[HN Gopher] Fedora Asahi Remix is now working on Apple M3
___________________________________________________________________
Fedora Asahi Remix is now working on Apple M3
Author : todsacerdoti
Score : 371 points
Date : 2026-01-26 17:54 UTC (5 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (bsky.app)
(TXT) w3m dump (bsky.app)
| dralley wrote:
| Nice! Good to hear that progress is still being made, I know it
| was on pause for a bit as developers rotated out and there was an
| effort to get things upstreamed.
| electronsoup wrote:
| oh awesome! I had assumed they were just targeting M1/M2 for the
| time being
| zozbot234 wrote:
| Does this include the newer M3 ultra? Huge news if true!
| 2OEH8eoCRo0 wrote:
| Displayport alt mode? Thunderbolt?
| greenimpala wrote:
| and ProMotion, then its a serious contender
| volemo wrote:
| Dunno, I don't care about ProMotion (I've got it and I don't
| see it), but sleep and battery life are very important to me.
| porkloin wrote:
| Are you sure you've actually used the higher refresh rate?
| It might not be enabled by default. I'd be surprised if you
| can't tell the difference comparing 60hz to 120hz back to
| back.
| volemo wrote:
| Well, I have an M1 Pro MBP so I'm pretty sure.
|
| edit: ok, I've tried toggling ProMotion on and off, and I
| _can_ see it. However, I still think the improvement is
| marginal.
| robin_reala wrote:
| I use an M1 Macbook Pro for work and an M2 Macbook Air
| for home, and I basically don't see any major difference.
| fainpul wrote:
| At least for M1 they got it working. Seems to be in testing
| phase now. Promised to come soon.
|
| https://media.ccc.de/v/39c3-asahi-linux-porting-linux-to-app...
| michaelRostom wrote:
| From that video "Our goal is to make this [dp-altmode]
| generally available to all people sometime early in the next
| year [2026]"
| gignico wrote:
| Is that display port over USB-C? That's the main showstopper
| for me to use Asahi on my M1 Pro MBP.
| ZiiS wrote:
| Yes, the test branch works fine for me, should be
| officially supported soon.
| gignico wrote:
| That's cool!
| someNameIG wrote:
| That's great. The only reason I haven't got it on my M1 Air
| yet.
| hamandcheese wrote:
| I wish it were possible to directly fund DP-alt mode support.
| It is the only thing remaining preventing me from adopting
| Asahi.
| ZiiS wrote:
| For me https://github.com/AsahiLinux/linux/tree/fairydust
| installed and worked without any tweeks. Don't think you can
| direct funding, but https://opencollective.com/asahilinux
| contributes to getting this fully officially supported.
| hamandcheese wrote:
| No idea what the fairydust kernel is.
|
| For more context, I gooled around and found this Phoronix
| article: https://www.phoronix.com/news/Asahi-Linux-
| EOY-2025-CCC
|
| > On the display side, Asahi Linux developers have been
| working on the DisplayPort connectivity. For that there are
| now experimental DisplayPort patches for Asahi Linux via
| their "fairydust" tree.
|
| That's great news!
| jsheard wrote:
| Does anyone know if M3 support is likely to lead to M4 or M5
| support in relatively short order? AIUI M3 took a long time
| because it was a substantial departure from M1/M2, especially in
| the GPU architecture, but I don't know if M4 or M5 made similar
| leaps.
| OGEnthusiast wrote:
| M4 is apparently even harder because of some new hardware-level
| page table protections.
|
| Source from Asahi contributor:
| https://social.treehouse.systems/@sven/114278224116678776
| eddyg wrote:
| Memory Integrity Enforcement, perhaps?
|
| https://security.apple.com/blog/memory-integrity-
| enforcement...
| worldsavior wrote:
| It's "Secure Page Table Monitor".
| https://support.apple.com/en-
| il/guide/security/sec8b776536b/.... The kernel requires it
| so they need to emulate SPTM.
| eddyg wrote:
| Thanks!
| zozbot234 wrote:
| The M5 reportedly has a newer generation GPU compared to the
| M3/M4. For one thing, the GPU-side Neural Accelerators are
| obviously new to the M5 series. Other stuff is harder to know
| for sure until it gets looked into from a technical POV.
| mananaysiempre wrote:
| It's not like neural accelerators on non-Apple consumer
| hardware get much use on Linux, either, so that does not
| sound like much of a dealbreaker.
