This release features work-in-progress OpenGL 2.1 and OpenGL ES 2.0 support for all current Apple M-series systems. That’s enough for hardware acceleration with desktop environments, like GNOME and KDE. It’s also enough for older 3D games, like Quake3 and Neverball. While there’s always room for improvement, the driver is fast enough to run all of the above at 60 frames per second at 4K.
Please note: these drivers have not yet passed the OpenGL (ES) conformance tests. There will be bugs!
Increasingly impressive work.
Can’t wait until I can properly use my m1 macbook. MacOS has its place, but I still very much prefer Gnome.
I still wonder which incentives will win in the long run:
1) Cater to (or at least permit) users and developers who want to run alt-os on apple hardware. So long as they’re buying the hardware, why should apple interfere.
2) As the importance of advertising rises in apple’s business model, the board may increasingly view alt-os platforms they cannot control as a cost and not an asset.
https://www.insiderintelligence.com/content/apple-ad-revenues-skyrocket-amid-its-privacy-changes
Alfman,
They don’t even need to intentionally break this. Any number of scenarios could make running Linux on Apple Silicon more difficult.
Say, they have the M2 mini 2023, and decided to lock down the bootloader for security reasons.
Or, they update the internal Thunderbolt controller, which breaks video output through the HDMI port.
Or, they require some parts of the SoC have a binary blob to function.
They don’t need to actively block the effort, when they can just ignore it.
(That does not mean I applaud the work of Asahi Linux team. In fact, I almost bought an M1 mini just to try this out).
sukru,
I’d say the choice was already made when they decided to give owners a right to disable secure boot checking. But to my knowledge apple hasn’t officially committed to continuing to give owners a choice to boot alternatives. Apple changing their mind is a risk owners have to take.
Arguably the project should survive being “ignored”, no matter how inconvenient. However Asahi would no longer remain viable if apple really decided to block it.
Wow, that’s harsh coming from you.. (I’m sure you misspoke here, haha)
Ha, hopefully he meant ‘that does not mean I don’t applaud the work of Asahi Linux Team’.
As far as the ad incentive to make more money… I feel the timing of this and the ‘You’re going to have to adopt USB-C if you have wired charging’ and the fact they’ll not be able to make all that extra money on licensing out the Lightning connector, means they had to find another revenue of money, because they don’t have enough yet…
leech,
Yes, that is correct.
Sorry I missed one negative in there 🙂
Asahi Linux is your proof that Macbooks are now status symbols among the Desktop Linux crowd. Macbooks started as a guaranteed-compatible choice for Desktop Linux users (considering OpenDawrin used to be fully open and hence all the drivers except the GPU’s were documented there, plus Macbooks were a narrow range of machines to target). Now Macs are the most incompatible machines for Desktop Linux, but the status symbol of buying a Mac to run Desktop Linux on it instead of re-purposing your old Windows laptop has stuck, hence Asahi Linux.
I think if there were better ARM offerings aside from the M1, Asahi wouldn’t be as much of a priority. Qualcom ARM laptops are kind of “meh”.
Alfman,
I agree. There are really limited number of options for a “usable ARM Linux” machine.
There is Apple M1, with about $600 price point (for mini).
Looking at similarly priced alternatives:
There is “NVIDIA Jetson Xavier NX Developer Kit” in slightly larger than Raspberry PI form factor with 6 core ARMv8 processor + lots of CUDA and Tensor cores. Unfortunately it is not in stock anywhere (except for scalpers).
There is also “NVIDIA Jetson Nano” with 2GB RAM, where 4 of which can be combined to build a cluster: https://www.seeedstudio.com/Jetson-Mate-Cooling-Kit-p-4784.html . Again not in stock.
There is 16-Core HoneyComb LX2K, which now retails for about $600: https://www.phoronix.com/news/HoneyComb-LX2K-Sep-Perf . Unfortunately it does not have any graphics capabilities, and is pretty much bare bones. With an ITX chassis, RAM chips, power supply, and PCIe GPU it will cost about $800 for a minimal setup. However it comes with 4x SFP+ (10GBe fiber) connections, which is a great value.
There is of course Ampere, but no offerings anywhere near that price point: https://store.avantek.co.uk/ampere-emag-64bit-arm-workstation.html
And, Microsoft’s offering, which can not boot Linux: https://blog.alexellis.io/linux-on-microsoft-dev-kit-2023/
Basically only 3 viable options: Apple, nVidia (if you already purchased one), or HoneyComb.
And only one of them is in stock, comes with GPU, and works more or less okay as a Linux desktop.
And… just like that the price increased to $800 for Honeycomb ITX boards:
https://shop.solid-run.com/product/SRLX216S00D00GE064H09CH/
One interesting thing, is they now seem to offer a PCIe version of that platform. I am not sure how that works, though: https://shop.solid-run.com/product/SRX2162S00D08GE008N01CH/
100% agreed, the Pinebook Pro is a hot mess right now with a completely broken Manjaro image chosen as the “flagship” and only image they officially support. Even in its broken state it runs better on that platform than any other distro, which is maddening. I even tried to donate my PBP to an OpenBSD dev working on the ARM64 port and they didn’t want it. It’s currently sitting in a drawer collecting dust because it’s utterly useless.
What exactly is the problem? Is it like smartphones locked to a specific kernel version?
It’s more QoL issues, random hard lockups and reboots, failure to go to sleep when the lid is closed (despite successfully performing the lid close sensor fix when I had to replace the LCD panel), touchpad issues, keyboard issues, Wi-Fi connectivity randomly going away and coming back as it wishes…the only thing consistent is the inconsistency in daily use. This is all with the “official” Manjaro image. There’s also some controversy over Manjaro being chosen as the default OS when it was previously Debian based and accusations of the Manjaro devs involved in “hostile takeover” of PBP OS development, but that isn’t as much a concern for me personally as just getting the damned thing to work reliably for one whole day.
Just so this list isn’t purely anecdotal, you can see many of the issues I’ve experienced being discussed on the Pine64 forum for the PBP:
https://forum.pine64.org/forumdisplay.php?fid=112
Kind of. In addition to what Morgan said, its not arm system ready. Why? Who knows? Maybe someday some good arm hardware will com eout that isn’t a mess to maintain. I fully understand that the M1 also sucks in this regard, but surely something better than a Rasp Pi can do it, right? right?
Hmm… Hadn’t thought of that. Which brings the question: Is M1 better than the best x86 ULV CPU (Intel or AMD)? Or does the x86 ISA get a bad name due to Intel’s tight grip on the laptop market?
Its pretty competitive performance wise with M1 macs wining most competitions and its battery life is far superior. Its kind of hard to separate operating system from arch, I think the Asahi Linux benchmarks are likely the most apple to apple so to say.
Alfman, that is why I bought an m1 macbook, the SoC in it is very impressive, and with the battery life, gpu and cpu performance, not to mention noise of the fans, it’d be an amazing Linux laptop. Shame it comes with macOS, which is only somewhat useful. Especially after they ditched all the 32bit x86 software.