I’m looking for an Apple MacBook Air M2 alternative that could run Linux.

I need something fanless, super lightweight with very long battery life. The only apps I use are Shotcut video editor, Chrome and Firefox.

Any advice?

Is it a good idea to get a MacBook Air m2 and use something like Asahi Linux or should I wait for arm linux laptops to become available.

  • ShortN0te
    182·
    8 months ago

    The only company that can achieve that kind of efficiency is Apple. I say this as a proud Apple hater.

    It is not about efficiency, we already know for some time that x86 is not really efficient compared to newer architectures like arm and risc.

    But no other ecosystem exists that can force such an architecture move without much much more problems.

    So i would rephrase it as “The only company that can force that kind of fundamental change on its user and developers is Apple”

    I am not saying it is a bad thing (just alone the rosetta translate layer is actually really impressive). Would love to have some actually good and mainstream arm options such as Linux Laptop.

    • aard@kyu.de
      11·
      8 months ago

      Microsoft is trying the same - but royally screwing up how they deal with hardware partners. Performance wise the snapdragons they use are roughly a decade behind what Apple is doing - I have both systems for work projects.

      The x86 emulation in Windows is imo better solved than rosetta - but the rest of the stack is a mess. For example, the deployment tools only got arm support a few months ago.

      And Linux support on those things sucks - while using it on the M1 is great.

      • jcarax@beehaw.org
        1·
        8 months ago

        Snapdragon Elite is going to be a rather sizeable step forward, thanks to the Nuvia purchase. Windows on ARM exclusivity is also going to end in 2025, and apparently both AMD and Nvidia are going to have chips ready. I’m hoping Lenovo and/or Dell will put some effort into Linux support once we have better chips, and that the likes of System76, Framework, and Starlabs are able to release ARM models.