The Asahi Linux project is very close to finally releasing a version with support for M3 Apple Silicon. However, M4 and M5 support is still in development.
Asahi Linux is a project to bring Linux to Apple Silicon, so it can run natively on Apple’s ARM-based chips. While the project’s progress has been quite gradual in its progression, it is close to reaching a milestone release.
In a project blog post from August 26, the work on supporting M3-series Apple Silicon has gone through a lot of change. While it was shown to be running back in January, albeit in semi-working form, it’s in a much better position now.
The project says it is almost ready to “cut an official release” for M3 support of Asahi Linux. There will apparently be more to say about it in the “coming weeks.”
Recent M3 revelations
Describing the work on the M3 version, the team says that the webcam image signal processor was largely unchanged from the M2 edition, when it comes to getting it working. However, the M3 Max kept bringing up a skipped initialization message that got in the way, which was fixed with a new driver.
There was also a change to the way built-in microphones worked on M3, with the use of a new “High Frequency” decimator needing new coefficients and another initialization message. This was also fixed.
ATCPHY, a hardware block that handles USB3, DisplayPort, and Thunderbolt connections over USB Type-C ports, was also found to have marginally changed.
A USB port controller was also changed from an Apple-specific Texas Instruments chip known as ACE2, which was used in the base M3 and earlier chips. It had switched in the M3 Pro and Max to ACE3, which required some reverse engineering work.
A more expected change was the firmware ABI for the GPU and display controller, which are paired to a specific macOS version.
Future chips
While M3 support is great for the project, it’s not resting on its laurels. It is already aware of the tough challenge of M4 and M5, hinting at issues in April 2025 that could interfere with the work.
In the new update, work is still progressing on M4, with an early M5 version also created.
The M4 problems detailed by the team include a WFI issue as well as a “breaking change” in Apple’s NVMe controller firmware for macOS 15.x firmware builds. Some of the team managed to mitigate the changes, enabling builds to work for each chip generation.
At the same time, PCIe support was fixed so that devices on the bus could be enumerated in Linux. There was also a bug fix where Linux crashed shortly after boot if more than one CPU core was enabled.
That said, while work on M4 and M5 is ongoing, the team isn’t quite ready to let users try them out.
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