[mark_l_watson]

It always impresses the hell out of me when I see side projects like this project that I couldn’t do myself.

On the economic/$$ perspective: the Linux in M1 projects are probably targeted at Mac Minis and given that when you pay for a Mac Mini you are paying for hardware and Apple software. Does this make sense economically, comparing other bare bone systems with a Mac Mini style form factor?

[rkangel]

> the Linux in M1 projects are probably targeted at Mac Minis

I'm not sure that's true. What the M1 gives you is an incredibly powerful processor that's also very power efficient. That gives you a spectacularly performing laptop with good battery life, making the M1 laptops compelling even if you want to run Linux.

If you're plugged into the wall the M1s are still quick, but there are other options to get you into the same ballpark. There are no other options that use as little power.

[vletal]

I'm curious about the power efficiency. From all my experience, all laptops I had usually drained battery much faster on Linux than on Windows. And these were very standard mainstream machines. M1 is a proprietary CPU which requires reverse engineering to even make OS running. I wonder how close to "native" is the Linux going to get.

[chippiewill]

I doubt the CPU itself will be that much trouble, it's still mostly an ARM CPU.

Power draw problems usually arise because the drivers are half baked and don't know how to turn the peripherals off when they're not being used.

It might not be native power efficiency, but if non-M1 Mac linux experience is anything to go by then it's still plausible that it can run circles around x86 based laptops with good Linux driver support.

[hvis]

> What the M1 gives you is an incredibly powerful processor that's also very power efficient.

While true, the benchmarks show that recent AMD CPUs have comparable power efficiency, even on single-core loads.

And it might be that a significant part of M1's advantage lives in some (proprietary) scheduling software, so the Asahi Linux effort might not reach the same numbers even with a few years of work.

But then again, some companies just standardize on Apple hardware for their employees, so this can at least allow people to run GNU/Linux in those situations. Someday.

[phire]

If you just want a system in the Mac Mini (or MacBook) style form factor, it's probably not worth it. There are plenty of x86 based alternatives and even some low cost ARM solutions.

But, if your requirement is for a "high performance" ARM based machine, suddenly the M1 macs become very appealing.

Many of the other solutions are ARM dev boards that have a tenth of the performance and very limited RAM. There are some half decent Snapdragon based laptops, but that only gets you about 50% of the way to M1 performance.

[darkwater]

> If you just want a system in the Mac Mini (or MacBook) style form factor, it's probably not worth it. There are plenty of x86 based alternatives and even some low cost ARM solutions.

Care to elaborate, or at least some names/models and opinions? I might be in the market for a fanless home server in that form factor. I might end up just buying a Synology but I would like to run HomeAssistant on it as well (although currently it just works fine on a Raspberry Pi4)

[cesarb]

Besides the NUC options, there are plenty of options in "tiny PC" form factors (for instance, https://www.servethehome.com/tag/tinyminimicro/ has reviews for several models). However, probably none of them will be fanless. If you really want fanless, you should look for industrial PC form factors, which often have to run for years in environment with lots of dust; there are several manufacturers once you start looking at it (for instance, http://www.gigaipc.com/).

[minimaul]

NUCs aren’t fanless, the newer versions tend to be 25W and have very loud and whiny fans, and in fanless cases they tend to throttle, sadly.

I replaced one with an M1 mac mini and the mac mini is faster and near silent - I have literally never heard the fan over the room’s background noise, and I’ve thrashed the thing.

[runjake]

Intel NUC or any of the NUC clones produced by other PC manufacturers, like the Gigabyte Brix.

[haswell]

It’s larger than a Mac mini because it’s meant to be a NAS, but I’ve been running FreeNAS on an HP MicroServer for almost a decade now and it’s been mostly great.

They still make products in that line although I’m not very familiar with the newer offerings.

[abrookewood]

Yep, I have one too and it must be close to 10 years old. Still chugging along running Ubuntu LTS and serving files via ZFS.

[OldHand2018]

FYI, the Mac Mini M1 has a fan that never turns off. It's very quiet, but it is not 100% silent.

To be fair, it is really hard to get the fan to speed up and make more noise.

[jpitz]

Mine sits on the desk 20 inches from my head, and I've never heard it.

[jraph]

(50 cm)

[OldHand2018]

I mean, I can't hear mine unless I put my ear to it. But now I have to read up on why the fan isn't just shutting off. Is it my 4k display?

[navjack27]

Mine is off. The RPM reading is zero.

[jalgos_eminator]

Protectli. They are fanless and use 7th or 8th gen Intel laptop processors. Uses regular laptop memory and mSATA/NVMe for storage. If you run OpenWRT on them they are blazing fast, but its a regular x86 box with an HDMI port so you can run a full GUI if you want.

