Asahi Linux takes on Apple M3, minus a few creature comforts

The Asahi Linux gang has announced support for Apple's M3 silicon, with a few ifs and buts for owners that want to try out the code on their hardware. According to the project, "Asahi Linux now officially supports Macs with an M3 series SoC!" There are, however, some substantial caveats. Want performant or power-efficient 3D acceleration from the GPU? You'll need to wait a bit. How about the HDMI port? "The lack of DCP support means that the HDMI port on equipped MacBooks is currently disabled." Sleep does not work either, although the project noted: "This will be addressed once full DCP support is wired up for M3." Even with those limitations, it is quite a feat of reverse engineering. According to the project, almost everything supported on the M1 and M2 series machines "just works." This includes the webcam, internal microphones, USB, hardware-accelerated video decoding including support for AV1, Wi-Fi, and Bluetooth. The lack of GPU support is nevertheless a significant limitation that will make anything other than a 2D desktop a painful experience. Work is underway, but the synopsis of a talk planned for the X.Org developer conference at the end of September points to hurdles caused by hardware differences from previous generations. Although support for M3-series machines has been merged into the installer, it remains gated behind Expert mode, meaning users must run the installer with EXPERT=1 enabled. The project aims to drop this requirement in time for the Fedora Linux 45 beta in a few weeks, barring any major regressions or other showstoppers. Apple debuted the M3 in 2023, and Asahi's support extends to the M3 Pro and M3 Max. The M3 Ultra, found in the Mac Studio, is not yet on the supported list. With luck, the work on M3, including its GPU, should stand the team in good stead when tackling Apple's subsequent chip generations. Apple announced the M6 last month. ®