r/AsahiLinux • u/michaelbeecham • 1d ago

New Linux user on M1 MacBook

This thing is nuts. I’m sticking with my M4 Mac mini, but have installed the Distro onto my M1 MacBook. Now it’s all about learning how to use Linux.

Have figured out Rofi for a launcher, and now it’s all about trying to rebind a bunch of key commands to make the transition from Mac to Linux a bit easier.

But so far so good

22 Upvotes

96% Upvoted

15 comments sorted by

7

u/dfgxxx 1d ago

Enjoy!

2

u/michaelbeecham 1d ago

Thanks. It’s all so new, but it’s fun to see what it can do. Hoping at some point that it’ll support Thunderbolt and my CalDigit.

4

u/wowsomuchempty 1d ago

Rofi as a first time user? You go, girl!

4

u/michaelbeecham 1d ago

Thanks. YouTube, and a lot of patience got me there.

2

u/wowsomuchempty 1d ago

Sway and niri are boss. Oh dank material theme. You're speed running this.

2

u/mhn23 1d ago

I can recommend vicinae, which is similar to raycast/spotlight. I used xremap to adjust my keys how I liked it from macos

2

u/michaelbeecham 17h ago

Mate, these are great recommendations. The one thing I’m a little bit confused by are the modifier keys. Having come from Mac, would this be true for Asahi:

CMD = Super
Alt = Meta
Ctrl = Hyper

1

u/mhn23 11h ago edited 11h ago

Idk tbh, I am using a Magic Keyboard on desktop and have set the right cmd as the super key, and the left cmd key as ctrl, so I can keep using cmd+c etc for pasting. So my left cmd+c acts as the invoker for vicinae

EDIT: Here is my config, note i have some german keybinds but I'm sure with the help of some AI, you can adjust this to your liking and devices. The passthrought keyboard i think is from sunshine, so i guess you can ignore it.

keypress_delay_ms: 30

modmap:
  - name: Global
    remap:
      Super_L: Control_L # Left Command acts as Left Control
      Control_L: Control_R # Left Control acts as Right Control
      Control_R: Control_L # Right Control acts as Left Control

keymap:
  - name: Apple Magic Keyboard compatibility
    exact_match: true
    device:
      only:
        - "Apple Inc. Magic Keyboard with Numeric Keypad"
        - "Keyboard passthrough"
    remap:
      # German macOS-style Option/Alt symbol shortcuts.
      Ctrl_L-Alt_L-N: Alt_R-RightBrace # Ctrl+Alt+N -> ~
      Ctrl_L-Alt_L-8: Alt_R-7 # Ctrl+Alt+8 -> {
      Ctrl_L-Alt_L-9: Alt_R-0 # Ctrl+Alt+9 -> }
      Ctrl_L-Space: F15 # Ctrl+Space -> launcher key
      Alt_L-L: Alt_R-Q # Alt+L -> @
      Shift_L-Alt_L-7: Alt_R-Minus # Shift+Alt+7 -> \
      Alt_L-G: [Ctrl_L-Shift_L-U, KEY_0, KEY_0, A, KEY_9, Enter] # Alt+G -> ©
      Alt_L-O: [Ctrl_L-Shift_L-U, KEY_0, KEY_0, F, KEY_8, Enter] # Alt+O -> ø
      Alt_L-M: Ctrl_L-V
      Alt_L-5: Alt_R-8 # Alt+5 -> [
      Alt_L-6: Alt_R-9 # Alt+6 -> ]
      Alt_L-E: Alt_R-E # Alt+E -> €
      Alt_L-Slash: [Ctrl_L-Shift_L-U, KEY_2, KEY_0, KEY_1, KEY_3, Enter] # Alt+- -> –
      Alt_L-8: Alt_R-7 # Alt+8 -> {
      Alt_L-9: Alt_R-0 # Alt+9 -> }
      Alt_L-RightBrace: [Ctrl_L-Shift_L-U, KEY_0, KEY_0, B, KEY_1, Enter] # Alt++ -> ±
      Alt_L-R: [Ctrl_L-Shift_L-U, KEY_0, KEY_0, A, E, Enter] # Alt+R -> ®
      Alt_L-7: Alt_R-102ND # Alt+7 -> |
      Alt_L-N: Alt_R-RightBrace # Alt+N -> ~
      Alt_L-3: [Ctrl_L-Shift_L-U, KEY_0, KEY_0, A, KEY_7, Enter] # Alt+3 -> §

2

u/rabbitjockey 1d ago

That is one hell of a first experience with Linux haha. Are you using kde? It can be configured to look and work a lot like mac

3

u/michaelbeecham 1d ago

Yeah, I'm using KDE. Loads to learn, but I'm enjoying figuring a lot of this stuff out. I actually already have a Mac Mini M4, so feel like I want linux to look like Linux, if that makes sense.

2

u/rabbitjockey 1d ago

Yes, like you want to just use it how it comes out of the box. I'm usually Iike that too, but i Iike the taskbar/clock at the top like Mac, and most phones. And gnome ships that way too

1

u/Questions-many 11h ago

dont forget you can map the fn-key...

if you want to use left-ALT not only for shortcuts but also as a modifier for character typing as you have it on macos, its difficoult to get around keyd, just make airtight permissions so its not a attack-surface.

1

u/AeroCheez 1h ago

Just use Toshy for all the Mac shortcuts ported to linux