Asahi Linux, Day 0

[scottp]

A continuation of my journey to rid my life of all modern conveniences Mac OS. See part 1 for what can loosely be described as context.

For anyone unfamiliar with Linux, this post will either completely scare you away from installing Linux on your Mac, or it will -- no, just kidding, it's just going to scare you away. This is not the place to start with your Linux journey for most people, but let me give you some background just in case.

Linux Has a Bit of a Reputation.

Ask anyone you know if they plan on installing Linux on any device they own and chances are their response will be "No, I just need my devices to work." This is both heartbreaking and understandable. Linux has a long history of being Just For Nerds with its command lines and custom partition tables, but this is largely a thing of the past thanks to more human-friendly distributions like Ubuntu on Mint. In fact, as long as you're not starting your journey on the deep end (i.e. Arch or Gentoo) Linux is generally going to be friendly and familiar. Are there still some rough edges that require some user intervention from time-to-time? Sure, but even the Just Works operating system isn't without its share of quirks.

However...

While it is certainly true that generally available Linux feels more and more like Windows or Mac these days, Asahi is a little different. Make no mistake, it's still a very polished distribution, based on a very solid Fedora base. Most things do Just Work. Most, but not all, and there are some quirks that are going to require some patience to get through -- I started writing the post last evening but had to abandon it when I couldn't get the screen brightness to dim past 60% and the ambient contrast started to make my eyes bleed.

The list of quirks are well documented on Asahi's website, and entirely revolve around ongoing work to reverse engineer Apple's proprietary, undocumented hardware. Things like USB-C monitors do not work currently, audio over HDMI is hit or miss (mostly miss), screen brightness is a little buggy, the screen notch doesn't appear to work on my M1 at the moment -- the list goes on, but the grievances are minor, from my perspective.

This is What I Love About Linux

It's great that Linux is becoming more user-friendly -- I don't ever want to see that go away -- but I love that Linux can also be a place for humans to do cool stuff. The Asahi devs don't have to do any of this. This is purely a passion project, full of uphill battles. It's a project filled with burnout and users asking, repeatedly, when Feature X will be supported. But the project lives on -- not because of some huge corporate interests or advertisers or AI companies trying to extract data from you -- but because some nerds thought, "hey, I wonder if this is possible?"

So yeah, USB-C monitors don't currently work, and for some users that might be a deal breaker, and that's totally fine. I can remember a time when dual monitors weren't supported (man I'm old) and spending weeks of my life playing around with XRandR to try and get it working seemed completely sane. Writing software is hard, and seeing what the Asahi devs have pulled off is nothing short of jaw dropping.

No Rough Edges

I don't expect anyone to agree with me on this one, but I will assert that Asahi Linux exceeds every expectation I have and is devoid of rough edges. Do some features not work the way the devs would like them to? Yes. Are there pieces still being improved? Absolutely. But those aren't the benchmarks here, in my opinion. Asahi Linux -- or any Linux -- isn't trying to be the most slick Operating System you've ever seen (except for Zorin, probably), it's trying to give you your computer back. To that end, Asahi more than clears the mark.

I'm as guilty of this as anyone, but it can be easy to forget that all of the "highly polished" gadgetry and software that we regularly interact with was build using billions of dollars from companies with a vested interested in keeping you engaged and on their platform. Microsoft and Apple used to sell software, but now they're primarily in the business of selling highly integrated, incredibly convenient bear traps -- come to our platform, trust us with your stuff, and accept it when the prices start climbing -- are you really going to pair down all of those cat photos on One Drive just because of a few extra dollars a month in storage fees?

Final Thoughts

This is what it comes down to. Asahi -- really, Linux in general -- is almost nostalgic. It hearkens back to a time when we owned stuff. We can still own stuff, but it's up to each of us to put in the work. Microsoft isn't going to go out of their way to make your life easier and give you control over it.

I honestly hadn't planned on this post being some long rant -- it was originally supposed to be about how to install MakeMKV on Asahi (which ended up being too easy to justify a post), but it's been a long few months of hearing my coworkers talk about how bad and expensive tech is getting (a lot of them are paying for AI subscriptions, which are apparently getting more and more expensive) and I guess this all ended up being top-of-mind for me.

I don't think people still say this, but there used to be this sentiment of "vote with your dollar." It's an oversimplification of a complicated capitalistic hellscape, but I do think there are a lot more opportunities to do these tiny bits of micro-activism than we might think. It's work, to be sure, and it's unrealistic to expect everyone to have capacity for more work in their lives right now, but sometimes the willingness to put up with a few little frustrations is worth it in the long run.

To summarize: something something something, be the change you want to see in the world, platitude platitude, go install Linux on someone's computer this week.