| wtallis wrote:
| The matrix/tensor math units added to GPUs _do_ see
| widespread use, both for running LLMs and for the ML-based
| upscaling used by most video games these days (eg. NVIDIA
| DLSS). The NPUs that are separate from the GPU and designed
| more with efficiency in mind rather than raw performance
| are a different thing, and that 's what's still looking for
| a killer app in spite of all the marketing effort.
| adgjlsfhk1 wrote:
| The main reason M3 took a long time isn't related to m3 itself,
| but rather that the asahi project took on a ton of tech debt to
| get M1/M2 working. M3 wasn't too difficult, but before taking
| on the additional tech debt, the Asahi team focused on getting
| all of their changes upstreamed to the linux kernel.
| tgtweak wrote:
| Prognosis is then that work for m4/m5 should be relatively
| straight line now that refactoring is done?
| monocasa wrote:
| The main developer was also the target of a harassment
| campaign from a place that has pushed other targets to
| straight up suicide. That took almost all of their energy for
| the last year and they ended up quitting.
| xattt wrote:
| > The main developer was also the target of a harassment
| campaign from a place that has pushed other targets to
| straight up suicide.
|
| Is this the Torvalds/Hector dispute that comes on the
| Google AI summary, or was this a three-letter agency type
| of harassment faced by Aaron Swartz?
| alright2565 wrote:
| Anti-trans hate.
| ggljejejj wrote:
| Trans hate.
| OJFord wrote:
| GP definitely meant the same thing, i.e. 'hate [that is]
| anti-transsexualism' to your 'hate [against]
| transsexualism'.
| gpm wrote:
| Neither actually... It was an anti trans/kiwi farms
| brigade...
|
| The Torvalds dispute probably came about in part because
| of defensive behavior triggered this brigade but was
| really unrelated.
| internetter wrote:
| I would just like to point out that Michael Reeves (the poster,
| no relation to youtuber) is a high schooler who has also found
| numerous high impact vulnerabilities in Apple software. Immensely
| talented.
| iknowstuff wrote:
| How many peaked with our curiosity and exploration software
| engineering as teenagers and subsequently got ground down by
| 9to5 corporate soul drain T_T
| benoau wrote:
| Just take the top ticket, thanks.
| preisschild wrote:
| Me. Got countless old servers as a teenager and self hosted
| as much as possible. Now I have enough money for new servers
| (well, besides memory...) but not enough time and energy.
| fellowniusmonk wrote:
| I was born with heart defects and pre ACA had to be a wage
| slave to get health insurance.
|
| The moment ACA happened I started several successful
| businesses.
|
| Honestly we already should have contribution/impact based
| merit threshold UBI with a much lower barrier than research
| grants or even just time limited UBI systems for youth and
| adults that meet a contribution threshold.
|
| VC allocation is too biased towards group think, profit
| motivation, predatory contracts and hold on to top many class
| and cultural artifacts.
|
| Yes of course it would be difficult to implement but
| difficult isn't impossible and gradiated rollouts can help
| catch unintended side effects. We need to push more money
| into the hands of the intrinsically motivated. Society
| already is catering to the whims of consumers and feed
| zombies.
| AndrewDucker wrote:
| Or you could have universal healthcare. Which everyone else
| seems to manage and would untie a lot of people from
| specific jobs.
| fellowniusmonk wrote:
| I can't think of any credible reason not to have
| universal healthcare at this point.
|
| Maybe 20 years ago but there is too much empirical data
| across multiple countries and environments now.
|
| Assuming our cost for care drops commiserate to what's
| been seen in other countries we could use the saving to
| increase merit scholarships for the contributing young as
| a introductory form of UBI.
| giancarlostoro wrote:
| It sounds like a great idea, then a government shut down
| happens.
| throw0101a wrote:
| > _It sounds like a great idea, then a government shut
| down happens._
|
| Single payer / universal healthcare [?] doctors/nurses
| are government employees (necessarily).
|
| You go to your local health care provider, show your
| card, and received treatment. The single payer
| (government) then gets billed and money is transferred to
| the providers account.
|
| If the government is shutdown, there could be a delay in
| payment in outstanding bills, but that does not mean
| health care providers shutdown. Medicare ran during the
| last shutdown:
|
| * https://www.nbcnews.com/health/health-care/government-
| shutdo...
|
| * Telehealth was:
| https://www.pbs.org/newshour/health/medicare-patients-go-
| wit...
|
| Social Security cheques went out too:
|
| * https://www.cbsnews.com/news/social-security-
| government-shut...
|
| * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2025_United_States_federa
| l_gov...
|
| Lots of stuff can potentially be automated, and so
| continue to run.