[blinkingled]

Asus PN50 - has a good enough IGP too. Runs fairly silent (not dead silent mind you though), has decent power consumption profile and recent Linux kernels are stable on it.

[phkahler]

I'm a fan of the Mellori-ITX: https://github.com/phkahler/mellori_ITX

It's a little larger, but the only fan is the CPU fan and that generally stays slow and quiet. It's time to update it with a new motherboard and put a 5700G to get 8 cores. The one shown in the pics is my software development machine and it's a dream for that.

[luke2m]

Maybe not for new hardware, but in the future, mac users get the new M7 or whatever, and want to run a Linux desktop or server on their old hardware. And if this project gets stable enough, I would want to buy an old ARM mac to use as a linux machine.

[gizdan]

If the performance of the M1 with Linux matches the performance with macOS I honestly believe it's worth it. Apple has produced a wonderful product and personally I'm very likely to purchase a Macbook Pro M1 if Linux is stable on it.

[arvinsim]

Why not get the Air? Are you optimistic that the touchbar will be fully supported?

[gizdan]

Because I stupidly forget that something as stupid as a touchbar was created in the first place. Perhaps it'll be the Air in that case.

Edit: worth noting that the Air is more likely to thermal throttle the Pro, which would be a major reason to go for the Pro. I support it'll be alright if it's mostly connected to a keyboard.

[marcan_42]

Go with the Air. It's not a huge difference in thermal performance as far as I can tell.

We're going to support the Touch Bar to make those machines useful, but given it's likely to be dead in the next generation, it's unlikely Linux will get any kind of ecosystem for it unless someone is really dedicated. I can only promise basic function key emulation (same kind of thing you get on T2 Macs with Windows/Linux), and it will take some time since that needs a couple bespoke drivers and we have bigger fish to fry first.

Then again, you could also wait for the next generation. As long as M1X didn't redo the GPU, which seems unlikely, I don't expect support for that chip to lag much behind M1.

[gizdan]

My feeling has been that linux on M1 isn't going to be stable until the next generation so I was definitely going to wait. But that's future talk. If it becomes stable, I may just do it.

[InvaderFizz]

Rumors are that the touchbar is going away with the next generation of MBP anyways, so it may not matter.

As for thermal throttle on the Air, you can spend $10 and 10 minutes installing thermal pads to bridge the CPU and the aluminum backplate. This will cause the backplate to heat up more, but nearly eliminates any thermal throttling even under sustained load.

[eyelidlessness]

The touch bar is very likely to be removed in the new models (expected in October).

[ntnsndr]

It's good planning ahead for when Apple no longer supports perfectly fine old-ish machines. Both my mother and wife are now using Linux not because their computers broke but because Apple gave up on them.

[Angostura]

Ummm, my daily driver is a 2012 iMac, still working fine and receiving updates with a replacement SSD. How old are we talking?

[tonyedgecombe]

Officially Big Sur is unsupported so you won't be getting updates for much longer:

https://support.apple.com/en-gb/HT211238

[Angostura]

I'm still on Mojave and getting security updates. At some point I'll move to Catalina and keep getting them.

[cguess]

How old are their machines? Apple's next MacOS version supports MacBooks Pros going back to 2015. Seven years is a pretty long support cycle.

[arepublicadoceu]

Oh my, the mobile market really skewed our perception of reasonable support cycle. What a crazy world where 7 years is a “pretty long support cycle” for personal computers.

I have money to spend on computers but I still use a 10 years old laptop running windows and Linux (both supported) and with absolutely no desire to upgrade it as it runs better than when I bought it (after a ssd swap and more memory). There’s nothing that I do on my personal computer that would be improved by purchasing a new machine. Same goes with most people I know.

[sofixa]

> I have money to spend on computers but I still use a 10 years old laptop running windows and Linux (both supported)

For Windows that will stop in 2025(EOS for Windows 10 and Windows 11 has requirements that basically require <3-4 year old machine)

[jeroenhd]

Is it? Windows has always had an extended support life cycle if ten years, and Windows 11 is heavily criticised for their new restrictions on hardware. I've seen Windows 10 run just fine on budget devices that go further back than that.

You can get the most recent Ubuntu LTS to run on a ten year old Thinkpad without issue. The performance may be limited bytthe hardware, but the software isn't the problem here.

Honestly, if I were to pay the premium prices Apple asks for their products, I'd expect them to outsupport a bunch of hackers that had nothing to do with the hardware.

[masalah]

It's ridiculous how people downvote this and support apple and other corps rendering otherwise fine hardware into waste

[pantalaimon]

I'm still on Ivy Bridge (2012) and it works just fine with the latest & greatest Linux software.

