A bit ironic then that most of the problems you run into are specifically because your apple hardware doesn't play nice with open standards and only works because some people took the time to...
I found myself installing a Linux distro with the intent of freeing myself from macOS, the first step out of Apple’s walled garden
A bit ironic then that most of the problems you run into are specifically because your apple hardware doesn't play nice with open standards and only works because some people took the time to crack into it to try and make it work at all.
I'm so glad Valve has had such success with steam deck and steam machine which--at least for gaming--proves you can have a solid Linux experience without any hassle using the right hardware.
Yeah, this. To get out of the walled garden, it's honestly better to first get hardware that isn't actively hostile to the OS you're trying to install, otherwise you're going to have a bad time...
Yeah, this. To get out of the walled garden, it's honestly better to first get hardware that isn't actively hostile to the OS you're trying to install, otherwise you're going to have a bad time (until such a time that the work in that area, like Asahi (which don't get me wrong, I support the efforts!), gets really mature)
Both this and your other reply to me are totally fair! Maybe I was not generous enough in my reading (but I want to be clear I didn't mean any of my criticism maliciously). I just sort of got a...
Both this and your other reply to me are totally fair! Maybe I was not generous enough in my reading (but I want to be clear I didn't mean any of my criticism maliciously). I just sort of got a "ugh Linux failed me again" vibe which I didn't fully gel with given its state on Apple hardware
This is not really a reply to your comment, but whenever Linux comes up in a conversation, there’s always a comment like this, and I wonder what the hell people are trying to do with it that they...
This is not really a reply to your comment, but whenever Linux comes up in a conversation, there’s always a comment like this, and I wonder what the hell people are trying to do with it that they need to tinker with it so much.
For me, Linux is the most hassle-free OS there is. I haven’t tinkered with it in six years because for me, it just works. I also use macOS, and one of the things I dislike about it is that there’s always more friction when setting up a development environment compared to Linux. I also worry more when upgrading macOS than Linux because I seem to always encounter some problem midway through the upgrade.
I see it as people getting used to the idiosyncrasies of each OS to the point where they stop seeing the problems. They learn where the problems are, accept them as unchangeable facts, and eventually get used to them. Maybe I’ve just learned to accept Linux’s shortcomings, while I haven’t accepted macOS’s because it’s a paid product.
I think it's just different peoples' use cases. I use Linux as my daily driver, gaming PC, living room PC, home server, laptop, and other tertiary boxes. The only non-Linux system I use is for...
I think it's just different peoples' use cases. I use Linux as my daily driver, gaming PC, living room PC, home server, laptop, and other tertiary boxes. The only non-Linux system I use is for music production and it can be done there too just more frustratingly (especially once you're invested into plugin ecosystems and whatnot).
For me, aside from some early adjustments I had to make, it is consistently hassle-free for me. I don't update my distros often. I still use X11 instead of Wayland. I use an Nvidia 4070 in my gaming/main PC and have no problems. I have an nvidia gpu in my server and an AMD APU on my living room PC. They all work for the most part without any hassles. I don't have to keep upgrading my nvidia driver to play games or change a bunch of stuff. I also, to be fair, don't buy a lot of new games anymore, but anything I have tried has been fairly problem-free. The occasional proton tweak might be necessary for a game here or there but that's about it. I run games from Epic, Steam, and GOG without a problem.
Any hassles I have run into were very small and easily solved within a very short time, not massive show-stopping situations.
I'm not saying there aren't any, only that for the way I use my particular machines, I don't run into problems often, and when I do, I don't mind handling them easy. Most things do just work. I have experienced macOS and Windows both in recent years and I can't say my experience on either of them was even remotely better than my experience on Linux. Both were markedly worse. Bad enough that I got rid of Windows on every machine except the one, and I got rid of all my mac hardware
As far as OP / using Linux on modern Macs go- I don't mean this in a mean way- but isn't that still pretty "alpha/beta/uncharted" territory? Linux on Apple Silicon I don't think has remotely come close to the maturity of Linux on other systems, so I think it's naive to go into such a dive without expecting a bunch of issues and then blaming Linux for them (?)
That said, I still don't recommend Linux to "normies" for the most part, as much as I love it. To people that aren't tech-inclined, what is a 60 second fix to us techies feels like moving mountains to them. So I get that a lot of it is all about perspective too.
I gave it a shot because it's the laptop I have, and despite not being fully functional yet, Asahi went great lengths to be daily drivable already. (Also, MacBook Air's hardware is so good, and...
As far as OP / using Linux on modern Macs go- I don't mean this in a mean way- but isn't that still pretty "alpha/beta/uncharted" territory? Linux on Apple Silicon I don't think has remotely come close to the maturity of Linux on other systems, so I think it's naive to go into such a dive without expecting a bunch of issues and then blaming Linux for them (?)
I gave it a shot because it's the laptop I have, and despite not being fully functional yet, Asahi went great lengths to be daily drivable already. (Also, MacBook Air's hardware is so good, and other brand's equivalent so more expensive where I live, which led me to try it out anyway.)
While use case is a big part of it, I think the distro people choose also plays a big part. There are dozens of actively updated general use distros, and I don’t think most people put in the...
I think it's just different peoples' use cases
While use case is a big part of it, I think the distro people choose also plays a big part. There are dozens of actively updated general use distros, and I don’t think most people put in the effort to figure out what distro would work best for them. Instead, they go with the familiar sounding ones like Debian or Ubuntu, or choose one that’s popular in the current discourse. Plus, most people don’t seem have the patience to try something else after a bad experience. I had to coax a friend of mine into trying a different distro after Pop_OS! decided to suddenly change its desktop environment in an update to a different, buggier DE that Pop developed itself.
I’ve also been guilty of this in the past. I remember trialing a very bare bones version of Ubuntu as a teenager (many moons ago) and not being very impressed. I returned to Windows in a heartbeat and didn’t look back until somewhat recently. Then, a couple years ago I tried running pure Arch, but that experiment failed after a few short weeks when the install broke itself in an update. I was also constantly struggling with bugs and keeping things updated the whole time so it was a pretty frustrating experience overall.
I’ve talked to enough people and even watched a few YouTube videos of people essentially doing essentially the same thing, so I don’t think my own personal experiences are unique. But at least in my case, I was stubborn enough or possibly curious enough to keep trying, so I eventually landed on a distro I’m really happy with. But only after I did some research and trialed a few distros via emulators and USB boot images.
