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| 1 | 1 | #+date: <2025-05-02 Fri 21:10:00> |
| 2 | 2 | #+title: Trying Out Asahi Linux on the M2 Macbook Pro 16" |
| 3 | #+description: Read about my experience with Asahi Linux on an M2 Macbook Pro 16". | |
| 3 | #+description: Read about my experience with Asahi Linux on an M2 MacBook Pro 16". | |
| 4 | 4 | #+filetags: :mac:apple:linux: |
| 5 | 5 | #+slug: asahi-linux |
| 6 | 6 | |
| 7 | 7 | * Trying out Asahi Linux |
| 8 | 8 | |
| 9 | While debating if I should find a replacement laptop and get rid of my Macbook | |
| 9 | While debating if I should find a replacement laptop and get rid of my MacBook | |
| 10 | 10 | Pro, I decided to try [[https://asahilinux.org/][Asahi Linux]]. |
| 11 | 11 | |
| 12 | 12 | To put the bottom line up front, I love the experience and support for popular |
| @@ -48,15 +48,77 @@ KDE on Asahi works wonderfully and supports all of the generic features I'd | ||
| 48 | 48 | expect from a vanilla installation: |
| 49 | 49 | |
| 50 | 50 | - Snap to tile |
| 51 | - Theming | |
| 51 | - Shell and window themes | |
| 52 | 52 | - Graphical updates |
| 53 | 53 | - Sensible default applications (Dolphin, Firefox, KMail, Konsole, KWrite) |
| 54 | 54 | - Support for battery percentages, keyboard backlight control, and miscellaneous |
| 55 | 55 | sensor controls |
| 56 | - Fast and reliable bluetooth adoption | |
| 57 | - Native game pad support | |
| 58 | ||
| 59 | Here's a quick look at the default desktop. In subsequent screenshots, you'll | |
| 60 | see I started using the WhiteSur theme as it provides a more comfortable layout | |
| 61 | for macOS users. | |
| 56 | 62 | |
| 57 | 63 | #+caption: KDE |
| 58 | 64 | [[https://img.cleberg.net/blog/20250502-asahi-linux/kde.png]] |
| 59 | 65 | |
| 66 | When diving into the system information panel, we can see that this machine is | |
| 67 | running Fedora Linux Asahi Remix 42 on an Apple M2 Pro laptop with 16GB of RAM. | |
| 68 | ||
| 69 | #+caption: System Information | |
| 70 | [[https://img.cleberg.net/blog/20250502-asahi-linux/sysinfo.png]] | |
| 71 | ||
| 72 | As I noted above, the first thing I did after installing Asahi and taking a few | |
| 73 | screenshots was to install and change themes. | |
| 74 | ||
| 75 | I prefer the WhiteSur theme, as I used this theme previously on Linux before I | |
| 76 | switched to macOS. However, I also like themes that incorporate the gruvbox | |
| 77 | color palette, as well as the Nothing theme that uses a dark black and red color | |
| 78 | palette. | |
| 79 | ||
| 80 | #+caption: Themes | |
| 81 | [[https://img.cleberg.net/blog/20250502-asahi-linux/themes.png]] | |
| 82 | ||
| 83 | One of the things I use my laptop for the most is consuming media (music, | |
| 84 | television shows, movies, etc.), so I had to make sure that my bluetooth devices | |
| 85 | would connect properly. | |
| 86 | ||
| 87 | As you can see in the screenshot below, my AirPods Pro 2 connect seamlessly and | |
| 88 | are available for use. By going through the normal button-holding process, I was | |
| 89 | able to pair my AirPods in about 10 seconds. | |
| 90 | ||
| 91 | However, I have noticed that Asahi doesn't support some of the advanced AirPod | |
| 92 | capabilities like pausing media when you remove an AirPod from your ear. The | |
| 93 | lack of these advanced features doesn't bother me, but some people may be. | |
| 94 | ||
| 95 | #+caption: Bluetooth | |
| 96 | [[https://img.cleberg.net/blog/20250502-asahi-linux/bluetooth.png]] | |
| 97 | ||
