I figured that the cultural issues of the Linux community would eventually come into play with Asahi Linux. Apple users are often compared to religious fanatics, but a vocal few in Linux land really sound like cultists, and that's not hyperbole. The Asahi team is going to have to set some ground rules, and being a brand new distro, they've got an opportunity to cut out a lot of cruft. Do we really need X11 dragging itself along like an undead ghost of Linux past?
The fun part is creating something new. The bad comes in dealing with the idiosyncrasies of the Linux platform, plus the unpleasantness of some of the maintainers. In theory, Linux sounds like pure technological democracy, until you step onto someone else's fiefdom, then it devolves into petty bickering. I appreciate Linux for what it is, but would never switch to it full-time, because the chaos is too much for me.
I visit Phoronix, from time to time, along with other Linux-partisan sites like OSNews. A lot of those folks seem to live in their own bubble, where if something isn't completely open, then it isn't worthy of consideration. The belittling of Apple Silicon is a great example; just because the product isn't designed for open source, doesn't mean there aren't users who want to use Linux on it. In fact, it's the only Linux distro that I currently have an interest in. Sometimes, I wonder if some in the open-source community would rather have their software used by a few hundred people worldwide, who share their stated values, rather than reach as many users as possible. Generally, you'd think growing market share is desirable, including with Mac users.
Ideology aside, I hope that Hector and team can concentrate on doing just what they need for the project, get Asahi Linux fully functioning and stable, grow a user base, then worry about the wider world of Linux and upstreaming. They've made astounding progress, but I can understand if platform issues, both technical and political, become a substantial problem moving forward.
asahilinux.org
but whatever floats her boat (plus I gather she’d rather stay personally private, which is definitely understandable given how the internet can be)
