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Desktops (Apple) Apple Linux

Fedora Asahi Remix Officially Released For Apple Silicon Macs (9to5linux.com) 54

Posted by BeauHD from the come-and-get-it dept.
prisoninmate shares a report from 9to5Linux: Announced in early August and initially planned for the end of the month, the Fedora Asahi Remix distribution is finally here for those who want to install the Fedora Linux operating system on their Apple Silicon Macs. Previously a remix of Arch Linux ARM, the Fedora Asahi Remix distribution is the result of a multi-year collaboration between the Asahi Linux project and the Fedora Project, enabling you to have a proper daily driver on your Apple Silicon Mac thanks to Fedora Linux's excellent 64-bit ARM support.

The distro is based on the latest Fedora Linux 39 release and ships with the KDE Plasma 5.27 LTS desktop environment by default, using Wayland. This promises a smooth Linux desktop experience on Apple hardware similar to macOS. Fedora Asahi Remix also comes with XWayland for those who want to run X11 apps. In addition, it features non-conformant OpenGL 3.3 support including GPU-accelerated geometry shaders and transform feedback, PipeWire by default with WirePlumber, as well as the Calamares graphical installer. You can download and install Fedora Asahi Remix here.
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Fedora Asahi Remix Officially Released For Apple Silicon Macs More

Fedora Asahi Remix Officially Released For Apple Silicon Macs

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  • Do people actually still use Fedora?

    • Re:Strange Days (Score:5, Interesting)

      by loonycyborg ( 1262242 ) on Wednesday December 20, 2023 @05:48AM (#64092863)
      Yes, it's what RHEL is based on. So if you want RHEL but don't want to pay for support because you can do it yourself you use Fedora. It's somewhat less hardcore than Arch. And does less misguided things than Ubuntu.

      • Back in the day after experimenting with all the distros, I landed on Arch (btw). When I stopped having time for Arch, I surprisingly gravitated towards Fedora. Prior to Arch, I had always gravitated towards Debian, and other distros that put me in more control. But Fedora tends to make good decisions relative to my preferences, and really just works out of the box. When something does break, it's fixed quickly.

      • Pedant (Score:2, Informative)

        by bleedingobvious ( 6265230 )

        .... does less misguided things than Ubuntu.

        fewer

    • Apparently, a frozen in time mixture of Fedora and Centos Stream are used as the basis for Amazon Linux. Fedora CoreOS is also very popular as a host for containers. But Fedora as a desktop OS is not something I'd want to have. Too bleeding edge, too blob-free and too few packages. And by the time you finally make everything work, new release comes out and you start over. But it's fun to play with if you want to see the things that'll come to your normal distro in a year or two.

      • This is spoken like someone who hasn't used it in years and years. I've upgraded from way back with Fedora 28 or something to present Fedora 39 (6 months between releases) and haven't had an issue. I will at least give you that if your idea of packages is the AUR, then yes, it's lacking but otherwise it's the same as any other distro like Ubuntu, Mint and even a bit broader with flatpaks.

    • I do use it on my desktop, with MATE. Gave a try recently to Mint with MATE, but didn't like it and returned to Fedora. But I am used to it after over 20 years...

  • Congratulations! (Score:5, Insightful)

    by NoMoreACs ( 6161580 ) on Wednesday December 20, 2023 @05:58AM (#64092877)

    To all those who's hard work made this possible: Thanks!

  • Typing this comment from it right now. (Score:5, Informative)

    by xack ( 5304745 ) on Wednesday December 20, 2023 @06:59AM (#64092947)
    While not quite at the "double click" level of ease of installation, most of the installation is just you typing your password multiple times to get past MacOS security. I had the Arch version of Asahi before and now we have the Fedora version which works mostly like you'd expect from an x86 version of Fedora. There is still not as many apps ported to arm in the software centre, so expect to have to compile your own a lot.

  • Not ready for prime time? (Score:3, Insightful)

    by BoloMKXXVIII ( 10309097 ) on Wednesday December 20, 2023 @07:32AM (#64092981)
    According to Liliputing.com: Fedora Asahi Linux should at least boot on most Macs with Apple M1 and M2 series processors, but not all hardware is currently supported. For example, Thunderbolt and USB4 functionality appears to be broken on most models, Touch ID and built-in mics arenâ(TM)t supported either, no are speakers on the iMac. And USB-C displays are not yet supported either.