[yjftsjthsd-h]

> Seven years is a pretty long support cycle.

Linux and BSDs happily support decade+ hardware, and sibling comments say similar things for Windows, so not really.

[Joeri]

On top of that I don’t think anything older than a core 2 duo is fast enough to use for web browsing, and most of those macs can be patched up to big sur using the various community patchers.

[metahost]

Not just that but also the fact that the person is so young and so talented! It is amazing and humbling.

[jon-wood]

If you just want something in that sort of form factor, buy an Intel NUC which will work out of the box with any Linux you throw at it.

[tomxor]

There is also another factor for some of us...

Although practically I am interested in running Linux on an appleM1, my conscious will no longer allow me to fund the company producing it, so I can never own one.

[nisegami]

Is buying a used M1 Mac an option?

[tomxor]

Unfortunately not. Buying used Apple products benefits Apple indirectly by helping sustain resell value, which affects consumers willingness to part with more money for new products... I'd merely be indirectly funding Apple.

Perhaps it's over principled, I know I'm an insignificant spec in the market. However I cannot tolerate the idea of them obtaining monetary support from me - because then i'd be complicit in their immoral behaviour.

What would be wonderful is if the M1 was an effort independent of Apple. But the capitalist world is moving in a direction of more merging and vertical integration which makes it difficult to vote with your money when it gets redistributed into one enormous corporation... so the only remaining option is to not vote.

[alfonsodev]

I bought my M1 refurbished from Apple, so far zero problems.

https://www.apple.com/shop/refurbished

[derefr]

I think the GP didn’t mean “in non-new condition”, but rather “from the secondary market, so that you aren’t giving Apple your money.” Getting a refurbished Mac from Apple still involves giving Apple money.

[meowster]

Also, supporting the secondary market, supports the primary market.

Additionally, being seen with Apple hardware supports Apple's legitimacy.

[pcdoodle]

I'm in the same boat. If I need one, I'll buy it used.

[speed_spread]

To add to your torment, sustaining the used market provides additional incentive to those buying new since they know the hardware will preserve its value longer. You'll still be indirectly supporting the company by justifying the value of their products.

[scoopertrooper]

Isn't that a bit extreme? What is Apple doing that is so morally wrong that you can't give them money for a quality product?

[Syonyk]

Having thought through this extensively in my trip off Apple products:

- They have doubled down on "build it in China" for everything, including labor practices that are... not ideal, at a minimum. "Dying for an iPhone" details their last decade or so of labor abuses, or at least "looking the other way while China abuses labor for them."

- As a result of that, and their desire to sell into the Chinese market, they have bowed before the CCP regarding data storage, encryption, etc. For a company that has held a hard line regarding privacy of user information, to see them bow to a rather hostile government like that is very concerning.

- The on-device CSAM scanning, similarly, reflects what can most reasonably be described as "bowing to another government." I know the tech news has abandoned that bit of bad news, forgotten, and moved on to satellite phone stuff, but I consider it turning my own device and resources against me in ways I cannot support.

In the past year or so, Apple has demonstrated that they say one thing out one side of their mouth ("Privacy! Your data is your data! Ethical labor!") while doing other things in practice. So, I'm no longer comfortable supporting them, and am trying not to.

I'm aware that most of this can be applied to the bulk of the consumer tech industry at large, which is another problem, and one I'm certainly trying to ponder through. The main conclusion, I think, is that one ought not buy any new/recent hardware, and figure out ways to work with less. I've been moving over to small ARM computers as I try to find less-hostile devices, but the supply chains upstream there are less-known and a bit of a mystery, so I'm not sure I can make strong claims one way or another. However, I know at this point that Apple hasn't gone about really improving things, instead just looking the other way as Foxconn continues the same tricks.

It's perfectly fine to not care about any of that, and prefer the shiny integrated computer, and I've certainly done that for the past 18 years of my life. But I'm no longer OK with that, and am trying to get clear of it.

[Joeri]

Given that you’ve researched it, what laptop brands would you recommend that aren’t made in china?

[Syonyk]

That's the problem.

There aren't any anymore. Everything is out of China.

I've been using some cheaper ARM stuff, but I can't verify Pine's supply chains either, beyond "Erratic." So unlikely to be as close to forced labor as Apple's are, especially during new product season.

[scoopertrooper]

This is the height of silliness. You don't want to use Apple products because they get their products assembled in China by Foxconn (a Taiwanese company). However, your solution is to buy "cheaper ARM stuff" such as Pine products, because you assume their factory conditions will be less dickensian despite also being manufactured in China.

You know about the bad conditions in the Foxconn factory because of the notoriety of the companies (Apple and Google) that get their products assembled there. However, it's likely that the conditions at Foxconn are better than those at the fly-by-night operators employed by Pine, which are subject to less scrutiny. Companies like Pine also have less ability (and incentive) to press for better conditions.