Which brings me to my last point:
That said, I still don't recommend Linux to "normies" for the most part, as much as I love it
IMO there is nothing especially technical about how I use Linux in my day to day life. The distro I choose gives me the flexibility to tinker if I want to, without making it a necessity. And a non-techy friend of mine is running the same distro as me straight out of the box and loves it. The most technical part about using Linux for them was installing it lol, and I’m not sure they would have managed without my help. So in that respect, I kind of agree? But I’m also not sure what the solution there even is.
Yeah I probably should have clarified I don't recommend it to regular people mostly if myself or someone else is not going to be available and willing to help. My late grandma ran Linux on her...
Yeah I probably should have clarified I don't recommend it to regular people mostly if myself or someone else is not going to be available and willing to help. My late grandma ran Linux on her machine and ended up liking it better than Windows. All she ever did was photos, email, and documents, so as long as I was there as a in-case tech support to set it up and if anything went wrong (rarely ever did), it was actually great for her.
But say I have a friend or acquaintance that I can't really help in-person or often, that really doesn't know any computer tech at all, and they're used to running software that only runs on Windows, and they need it for a college class or something, they would have no idea where to even start, and the first hurdle they encounter would make them want to run back to something more familiar, and I wouldn't disagree with that feeling
I mean, many of us that are tech inclined still aren't inclined to have to dick with it constantly. No shade, though it probably reads that way. I've been in IT Professionally for 15+ years now...
I mean, many of us that are tech inclined still aren't inclined to have to dick with it constantly. No shade, though it probably reads that way.
I've been in IT Professionally for 15+ years now and messing with technology for twice as long. I have the skillset to get Linux working, it's just that it's constantly one things after another with it whenever I try it out on my machines. I'm at the point in life where I have lots of projects (last week I put a transmission in a car, then an alternator in another, this week I repaired/reinstalled some broken LED puck lights, am building a new PC for a customer, amongst all the other little daily tasks that need to be taken care of in my life.) and a family to attend to.
I like IT, but I also don't really care about it insofar as what it can do for me. That means, browsing Youtube, Slicing STLs, doing research for hobbies and projects, typing documents, talking to people online, games, etc, etc. Linux always ends-up being a thing that I have to futz with when I just want to use my PC for stuff I do care about.
Sure I can figure out this issue. But then there's another. And another. And another...and another. At some point, I'm tired and I just want to do what I sat down to do and not have to fix my tool first. Linux has always been like that for me and I'm a person that installs it on my main PC's at least twice a year, sometimes more. I have run it on my PiHole, I run it on an Arcade cabinet and in both those cases, where I'm not using them daily and don't have to ask much of either of them, Linux works great and I never have to screw with it. Even on my Steam Deck it works great and while I do use the desktop fairly frequently in it, I don't run into all the problems I do when I'm not using bespoke hardware.
So maybe the answer is to use bespoke hardware, but I also don't have the money or time for that. I want to use what I have and not have to make sure all my hardware is compatible, especially when Windows just works for me. My Desktop/Server is a great candidate for it, being that it's fully AMD, but at the same time, I do not want to have to reconfigure the server from scratch and in having done some research on getting stuff like Moonlight streaming to work, I don't want to have to configure a fake monitor and mess around with stuff just to get that function working, especially when Windows does all of that without my intervention. It's all been a basic setup, where I can setup the software, let it run and I'm off to the races. I do not have the time nor the inclination to sit at my PC and try to configure just one piece of software when I have so much else to do and that's just one piece of software and there's always going to the next piece of software that requires configuration.
Linux works for you and I think that's great. I really want Linux to work for me, that's why I try it multiple times a year. But by the time I'm the first hour deep into trying to get something to function correctly, I remember I have other things I'd rather be doing and other priorities and I go back to Windows so I can just use my PC without having to jump through hoops.
That's fair and I can totally understand people encountering that very bumpy Linux experience for sure. No intention of being the "but it works on my machine so that means it should on yours!"...
That's fair and I can totally understand people encountering that very bumpy Linux experience for sure. No intention of being the "but it works on my machine so that means it should on yours!" guy, just giving one piece of data from a very satisfied user that hasn't run into the same issues (and I do OBS recording, video editing, graphics editing, 3D printing/slicing/CAD, documents, games, voice chat, etc, so I use it for quite the variety of use cases).
I truly wish the Linux experience people have had was better, because for those it works exceedingly well for- when the experience is nailed pretty well, I want that for everyone.
And I totally gel with wanting things to "just work"- I feel that way about phones, which is why despite not liking Apple desktops anymore, I'm a long-time iOS/ipadOS customer and pretty happy. My phone just works and I don't need to think about most things. Sure some of their changes are annoying or whatever, but I basically never have to screw with it to have it work for what I need
So I think I approach my mobile experience the way you approach the desktop, and it's also fair that techies don't always want to screw with things a lot either! (Trust me I've encountered enough frustration at tech jobs over the years that somedays i just want to sit down and have things work and not deal with it anymore! hahaha)
I think I've just been probably incredibly lucky with my experiences. Linux is also varied enough in distros/DEs, configurations, wayland/x11, systemd/non, etc, and hardware too, and that means it's really hard for a large swath of people to have a unified experience free of problems. Part of my luck has probably been sticking with older stable versions of drivers and distros and things like X11. And I acknowledge that it hasn't always been smooth sailing and I occasionally have run into a big problem, it's just rare enough that the big problems are just as rare on Linux as they ever were on Win/Mac.
I use Windows, MacOS and Linux (Fedora). I know, I'm a weirdo. But if you humour me for a bit, here's my two cents: All of these OS's have their own issues and quirks, like you said. But I feel...
I use Windows, MacOS and Linux (Fedora). I know, I'm a weirdo. But if you humour me for a bit, here's my two cents:
All of these OS's have their own issues and quirks, like you said. But I feel that Linux is less forgiving - and that regardless of distro, there's always the expectation that you should be able to troubleshoot and fix issues yourself. And if you are your family's IT guy like me, then you would know that that's not a realistic expectation for the average person. (it was more than once that I had to explain to someone what a gmail account was and that they definitely had one logged in in their android phone, let me put it that way)
For example:
MacOS puts me in a neat little box. It takes away some control, but at the same time most things will just work™️. When I connect my macbook to an external display, it doesn't matter if it's 1080p or 4k, the image will appear and it will look right.
