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.

  • femboy_bird@lemmy.blahaj.zoneEnglish
    1·
    9 months ago

    I don’t like apple as a company and their attitude towards repair makes it so i feel obligated to never recommend one of their products, but if you need it to be fanless, a macbook air is prolly your only really good option, honestly though an m1 should be just fine (I’m assuming your video editing workloads are pretty light), also i recommend checking out Just Josh on YouTube https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCtHm9ai5zSb-yfRnnUBopAg, he has some great laptop reviews

  • jhdeval@lemmy.world
    1·
    9 months ago

    I run an older dell xps 13. Its a bit under powered but most of my real work is done on a remote server.

  • Aggravationstation@lemmy.ml
    1·
    9 months ago

    I had the Pinebook Pro. It was pretty good, solidly built, had a 1080p screen and could handle Openshot video editor, web browsing and video playback. All I needed.

    I didn’t have it hooked up to an external display but according to the website it can handle 4K playback. Mainly used it for listening to music in Cmus whilst browsing in Firefox.

    Battery life was pretty good, about 10 hours IIRC but mine just stopped booting after I left the battery dead for a few months.

    Might buy another one though https://pine64.com/product-category/pinebook-pro/

  • pr06lefs@lemmy.ml
    1·
    9 months ago

    The thinkpad-x13s-snapdragon is fanless and uses a qualcomm snapdragon processor, so an ARM like the macs use but lower performance. Batttery life is reputedly in the 20+ hour range.

    Caveats:

    • kinda pricey, 1K
    • this arm chip is slow compared to macs.
    • out of the mainstream so better do your homework on whether linux is well supported.

    Laptops based on the snapdragon elite processors will come out this year, and performance should be comparable to the Mx macs. So maybe better to wait. Although, those may be considerably more expensive, and who knows what linux support will be like, especially at first.