If you really wanted to use products with the least manufacturing footprint in China, you'd be looking at Samsung and Sony devices, but I guess they're not edgy enough for you.

[kilburn]

As someone in a similar position to yours, let me add a couple reasons:

- Sustained push towards non-repairability of their devices. Solder/glue everything, prevent 3rd party replacements.

- Monopolistic behavior where they can get away with it. The CEO blatantly lying to congress [1].

[1] https://medium.com/hyperlinked/all-the-times-tim-cook-lied-i...

[rjsw]

The RPi4 and new Pine64 Quartz64 can both have 8GB of RAM, the M1 is faster though.

[ducktective]

What is your experience about Linux on Macs in general?

[macNchz]

Not OP, but I've used a Mac as my main computer since I was a kid in the mid 90s, and I've installed Linux on most of my Macs at some point or another since like 2002.

Every single time I've found it sufficiently cumbersome and glitchy that I moved back off of it within a few weeks. Last fall–needing a new computer, frustrated with the slow iOSification of MacOS, and anticipating months to years of compatibility issues with developer tools on the M1–I built a desktop PC and installed Ubuntu.

I figured if running Linux was as annoying as it had been on my Macs I'd just install windows and run a VM like I'd done for years on Mac, but it has been way smoother than I expected. There are still a few driver issues now and then, but I mostly just bought the newest hardware and didn't make much of an effort to ensure compatibility. I'm not sure I'll buy another Mac at this point, but if I do I'm not going to bother with Linux.

[squarefoot]

Not the OP, anyway I used Debian on my old Mac Mini (first model, PPC CPU) about 2007 or so as media player connected to a projector, all mounted on a wooden shelf over a door; very compact and fit nicely in the living room. I used a media player roughly similar to Kodi (can't remember the name atm) that loaded just after boot without requiring login, set up to connect automatically to my NFS NAS and present all media as browseable directories; I later also added a USB TV dongle for DVB-T TV, so it was practical enough to be used by the girlfriend who isn't much into computers. A wireless IR keyboard with sort of a trackball (actually a giant equivalent of the Thinkpad red mouse "thing") completed it. It lasted a few years though, as pretty soon I discovered that a Raspberry PI that cost about 1/25 could do almost the same things, so I gave the Mini to a relative of mine who is an architect, and never heard that awful loud "boonnnnng" sound again. I had to fiddle a bit with startup scripts, kernel recompiles etc. to bring it to useable level, today it would be probably a plain install, but was helpful and taught me a couple things. As for MacOS, I tried it, it was like a large polished, beautiful, golden cage. It has every possible comfort, but it was still a cage, and it lasted a few hours before I installed Debian over it.

[OneEyedRobot]

Also not the OP.

I've got a Mac Mini (2014?) that I bought for a Mac/Windows contract. Contract is long over so I wiped Windows and now dual-boot MacOS and Pop!_OS (a terrible name). Works fine. The machine is tolerably fast/quiet.

I'd scrub the MacOS entirely as I'm not a huge fan but still like to mess with Rocksmith now and again.

[mark_l_watson]

I have an old MacBook Air running Ubuntu Linux, and that is my only experience.

[jmnicolas]

It's not about making sense economically it's just that there are not many ARM platforms out there, so if you want a native ARM dev box, Apple is pretty much the only choice.

[ChuckNorris89]

That's not true at all. There's plenty of ARM platforms out there, especially in the Linux world they've been around a long time (does the Raspberry PI ring any bells? Or Nvidia Jetson? Or Freescale iMX6? Or Beaglebone Black?). Of course, they don't have M1 performance, but best in class performance was not a condition in you statement.

[jmnicolas]

You're right I should have said an arm laptop. Microsoft have (had?) one and that's pretty much it.

[commoner]

The Pinebook Pro is an ARM laptop designed for Linux:

https://www.pine64.org/pinebook-pro/

It doesn't have the performance of a MacBook, but it's also just $220 (when it's back in stock).

[yjftsjthsd-h]

There are some nice Chromebooks in that space

[davidbanham]

That power efficiency also buys you thermal efficiency, which buys you silence. Silent small form factor PCs are available, but to get one that won’t throttle all the time is pretty spendy.

[squarefoot]

I think this might be useful for those who already are into the Mac ecosystem, so they'd pay for one anyway. I personally wouldn't touch one with a 100 meters pole, not even for free, especially after the recent developments about privacy and security related to Apple.

[mschuster91]

At least for Apple MacBooks, there is nothing in the Windows world that comes even close to them in terms of pure hardware capability.

The Linux software-side support is... a bit of a mess though.