Comment by simonmales
2 days ago
Will this forever exist as a Fedora "remix". Or will we find the support in upstream so I can one day run Debian-based distro?
I think the last time I used an RPM-based distro was almost 2 decades ago.
2 days ago
Will this forever exist as a Fedora "remix". Or will we find the support in upstream so I can one day run Debian-based distro?
I think the last time I used an RPM-based distro was almost 2 decades ago.
They are upstreaming their patches, so upstream Linux will eventually get the necessary drivers.
Though their kernel fork is (obviously) open source, so there's nothing stopping you from taking a Debian aarch64 roots, build your own Asahi kernel (or take the build from Fedora), and set up Debian on these machines with Debian yourself. Just requires some elbow grease.
Or, if you find Ubuntu acceptable, there's Ubuntu Asahi: https://ubuntuasahi.org/
EDIT: After some googling I found this wiki article: https://wiki.debian.org/InstallingDebianOn/Apple/M1
This comment made me smile, as my preference is opposite - I prefer RPM-based distros and primarily use Fedora on everything (including Fedora Asahi Remix on an M1 Ultra Mac Studio), but occasionally use Ubuntu and Debian on some of my cloud instances.
As a result, I understand the desire to stick with a particular distribution that we're already familiar with - it's less work, and less having to remember subtle differences in structure. But when there is a time where I'm forced to use a new distro (e.g., when Asahi was first released exclusively as an Arch Linux ARM distro), I never regret the small learning experiences involved :-)
And at least Fedora is rock solid these days, which is more than I can say about Ubuntu. Its really a great distro.
It is, but I have been suspicious of redhat since IBM bought them and feel the rugpull could come at any old time.
You can still run Arch, and Ubuntu Asahi also exists. (1)
They’re working hard on upstreaming everything exactly so it’s easier for any distribution to be ported.
1- https://ubuntuasahi.org/
I wish more people on HN learned how to build their own kernel and run it.
A distro is just window dressing and flavor.
There is a bit more to it on ARM I'm afraid. The device trees are complex and it feels to me it takes it out of the realm of 'anyone can and should do it'
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There is an effort by the Bananas Team to get standard Debian working on Apple silicon, and they have installation instructions for how to get it running now with an additional unofficial repository: https://wiki.debian.org/InstallingDebianOn/Apple/M1#The_Bana...
I haven't actually tried to install it yet, though.
linux-asahi is available in Void Linux:
https://voidlinux.org/download/#arm%20platforms
It's a regular package of linux in the distro: https://github.com/void-linux/void-packages/tree/master/srcp...
The founder of asahi linux famously quit due to how hard it was to upstream patches. It’s not easy to deal with linus’ project.
I can’t see that being a bad thing considering that the kernel is mandatory software in the Linux world. You would want to have high standards for what gets added.
You should have high standards.
Torvalds often crosses that line into outright toxicity. I've written a few kernel patches that I never tried to upstream for that reason.
17 replies →
"Disgusting" Linux sched_ext Source Code Restructured Following Complaint By Linus Torvalds - Phoronix https://www.phoronix.com/news/Linux-Sched-Ext-Restructured
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really is too bad FreeBSD couldn't be an alternative
Upstreaming something like this is a monumental task, even small changes can take ages. It will take a while.
They've actually been focusing on upstreaming for what feels like 2 years now. It's really slowed down progress but it's important for the longevity of the project. They still have so much left to upstream but little by little it's happening
i've been using nixos on an m2 air for a year now, the kernel is enough
You will probably always need a "fork" because Asahi needs a custom installer and bootloader. It is also probably a good idea to recompile everything for the Apple ARM architecture.