  • I wonder (Score:3)

    by necro81 ( 917438 ) on Wednesday December 20, 2023 @08:17AM (#64093035) Journal
    I wonder how much more quickly this could have been produced - and with more seamless results - had Apple devoted even a single OS engineer to helping out. For a company sitting on $163B in cash, you'd think they could spare just a bit of contribution to the community.

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by znrt ( 2424692 )

      these are people who have bought apple's expensive hardware and want to replace their proprietary and expensive flagship os with some cheap opensource alternative. it's not that they're miserable and don't want to help, this is anathema for them and if anything they would rather sue them to oblivion if they could.

      tbh, they do have sort of a point: slapping linux on an apple machine maybe did make sense a few decades ago for their early laptops. nowadays there's hardly a point in doing that, although boastin

      • Re:I wonder (Score:4, Interesting)

        by drinkypoo ( 153816 ) <drink@hyperlogos.org> on Wednesday December 20, 2023 @09:06AM (#64093169) Homepage Journal

        slapping linux on an apple machine maybe did make sense a few decades ago for their early laptops. nowadays there's hardly a point in doing that

        I'm friends with some mac users and hearing them complain about ways in which MacOS is failing them tells the opposite story. Flagship features don't work right.

        • slapping linux on an apple machine maybe did make sense a few decades ago for their early laptops. nowadays there's hardly a point in doing that

          I'm friends with some mac users and hearing them complain about ways in which MacOS is failing them tells the opposite story. Flagship features don't work right.

          Typical of your anti-Apple Posts.

          Plenty of Shade, and no Concrete Examples.

          Just like the Trumplicants: There's tons of Evidence, and it will be revealed Next Week. . . Then Everyone Will See!!!

          • I don't have anything invested in convincing Mac users that they made a purchasing mistake. But we're talking major bullet points like their backup system failing to restore data and not explaining why. I haven't kept a journal of the specifics because I have a life.

            I used to be a mac user but I got better. So now every apple failure is just humorous to me.

            • I don't have anything invested in convincing Mac users that they made a purchasing mistake. But we're talking major bullet points like their backup system failing to restore data and not explaining why. I haven't kept a journal of the specifics because I have a life.

              I used to be a mac user but I got better. So now every apple failure is just humorous to me.

              I've NEVER seen a Backup System that hasn't let me down at the worst possible time, on any Platform.

              You'll have to try harder than that.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by aitikin ( 909209 )

          slapping linux on an apple machine maybe did make sense a few decades ago for their early laptops. nowadays there's hardly a point in doing that

          I'm friends with some mac users and hearing them complain about ways in which MacOS is failing them tells the opposite story. Flagship features don't work right.

          Anecdotal agreement from me. I keep my Mac on the oldest (major) macOS that I can for as long as I can until my software flat out requires me to updated because of the iOSification of the OS. My work machine is a Mac as well and the office keeps it relatively up to date. A lot of the cosmetic changes that Apple have made drive me batty when I have to do anything in the core apps/OS.

          Fortunately the Terminal app is still not fucked with.

      • You are missing one important point. Apple is infamous for abandoning its own hardware long before it becomes unusable. So when they drop support for the M1 Macs it's nice to have a Linux distribution ready to replace MacOS.

        I have a 2009 Mac Mini that runs Mint Xfce just fine. The 2012 mini also runs Mint Xfce just fine. When the 2014 (which was sold until late 2018, so it's not as old as you think) drops off of support next year the choice is Linux or Open Core to keep it running.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by znrt ( 2424692 )

        these are people who have bought apple's expensive hardware

        well, these are also people who moderate any legitimate opinion as troll. rofl.

        what can i say. kid, when i start trolling you will notice, don't worry.

      • MacOS is proprietary and costs a lot to develop, but its bundled in with the cost of the device and not sold on its own. I don't think that qualifies it as "expensive". Linux also has a crap ton of development put into it, so I'm not sure which one takes more money to develop and certainly doesn't qualify calling Linux "cheap".