| 98 | Next, I was able to connect my PS5 controller via USB-C and Asahi picked up the | |
| 99 | connect instantly in the settings menu. You can move the sticks and press all of | |
| 100 | the buttons to see if they're recognized within this settings menu. | |
| 101 | ||
| 102 | #+caption: Game Pad Settings | |
| 103 | [[https://img.cleberg.net/blog/20250502-asahi-linux/gamepad_settings.png]] | |
| 104 | ||
| 105 | I had a bit of an issue launching Steam the first time, as I was getting an AVC | |
| 106 | Denial error from SELinux. To fix this, I had to manually allow the Steam | |
| 107 | application access to the requested resources: | |
| 108 | ||
| 109 | #+begin_src shell | |
| 110 | sudo ausearch -c 'passt' --raw | sudo audit2allow -M my-passt | |
| 111 | sudo semodule -X 300 -i my-passt.pp | |
| 112 | #+end_src | |
| 113 | ||
| 114 | While my MacBook only has 16GB of RAM, which seems to be the bare minimum | |
| 115 | required for the virtualization overhead, I was able to test one or two games | |
| 116 | before they crashed due to RAM errors. | |
| 117 | ||
| 118 | However, I did confirm that my PS5 controller worked natively with these games | |
| 119 | on Steam! I don't think I will be gaming much on this laptop anyway, but it | |
| 120 | seems you should have at least the 32GB models if you want to game on Asahi. | |
| 121 | ||
| 60 | 122 | ** Software Support |
| 61 | 123 | |
| 62 | 124 | One thing to keep in mind is that Apple silicon chips (M*) are based on the ARM |
| @@ -67,6 +129,39 @@ While I have run into a handful of applications that do not have an ARM package | ||
| 67 | 129 | available, it is not as difficult as it used to be to find suitable apps for all |
| 68 | 130 | purposes on ARM. |
| 69 | 131 | |
| 132 | *** Signal Desktop | |
| 133 | ||
| 134 | One specific application that has been causing issues is [[https://signal.org/][Signal]]. The download | |
| 135 | page on their website will prompt you to install their Debian-based package, | |
| 136 | which does not work on RPM-based systems (or any other distribution except | |
| 137 | Debian & downstreams, such as Ubuntu). | |
| 138 | ||
| 139 | There are a few different websites offering potential solutions, but I settled | |
| 140 | on the [[https://github.com/kenballus/asahi-signal-desktop/][asahi-signal-desktop]] repository for now. | |
| 141 | ||
| 142 | #+begin_quote | |
| 143 | One thing to note is that this script does not work with all versions of Signal. | |
| 144 | I tested out 7.53.0 and found that the installer did not work at all. | |
| 145 | ||
| 146 | I had to use 7.44.0, as noted in the project's README, for the script to work. | |
| 147 | #+end_quote | |
| 148 | ||
| 149 | The installation process is simple. You can simply clone the repository and run | |
| 150 | the script: | |
| 151 | ||
| 152 | #+begin_src shell | |
| 153 | git clone https://github.com/kenballus/asahi-signal-desktop/ | |
| 154 | cd asahi-linux-desktop | |
| 155 | ./install_signal.sh 7.44.0 | |
| 156 | #+end_src | |
| 157 | ||
| 158 | At this point, Signal should work. However, I have run into constant crashing | |
| 159 | issues, so it's not a great solution. | |
| 160 | ||
| 161 | [[https://github.com/AsamK/signal-cli][signal-cli]] may work, but I have not tested this yet on Asahi. Before I used | |
| 162 | macOS, I used [[https://github.com/isamert/scli][scli]], which provides a TUI for the signal-cli utility and it | |
| 163 | worked wonderfully. | |
| 164 | ||
| 70 | 165 | * Final Thoughts |
| 71 | 166 | |
| 72 | 167 | I am still in the early days of testing out Asahi Linux, so I will be sure to |