| 9x39 wrote:
| It's possible for some of that to continue, but we really
| don't know what would happen if we directly connect
| payrolls and finances of the healthcare industry to the
| federal government in the US. It's a fair question how
| such a big connection would suffer when the government is
| punitively closed in a faustian bargain as part of a
| political struggle, as seems to be common recently.
|
| There might be a few top-down emergency provisions to
| ensure checks go out to keep the system from toppling,
| but I wouldn't work if my pay is frozen and neither would
| my plumber, electrician, lawyer, etc. The last few
| shutdowns have run over a month - that can easily exceed
| the cash reserves of most businesses (that would be
| providers) and large businesses would shutter or have
| layoffs before burning that much cash.
|
| We can't be so confident in how a $5T/year system would
| react if its primary cash flow valve is turned off, is
| all. Handwaving away the scope and complexity doesn't
| help anything.
| PygmySurfer wrote:
| > It sounds like a great idea, then a government shut
| down happens.
|
| How about fixing the government so it can't be shut down
| because a few hundred politicians can't agree on the next
| budget?
| spease wrote:
| Just because the fed exists doesn't mean the entire
| economy shuts down with the government.
|
| It depends on how it's structured.
| scns wrote:
| > I can't think of any credible reason not to have
| universal healthcare at this point.
|
| When you grab em by their Amygdala, the naked monkeys
| will do what you want. Even to their own detriment.
|
| As soon as they are in fight-or-flight-mode, (most)
| people cannot be reasoned with.
|
| Sad but true
| throw0101a wrote:
| > _When you grab em by their Amygdala, the naked monkeys
| will do what you want. Even to their own detriment._
|
| Even to their own death (and the death of
| friends/family):
|
| * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dying_of_Whiteness
|
| * https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/40697553-dying-of-
| whiten...
| christkv wrote:
| Even better you can have both like a lot of countries in
| Europe. The access to public healthcare also keeps the
| premium down. Extensive cover for a family of four is
| less than 200 in Spain a month out of pocket.
| cladopa wrote:
| Actually in Spain Social Security is 30 to 40% of what
| you earn. From the remainder 60% it is up to 50% in IRPF
| taxes, so you could pay 70% of what you earn.
|
| The trick is that Franco hid the social security tax in
| the company side so normal people don't see it, but it is
| there.
|
| Over that there is IBI for your house, there is IVA on
| anything you buy, and there are central bank inflation
| taxing anything you own in absolute terms.
| avadodin wrote:
| Europe always overcharging and underdelivering.
|
| I am forever thankful for the Socialism that allowed me
| to get a degree for $3k, though.
|
| The downside is of course over-enrollment but at least
| the bartenders didn't come out $50k into debt. I hear it
| is different now.
| zozbot234 wrote:
| Other places can only afford universal healthcare to
| begin with because their healthcare sector is not nearly
| as corrupt or shackled by a huge amount of government
| regulation that was only put in place here for self-
| serving reasons. It's not about the model of provision,
| it's about whether the sector itself is sustainable. U.S.
| healthcare is doomed by its vast spiraling costs even
| after controlling for its supposedly higher quality.
| Noaidi wrote:
| > healthcare sector is not nearly as corrupt or shackled
| by a huge amount of government regulation
|
| Healthcare is not corrupt. Insurance companies are
| corrupt.
|
| And regulation is lacking in Health Insurance and
| enforcement is lacking in healthcare. (So many doctors
| that have committed malpractice just switch hospitals.
|
| > U.S. healthcare is doomed by its vast spiraling costs
| even after controlling for its supposedly higher quality.
|
| Healthcare costs are high because of insurance companies
| and private equity, not doctors and hospitals.
|
| So please stop with these right wing baby bird food
| regurgitation.
| zozbot234 wrote:
| > Healthcare is not corrupt. Insurance companies are
| corrupt.
|
| ?Porque no los dos? Guess what, it's a lot more likely
| that insurance companies will go corrupt if what they
| interact with - healthcare - is corrupt.
|
| > private equity, not doctors and hospitals.
|
| Guess what is limiting private equity's ability to
| compete amongst themselves in expanding the effective
| provision of healthcare and driving costs lower for the
| ultimate stakeholders i.e. patients? That's right:
| doctors, hospitals (including those that are nominally
| not-for-profit, but where the profits just turn into
| salary for those who can control that flow of money) and
| government regulation throughout the sector.
| lotsofpulp wrote:
| > Or you could have universal healthcare.
|
| No, they could not have, based on the voting records of
| the previous 30 years of the federal US Congress. Even
| what they have passed only by the skin on their teeth.