Windows, kind of the same thing, but a bit less consistent.
Linux (Fedora (KDE) and SteamOS (KDE)), are the opposite. Every single time, I have to adapt to whatever quirks the distro or the DE throws at me. The two more annoying recent examples were my gaming desktop and my Steam Deck.
My desktop, for whatever reason, had almost no issues with my TV while using Windows, but Fedora (and other distros before it) just didn't work and had terrible colours - like a photo taken with the first cell phones with cameras, among other issues. Turns out, the hdmi cable was connected to a 2.0 port on the TV instead of the 2.1 port, and swapping fixed it. But there's the point I made: Windows somehow managed to roll with it, Linux didn't. (more details about this experience here). After that, I had to do some tinkering to make sure it looks right in both my 1080p monitor and my TV whenever I swap between them, whereas on Windows that was never something I needed to do.
The second example was my Steam Deck while in desktop mode. I connected it to my 4k TV and had to change the scaling. After I was done using it with the TV, I disconnected it, and promptly changed the scaling back to 100% to make the UI elements back to normal. Except the mouse pointer didn't get the memo, and keeps not getting it. Today, I still have a large mouse pointer that won't go back to normal, no matter what I do. There should be a fix, but I gave up and just left it be.
If from my examples you're getting the impression that it's a KDE problem: sure, maybe it is. But in my over 10 years using and experimenting with distros with different DE's, that's just par for the course to me. I didn't expect it to be different. Linux requires a bit of tinkering from the user. It will improve in the future (we came a long way didn't we?), but for now it's not as tinkering or hassle free as the other two - in my experience.
That said, I do want to point out that my Fedora desktop has been stable for months now and the experience has been very smooth.
If you're interested, I've posted about the issues that I encounter several times: Here's a recent one Here's another This one kind of goes over what I've already said But I've also had problems...
If you're interested, I've posted about the issues that I encounter several times:
But I've also had problems with the Intel AX210 wifi, where it works great in Windows, but is janky and drops connection frequently under Linux.
With another machine I setup for my Kiddo, the Nvidia driver had to constantly be changed based on what game they wanted to play. Something I don't want to have to keep addressing when they want to switch games.
It just doesn't work for me when I want to run it on my daily PCs. Works pretty great on my PiHole, my Arcade machine I built and my Steam Deck.
I use Windows, Mac, and Linux daily. I primarily use Linux via virtual machines. I just switched to 4k monitors - getting the display scaling "right" on Linux is kind of painful. I have the...
I use Windows, Mac, and Linux daily. I primarily use Linux via virtual machines. I just switched to 4k monitors - getting the display scaling "right" on Linux is kind of painful. I have the options between either 100% scale or 200% scale - which is too much.
My mouse scroll wheel behaves differently in Chromium browsers versus Firefox based browsers on Linux. I have no idea why. It behaves the same in every other OS.
Occasionally I end up with a weird rendering issue where I have to reboot to fix it. It's almost like certain areas of the screen aren't "refreshing"? Dragging another window over the area seems to fix it temporarily.
I once tried to print on a networked printer. I failed. Granted Windows 11 has also had issue with this. Mac works seamlessly.
It's a little confusing figuring out the "right" way to install a lot of software. Sometimes I install it via the provided "store" from the OS, but then the application itself prompts for an update that doesn't seem to work because the "store" doesn't contain the latest version? I don't know. So I uninstall that and end up trying to figure out how to install it other ways. I have to add a source to apt and trust it (okay I guess?) and there are snaps, debs, whatever. I figured it out, but it's a time sink that doesn't provide obvious value to me.
When I run Linux as a sort of "headless" server? Zero issues. Very stable. Easy to update. Running it as a desktop/laptop OS? There's always something I have to fiddle with.
I think you're on an outdated distro perhaps? Or maybe something is breaking in the VM? We've had fractional scaling in Linux for a while, it works perfectly with Wayland for me, I have options of...
I think you're on an outdated distro perhaps? Or maybe something is breaking in the VM?
We've had fractional scaling in Linux for a while, it works perfectly with Wayland for me, I have options of [100,125,133,166,200,250,266].
Right? Maybe its because I came from Windows where you do have to tinker a bit still? Ive been using Linux Mint for a decade and the only hassle I ever had was trying to get a printer to work,...
Right? Maybe its because I came from Windows where you do have to tinker a bit still?
Ive been using Linux Mint for a decade and the only hassle I ever had was trying to get a printer to work, which is a hassle on every machine.
I have the same philosophy. Linux is on a server or two in my home, but I have next to zero desire to run it on my primary gaming PCs, because it's always one issue after another. Last I got that...
I have the same philosophy. Linux is on a server or two in my home, but I have next to zero desire to run it on my primary gaming PCs, because it's always one issue after another.
Last I got that big up my butt about a month ago, after installing Fedora, I spent an hour trying to get the Nvidia kernel to load, never succeeding, remembering that I have plenty of other projects I need to be doing and using my computer is my relax time. So I swapped my Windows drive back in and had that relax time.
I like Linux a lot and I want to run it, but I have two kids that need stuff all the time, I have three cars that often need to be worked on and endless projects around the house, I just do not need to be futzing around in the little time I have to use my PC as well.
Absolutely. As I've gotten older and life more busy, I just want to do what I want to do and not have to fix my tools before I even get to start on the work I want to do or play the games I want...
But I just had too much supply of CBA to do anything else really. Give me an easy life and get off my lawns.
Absolutely. As I've gotten older and life more busy, I just want to do what I want to do and not have to fix my tools before I even get to start on the work I want to do or play the games I want to play.
Here's the thing: macOS is fine. I'm a fairly average users that browse the web, do email, write a lot of txts in default Text Editor; some light image editing (in Pixelmator Pro). Things work,...
Here's the thing: macOS is fine. I'm a fairly average users that browse the web, do email, write a lot of txts in default Text Editor; some light image editing (in Pixelmator Pro). Things work, and I love all the keyboard shortcuts it offers for writing. They're very useful and no Linux DE comes close to them.
Once again, I found myself installing a Linux distro with the intent of freeing myself from macOS, the first step out of Apple’s walled garden; I thought I was standing at the door of a digital...
