Asahi Linux is interesting, to say the least. To say the most, it seemed to stutter a lot when I was first using it but that stopped. Ended up running KDE Plasma, which is still on version 5.27 as Fedora is still on 39. A lot of software is not available, and a lot of flatpaks tend to have errors that their RPM counterparts do not have. I have kind of given up on flatpaks for this install, to be honest.
The actual install itself was pretty easy, but removing it was another situation involving one script that I though was the complete script, but the answer marked solution on the fedora forums was wrong! I thought I had already bricked the laptop, but a lot of troubleshooting and eventually a complete revival (yes, that’s what it was called) fixed the issue, and I was able to get the installation the way I wanted it.
Still working on setting up, but it seems to be working. I would obviously reccomend it to anybody who already has a macbook, it’s stable and has all of the software I needed (not wanted, sorry Civ 6), including Mullvad VPN. However, if you are looking to get a new laptop, unless it’s the only option (
) I would recommend getting something x86_64 because the ARM processor is simply not up to par with x86_64 in terms of software availability and comparability (flatpaks). The battery life is much better though, I will give it that. I don’t know how macbooks tend to fair against other laptops with similar specs, but the screen and lid-durability are much better than on my old laptop (it had stress marks from me opening and closing it so much).
Sent from Fedora Asahi Linux 
Flatpaks are a difficult issue since some flatpaks are built non-transparently using pre-compiled blobs meant for amd64, this is a problem on Flathub with some apps but I think fedora-flatpaks shouldn’t have this issue (if it does then that sucks). Deep in my heart I also want to get an Apple Silicon machine since they are fan-less but the soldered SSD is a no-go, unless there’s a new model with a swappable ssd (very unlikely), I can’t recommend apple silicon hardware to anyone in good faith.
Waiting for the RISC-V laptop that inevitably drops in China in 5-6 years that compares to m1 and amd64 laptops (more than 8gb RAM and swappable large SSDs). I can’t wait to roll up to work with my Chinese laptop running entirely free software.
I think some Fedora Flatpaks were fine, but I know at least Libreoffice was not launching.
Same, RISC-V is very exciting. Hopefully people will have added support to their software by the time a major release happens.
I did not know that. Explains the quiet!
Kind of expected that but yikes, if anything happens to that SSD this laptop dies
Aren’t there already MIPS based laptops available in China with Loognson processors? I’ve actually been meaning to see if I can get one where I live off aliexpress or something.
Edit: Here ya go: https://www.aliexpress.us/item/3256804582346265.html
1500 dollary-doos oh no ma’am i use linux cause im POOR /hj
All this stuff looks really cool but it’s still in its infancy right now and also Fedora doesn’t have good support for RISC-V processors (they’re still working on ARM and hopefully apple silicon speeds that up).
Yeah I was disappointed seeing that too. I was hoping there’d be a cheap-ish netbook like variant just to play around with building and testing software for it. Though there are affordable-ish motherboards for desktops by the looks of it. Though keep in mind those are MIPS, not RISC-V. Both are RISC ISAs but MIPS has been around in computers much longer, but also isn’t very popular compared to ARM so software compatibility bmihht be an issue. I think the largest use of MIPS architecture was the PS2 processor.