|
| The only federal wealth redistribution policy in the US
| in my lifetime of almost 4 decades only had a 6 month
| window of passing in 2009. And half the population still
| hates it, and has worked and succeeded at gutting major
| parts of it.
| jacquesm wrote:
| What surprises me - even after decades of wondering about
| this - is how rare the intrinsically motivated people are.
| mid-kid wrote:
| It stings how much I relate to this.
| nout wrote:
| It's not business critical to answer your curiosity now. File
| it as a ticket, put it on a backlog and move on.
| HumblyTossed wrote:
| But how much wealthier are you?
| varispeed wrote:
| If you have brilliant mind, but you were born poor / working
| class, then sure you'll be crushed by 9 to 5 inevitably,
| where your talents will be ruthlessly "harvested" for the
| benefits of shareholders until you burn out and get thrown
| out like a used rag.
|
| If you have talents, use them to achieve financial freedom
| and then do what you want. Sometimes it is through 9 to 5
| unfortunately. Never make a mistake of "climbing corporate
| ladder". Earn money, invest, don't try to leave beyond your
| means.
|
| You might have great salary, but don't get tempted by renting
| a nice pad or getting a nice car. It's a trap to keep you
| enslaved in 9 to 5 forever.
| sysworld wrote:
| Yep this. Avoid lifestyle creep (when you get raises).
| Invest your money (e.g. world passive mutual fund, or VT
| ETF). Don't sell investments when the market crashes, just
| ride it out (assuming you bought diversified fund). Don't
| stock pick, it's largely gambling and 99% of people can't
| beat the market doing it. If you must stock pick, do at
| most, 5% of your investments. Avoid actively managed/high
| fee mutual funds/ETFs. Research clearly shows, long term
| they do worse then the market. (And if there is an active
| fund that does end up beating the market long term, you
| have no way of knowing which fund that would be ahead of
| time)
|
| The Millionaire Next Door is a great book, and gives a good
| perspective on money.
|
| If anyone here is interested, Google the FIRE movement
| (Financial Independence, Retire Early). Even just doing the
| first 2 letters, Financial Independence, would be huge, and
| give you way more flexibility.
|
| When/if you retire early, keep doing things to keep your
| mind and body active. Most people who retire stop doing the
| things that kept them healthy, and there body deteriorates
| quickly (with xyz illnesses).
|
| The sad true is that, for many, work forces them to do the
| basics to keep your body running ok.
| zozbot234 wrote:
| > Yep this. Avoid lifestyle creep (when you get raises).
| Invest your money
|
| This is great advice anyway, even if you were born
| poor/working class. With the added proviso that you
| should be paying down your debt, highest interest rate
| first, since that will have far higher returns than your
| average investment. Also make sure that you have enough
| liquid cash set aside that you'll be able to deal quickly
| and completely with any issues that might come up; this
| makes a significant difference to your ability to live
| and work stress-free.
| erxam wrote:
| But what's the point of it being long-term? I want fuck-
| off money _right now_. What 's the point of having a bit
| of money when I'm old, can barely leave the house and
| everyone and everything I cared about is long gone?
|
| Why do I want to have a million in the bank by age 70 if
| I'm going to kill myself by age 30-35?
| nick__m wrote:
| How old are you ? I used to espouse similar view but now
| that I am past 40, I regret not starting investing in my
| 20 and see myself living well into my 80's.
|
| That punk-ish no future mentality usually dampen past
| 30-35!
| nntwozz wrote:
| 70 is the new 30 didn't you get the memo?
| tdhz77 wrote:
| Take out your retirement early. Live on it for 5 years
| and then back to the grind for 5. Live your best life and
| die with zero not a million.
| banku_brougham wrote:
| Adding my voice of concurrence, I would say 'Comrade' but
| people take it the wrong way.
| mistrial9 wrote:
| How many went ChaosKlub and found themselves on the run?
| bsimpson wrote:
| I remember being a teenager and intentionally dialing down my
| ambitions, because it was socially uncomfortable to have
| people's perceptions of me be tied to the things I excelled
| in.
|
| Figured I had my whole life to have a job, so didn't really
| wanna do a startup or anything like that. Watched all the
| Macworld et. al. keynotes and knew all the specs of all the
| devices, until I got tired of being pigeonholed as "the
| computer kid."
| banku_brougham wrote:
| This is an urgently dark pattern to avoid for parents, but
| I feel helpless as my own development was heckuv random
| PlatoIsADisease wrote:
| Why not start your own software company?