Once again, I found myself installing a Linux distro with the intent of freeing myself from macOS, the first step out of Apple’s walled garden; I thought I was standing at the door of a digital utopia, something like the modern-day dream of dropping everything to go live off the land.
I do appreciate people trying Linux, especially when they do so more than once as the ecosystem continues to mature. I admit to being a little disappointed that many such people seem unwilling to...
I do appreciate people trying Linux, especially when they do so more than once as the ecosystem continues to mature. I admit to being a little disappointed that many such people seem unwilling to deal with the compromises that they may have to make- if you really want out of a walled garden, you sort of have to make it happen.
On the other hand, I also note that you have run into more issues than most, coming from Apple hardware. I have not used Asahi myself, but I do have an ARM laptop which has similar issues, and I'm no stranger to the #aarch64-laptops IRC channel.
The RAM one is an interesting issue, though. I see no reason why swap might be impossible on Apple hardware- perhaps you just missed it during the installation? It's easy to hit the wrong confirmation when you're greeted by a string of decisions. You might also have a look into zram, which implements in-RAM compression- a similar solution to Apple's. I'm not sure if it's configured by default on Asahi systems, but in theory it could be on Ubuntu.
My primary system is from roughly six years ago, and has a measly 8GB of RAM, which I have only ever had issues with when running multiple complex programs at the same time (Firefox, Discord, Blender, Prusa Slicer, a literal tonne of GPU accelerated terminal contexts). In day-to-day operation I only run a small subset of these (Firefox with approx. 70 tabs, Discord, Alacritty) and rarely hit more than 6GB of usage.
With an os it is neccessary to choose what problems the user wants to have. And while MacOS and Windows get an autopass for any problem they choose to introduce, Linux is expected to work with...
With an os it is neccessary to choose what problems the user wants to have. And while MacOS and Windows get an autopass for any problem they choose to introduce, Linux is expected to work with everything.
From hardware that does not have support for it and definitely does not release documentation to make that support easy. To software that was never compiled for it but a lot of the time works anyways due to the compatibility layer.
It will not change without more people choosing to accept the temporary and usually small inconvenience. And it will be more temporary the more people choose it. If the marketshare magically jumped to 20% most of the problems would magically disappear inside a year or two.
Intel AX210 wifi doesn't work on Linux? Somehow volunteers get blame instead of Intel, who does support Linux extensively. Ironically it is Apple who should shoulder a lot of blame for our current...
Intel AX210 wifi doesn't work on Linux? Somehow volunteers get blame instead of Intel, who does support Linux extensively.
Ironically it is Apple who should shoulder a lot of blame for our current state. Not for not supporting a third party OS, but by helping build and vehemently support laws to prevent people from doing it themselves.
There shouldn't be any legal consequences for extracting, studying, and porting drivers for compatibility. But this is the situation we find ourselves in.
I'm not a particularly adept person when it comes to technical issues. That said, I've been using Linux Mint for longer than I can remember now... nine years or so? I rarely run into problems. And...
I'm not a particularly adept person when it comes to technical issues. That said, I've been using Linux Mint for longer than I can remember now... nine years or so? I rarely run into problems. And on those occasions, it usually only takes a quick stop in the Linux Mint forums to find the solutions.
My printer works perfectly well. I have no problems with my monitors, and I use Mint on three different computers, one of which is hooked straight to a big screen TV. Playing videos on that TV is simple using VLC.
I don't really push the boundaries though, and most of the time I'm just using a browser. Now and again, I'll work with videos and MKVToolnix and Handbrake are fine for that. Still learning Kdenlive.
Frustration with Linux, like other operating systems, depends on what you're trying to do, and which tools you're using. Playing old games on my one remaining Windows machine turned out to be the most aggravating day I've had in a while.
Probably unpopular, but I consider Debian based systems unusable for daily drivers. Ubuntu constantly gave me issues. Pop OS is constantly giving my friend issues and I'm just like "yeah haven't...
Probably unpopular, but I consider Debian based systems unusable for daily drivers. Ubuntu constantly gave me issues. Pop OS is constantly giving my friend issues and I'm just like "yeah haven't had issues like that since I swapped to Bazzite". The number of manuals I've seen saying something to the effect of you'll run into issues with Ubuntu due to it using outdated/deprecated packages is astounding. Whenever folks complain of needing to fiddle too much? Probably Debian based (though that could just as well be confirmation bias). It's fine for my server that basically just needs to mount filesystems, ssh, and run docker.
KDE Plasma is perhaps the most RAM hungry DE you could've found, I'd think a macOS user would prefer to start with GNOME. Not sure how much better it is with RAM though, but there's other DEs that give a clean presentation while sipping RAM. The crashes do sound like an error with swap as you mention, I imagine doing some configuring there and with the RAM could've helped. I've done that sort of thing to stabilize some bespoke hardware but you'd think needing to do so for a mac using a distro targeting macs shouldn't require such fiddling to even have a swap to begin with.
Of all the desktop Linux systems I’ve used over the years, EndeavourOS (Arch) has been the most ‘it just works’ of them all — and this is on a shitty Chromebook from ten years ago.
Of all the desktop Linux systems I’ve used over the years, EndeavourOS (Arch) has been the most ‘it just works’ of them all — and this is on a shitty Chromebook from ten years ago.
Plasma is way past its day of exaggerated RAM consumption. I've read many DEs comparisons and they all kind of align in this regard. I've tried Gnome in a VM before trying Asahi. It's mostly fine,...
Plasma is way past its day of exaggerated RAM consumption. I've read many DEs comparisons and they all kind of align in this regard.
I've tried Gnome in a VM before trying Asahi. It's mostly fine, but I thought it to be too opinionated, in a way that didn't click with me. But maybe I really should give it a shot, right?
Went to check some comparisons and they do suggest KDE plasma is more lightweight/on par with others whereas xfce seems to gotten more hungry. It doesn't quite fit my experience, where it'd take...
Went to check some comparisons and they do suggest KDE plasma is more lightweight/on par with others whereas xfce seems to gotten more hungry. It doesn't quite fit my experience, where it'd take up an extra 2-4GB to run KDE than like steam game mode (though I'm guessing some chunk of that is from Wayland itself rather than just KDE).
Nah if you tried GNOME and it wasn't a fit, I wouldn't force it, it is opinionated. I just figure it's mostly the sort of opinionated mac folks agree with since it most closely reflects my limited mac experience. Seems fine on my old laptop with 8GB RAM performance wise.
