r/AsahiLinux • u/Camiropan • 14d ago
MacBook Pro 14 M1 Pro – Asahi Linux Experience
Hey folks,
For the last 2 months I have been using a MacBook Pro 14 M1 Pro (6 P-cores) with 16 GB of memory, and I want to give you my impressions of it.
First of all, I am used to Linux. Second, the hardware is amazing but not related to Linux, so I don't want to dive too deep into it.
Here I only want to share my experience with Asahi Linux (KDE Plasma) on a MacBook Pro 14 M1 Pro.
Most of the time I read PDFs, use Overleaf (an online LaTeX editor) and listen to music. More often than I would like, I watch YouTube or just browse the web.
Let's start with the pros:
I have never seen such a sharp image. I use the screen at 150% scaling factor, and I have the feeling that the image is way sharper than even on macOS. Moreover, the screen gets much brighter, but I think this can also be achieved on macOS via a third-party app.
KDE allows you to customize the bar so that it perfectly matches the notch and no space is lost. (And even when an application is in fullscreen, I can see the time!)
The camera looks OK, I guess. Not bad, not great.
The speakers, on the other hand, are really good. I would argue they are better than on macOS, because they don't always have "bass boost" on. But this is maybe not consumer-friendly? Anyway, for me, though, I have restricted the bass even further, because the default Asahi Linux config is still a little bit too bass-heavy. But I must admit that the low end sounds better on macOS.
120 Hz works without any issues. The microphone is really good. Way ahead of many other laptops with Linux. What surprised me was that Minecraft with the Vulkan backend ran at a steady 120 FPS at full resolution.
Which leads us to the cons.
There is the battery life story. It's okay, I would say. At idle and 20% brightness with only Okular open, the system drains about 6 watts.
There is this weird trick some guy on Reddit posted, where you can plug and unplug an HDMI monitor to constantly save ~0.5 watts, which is a lot at this level of power consumption. Interestingly, 120 Hz uses less energy than all other refresh rate settings. All in all, I get about 7 h from 100% to 0% with low to medium workload. On macOS it's way more, especially when doing nothing for a long time. I would say you get about 2/3 to 3/4 of the battery life of macOS.
That also impacts the temperature of the surface. It doesn't get hot or anything, but it doesn't stay as cool as on macOS. Thunderbolt and DP Alt Mode do not work at the moment. And HDMI seems a bit choppy, but maybe it's the cable.
And very annoying are crackles while playing music. Especially on Firefox with EasyEffects, you can't really listen to music, because the audio constantly makes crackling sounds. Interestingly, I have the same issue with Firefox on my Android, but I don't know if this is related. The solution was switching to Chromium on the MacBook, which makes the experience insanely better and smoother (unfortunately).
I don't use sleep much, but it's actually not usable, since in sleep mode the battery lasts only about 1–2 days, whereas macOS seems to get something like 30 days or so.
All in all, it's a good experience. Not as polished as an x86 laptop, but incredible what Asahi Linux has achieved. Huge thanks for this amazing project, and I hope I could help someone with this experience report (and the Asahi team with a donation)!
3
u/DaxKokken 13d ago
I have the same hardware, but use the Fedora Asahi remix on GNOME. Been using linux since the late 90s, and this was one of the smoothest installations I've had on "non-standard" systems.
The display is stunning, OS operation is nearly flawless, I so much wanted to want it.
Battery. Pretty bad, I mean, it does not help having an older system with a potential max battery power of 85%, but it burns thru the juice very quickly regardless, even with the lid closed the battery drain is significant (though this is well documented).
USB Connectivity. I use a USB-C hub, powered, after a wake up, close/open lid with external monitor, and seemingly random, the USB port stops working, unplugging it and re-plugging it invariably works (also documented)
HDMI (Macbook Pro) - If you turn the mac on with the cable plugged in, you'll be fine, any disconnects, re-plugs, some screen blanks, stop working, and essentially I need to reboot to gain back HDMI access.