|
| I made big money in my 20s, I can retire. Now I just play and
| gamble on my company to go from ~2M to 100M.
| xeonmc wrote:
| If I get a nickel every time a high schooler with a decorated
| history of hardware tinkering goes on to work on Linux for
| Apple Silicon, I'd have two nickels. Which isn't a lot but it's
| weird they all happens to gravitate to Apple.
| fragmede wrote:
| It's genuinely nice hardware, and everyone's gotta have a
| hobby. But it's not all of them. Geohot did some hardware
| stuff and hasn't (afaik) been working on Asahi. Linus was 21
| when Linux was first released. Of course, Apple silicon ARM
| laptops didn't exist in the wild then, so we can let both of
| those pass.
| mid-kid wrote:
| They used to go work on homebrew for nintendo consoles
| instead. Times change.
| matthewfcarlson wrote:
| My personal conspiracy theory is that they're actually the same
| person, perhaps with some time traveling hijinks?
| drBonkers wrote:
| Can anyone point me to a good report of the current working
| status and known drawbacks of Asahi on Apple Silicon? Would there
| ever be a reason to run it on a Mac Mini or Apple desktop device?
| Or at that point would you just get a Linux box?
| ncrmro wrote:
| I've managed to get NixOS running on an 8gb MacBook air which
| tools a bit of tweaks but asahi installer sets everything up
| where you can boot and install from NixOS
| kreetx wrote:
| Could you expand/explain, you install Asahi first and _then_
| NixOS?
| volemo wrote:
| Asahi includes a shell script that you run from macOS
| before installation to properly partition the storage (it's
| quite involved). _I guess,_ GP ran the script and then just
| booted from Nix ISO and installed to the new partition.
| 0xADD1E wrote:
| More or less- Due to the amount of unusual requirements for
| installing on Apple hardware (such as being kicked off from
| macOS, to name the tip of the iceberg) the Asahi installer
| gets used for most (all?) distros running on Apple Silicon.
| https://asahilinux.org/docs/alt/policy/#installation-
| procedu...
|
| edit: The minimal UEFI part of the Asahi installer
| specifically sets up a "normal" environment that other
| distros (like Nix) can use, it doesn't actually install a
| full distro like Asahi Fedora
| kreetx wrote:
| https://asahilinux.org/fedora/#device-support
| dylan604 wrote:
| > Or at that point would you just get a Linux box?
|
| What exactly _is_ a Linux box? If you 're running Linux on an
| M3, is it not now a Linux box?
| emodendroket wrote:
| Considering how far behind they are of new releases of hardware
| I'd imagine the most appealing use case is going to be trying
| to squeeze some more life out of outdated hardware that
| struggles running the latest Apple software. But that's kind of
| the sweet spot for a Linux desktop anyway, isn't it?
| swiftcoder wrote:
| Does an M3 struggle to run the latest Apple software? I'm
| running an M2 Pro as my daily driver, and I doubt this thing
| will need replacing this side of ~5 years
| sysworld wrote:
| I've got a MacBook Air M2 and it's still zoom'n along fine.
| I did get 24GB RAM, which I'm sure helps... run Chrome :)
| n0n0n4t0r wrote:
| According to Asahi's own documentation, they're far from done
| from the M3. So I guess "now working" is probably a bit
| misleading...
|
| https://asahilinux.org/docs/platform/feature-support/m3/#tab...
| michaelRostom wrote:
| I understand where you are coming from, I think the major
| hurdle was getting it boot and fixing M3 specific things. Now
| that it is working, they can port over their driver very easily
| (they might just work or need a small tweak)
| n0n0n4t0r wrote:
| Thank you for the clarification!
| zozbot234 wrote:
| I'm not sure that this list is updated; this is breaking news,
| and documenting stuff takes longer than that.
| umanwizard wrote:
| True. Nevertheless, the fact that it even boots, after many
| years of it not working at all, is huge news.
| swiftcoder wrote:
| > after many years of it not working at all
|
| And by "many", we of course mean "2", because the M3 was only
| released 2 years ago.
| umanwizard wrote:
| Wow, you're absolutely right. Not sure why it felt like
| longer to me.
| dtartarotti wrote:
| Promising progress, I'm excited to try it when they get more
| things working on M3 Pro
| dangus wrote:
| Really cool, though if I was looking for a Linux laptop today,
| I'd be watching the Intel Panther Lake products rolling out.
|
| The top SKU has a similar performance and efficiency profile to
| the base M5 processor along with faster graphics performance.