One thing that may have been an increased headache is that you wondered a bit into the "here be dragons" part of operating system distros. You were interested in using something like Asahi Linux...
One thing that may have been an increased headache is that you wondered a bit into the "here be dragons" part of operating system distros. You were interested in using something like Asahi Linux for valid reasons, that being that it supported your hardware when other things do not. However, rather than use Asahi Linux directly (which is based on Fedora), you decided to use a Debian Bananas alternative that is trying to push Asahi Linux changes into Debian... and they haven't completed their work yet... and you ran into issues....
If you have time, try using the upstream Asahi Linux (the Fedora based one). I'm not saying it will magically fix the issues you have but it is the best chance of those issues being fixed.
This isn't to say that all the flagship distros are the best choices per say. Your hardware and experiences tend to be better in some and worse in others. Still, a distro that is trying to get off the ground (and is in early development) will have more headaches than a more established distro and those are usually not fun to deal with.
Another notable thing is that Fedora uses zram swapping which compresses your main memory like Mac OS does. Debian Trixie as modified by Bananas to be like Asahi does... I'm not sure what it does for swap. That may be why you were running into out of memory issues and a disabled swap configuration. The Bananas team is likely trying to get things working in some manner and just figure that early adopters of their work can smooth over the kinks in the meantime.
So, if you were to take a journey back into Linux land, you may want to try the mainline Asahi. Besides, the Asahi page for Asahi Linux says it gives you the option of KDE or Gnome as your desktop interface (I prefer KDE but I also appreciate the options).
What do you want from Linux that you don’t get via brew (etc) with macOS? I just started using a gui Linux again, but have always used it for my servers. I find that the combination of a vps and a...
What do you want from Linux that you don’t get via brew (etc) with macOS? I just started using a gui Linux again, but have always used it for my servers. I find that the combination of a vps and a macOS system lets me do anything I really need to.
Just curious. :)
I also have a windows box but I hate windows so much.
Nothing, really. As I wrote in the article, it's more a desire to rely on FOSS than anything. I have a small home server running Debian 12 headless. It's a great match with macOS, indeed. (But I...
Nothing, really. As I wrote in the article, it's more a desire to rely on FOSS than anything.
I have a small home server running Debian 12 headless. It's a great match with macOS, indeed. (But I use MacPorts; Homebrew looks too much of a mess for me.)
A bit ironic then that most of the problems you run into are specifically because your apple hardware doesn't play nice with open standards and only works because some people took the time to crack into it to try and make it work at all.
I'm so glad Valve has had such success with steam deck and steam machine which--at least for gaming--proves you can have a solid Linux experience without any hassle using the right hardware.
Yeah, this. To get out of the walled garden, it's honestly better to first get hardware that isn't actively hostile to the OS you're trying to install, otherwise you're going to have a bad time (until such a time that the work in that area, like Asahi (which don't get me wrong, I support the efforts!), gets really mature)
I'm fully aware. I was trying to use what I already have, since there's no way I'm buying a new (or used, for that matter) computer right now.
Both this and your other reply to me are totally fair! Maybe I was not generous enough in my reading (but I want to be clear I didn't mean any of my criticism maliciously). I just sort of got a "ugh Linux failed me again" vibe which I didn't fully gel with given its state on Apple hardware
It's alright :)
This is not really a reply to your comment, but whenever Linux comes up in a conversation, there’s always a comment like this, and I wonder what the hell people are trying to do with it that they need to tinker with it so much.
For me, Linux is the most hassle-free OS there is. I haven’t tinkered with it in six years because for me, it just works. I also use macOS, and one of the things I dislike about it is that there’s always more friction when setting up a development environment compared to Linux. I also worry more when upgrading macOS than Linux because I seem to always encounter some problem midway through the upgrade.
I see it as people getting used to the idiosyncrasies of each OS to the point where they stop seeing the problems. They learn where the problems are, accept them as unchangeable facts, and eventually get used to them. Maybe I’ve just learned to accept Linux’s shortcomings, while I haven’t accepted macOS’s because it’s a paid product.
I think it's just different peoples' use cases. I use Linux as my daily driver, gaming PC, living room PC, home server, laptop, and other tertiary boxes. The only non-Linux system I use is for music production and it can be done there too just more frustratingly (especially once you're invested into plugin ecosystems and whatnot).
For me, aside from some early adjustments I had to make, it is consistently hassle-free for me. I don't update my distros often. I still use X11 instead of Wayland. I use an Nvidia 4070 in my gaming/main PC and have no problems. I have an nvidia gpu in my server and an AMD APU on my living room PC. They all work for the most part without any hassles. I don't have to keep upgrading my nvidia driver to play games or change a bunch of stuff. I also, to be fair, don't buy a lot of new games anymore, but anything I have tried has been fairly problem-free. The occasional proton tweak might be necessary for a game here or there but that's about it. I run games from Epic, Steam, and GOG without a problem.
Any hassles I have run into were very small and easily solved within a very short time, not massive show-stopping situations.
I'm not saying there aren't any, only that for the way I use my particular machines, I don't run into problems often, and when I do, I don't mind handling them easy. Most things do just work. I have experienced macOS and Windows both in recent years and I can't say my experience on either of them was even remotely better than my experience on Linux. Both were markedly worse. Bad enough that I got rid of Windows on every machine except the one, and I got rid of all my mac hardware
As far as OP / using Linux on modern Macs go- I don't mean this in a mean way- but isn't that still pretty "alpha/beta/uncharted" territory? Linux on Apple Silicon I don't think has remotely come close to the maturity of Linux on other systems, so I think it's naive to go into such a dive without expecting a bunch of issues and then blaming Linux for them (?)
That said, I still don't recommend Linux to "normies" for the most part, as much as I love it. To people that aren't tech-inclined, what is a 60 second fix to us techies feels like moving mountains to them. So I get that a lot of it is all about perspective too.
I gave it a shot because it's the laptop I have, and despite not being fully functional yet, Asahi went great lengths to be daily drivable already. (Also, MacBook Air's hardware is so good, and other brand's equivalent so more expensive where I live, which led me to try it out anyway.)
