10 years ago I bought Macbook Air to install and run Arch Linux on it. Since at that time Linus Torvalds was also using Macbooks and they were on Intel platform, it had all the drivers available.
Then in 2014 I was given the next Macbook Pro at work, and that did not support Linux anymore. Then I got upgraded version in 2019, and that one has even worse support.
During that time I had to get used to macOS, but I simply could not. Those animations or something else make it feel so slow in comparison to Linux desktop.
Then once pandemic hit and I started working from home, I could use my Linux desktop for work. It feels so much better.
I am not sure why macOS feels so sluggish in comparison.
Now I am hoping for Asahi Linux to support the new M1 Macbooks well enough to use them on a daily basis, but not sure if it will ever happen. I think the main thing that is missing is the GPU driver. I have not yet seen a good community build open source GPU driver that has decent performance.
> Then in 2014 I was given the next Macbook Pro at work, and that did not support Linux anymore.
interesting, the MBP 2014 is what I will forever remember as "one of the best computer I ran linux on". With archlinux almost everything worked from the very beginning except the webcam driver, and much faster than macOS. It just took some time for Chrome and Firefox to adapt to Retina because those weren't following Xft.dpi system property, but otherwise...
If I remember correctly, back in 2014 it lacked wifi and audio drivers, and the hidpi support on Linux was the main deal breaker.
I have also installed Linux on my work T2 2019 MBP, and it is looking much better but still rough around the edges and you can't use mainline kernel. At least hidpi on wayland works nicely, though not all of the apps do.
is it actually necessary, if you're using it for work (assuming you don't do anything heavily gpu dependent)? Supposedly asahi works pretty well even with just a framebuffer, being powered entirely by the CPU. I probably wouldn't want to run that, but even an inefficient gpu driver should probably be fine for office type work, as long as it's not glitchy, right?
Will see how it goes. I remember how AMD open source driver started more than 10 years ago. It was not a pleasant experience on my machine. Even now on AMD APU box that I use for gaming - GPU driver crashes at least once a month.
I hope that people behind Asahi will have better luck. :)
Then in 2014 I was given the next Macbook Pro at work, and that did not support Linux anymore. Then I got upgraded version in 2019, and that one has even worse support.
During that time I had to get used to macOS, but I simply could not. Those animations or something else make it feel so slow in comparison to Linux desktop.
Then once pandemic hit and I started working from home, I could use my Linux desktop for work. It feels so much better. I am not sure why macOS feels so sluggish in comparison.
Now I am hoping for Asahi Linux to support the new M1 Macbooks well enough to use them on a daily basis, but not sure if it will ever happen. I think the main thing that is missing is the GPU driver. I have not yet seen a good community build open source GPU driver that has decent performance.