Re: Backports of asahi-scripts, asahi-audio, triforce-lv2

Nicholas D Steeves <[email protected]> Fri, 05 Dec 2025 18:36:29 -0500

Newsgroups	gmane.linux.debian.backports.general
Message-ID	<[email protected]>

Hi,

NoisyCoil <[email protected]> writes:

> Please note that to install Debian on Apple Silicon [1], you need a 
> custom installer which never asks the user to install and enable popcon. 
> Hence in our case popcon only counts users who were previously aware 
> that popcon exists and willfully installed it and enabled it.
>
[snip]
> [1] https://wiki.debian.org/InstallingDebianOn/Apple/M1

I agree that asahi*, and triforce-lv2 should be backported, and I expect
that there are more users of this platform then some of the firmware
packages that are installed as automatic (often metapackage) Recommends.
The precedent is that we already have those in -backports.  It's also
important to ease the migration from freedom-violating OS, and the need
is similar to linux kernel backports (and firmware backports).

That said, I agree that it's important to demonstrate the size of a
non-release architecture and port has a serious number of users.  Isn't
it worth installing popcon (even on existing installations), and writing
release notes that ask users for solidarity in demonstrating how many
serious users of this port exist.

The following might be related, or might be orthogonal, but isn't it
also the case that Asahi recently lost their lead dev--or at least key
dev--who is now doing something GPU-driver related for a major hardware
manufacturer?  Did someone else step forward to maintain Asahi and/or
the subset of the project left without a maintainer?

Best,
Nicholas

signature.asc (application/pgp-signature, 857 B)