Was looking at getting a macbook air with an m1 chip in it and running Asahi Linux on it. My question is how viable is it for daily life? E.g. browsing, torrenting, uni notes ect. Would it be equivalent to a regular x86 laptop running Linux? Or would I be missing useful features?
Edit: Another question is how it holds up against newer AMD laptops, as it is 3-4 years old at this point.
The m series really are a game changer for battery life and ease of use and weight. What the other person said about soldered on components is just completely ignoring the reality of the situation. There are plenty of arguments for and against soldered motherboards. Linus Tech Tips has a good video covering it.
The m1 isn’t as good as later chips, and the air really needs more oomph, but I literally run DaVinci Resolve, Lightroom Classic, and insta 360 studio on mine (mine is an M3) at the same time as I’ve got a thousand tabs in Firefox open and it can handle it just fine. Which is saying something as those are not lightweight programs.
I can’t compare it to an m1 air, but my dad has an m1 air and he’s never complained about it. He’s using it for just normal stuff though. Doc editing, web browsing, watching YouTube.
How much ram? I can’t imagine the 8gb model
16gb. It definitely would not be able to do all of that with only 8, but it would still be very capable.
I have a 24GB M2 and the thing dances around anything I throw at it. I’m typing on it right now with Onshape in a few tabs, orcaSlicer in a few windows, work in a few chrome tabs, a few iterm sessions, and a million other little apps in the background with very little hickups.