While use case is a big part of it, I think the distro people choose also plays a big part. There are dozens of actively updated general use distros, and I don’t think most people put in the effort to figure out what distro would work best for them. Instead, they go with the familiar sounding ones like Debian or Ubuntu, or choose one that’s popular in the current discourse. Plus, most people don’t seem have the patience to try something else after a bad experience. I had to coax a friend of mine into trying a different distro after Pop_OS! decided to suddenly change its desktop environment in an update to a different, buggier DE that Pop developed itself.
I’ve also been guilty of this in the past. I remember trialing a very bare bones version of Ubuntu as a teenager (many moons ago) and not being very impressed. I returned to Windows in a heartbeat and didn’t look back until somewhat recently. Then, a couple years ago I tried running pure Arch, but that experiment failed after a few short weeks when the install broke itself in an update. I was also constantly struggling with bugs and keeping things updated the whole time so it was a pretty frustrating experience overall.
I’ve talked to enough people and even watched a few YouTube videos of people essentially doing essentially the same thing, so I don’t think my own personal experiences are unique. But at least in my case, I was stubborn enough or possibly curious enough to keep trying, so I eventually landed on a distro I’m really happy with. But only after I did some research and trialed a few distros via emulators and USB boot images.
Which brings me to my last point:
IMO there is nothing especially technical about how I use Linux in my day to day life. The distro I choose gives me the flexibility to tinker if I want to, without making it a necessity. And a non-techy friend of mine is running the same distro as me straight out of the box and loves it. The most technical part about using Linux for them was installing it lol, and I’m not sure they would have managed without my help. So in that respect, I kind of agree? But I’m also not sure what the solution there even is.
Yeah I probably should have clarified I don't recommend it to regular people mostly if myself or someone else is not going to be available and willing to help. My late grandma ran Linux on her machine and ended up liking it better than Windows. All she ever did was photos, email, and documents, so as long as I was there as a in-case tech support to set it up and if anything went wrong (rarely ever did), it was actually great for her.
But say I have a friend or acquaintance that I can't really help in-person or often, that really doesn't know any computer tech at all, and they're used to running software that only runs on Windows, and they need it for a college class or something, they would have no idea where to even start, and the first hurdle they encounter would make them want to run back to something more familiar, and I wouldn't disagree with that feeling
I mean, many of us that are tech inclined still aren't inclined to have to dick with it constantly. No shade, though it probably reads that way.
I've been in IT Professionally for 15+ years now and messing with technology for twice as long. I have the skillset to get Linux working, it's just that it's constantly one things after another with it whenever I try it out on my machines. I'm at the point in life where I have lots of projects (last week I put a transmission in a car, then an alternator in another, this week I repaired/reinstalled some broken LED puck lights, am building a new PC for a customer, amongst all the other little daily tasks that need to be taken care of in my life.) and a family to attend to.
I like IT, but I also don't really care about it insofar as what it can do for me. That means, browsing Youtube, Slicing STLs, doing research for hobbies and projects, typing documents, talking to people online, games, etc, etc. Linux always ends-up being a thing that I have to futz with when I just want to use my PC for stuff I do care about.
Sure I can figure out this issue. But then there's another. And another. And another...and another. At some point, I'm tired and I just want to do what I sat down to do and not have to fix my tool first. Linux has always been like that for me and I'm a person that installs it on my main PC's at least twice a year, sometimes more. I have run it on my PiHole, I run it on an Arcade cabinet and in both those cases, where I'm not using them daily and don't have to ask much of either of them, Linux works great and I never have to screw with it. Even on my Steam Deck it works great and while I do use the desktop fairly frequently in it, I don't run into all the problems I do when I'm not using bespoke hardware.
So maybe the answer is to use bespoke hardware, but I also don't have the money or time for that. I want to use what I have and not have to make sure all my hardware is compatible, especially when Windows just works for me. My Desktop/Server is a great candidate for it, being that it's fully AMD, but at the same time, I do not want to have to reconfigure the server from scratch and in having done some research on getting stuff like Moonlight streaming to work, I don't want to have to configure a fake monitor and mess around with stuff just to get that function working, especially when Windows does all of that without my intervention. It's all been a basic setup, where I can setup the software, let it run and I'm off to the races. I do not have the time nor the inclination to sit at my PC and try to configure just one piece of software when I have so much else to do and that's just one piece of software and there's always going to the next piece of software that requires configuration.
Linux works for you and I think that's great. I really want Linux to work for me, that's why I try it multiple times a year. But by the time I'm the first hour deep into trying to get something to function correctly, I remember I have other things I'd rather be doing and other priorities and I go back to Windows so I can just use my PC without having to jump through hoops.
That's fair and I can totally understand people encountering that very bumpy Linux experience for sure. No intention of being the "but it works on my machine so that means it should on yours!" guy, just giving one piece of data from a very satisfied user that hasn't run into the same issues (and I do OBS recording, video editing, graphics editing, 3D printing/slicing/CAD, documents, games, voice chat, etc, so I use it for quite the variety of use cases).
I truly wish the Linux experience people have had was better, because for those it works exceedingly well for- when the experience is nailed pretty well, I want that for everyone.
And I totally gel with wanting things to "just work"- I feel that way about phones, which is why despite not liking Apple desktops anymore, I'm a long-time iOS/ipadOS customer and pretty happy. My phone just works and I don't need to think about most things. Sure some of their changes are annoying or whatever, but I basically never have to screw with it to have it work for what I need
So I think I approach my mobile experience the way you approach the desktop, and it's also fair that techies don't always want to screw with things a lot either! (Trust me I've encountered enough frustration at tech jobs over the years that somedays i just want to sit down and have things work and not deal with it anymore! hahaha)
I think I've just been probably incredibly lucky with my experiences. Linux is also varied enough in distros/DEs, configurations, wayland/x11, systemd/non, etc, and hardware too, and that means it's really hard for a large swath of people to have a unified experience free of problems. Part of my luck has probably been sticking with older stable versions of drivers and distros and things like X11. And I acknowledge that it hasn't always been smooth sailing and I occasionally have run into a big problem, it's just rare enough that the big problems are just as rare on Linux as they ever were on Win/Mac.
I use Windows, MacOS and Linux (Fedora). I know, I'm a weirdo. But if you humour me for a bit, here's my two cents:
All of these OS's have their own issues and quirks, like you said. But I feel that Linux is less forgiving - and that regardless of distro, there's always the expectation that you should be able to troubleshoot and fix issues yourself. And if you are your family's IT guy like me, then you would know that that's not a realistic expectation for the average person. (it was more than once that I had to explain to someone what a gmail account was and that they definitely had one logged in in their android phone, let me put it that way)
For example:
MacOS puts me in a neat little box. It takes away some control, but at the same time most things will just work™️. When I connect my macbook to an external display, it doesn't matter if it's 1080p or 4k, the image will appear and it will look right.
