Many people prefer to get new devices so that they can be covered by Apple Care. That completely removes Linux as an option because Asahi Linux never supports any of the recent models.
"Buy this computer, it's several generations behind and a bunch of stuff doesn't work" is not a ringing endorsement, even if it does work well enough for you.
Just to add, I also do my work from an M1 MacBook that I crammed Asahi onto. I got it used for a few hundred dollars last year and it's a perfectly fine experience (for me).
We’re already almost halfway through this year. A demo half a year ago isn’t shipped. This is like when Apple demos something at WWDC that doesn’t ship until 9 months later in spring the following year.
"Hey can you remove MDM from this Macbook so I can install Linux?"
Is there no MDM for Linux clients? How do the big tech companies with Linux developer machines (Google, Facebook, etc) manage their inventory? Do they roll their own MDM?
IT departments can mandate tools like ninjaone and kolide, which let them run queries across the fleet of devices, and (as I understand it) basically gives them root-level remote code execution.
The corporate VPN (or equivalent) can then perform 'posture checking' requiring that the tools be installed and working before connecting to the corporate network.
Obviously, 99% of Linux users have root on their device so nothing stops them wiping it and installing something new from scratch. But then they'll fail the posture checks until the device is returned to the approved setup.
Kolide admin provides a web UI for osquery so you can query things. It allows remote osquery queries but not remote code execution. You generally pair it with CrowdStrike Falcon.
Kolide does a spot check like "is falcon sensor running" but if the user logs in, has the session token created, and then disables whatever the session token would still be valid.
Also Kolide doesn't actually count as an MDM. Has a bunch of missing features. I recently evaluated it.
It's a nudge. Like "update your OS". You could also just be logging into a machine after a few weeks away. The software tells you what you need to update before letting you in.
"On a personal note, the most interesting part here is that I did the release (and am writing this) on an arm64 laptop. It's something I've been waiting for for a _loong_ time, and it's finally reality, thanks to the Asahi team. We've had arm64 hardware around running Linux for a long time, but none of it has really been usable as a development platform until now."