|
| Review embargos for the top SKU just dropped today.
| hard_times wrote:
| You can't really be that naive, can you
| bigyabai wrote:
| Au contraire - which Asahi-supported machines hold a candle
| to AMD and Intel's Linux support?
|
| I can't recommend Macs to other Linux users in good faith
| unless they're already stuck with the hardware and loathe
| macOS. If you _need_ an ARM laptop that supports Linux, you
| should probably wait for Nvidia to release theirs.
| CamJN wrote:
| it's this part: "The top SKU has a similar performance and
| efficiency profile to the base M5 processor along with
| faster graphics performance." that is naive, this has been
| the standard lie told by intel as long as Apple silicon has
| existed, "Ignore everything we've ever done or promised
| before, our NEXT gen will be as fast and power efficient as
| apple! We promise this time!". It has never been true, and
| honestly I don't think it CAN be true when they have to
| give over a full third of their transistor budget just to
| decoding the abomination that is x86_64.
| drcongo wrote:
| This is great news. If Apple ever get around to releasing
| actually pro M5 MBPs I'm buying one and turning this M1 MBP into
| a linux laptop.
| SirMaster wrote:
| Is there a reason why it's so hard to support newer M chips after
| supporting an older one? Like so much harder than supporting a
| new generation Intel or AMD chip doesn't seem too hard in
| comparison.
| zer0zzz wrote:
| 1) Intel and AMD help to implement support in Linux before
| their chips even ship. Actually a sanitized version of the
| Intel graphics ISA bspec is actually available to the OSS
| community too.
|
| Apple on the other hand provides no support. The one nice thing
| they did do is allow their bootloader to boot non-apple signed
| OSes. They do not do this on iPhones, iPads, Apple TVs,
| Watches, or homepods btw.
|
| 2) The GPU ISA changes drastically and often. Its not entirely
| uncommon for the entire instruction set to change entirely
| within one generation. Every change to the ISA would require an
| entire round of new reverse engineering (I suspect, ive never
| reversed).
| yonatan8070 wrote:
| I do wonder why Apple chooses not to lock down the Mac to
| just Mac OS like all their other hardware? I'm sure the sales
| from people who intend to run something other than MacOS look
| like a floating-point error on the scales Apple operates.
| intrasight wrote:
| They don't because it's a floating-point error now. But
| with the continued enshitification of MacOS, it likely
| won't be in the future, and they just may lock it down. But
| being so hostile to the hacking community would do more
| harm than good, so I doubt that they would do so even if
| Linux use on Macs grew to >1%.
| prmoustache wrote:
| You replied to your own question. Locking down the system
| for 3 users worldwide and making sure it stays locked is
| not worth the effort.
|
| Just not publishing the specs is enough to delay so much
| the effort that those machines are out of warranty and have
| depreciated so much by the time they are supported that
| they aren't competitors to the mac ecosystem anymore.
| worldsavior wrote:
| They change the arch and add new features all the time. In M4
| they added new kernel protections which now they need to
| somehow emulate.
| sroussey wrote:
| M1/M2 were pretty similar.
|
| M3 had gigantic GPU changes.
|
| M4 had some security stuff added, and M5 much more so. Not sure
| how/if those can be disabled. Others can be explain why this
| matters better than I can.
| thfuran wrote:
| Because Intel/AMD regularly contribute kernel changes to
| maintain support for their own hardware, whereas Apple keeps
| making undocumented changes that Asahi has to reverse engineer.
| saurik wrote:
| I don't think that's it, as we usually don't even have to
| update the kernel: when I get a new PC, my old software still
| boots and runs. The answer has to also provide some analogous
| note that, unlike new x86 hardware having an interest in
| still being able to run old versions of Windows, new Apple
| hardware (maybe... one must presume for the story to be
| consistent) must not really care about being able to boot old
| copies of macOS.
| mschuster91 wrote:
| > unlike new x86 hardware having an interest in still being
| able to run old versions of Windows
|
| The "secret sauce" is... we're not speaking about "x86"
| systems, at least as long as UEFI doesn't enter the game.
| In fact what we're talking about is "IBM PC-compatible x86"
| and its BIOS that provides ultra-low-level interfaces for
| input and output (including a very very basic USB stack).
| These can then be used to continuously load higher level
| systems.
|
| Basically what you start with in the BIOS land is the boot
| sector, you got barely enough code capacity that you have
| input from the disk and text console output. That you can
| use to load a second stage bootloader (e.g. GRUB, NTLDR)
| which now has better knowledge of filesystems, maybe even
| enough of the driver to bring the GPU up with the basic
| VESA interface. And that then loads the actual operating
| system which brings up the rest of the system - proper GPU,
| a full featured USB stack, you name it. And layered in
| between that is ACPI for dynamic hardware discovery.
