what is the current state of GNU/Linux on ARM-based machines? I know a lot of distros offer an ARM build, but ARM fragmentation and software availability seem to still be a dealbreaker for personal use, so that might be the reason why I’ve only heard of ARM server focused devices
It highly depends on the exact device. Super mainstream boards like the Raspberry Pi 500+ typically have great support. Most other boards don’t, due to the fragmentation and lack of UEFI standardization.
A good way to check is to see if multiple mainstream distributions support the device you’re trying to use on their own volition. If the only thing available is some custom forked distribution by the board vendor, that’s a huge red flag.
I wouldn’t say personal use is a deal breaker. Plenty of distros like archlinuxarm and debian have pretty decent binary package repos in part thanks to raspberry pi and other prevalent arm v7 and v8 platforms. Otherwise you can compile things yourself.
Fex is also looking to be a game changer for arm - x86/x64 emulation in userspace on arm64 v8+. No need to care too much if there isn’t an arm binary available - just run the x86 one through fex.
My daily driver is a Macbook Air M2 running Asahi Linux (on the M2 ARM CPU obviously).
I’ve been pleasantly surprised how little ARM incompatibility I’ve run into. Even better, when I spin up a cloud VM for personal use I usually choose an ARM based server for cost savings. I know most binaries I compile locally on my laptop will run natively on my cloud servers.
Also once you get to M2 speeds, you can do x86 software emulation for low to mid performance applications.
whoa nice to see an Asahi user
I’ve read wonders about current Macs power efficiency, my dude’s looks like nothing in comparison haha
I will say that power efficiency is one of the places Asahi is still behind compared to native OSX performance. I don’t fault the path the developers are taking. They first focused on getting a stable OS: done. Then worked to get a number of the very unique hardware devices addressable and functional: mostly done. And then worked to upstream all of those things into the kernel, where they have also had success after success.
The current power efficency is workable for me. I can get about 6 hours usable out of the battery and I only charge to 80% regularly (which I like the OS supports a charge limit). One other drawback is the lack of deep sleep or hibernation. Since its Mac hardware it doesn’t follow the ACPI convention so S4 hibernation which I usually use on PC hardware isn’t an option.
Still, the hardware is excellent. The performance is excellent. The most recent M series CPU that is fully supported is M2 (M3 support is available in alpha channels, but I’m not that adventurous), which means the “flagship” experience is very affordable by buying pre-owned hardware (don’t get less than 16GB RAM, I got a 24GB Macbook Air and am happy I did, 256GB SSD is usable, but “cozy”. I’d recommend at least 512GB).
I’m very happy with the Asahi experience, and really like having the option to fall back to OSX if needed for some kind of commercial hardware or so compatibility. I’ve only had to do that twice and that was to watch streaming services on vacation.
BTW, There’s an Asahi Lemmy community which has a small following.
There’s also an ARM Linux Lemmy community but its not well visited.
