Hardware video decoding now being worked on!

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.ml/post/45004224

In other non-news, I just "dnf5" updated my #AsahiLinux install from #Fedora 42 to 43. The only caveat I can provide is that this #mac (m2 pro mbp) still runs un-updated from Sonoma 14-something, since I (quite) never use the Dark Side of this machine & never bothered to touch it. Having had to fiddle with a brand new such laptop recently, I can confirm that the more modern your #apple device is, the greater the pain in your lower parts it is. #Asahi #Gnome #foss #linux

I followed the fedora instructions on system-upgrade, and after rebooting to install the system, the install screen became stuck at 12% for 5 or 6 hours. I forced a shutdown, and now I get a kernel panic when trying to boot.

I attempted to boot into 3 other kernels listed on GRUB (all v.4 2), but they're also leading to a kernel panic.

I was able to chroot into the system using this:

https://github.com/leifliddy/fedora-macos-vagrant-builder

but any attempts to dracut, upgrade etc haven't worked.

How can I fix this mess from chroot?

Cross posted from https://suppo.fi/post/11163231

We are happy to announce the general availability of Fedora Asahi Remix 43. This release brings Fedora Linux 43 to Apple Silicon Macs.

Fedora Asahi Remix is developed in close collaboration with the Fedora Asahi SIG and the Asahi Linux project. This release incorporates all the exciting improvements brought by Fedora Linux 43. Notably, package management is significantly upgraded with RPM 6.0 and the new DNF5 backend for PackageKit for Plasma Discover and GNOME Software ahead of Fedora Linux 44. It also continues to provide extensive device support. This includes newly added support for the Mac Pro, microphones in M2 Pro/Max MacBooks, and 120Hz refresh rate for the built-in displays for MacBook Pro 14/16 models.

On MacOS, the F6 key toggles Do Not Disturb mode instead of going to sleep, which I personally find more useful.

Here's what worked for me on GNOME:

run

sudo nano /usr/lib/systemd/logind.conf

uncomment HandleSuspendKey and change its value to ignore

HandleSuspendKey=ignore

save, copy it to the location below so it persists across updates:

sudo cp /usr/lib/systemd/logind.conf /etc/systemd/logind.conf

open GNOME's Keyboard Shortcuts GUI, create a shortcut called Do Not Sleep, map it to the Sleep key (F6) and to the command below:

sh -c 'gsettings set org.gnome.desktop.notifications show-banners $(if [ "$(gsettings get org.gnome.desktop.notifications show-banners)" = "true" ]; then echo "false"; else echo "true"; fi)'

So far I’m impressed third party software support lacks but that expected, so far all necessary functionality works amazing took me a bit to get used to the keybinds but no other complaints so far.

Although it's been a great experience so far, not everything was smooth sailing out of the box on my 15-inch M2 Air on GNOME, so I had to make a few adjustments, like:

• Changing GRUB to recognize the notch and give me more screen real estate
• Installing Just Perfection extension to move the time/date info out of the notch area
• Fixed Bluetooth audio stuttering with this: https://github.com/christian-korneck/asahi-bt-a2dp-fix
• Installed Toshy to remap keys as they are used in MacOS
• Installed Quick Settings Tweaks to hide the microphone icon from the top bar (due to a bug, it always shows up red as if recording)

I'm wondering if anyone else has any other must-do tips after installing Asahi.

TLDR; more things working. More confidence of this being a permanent go-forward solution.

USB-C 2nd port now working

Both USB-C ports are working now, and also with hubs (both USB3 and USB2 hubs) with devices off of them. I wish I could say it was up to my diligent work, but what seemed to do the trick was just a reboot. I’ve rebooted multiple times since that one time for other reasons and both USB-C ports continue to work. My USB-C (USB3) gigabit NIC is also consistently working, which is great.

Display

Still with my old DL-165 based Displaylink adapter, I’ve revered back to the default resolution of 1680x1050 at 60Hz. At the display adapters limit of 1920x1080 the desktop stitching seems to be unreliable where there will be overlap between the left and right displays by about 30 pixels. Additionally video performance is noticeably impacted for full motion video at the max res. The overlap is likely fixable, but I’m just going to source a modern Displaylink adapter instead of trying to get this one from 2009 working solid on a machine from 2022. The current config is still sufficient with the old adapter for my needs right now.

