Fedora Asahi Linux for Apple Silicon Macs
The excitement surrounding the Asahi Linux project continued to grow as it forged partnerships with various communities. Fedora Linux was soon to be part of this collaboration, introducing the Fedora Asahi Remix for Apple Silicon Macs. Developed in close coordination with the Fedora Asahi SIG and the Asahi Linux project, the Fedora Asahi Remix aimed to deliver a polished experience for both Workstation and Server use cases on Apple Silicon systems.
Fedora Asahi Remix Coming Soon
The decision to create a Fedora Asahi Remix for Apple Silicon Macs is driven by the rapidly evolving ecosystem. The Remix offers the best user experience while integrating hardware support as it becomes available. The Asahi Linux team works diligently upstream, developing, maintaining, and packaging key components. The ultimate goal is to fully integrate Apple Silicon support into Fedora Workstation and Fedora Server, aligning with the Asahi project’s vision of support in relevant upstream projects.
The first official release of Fedora Asahi Remix was eagerly anticipated, scheduled to be available by the end of August 2023. Development builds were already accessible for testing on the project’s website, though users were advised that they might encounter unsupported features or occasional breakages until the official release.
The Dawn of Fedora Asahi Remix:
In March 2022, the Asahi Linux project achieved a major milestone by releasing an experimental alpha version of the installer. The installer offered options to install OpenBSD or alternate Linux distributions with Apple silicon support via a bootable USB drive. However, it couldn’t boot Microsoft Windows due to the complexities of modifying the proprietary Windows kernel.
The Asahi Linux team demonstrated relentless determination, and in July 2022, they released an update that provided support for the M1 Ultra, Mac Studio, and early initial support for the M2 MacBook Pro. Despite full support for all Apple silicon-supported Macs being a year or two away following the alpha release, the project continued to make progress.
Linus Torvalds’ Interest in Apple M1 Macs
Linus Torvalds, the creator of Linux, expressed interest in supporting the Apple M1 Mac after Apple’s shift from Intel x86 processors in late 2020. However, he found the task too time-consuming, opening the door for other passionate developers.
In December 2020, Hector Martin announced the Asahi Linux project with crowd-sourced funding. A month later, Alyssa Rosenzweig, the mastermind behind Panfrost, joined, providing invaluable support for the Apple silicon GPU.
The Asahi Linux team realized that booting the Linux kernel for Apple silicon’s AArch64 architecture was challenging due to proprietary Apple code. Their dedication paid off as they published a comprehensive explanation of the previously undocumented boot process on GitHub.
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