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How likely is such tuning to happen within the practical lifetime of these devices? It's already been years and Linux isn't even feature complete on newer model

How likely is such tuning to happen within the practical lifetime of these devices? It's already been years and Linux isn't even feature complete on newer models. Apple's indifference to OSS does not give me much hope.

LoganDark 21d ago
I would assume that once you have fully functional support for entire historical SoCs, the effort stops being "get most things working on most chips" and starts becoming "adapt already-working things to the newest chips". Yes, it's been years, but there's still so much hardware that Asahi doesn't have good support for yet, and that's dividing the efforts to support the newest chips. I'm sure that once all the existing chips are well-supported, new chips will be fairly quick to bring up.
- paulryanrogers 20d ago
  I've daily driven Linux for years, even on laptops. Yet they're always plugged in because I've yet to see Linux out perform battery life of native OS's. Well, except for very niche and pared down Linux's. Rather it seems that as time goes on Linux just outgrows old devices entirely, again excluding very niche distros. Not that it makes them increasingly efficient. Have you seen Linux getting more efficient over time? What's your use case?
  - LoganDark 20d ago
    I'm definitely not the one to ask, I use laptops as movable workstations, always plugged in.
superb_dev 21d ago
Given the enormous lifetime of these devices, I’d say chances are pretty good! The only thing that’s going to make an M series Mac obsolete is when Apple stops releasing updates. If you can run Linux on it, that thing is going to last forever.
- paulryanrogers 20d ago
  My concern is for the devices I have, which are usually newer, and for battery life. Linux doesn't even have full hardware support, much less efficient battery life on these now several year old devices. Maybe things will unlock soon and stay that way long enough for it to be viable for me. I'm just not holding my breath. Of course it's great to have a supported OS for retired hardware--regardless of battery performance. That's a different use case. And I salute all those who work to keep old devices out of landfills.
GeekyBear 20d ago
The new project leadership team prioritized upstreaming the existing work first. Once the upstreaming was largely done, they first mentioned beginning the work of adding M3 support in the February progress report. Now we have this: > With all of this progress coming on top of milestones already reached on M3, we are pleased to announce that we are almost ready to cut an official release! We will have more to say about this in the coming weeks, so stay tuned! I'm not seeing any reason for gloom or doom.

LoganDark 21d ago

I would assume that once you have fully functional support for entire historical SoCs, the effort stops being "get most things working on most chips" and starts becoming "adapt already-working things to the newest chips". Yes, it's been years, but there's still so much hardware that Asahi doesn't have good support for yet, and that's dividing the efforts to support the newest chips. I'm sure that once all the existing chips are well-supported, new chips will be fairly quick to bring up.

paulryanrogers 20d ago
I've daily driven Linux for years, even on laptops. Yet they're always plugged in because I've yet to see Linux out perform battery life of native OS's. Well, except for very niche and pared down Linux's. Rather it seems that as time goes on Linux just outgrows old devices entirely, again excluding very niche distros. Not that it makes them increasingly efficient. Have you seen Linux getting more efficient over time? What's your use case?
- LoganDark 20d ago
  I'm definitely not the one to ask, I use laptops as movable workstations, always plugged in.

superb_dev 21d ago

Given the enormous lifetime of these devices, I’d say chances are pretty good! The only thing that’s going to make an M series Mac obsolete is when Apple stops releasing updates. If you can run Linux on it, that thing is going to last forever.

paulryanrogers 20d ago
My concern is for the devices I have, which are usually newer, and for battery life. Linux doesn't even have full hardware support, much less efficient battery life on these now several year old devices. Maybe things will unlock soon and stay that way long enough for it to be viable for me. I'm just not holding my breath. Of course it's great to have a supported OS for retired hardware--regardless of battery performance. That's a different use case. And I salute all those who work to keep old devices out of landfills.

GeekyBear 20d ago

The new project leadership team prioritized upstreaming the existing work first. Once the upstreaming was largely done, they first mentioned beginning the work of adding M3 support in the February progress report. Now we have this: > With all of this progress coming on top of milestones already reached on M3, we are pleased to announce that we are almost ready to cut an official release! We will have more to say about this in the coming weeks, so stay tuned! I'm not seeing any reason for gloom or doom.