I’ve also dug quite a bit more into Displaylink technology in general to understand what is going on under the hood. It can be very CPU and RAM hungry. At one point I had a kworker thread taking 48% of the total system CPU and as soon as I unplugged the Displaylink adapter that thread disappeared. I’m also seeing much of the 24GB of RAM in this laptop being used by something and I suspect a its also Displaylink. I don’t know if its because of this old model, or if all Displaylink adapters would have equal resource consumption on the host system.

I want to figure out how to see how much of the shared memory is being consumed for the integrated graphics, and for the Displaylink frame buffer but having found a measurement point for either yet.

Power Management

I’ve done some work with ACPI and power configuration on x86 systems and assumed much would be the same. That was NOT a good assumption. At least Mac silicon doesn’t use anything like BIOS, EUFI, or ACPI. Instead it uses a Device Tree initialization which is something I’ll have to do a lot of reading on. Further, I’ve read some of the documentation from the m1n1 developers regarding the SMC where I’m guessing all of the power management sensors, data, and many of the controls reside to improve the power management of the hardware under Linux. The 1400 different values, with many being read/payload returns show me that the folks working on this have already done a HUGE amount of work, and there is still so much left to uncover with no documentation from Apple.

General

I’m doing more tweaks to the desktop environment. Learning the keyboard shortcuts, and uncovering small nice features (like “limit battery charging to X%”). I now have the unit only charge to 80% before stopping to save wear and tear on the battery from deep cycling.

The unit is plenty fast for my need and I have room to grow in it. My thanks again to the Asahi developers both past and present as well as the Fedora Remix maintainers!

TLDR; So far so good! I'm not seeing any dealbreakers yet, and the prospects look good for a permanent solution for me.

I have never been a Mac owner prior to this (but have used them for work numerous times). My (new to me) used Macbook Air M2 arrive in the mail yesterday. After making sure all the hardware was functional in OSX, I used the curl based Asahi Linux installer, choosing Asahi Fedora Remix with KDE.

The install:

Very VERY easy! The installer was probably the best Linux installation experience I've ever had. Of the 2TB storage I reserved 500GB for OSX, allocated 1TB for Asahi, and leaving 500GB unallocated (plans for later).

The good:

• The desktop experience is fast and responsive. - I was worried now that I was in ARM (aarch64) architecture, applications I wanted to use would have issues with compatibility. I have zero issues installing and running from simple "dnf install" commands. So far all have aarch64 native builds.
• I have a functional external display
• The macbook hardware is high performing, low weight, and great build quality.
• Battery life looks decent enough for my needs

The bad:

• External Display: While I mentioned I have a working display, its via an old DL-165 based USB 2.0 Displaylink adapter. It appears to be very finicky with which DVI to HDMI adapter it will work with. Additionally, on first use it doesn't appear to set up the display properly for the 1920x1080 resolution (the limit of this adapter) but instead defaults to 1650x1080. I've been able to fix this with a kscreen-doctor command on the CLI though. I may have to do more to automate this in the future, though.
• Power management/hibernation: I learned that Asahi not only doesn't support S4 hibernation (my ACHI sleep profile of choice), but its not even on the development roadmap. I've seen a couple of the developer notes as to the difficulties, and it makes sense with the limited resources, so I agree with their path. However, that leaves me with concerns for the life of the hardware. In the days ahead, I'll explore what I can do from userland to reduce impact on the hardware and cycles on the battery.
• USB port behavior: The Macboook air only has 2 USB-C/Thunderbolt ports. I understand Thunderbolt isn't supported yet, and I'm just fine with that. USB3 is plenty for all of my needs at this point. However, the two ports on the unit don't seem to behave the same. The USB-C port closer to the charging port works with my USB-C hub, USB2 DisplayLink adaptor, and USB2 100Mb/s NIC, and even my USB2 headset/mic. None of these work on the second USB-C port on the Macbook. I would have written this off as bad hardware, but USB-C charging works fine on this port. I need to do more checks from OSX to validate hardware functionality, and more investigation on /var/log/messages to see if I can find a reason for this difference. I did see a developer note that one USB-C port on the Mac is more functional for development, but I don't know what that means yet.
• Community: I haven't found THE PLACE where Asahi users congregate to talk about issues or solutions. I see there's a Reddit subreddit which has the most (but I have chosen to not post to Reddit anymore, and avoid it as much as possible). There is a Fedora community with some Asahi posts. Lastly, today I found this Lemmy community with a handful of users. I hope to find THE PLACE to best be able to learn from others and share what I've learned.

After many months of trying to deal with this AI crap Apple was throwing at us, I knew it was finally time to start the migration. Did the terminal instal. Everything went smoothly. Installed some apps and extensions. Honestly most painless install. Now for my iPhone…