Windows, kind of the same thing, but a bit less consistent.
Linux (Fedora (KDE) and SteamOS (KDE)), are the opposite. Every single time, I have to adapt to whatever quirks the distro or the DE throws at me. The two more annoying recent examples were my gaming desktop and my Steam Deck.
My desktop, for whatever reason, had almost no issues with my TV while using Windows, but Fedora (and other distros before it) just didn't work and had terrible colours - like a photo taken with the first cell phones with cameras, among other issues. Turns out, the hdmi cable was connected to a 2.0 port on the TV instead of the 2.1 port, and swapping fixed it. But there's the point I made: Windows somehow managed to roll with it, Linux didn't. (more details about this experience here). After that, I had to do some tinkering to make sure it looks right in both my 1080p monitor and my TV whenever I swap between them, whereas on Windows that was never something I needed to do.
The second example was my Steam Deck while in desktop mode. I connected it to my 4k TV and had to change the scaling. After I was done using it with the TV, I disconnected it, and promptly changed the scaling back to 100% to make the UI elements back to normal. Except the mouse pointer didn't get the memo, and keeps not getting it. Today, I still have a large mouse pointer that won't go back to normal, no matter what I do. There should be a fix, but I gave up and just left it be.
If from my examples you're getting the impression that it's a KDE problem: sure, maybe it is. But in my over 10 years using and experimenting with distros with different DE's, that's just par for the course to me. I didn't expect it to be different. Linux requires a bit of tinkering from the user. It will improve in the future (we came a long way didn't we?), but for now it's not as tinkering or hassle free as the other two - in my experience.
That said, I do want to point out that my Fedora desktop has been stable for months now and the experience has been very smooth.
If you're interested, I've posted about the issues that I encounter several times:
Here's a recent one
Here's another
This one kind of goes over what I've already said
But I've also had problems with the Intel AX210 wifi, where it works great in Windows, but is janky and drops connection frequently under Linux.
With another machine I setup for my Kiddo, the Nvidia driver had to constantly be changed based on what game they wanted to play. Something I don't want to have to keep addressing when they want to switch games.
It just doesn't work for me when I want to run it on my daily PCs. Works pretty great on my PiHole, my Arcade machine I built and my Steam Deck.
I use Windows, Mac, and Linux daily. I primarily use Linux via virtual machines. I just switched to 4k monitors - getting the display scaling "right" on Linux is kind of painful. I have the options between either 100% scale or 200% scale - which is too much.
My mouse scroll wheel behaves differently in Chromium browsers versus Firefox based browsers on Linux. I have no idea why. It behaves the same in every other OS.
Occasionally I end up with a weird rendering issue where I have to reboot to fix it. It's almost like certain areas of the screen aren't "refreshing"? Dragging another window over the area seems to fix it temporarily.
I once tried to print on a networked printer. I failed. Granted Windows 11 has also had issue with this. Mac works seamlessly.
It's a little confusing figuring out the "right" way to install a lot of software. Sometimes I install it via the provided "store" from the OS, but then the application itself prompts for an update that doesn't seem to work because the "store" doesn't contain the latest version? I don't know. So I uninstall that and end up trying to figure out how to install it other ways. I have to add a source to apt and trust it (okay I guess?) and there are snaps, debs, whatever. I figured it out, but it's a time sink that doesn't provide obvious value to me.
When I run Linux as a sort of "headless" server? Zero issues. Very stable. Easy to update. Running it as a desktop/laptop OS? There's always something I have to fiddle with.
I think you're on an outdated distro perhaps? Or maybe something is breaking in the VM?
We've had fractional scaling in Linux for a while, it works perfectly with Wayland for me, I have options of [100,125,133,166,200,250,266].
I'm on Ubuntu 24 LTS
Bare metal or VM? In my (admittedly limited) experience, VMs have all kinds of quirks compared to bare metal.
VM, and yeah some of the quirks might be related to the VM. The rendering issue is probably the VM.
Right? Maybe its because I came from Windows where you do have to tinker a bit still?
Ive been using Linux Mint for a decade and the only hassle I ever had was trying to get a printer to work, which is a hassle on every machine.
I have the same philosophy. Linux is on a server or two in my home, but I have next to zero desire to run it on my primary gaming PCs, because it's always one issue after another.
Last I got that big up my butt about a month ago, after installing Fedora, I spent an hour trying to get the Nvidia kernel to load, never succeeding, remembering that I have plenty of other projects I need to be doing and using my computer is my relax time. So I swapped my Windows drive back in and had that relax time.
I like Linux a lot and I want to run it, but I have two kids that need stuff all the time, I have three cars that often need to be worked on and endless projects around the house, I just do not need to be futzing around in the little time I have to use my PC as well.
Absolutely. As I've gotten older and life more busy, I just want to do what I want to do and not have to fix my tools before I even get to start on the work I want to do or play the games I want to play.
Im actually laughing that you went “sick!” And they were like “am not!” Thats peak internet for me today not gonna top that one
Here's the thing: macOS is fine. I'm a fairly average users that browse the web, do email, write a lot of txts in default Text Editor; some light image editing (in Pixelmator Pro). Things work, and I love all the keyboard shortcuts it offers for writing. They're very useful and no Linux DE comes close to them.
Once again, I found myself installing a Linux distro with the intent of freeing myself from macOS, the first step out of Apple’s walled garden; I thought I was standing at the door of a digital utopia, something like the modern-day dream of dropping everything to go live off the land.
(Spoiler: it was a short, but enriching journey.)
I do appreciate people trying Linux, especially when they do so more than once as the ecosystem continues to mature. I admit to being a little disappointed that many such people seem unwilling to deal with the compromises that they may have to make- if you really want out of a walled garden, you sort of have to make it happen.
On the other hand, I also note that you have run into more issues than most, coming from Apple hardware. I have not used Asahi myself, but I do have an ARM laptop which has similar issues, and I'm no stranger to the #aarch64-laptops IRC channel.
