can those macs boot linux? i've heard about Asahi but have no idea how far along they are. i've got my fleet configured with nix and sure, nix can target darwin, but there's a _lot_ of sharp edges there: i don't really want to pull that thread unless i have to...
I don't know. I think he just uses LMStudio most of the time on his, but that's one place I can say the spark really shines for me.
I'm a Linux guy, but also don't always have alot of time. The Spark comes out of the box with a nice Linux distro that's pre-configured to be easy to setup and the guides and online resources make getting up and running trivial, for even some complex tasks. You would have to do a LOT of tinkering just to figure out some of the things the nvidia resources walk you through natively. They have guides for a ton of stuff that include the optimal settings so you don't have to figure it all out through trial and error.
Check out these "playbooks" for some examples. [0] There's a lot to be said for not having to piece all that together yourself.
https://build.nvidia.com/spark
I think between unboxing mine setting it up to run headless, and generating tokens was like 20 minutes total for me.
Not the new ones. Only the M1 and M2 have good support for Asahi. But you really don't need it. If you need Linux, use a VM (UTM is free and is equivalent to KVM/QEMU in speed, despite being a Type-2 Hypervisor.)