        As to why people want to do this? Apple Silicon is interesting in its bundling of ram in the same package as the CPU/GPU, which makes transfers between the two really fast. This ontop

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by xack ( 5304745 )
      Apple was more co-operative before. They sold official intel pci boards for their PowerPC macs, and when Intel macs themselves came out they got bootcamp out after a couple of months. Apple's official stance now is use virtualization.

    • how long before an lockout is done? mac os moves more to being app store only?

      • how long before an lockout is done? mac os moves more to being app store only?

        Not THIS Shit Again?!?

        We're going on Two Decades of Two Rumors:

        1. This will be the Year Of The Linux Desktop.

        2. Apple will Make Mac Software App-Store Only.

        Neither will ever come true.

    • Why is Apple expected to supply engineer(s) to help implement some random third-party OS on their hardware?

      To extend the useful life of their hardware? They could do that by simply not dropping support for older hardware. When modern Apple hardware breaks, it gets e-cycled, because it is either bricked or handicapped by broken, unrepairable, hardware.

      To allow people to run Linux on hardware that doesn't have a hardware "right click"?

      Bottom-line, until you can explain their motivation to support alternate OS

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by necro81 ( 917438 )

        Why is Apple expected to supply engineer(s) to help implement some random third-party OS on their hardware?

        Expected? I did not say so. It would have been nice, though, and likely sped up the process. Linux hardly counts as "random third-party OS". One could quibble about it being this or that distro, but getting Linux on Apple Silicon benefits the broad community of both Apple and Linux users.

        And I would argue that it would be in Apple's own interest to do so officially. They didn't release Boot C

      • Why is Apple expected to supply engineer(s) to help implement some random third-party OS on their hardware?

        To extend the useful life of their hardware? They could do that by simply not dropping support for older hardware. When modern Apple hardware breaks, it gets e-cycled, because it is either bricked or handicapped by broken, unrepairable, hardware.

        To allow people to run Linux on hardware that doesn't have a hardware "right click"?

        Bottom-line, until you can explain their motivation to support alternate OS on their hardware in ways that INCREASE hardware sales, they are unlikely to help port other OSes to their hardware.

        (I doubt the team that accomplished this was able to do so without ANY help from Apple employees, but likely provided "off the clock" by sympathetic engineers)

        WTF is a "Hardware Right-Click"?

        Idiot.

        • WTF is a "Hardware Right-Click"?

          Older trackpads had left and right buttons under the trackpad so that there were individual inputs for left and right click.
          These days, it's all single-button (or in the case of Mac's, no-button/pressure sensitive)
          It's then up to the input handler in the OS to take finger position, value of (button|pressure area) and convert that into a left or right click.
          On linux, this hasn't traditionally been something with easy GUI tools baked in, you've got to google to get it working right (and play with libinput

          • WTF is a "Hardware Right-Click"?

            Older trackpads had left and right buttons under the trackpad so that there were individual inputs for left and right click.

            These days, it's all single-button (or in the case of Mac's, no-button/pressure sensitive)

            It's then up to the input handler in the OS to take finger position, value of (button|pressure area) and convert that into a left or right click.

            On linux, this hasn't traditionally been something with easy GUI tools baked in, you've got to google to get it working right (and play with libinput a bunch, since the keys that enable the modes in the driver/hardware aren't remotely standardized)

            The person you're replying to likely has a negative perception of software-right-click trackpads because of this, but I honestly haven't had a problem with them in ages. These days the quirks db is kept up-to-date well enough that libinput simply knows if you're emulated or hardware left/right click.

            Nobody knows how to make decent Trackpads but Apple, even after all these years. Never used one on a PeeSea that was worth even a small Fuck. Don't know why. The Chinese can copy every thing else; why not a frickin' TrackPad?!?

            • I don't quite agree with you.
              I've got a 2 first-generation Apple Silicon macbooks (M1 MBA, M1 Max MBP)
              The trackpads are nice, but they don't strike me as anything special.
              I'll grant you that they're a *lot* better than really cheap PC laptop trackpads, but they seem about the same as nice PC laptop trackpads.