|
| UEFI based systems can skip a lot of the slow early code
| used to boot in BIOS - it hands over directly to the OS
| itself in the best case, or to a high-level bootloader such
| as the modern Windows bootloader that can do all sorts of
| magic.
|
| In contrast, the ARM world sucks hardcore - there are no
| standards for board bringup and boundaries, there is only
| DeviceTree which replaces a very small part of the
| wonder/hellscape that is ACPI. And that is something even
| Apple couldn't get rid of. Hell, you can't even be sure
| it's the CPU that brings everything up - there are weird
| systems like Broadcom's VideoCore architecture that
| underpins the Raspberry Pi, where the video chip part of
| the SoC handles bringing up the ARM CPU.
|
| Basically, x86 has a ton of legacy and warts but for that,
| backwards compatibility and to a degree even forwards
| compatibility is a thing. ARM in contrast... it's like if
| you let a bunch of drugged up monkeys loose.
| SirMaster wrote:
| I've definitely ran older kernels of Linux on new Intel/AMD
| CPUs where the kernel release vastly pre-date the CPU
| release.
| yonatan8070 wrote:
| I've found that doing this on laptops is often more
| problematic, the OS itself will usually boot fine, but you
| might have issues with drivers for supporting hardware like
| the GPU, audio, etc.
| codepoet80 wrote:
| Have they fixed the touchy trackpad issues? Super impressive
| work, and I want to want this, but...
| drcode wrote:
| I've been using it for over a year, if there are any trackpad
| issue now, I haven't noticed any
| weinzierl wrote:
| Relevant 39C3 talk from three weeks ago:
|
| _Porting Linux to Apple Silicon_
|
| https://media.ccc.de/v/39c3-asahi-linux-porting-linux-to-app...
|
| https://youtube.com/watch?v=3OAiOfCcYFM
| jojomodding wrote:
| This talk in particular explains the challenges with M4 and M5
| chips, but also a lot more.
| Retr0id wrote:
| This is super cool and a big achievement, although it's worth
| noting that this is with llvmpipe graphics (i.e. CPU not GPU).
|
| Although, I was daily-driving Asahi on an M1 Pro before GPU
| support was here and it was very usable.
| rowanG077 wrote:
| While it's awesome that it runs there doesn't seem to be GPU
| support yet as the screenshot reports the llvmpipe software
| renderer. From what I understand there are significant difference
| between the M2 and M3 GPUs so this unlikely to be implemented
| soon. Unless it turns out this original analysis turns out to be
| wrong.
|
| Personally I don't consider it "working" as a laptop on an Apple
| M3 unless you actually have GPU support. Software rending just
| sucks, even with a SoC as powerful as the Apple M3.
| saubeidl wrote:
| If anyone else wants the closest thing to a MBP running Linux
| without waiting for Asahi to _fully_ work, I can highly recommend
| the HP ZBook G1A.
|
| * It has an all-aluminium chassis that feels a lot like a MBP.
|
| * Hardware all works - fingerprint reader, webcam, suspend etc
| etc. Takes a bit of work, but all works in the end. Helps that HP
| ships them with Ubuntu as official option.
|
| * Strix Halo chipset, which is basically AMD's attempt at an
| Apple Silicon type design. Single big chip, with unified
| LPDDR5X-8000 RAM (up to 128GB!) shared between CPU and GPU (which
| is surprisingly strong as well, 40 CU!). This thing is a beast
| for local LLMs!
|
| Only downside really is the battery life. I haven't played around
| with it too much, I think there's a bit more room with custom
| tuned profiles, but rn I get like maybe 6 hours on a good day?
| zamadatix wrote:
| I also have an Apple M4 MacBook Pro from Work and an HP ZBook
| G1a for my personal. I used to have an Asahi MacBook but
| switched over with the lack of M3/M4 support. Some extra
| compare/contrast:
|
| - The build quality of each are excellent. The touchpad on the
| G1a is probably the closest to a MacBook touchpad I've seen and
| it even manages to boast an OLED screen. On the other hand, the
| G1a is only available as a 14" option.
