On both their wiki pages and their status updates, the developers note that Apple is surprisingly committed to backward compatibility with its silicon. But the developers are optimistic that much of the work they're doing now will continue to work on future generations of Apple hardware with relatively minimal effort. AdvertisementĪsahi's developers don't think the software will be 'done,' with all basic M1-series hardware and functionality supported and working out of the box, ' for another year, maybe two.' By then, Apple will probably have introduced another generation or two of M-series chips. That said, regarding GPU acceleration, the developers say that the M1 is fast enough that a software-rendered Linux desktop feels faster on the M1 than a GPU-accelerated desktop feels on many other ARM chips. But there are still big features missing, including DisplayPort and Thunderbolt, the webcam, Bluetooth, sleep mode, and GPU acceleration. In the current alpha, an impressive list of hardware already works, including Wi-Fi, USB 2.0 over the Thunderbolt ports (USB 3.0 only works on Macs with USB-A ports, but USB 3.0 over Thunderbolt is 'coming soon'), and the built-in display.

And that work is paying off-last week, the team released its first alpha installer to the general public, and as of yesterday, the software supports the new M1 Ultra in the Mac Studio. For months, a small group of volunteers has worked to get this Arch Linux-based distribution up and running on Apple Silicon Macs, adapting existing drivers and (in the case of the GPU) painstakingly writing their own.

That's where the Asahi Linux project comes in.

Further Reading Review: The Mac Studio shows us exactly why Apple left Intel behind

How to install linux on mac m1