff)
|
| Oh and tangentially, Hector Martin got tired of HN and
| blocked it:
|
| https://social.treehouse.systems/@marcan/110124271163472879
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(page generated 2023-04-06 23:01 UTC)