The RAM one is an interesting issue, though. I see no reason why swap might be impossible on Apple hardware- perhaps you just missed it during the installation? It's easy to hit the wrong confirmation when you're greeted by a string of decisions. You might also have a look into zram, which implements in-RAM compression- a similar solution to Apple's. I'm not sure if it's configured by default on Asahi systems, but in theory it could be on Ubuntu.
My primary system is from roughly six years ago, and has a measly 8GB of RAM, which I have only ever had issues with when running multiple complex programs at the same time (Firefox, Discord, Blender, Prusa Slicer, a literal tonne of GPU accelerated terminal contexts). In day-to-day operation I only run a small subset of these (Firefox with approx. 70 tabs, Discord, Alacritty) and rarely hit more than 6GB of usage.
With an os it is neccessary to choose what problems the user wants to have. And while MacOS and Windows get an autopass for any problem they choose to introduce, Linux is expected to work with everything.
From hardware that does not have support for it and definitely does not release documentation to make that support easy. To software that was never compiled for it but a lot of the time works anyways due to the compatibility layer.
It will not change without more people choosing to accept the temporary and usually small inconvenience. And it will be more temporary the more people choose it. If the marketshare magically jumped to 20% most of the problems would magically disappear inside a year or two.
Intel AX210 wifi doesn't work on Linux? Somehow volunteers get blame instead of Intel, who does support Linux extensively.
Ironically it is Apple who should shoulder a lot of blame for our current state. Not for not supporting a third party OS, but by helping build and vehemently support laws to prevent people from doing it themselves.
There shouldn't be any legal consequences for extracting, studying, and porting drivers for compatibility. But this is the situation we find ourselves in.
I'm not a particularly adept person when it comes to technical issues. That said, I've been using Linux Mint for longer than I can remember now... nine years or so? I rarely run into problems. And on those occasions, it usually only takes a quick stop in the Linux Mint forums to find the solutions.
My printer works perfectly well. I have no problems with my monitors, and I use Mint on three different computers, one of which is hooked straight to a big screen TV. Playing videos on that TV is simple using VLC.
I don't really push the boundaries though, and most of the time I'm just using a browser. Now and again, I'll work with videos and MKVToolnix and Handbrake are fine for that. Still learning Kdenlive.
Frustration with Linux, like other operating systems, depends on what you're trying to do, and which tools you're using. Playing old games on my one remaining Windows machine turned out to be the most aggravating day I've had in a while.
Probably unpopular, but I consider Debian based systems unusable for daily drivers. Ubuntu constantly gave me issues. Pop OS is constantly giving my friend issues and I'm just like "yeah haven't had issues like that since I swapped to Bazzite". The number of manuals I've seen saying something to the effect of you'll run into issues with Ubuntu due to it using outdated/deprecated packages is astounding. Whenever folks complain of needing to fiddle too much? Probably Debian based (though that could just as well be confirmation bias). It's fine for my server that basically just needs to mount filesystems, ssh, and run docker.
KDE Plasma is perhaps the most RAM hungry DE you could've found, I'd think a macOS user would prefer to start with GNOME. Not sure how much better it is with RAM though, but there's other DEs that give a clean presentation while sipping RAM. The crashes do sound like an error with swap as you mention, I imagine doing some configuring there and with the RAM could've helped. I've done that sort of thing to stabilize some bespoke hardware but you'd think needing to do so for a mac using a distro targeting macs shouldn't require such fiddling to even have a swap to begin with.
Of all the desktop Linux systems I’ve used over the years, EndeavourOS (Arch) has been the most ‘it just works’ of them all — and this is on a shitty Chromebook from ten years ago.
Plasma is way past its day of exaggerated RAM consumption. I've read many DEs comparisons and they all kind of align in this regard.
I've tried Gnome in a VM before trying Asahi. It's mostly fine, but I thought it to be too opinionated, in a way that didn't click with me. But maybe I really should give it a shot, right?
Went to check some comparisons and they do suggest KDE plasma is more lightweight/on par with others whereas xfce seems to gotten more hungry. It doesn't quite fit my experience, where it'd take up an extra 2-4GB to run KDE than like steam game mode (though I'm guessing some chunk of that is from Wayland itself rather than just KDE).
Nah if you tried GNOME and it wasn't a fit, I wouldn't force it, it is opinionated. I just figure it's mostly the sort of opinionated mac folks agree with since it most closely reflects my limited mac experience. Seems fine on my old laptop with 8GB RAM performance wise.
One thing that may have been an increased headache is that you wondered a bit into the "here be dragons" part of operating system distros. You were interested in using something like Asahi Linux for valid reasons, that being that it supported your hardware when other things do not. However, rather than use Asahi Linux directly (which is based on Fedora), you decided to use a Debian Bananas alternative that is trying to push Asahi Linux changes into Debian... and they haven't completed their work yet... and you ran into issues....
If you have time, try using the upstream Asahi Linux (the Fedora based one). I'm not saying it will magically fix the issues you have but it is the best chance of those issues being fixed.
This isn't to say that all the flagship distros are the best choices per say. Your hardware and experiences tend to be better in some and worse in others. Still, a distro that is trying to get off the ground (and is in early development) will have more headaches than a more established distro and those are usually not fun to deal with.
Another notable thing is that Fedora uses zram swapping which compresses your main memory like Mac OS does. Debian Trixie as modified by Bananas to be like Asahi does... I'm not sure what it does for swap. That may be why you were running into out of memory issues and a disabled swap configuration. The Bananas team is likely trying to get things working in some manner and just figure that early adopters of their work can smooth over the kinks in the meantime.
So, if you were to take a journey back into Linux land, you may want to try the mainline Asahi. Besides, the Asahi page for Asahi Linux says it gives you the option of KDE or Gnome as your desktop interface (I prefer KDE but I also appreciate the options).
What do you want from Linux that you don’t get via brew (etc) with macOS? I just started using a gui Linux again, but have always used it for my servers. I find that the combination of a vps and a macOS system lets me do anything I really need to.
Just curious. :)
I also have a windows box but I hate windows so much.
Nothing, really. As I wrote in the article, it's more a desire to rely on FOSS than anything.
I have a small home server running Debian 12 headless. It's a great match with macOS, indeed. (But I use MacPorts; Homebrew looks too much of a mess for me.)
yeah, shouldn't be too bad. Check out EndeavourOS (arch) -- just run it live. I really like it despite running Mint right now for my gui install.