Use your MacBook and install Asahi on it ?
this post was submitted on 07 Oct 2026
52 points (98.1% liked)
Linux
68009 readers
1358 users here now
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Linux is a family of open source Unix-like operating systems based on the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released on September 17, 1991 by Linus Torvalds. Linux is typically packaged in a Linux distribution (or distro for short).
Distributions include the Linux kernel and supporting system software and libraries, many of which are provided by the GNU Project. Many Linux distributions use the word "Linux" in their name, but the Free Software Foundation uses the name GNU/Linux to emphasize the importance of GNU software, causing some controversy.
Rules
- Posts must be relevant to operating systems running the Linux kernel. GNU/Linux or otherwise.
- No misinformation
- No NSFW content
- No hate speech, bigotry, etc
Related Communities
Community icon by Alpár-Etele Méder, licensed under CC BY 3.0
founded 7 years ago
MODERATORS
I can’t give any firsthand recs at the moment, but I’ve had my eye on the ASUS Zenbook A16.
I’m a weirdo who likes ARM Linux, and this is the first non-Apple ARM SoC that has a decent memory bandwidth for LLMs. Not exactly blazing, but should be usable.
The snapdragon X elite chips don't have driver support for linux. From my research, it will not work. I also want a thin and light laptop with good battery life and would have loved the A14 if Qualcomm had not butchered linux support.
Sounds like you should buy another mac.
You want build quality and performance and code, game and use llms. That’s a mac use case. If the games you want run on it.
Pick one at refurbed.de or .nl - dead easy to find any type of hardware at a good price.
Not in the EU unfortunately. Hopefully one day.
Since you didn't list a budget, allow me to recommend the ASUS Flow Z13. That's what I have, and if you get the model with 128gb of unified memory, you can safely dedicate 96gb of that to the GPU for use with local models, allowing you to very easily run models that are too large for people with two 5090s to run. technically you could use more, but you want to keep a fair amount restricted to use as RAM so the system doesn't run out of memory. best of all, since the machine overclocked has a maximum of 90w for power usage, even under full load it uses less power than most people's gaming rigs do when idle. I know from experience that it is possible to run this device off of a small solar panel. when you are doing something low power, like browsing fedi, the power usage drops to around 5-10w on cachyos, meaning you get 6-8 hours of use per charge for low-power tasks. that drops to 1 hour when gaming, since it has a 70wh battery and the system normally uses 70w under load, but like most gaming laptops you will likely be plugged in when gaming so you get the full performance power.
for gaming, it's pretty good too. the AMD RYZEN AI MAX+ 395 in it has a Radeon™ 8060S built in, giving it about the performance of a 3060, except that it has potentially 96gb of VRAM. meaning you will have no issues setting textures to the absolute maximum in any game. I get good frames in most games, easily reaching over 100fps in most of the titles I play, like Dune: Awakening. you can use G-Helper for linux to do things like control fan and power profiles, if you want to really optimize things.
the biggest issue with this device is the price. it was never cheap, since it launched after the RAM shortage started, and things have obviously gotten worse since then. it's a serious investment. but as far as laptops for use with local AI go, I don't think there's currently a better option, all things considered.
I recently got a last gen HP Omnibook ultra flip. Macbook level build quality but with a flip touchscreen, pen and oled screen. Really happy with it and everything works in fedora.