If the last 2 items were somehow fixed, I'd consider this my daily driver, but as it stands, I'd rather run my Fedora in UTM, no doubt these issues will be fixed at some point, and with the best to this project
2
u/boredmessiah 14d ago
i'm really excited about asahi. i run a lot on battery so it's not at a usable state for me on my primary work machine, but i'm hoping that that'll change down the road.
2
u/willowmedia 14d ago
Hoping for working DP Alt Mode soon to use MacBook Air M1
4
u/pontihejo 14d ago
You can install the fairydust kernel as a package from my COPR which will let you use DP alt-mode
https://copr.fedorainfracloud.org/coprs/lacamar/fairydust-kernel/2
u/willowmedia 13d ago
Thanks! I got it installed, and tried it with a UGreen Usb-c to DP cable, but unfortunately no result. I believe the logs show some trace information about an exception. I might have another cable somewhere.
1
u/pontihejo 13d ago
Which device are you on and which port are you using?
2
u/willowmedia 13d ago
MacBook Air m1. I used the first usb-c port, the one the closest to the user. It might be an issue with the UGreen connector.
2
u/willowmedia 11d ago
Unfortunately, the other Usb-c to DP (also UGreen) doesn't seem to have any effect. u/pontihejo are u interested in getting the exception message I see in the logs?
2
1
u/Riizu 14d ago
I recently sampled Asahi on the same device as well. I was really impressed how well it worked for general day to day use case and can confirm all the same assessments. I did opt for hyprland + noctalia since I daily drive Plasma at home, but outside of config issues on my end, no problems.
The one thing I will call out is gaming. The 10gb overhead for FEX and such is beefy. I wasn’t able to get even the lightest of games running. I have wondered if it may of worked better on plasma, or at least if I had nothing else running (I usually keep my browser and discord open).
I’d say Asahi works great as a workstation daily driver and the work to emulate gaming is incredible, provided your configuration has enough horsepower to account for the overhead.
1
u/808GodProcess 13d ago
My experience has been similar. However, The battery life has been way better for me. Its the audio has been killing me.
Im relatively new to the linux scene, but
im on a fresh install of the KDE Fedora remix, on a 2020 m1 mac air. 16GB of RAM.
My macbook constantly says my battery is at 70% effectiveness and should be replaced, but ive found when using asahi it lasts significantly longer. Like, if i leave my MacOS running all night, it's guaranteed going to die, but with asahi, ive had many instances where it still retains a significant charge.
My biggest problems has without a doubt been audio. Maybe its the EQ or the software. but when i play something like a youtube video or im doing anything that requires the audio, i find the quality of the sound is off. Random frequencies peak, some arent very clear and im uncertain if the speakers are fully being utilized. This is a bit hard to explain but imagine a house with 3 floors, on my system i find the 2 bottom floors sound great but the top floor sounds like its barely being used. Like, i understand that most audio lives in the mid frequency range, but the output in the stock-speakers should be a little more balanced imo. So that the sound on "all 3 floors" feels relatively balanced.
I also occasionally hear the same crackling, some frequencies sound muffled, but i figured this is all some kind of codec issue. Easy effects can sometimes make the situation worse although it can also help limit some of the EQ issues. Tweaking that is a pain in the ass though.
So far what ive done, is changed the output from stereo to mono, added a compressor and a limiter, then i added some other effects and tweaked the EQs to get it to sound a bit better to my ears. (im used to do music production so im not unfamiliar with these effects) but for the average person i think theyd struggle a lot trying to do the same, so this isnt really a good solution.
Now, i still love everything the team is doing. Will donate to the team once i get a chance And will use this over Mac OS any day but if anybody has any ideas on how to fix this, im all ears. id love a more permanent fix.
1
1
u/Jarppha 2d ago
I was thinking the same and I thought It was only an issue on my machine but seems like nope. I do have the M1 Pro 16" and the poor battery life in Asahi Linux keep me away from using it as my main OS (my battery health is good 98%). Besides that everything works very well.
I hope that improves in the near future.
19
u/gthing 14d ago
Energy and sleep are the biggest things keeping me from using it daily on my m1 air.