|
| - Strix Halo will still leave you wishing it were Apple Silicon
| in pretty much every case except "I need to run a x86 native
| app/VM". It's certainly the best alternative, but you
| definitely trade away to go to it. You can load large LLMs (I
| have the 128 GB version for non-AI reasons) but they only run
| ~3x faster than a laptop without a GPU would because 256 GB/s
| still ends up being a big bandwidth limit. If you do actually
| do this regularly, then prepare to hear the fans and look for
| your power adapter as it does get quite hot doing so.
|
| - Speaking of power adapter... you need either a 100 W or 140 W
| charger + USB C to be able to charge the G1a while you use it.
| If you want to use a lower wattage adapter you need to power
| off, or it seems to draw 0 W out of spite.
|
| - It's massively refreshing to have a normal UEFI bootup
| process, and as long as you have a current kernel the hardware
| support is indeed pretty great on the G1a. Between the two, the
| G1a has better supported than the M1 w/ Asahi - as one would
| expect for a corporation officially supporting Linux vs a fan
| project.
|
| If I were to do it all again, I'd say I might have either just
| gotten an M2 Pro for Asahi or an M4 w/ macOS and a Linux VM as
| needed. Part of going for an x86 laptop was to be able to dual
| boot into games with strict DRM, but after trying multiple
| versions of AMD graphics driver for the 8060s it was more a
| frustration in random stutters and I ended up not gaming on it
| as much as I have on other laptops anyways. Bazzite does work
| great though, just not with all of the different DRMs or games.
| jacquesm wrote:
| Do the M-series have better wifi support than the last Intel
| range?
| throw0101a wrote:
| Is there any kind of multi-boot support if someone wants to
| mainly run macOS but checkout Linux on M-chips 'part time'?
| Encounter wrote:
| Yes, it installs into a separate partition and you choose
| whether to boot into macOS or Linux.
| treesknees wrote:
| Yes, in fact deleting the MacOS install is not a supported way
| to run the system.
|
| https://asahilinux.org/docs/project/faq/#can-i-dual-boot-asa...
| bsimpson wrote:
| Related but not:
|
| I'm a lifelong Mac user who now has a KDE device courtesy of
| SteamOS. What are the best options for porting Mac default
| keybindings over to KDE?
|
| I'm using SteamOS and Nix/Home Manager, so I have a preference
| for something that I can easily use in that environment (e.g.
| nothing that needs me to unlock the system partition or run as
| another user).
|
| I tried asking Gemini to find where KDE stores its default
| keybindings, and came up short.
| cies wrote:
| There's a folder where KDE stores your user's settings.
| Shortcuts are in their own file...
|
| For me it's `/home/$USER_NAME/.config/kglobalshortcutsrc`
| terhechte wrote:
| KDE has a setting to switch the cmd & command keys so that e.g.
| command+c copies instead of ctrl+c. This works in all KDE apps
| (it will not work if you install any Gnome/GTK app, though). I
| forgot the setting but its something in advanced and used to be
| called Emacs key binds, but now I think it just refers to the
| keys.
|
| Anyways, beyond that, have a look at Kinto which tries to do
| everything in one box, but it is an additional software you
| have to run:
|
| https://github.com/rbreaves/kinto
| jaredcwhite wrote:
| I've been running Asahi Fedora GNOME on a Mac mini M1 for some
| while now (using it right now in fact) with almost zero
| complaints. A really solid and usable setup. I could see myself
| buying a used MacBook Air M3 down the road once this work is all
| finished up, which is very exciting. The prices are already
| pretty reasonable, even for a 16GB RAM model!
| kamranjon wrote:
| Asahi is one of the projects I support monetarily cause I really
| hope that one day I can run linux natively on my M4 max with GPU
| acceleration. They did an amazing job with M1 and M2 - great to
| see they are still pushing forward after the departure of Alyssa
| Rosenzweig, who did a lot of the work on the GPU support for
| those.
|
| Edit: Here is their donation page if you're interested in
| chipping in as well: https://opencollective.com/asahilinux
| delduca wrote:
| Is there a way to make a clean Asahi Linux installation?
| avadodin wrote:
| I would never buy a Mac, but what's the issue with supporting Mx
| processors?
|
| Are they a generic ARM platform or something highly proprietary
| with ISA extensions and the like?
|
| And if Apple is pulling a Nintendo here why is this project
| allowed to exist in the first place? It's not like they are
| getting hit with an anti-trust any time soon.
| rowanG077 wrote:
| The problem are really not the CPU cores itself. It's a generic
| arm core in terms of ISA with just a tiny bit of proprietary
| extensions. The problem are all the peripherals. GPU, NPU,
| Display, USB, Wifi, HID, sound etc etc. These all require
| custom drivers and reverse engineering.
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