In a major technical breakthrough, the open-source community has successfully booted a graphical Linux desktop on Apple’s M3 silicon. This deep dive explores how developers reverse-engineered the proprietary chip in record time, the implications for the developer workstation market, and what this means for the future of ARM-based computing.
For all the breathless enthusiasm from the author, I feel like he’s overselling a lot of the impacts:
For Chief Technology Officers and IT procurement managers, the viability of Linux on Apple Silicon introduces a complex variable. Historically, engineering teams demanding Linux were relegated to Dell XPS or Lenovo ThinkPad units, which, while capable, often trail Apple in battery efficiency and thermal management. If the M3 becomes a first-class citizen in the Linux ecosystem, organizations may face increased pressure to support Apple hardware for backend engineers and DevOps professionals who require native Linux environments rather than virtualization.
Corporate purchases typically purchase new products either direct from the manufacturer or from the authorized resale channel. The M3 was introduced over two years ago and the only products I see Apple still selling with the M3 architecture are the Mac Studio (M3 Ultra) and iPad Air (M3). So any IT manager looking to procure a MacBook for an employee would need to find new old stock still in resale channel inventory or purchase a second-hand device, all for something that the article admits is still in an alpha stage of usefulness.
The progress the Asahi project is making on Apple Silicon is fantastic and important, but I think it will primarily benefit private individuals, not businesses. Perhaps in the future as the developers become more adept at reverse engineering hardware and if Apple makes fewer changes between generations then Linux could start supporting active Apple products, but it’s not there yet.
With Apple putting M-series chips in iPads and Linux gaining support for those chips, I’ll be very curious to see if we start seeing more Linux tablet support for iPads.
But their notebooks are massively overpriced design tokens with way too less RAM. As if “kernel hackers” now flock to Apple products just to install asahi.
It’s nice to see that Apple cannot block FOSS, but aside from that, you cannot buy m3 hardware from another supplier, so … Meh…
In business notebook comparison they are well within the norm. For private use … yeah, that’s a lifestyle choice.
This is true. I changed from a Windows laptop to a Mac and it was more or less the same price.
Well for me it’s good news for when these devices won’t be supported by Apple anymore and they’ll become really cheap.
Although the fact that most of the parts aren’t replaceable is also a problem in that case…
I just want macbook-level non-computing hardware (the case & hinges, screen, keyboard, mostly, but good speakers, mics & battery are a bonus too) & it’s not that ez to find in laptops (if there even are comparable puters out there).
I don’t need much computing power, 16GB RAM is plenty too, tho I wouldn’t say no to a 15h battery.
It’s just my use case - I want something built really good even if it has a Pentium in it (not that I’m comparing Ms to Pentiums) .
And I also don’t wanna spend 3+k monies for a laptop I’m about to use a few times a year.Nothing else fits my case, I might try it for the lolz.
XPS13. You can still get a 1080p non-touch screen with Ubuntu pre-installed (at a discount vs. windows). I’ve had mine just over 3 years and it’s still going strong.
Playing devils advocate here. I saw the C3 presentation of the Asahi Linux team back in December, they showed that while Apple is not contributing to the project, they’re intentionally leaving the door open to install other OSs, not trying to “block FOSS”.
You own the hardware, but you don’t get any documentation.
Can’t wait to install GNU/Linux on a new 5000 € laptop, which has the hardware of a 500 € laptop. 🥰
These people should get grant funding for reducing e-waste and Apple should pay for it.
Very cool and hopefully that means the M4 isn’t far behind!
I will probably never understand why people buy extremely expensive, locked down hardware and then forcibly open it up after 2 years.
How about stop shoving them money up their asses and buy a laptop from another manufacturer where you don’t have to sell your soul to install Linux.
PCs/Laptops are not the console market where there are just like 2 options available.
As long as Apple makes money with this shit, this madness will NEVER stop.
Well there is something kind of exciting about running Linux on Apple or Surface hardware once it gets really cheap and isn’t supported anymore.
Of course, if you buy it new, it’s different.
For me, it’s either I get Linux friendly new stuff or dirt cheap Apple/Surface hardware in second/third hand…
This reads like LLM slop.
According to technical reports from Phoronix, the milestone was reached by Alyssa Rosenzweig, a key figure in the graphics driver development for the Asahi Linux project.
The linked Phoronix article (published yesterday) credits Michael Reeves, noopwafel, and Shiz and does not mention Alyssa Rosenzweig at all.
The speed at which the M3 was tamed—booting into a KDE Plasma desktop environment so soon after the hardware’s retail release—
The M3 is two generations old at this point…
Booting a kernel is one thing; rendering a fluid graphical user interface is entirely another. The M3 achievement is particularly notable because it involves the GPU, historically the most obfuscated component of any System on Chip (SoC).
Again, the Phoronix article (and its linked Xwitter post) completely contradict this, saying instead the rendering is done with “LLVMpipe CPU-based software acceleration”. The GPU is only involved in so far as is necessary to send data to the display.
This article is misinformation, which is against this community’s rules.