              Either way, this was about "wtf is hardware right click". Now you know :P
              It's an ancient way that trackpads were made. Nothing has done it that way in a long time (that I'm aware of)

              • I don't quite agree with you.

                I've got a 2 first-generation Apple Silicon macbooks (M1 MBA, M1 Max MBP)

                The trackpads are nice, but they don't strike me as anything special.

                I'll grant you that they're a *lot* better than really cheap PC laptop trackpads, but they seem about the same as nice PC laptop trackpads.

                Maybe they've FINALLY gotten a LOT better since my last Samsung work Laptop; that was circa 10 years ago.
                Either way, this was about "wtf is hardware right click". Now you know :P

                It's an ancient way that trackpads were made. Nothing has done it that way in a long time (that I'm aware of)

    • I wonder how much more quickly this could have been produced - and with more seamless results - had Apple devoted even a single OS engineer to helping out. For a company sitting on $163B in cash, you'd think they could spare just a bit of contribution to the community.

      And, in return, although I applaud the Herculean effort this took, I wonder why most Mac Linux Users would bother?

      Seriously, is there really anything available for ARM Linux that could not be run on Apple Silicon macOS (11.0 and above), and with generally far less effort than Reverse-Engineering and Porting an entire Linux OS?

      Sincere question.

      • Seriously, is there really anything available for ARM Linux that could not be run on Apple Silicon macOS (11.0 and above), and with generally far less effort than Reverse-Engineering and Porting an entire Linux OS?

        Funny enough, the answer is games.
        Standardized graphics APIs are available for linux. The ones available for macOS are grossly out of date, or missing entirely.
        It means Linux is the best gaming platform for an Apple Silicon Mac right now. It's silly, but it's true.

        • Seriously, is there really anything available for ARM Linux that could not be run on Apple Silicon macOS (11.0 and above), and with generally far less effort than Reverse-Engineering and Porting an entire Linux OS?

          Funny enough, the answer is games.

          Standardized graphics APIs are available for linux. The ones available for macOS are grossly out of date, or missing entirely.

          It means Linux is the best gaming platform for an Apple Silicon Mac right now. It's silly, but it's true.

          That's because Game Devs. are too Fucking Lazy to Learn Metal; or to bother booting-up Apple's Game Porting Kit.

          • I think it's more likely that developers are not keen on learning Yet Another API, particularly when it means your different architecture ports are fundamentally incompatible with each other, unless there is major financial incentive to do so.

            • I think it's more likely that developers are not keen on learning Yet Another API, particularly when it means your different architecture ports are fundamentally incompatible with each other, unless there is major financial incentive to do so.

              Oh, give it a Rest, willya???

              I'm sick to Death of hearing this flimsy Excuse!

              Just How many Macs, iPhones and iPads are there, all running Metal, almost all with a tightly-controlled set of Hardware Configurations, and all using the same Dev. Toolchain, and all running some variant of essentially the same OS?!?

              Just how many Potential Seats are Enough?!?

              • It's not an excuse...
                Obviously, games that were written for a mobile environment will target Metal, because it's the predominant money-making API in that product space.
                As far as personal computers go though, Macs are a small fraction.
                As you point out below, things like MoltenVK do exist, but there's a significant measurably performance cost, and you still need to learn the entire ObjectiveC Frameworks for running on an appleOS device.

                It's pretty easy to see that some just don't feel that it's worth it

                • It's not an excuse...

                  Obviously, games that were written for a mobile environment will target Metal, because it's the predominant money-making API in that product space.

                  As far as personal computers go though, Macs are a small fraction.

                  As you point out below, things like MoltenVK do exist, but there's a significant measurably performance cost, and you still need to learn the entire ObjectiveC Frameworks for running on an appleOS device.

                  It's pretty easy to see that some just don't feel that it's worth it to learn for a market they don't consider that large.

                  Consoles and Personal Computers share graphics APIs, and ports between them are ubiquitous. That's not a coincidence.

                  Lazy Effing Developers. . .

  • I loved those sneakers back in the 80's. FYI - Fedora is from Redhat who is owned by IBM. Yuck.

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