Why Asahi Linux is not for me

Table of Contents

In previous posts I discussed some Asahi Linux specific setup to make Asahi Linux play nice with my MacbookPro M1 Max.

After running Asahi for about a week on my production laptop, I’m ready to do some evaluation.

Before I start of this rant, I want to take a moment to appreciate the enormous amounts of work the Asahi team put into their release. Reverse engineering all this hardware is not a small feat and I’m grateful for their work. The M1 Series Feature Support page gives you an indication of what to expect.

The good
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Let’s start with the good.

I can run Linux on my Mac. I love open source software, so this is a big deal to me. The installer script is, by far, the easiest linux install I ever did.
I was able to re-use my (Arch focused) Ansible machine setup playbook for about 80%, so Gnome was set up the way I like it in no time.
The touchpad is working, albeit not as smooth as on macOS.
Brightness, volume and keyboard backlight keys work out of the box.
The webcam works out of the box.
Battery and sensors work out of the box.

The bad
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Things that are not working as expected, but have viable workarounds.

Bluetooth works, most of the time. Sometimes it would just not work and my AirPods Pro would not connect. I think it’s related to sleep/suspend, but I’m not sure.
Wifi works out of the box, but it’s slow. On macos I get about 150-200mbps to the internet, on Asahi I get about 30-40mbps. It’s not a deal breaker, but I like my bandwidth.
TouchID is not supported. I can live without it, but I’m quite used to it to unlock my machine.
Some proprietary apps, like Spotify and Slack, have no aarch64 packages. Which means I have to use them in the browser.

The ugly
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Things that are not working as expected, but are deal breakers for me.

Audio output is horrible. It’s working, but the subwoofer is clearly not working and the audio quality is sub par. For someone who like to listen to some music, this is disappointing.
The built-in microphone is not working. This means that any video call you will need a headset. If my Airpods Pods would just connect when I need them, that would not be a problem, but they don’t. A wired 3.5mm headset would work, but I just moved to going wireless.
Power management is not great. Where on macos I can go a full day without charging, on Asahi I need to charge after a few hours. Even when in sleep/suspend mode, the battery keeps draining. When I close the lid at 80% battery, an hour later, I’m at 70%. I feel that the battery is draining faster than it should and it makes it hard to depend on any charge remaining when I need it.

Conclusion
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Should you run Asahi Linux on your Mac? If you are a Linux die-hard and can live with the bad and the ugly, sure.

But alas, this is a mobile work station and I really need those audio features and power management is important to me. If I was running this on a machine that was connected to a dock most of the day for power and an external audio interface, I would say: yes.

All in all, Asahi Linux is a monumental effort to make Linux run on Apple hardware.

If I really wanted Linux on my daily driver I would not go for Apple hardware.

Because I like AMD I’d probably go for one a Framework 16 or Tuxedo Computers Stellaris 15. The Dell XPS is a nice option too, but it only comes with Intel CPUs.

For now, I’m back to macos on the MacbookPro, but still running Linux on my desktop.

I run Arch, BTW.