Good thing almost all flavors of Linux run flawlessly on the x86 models.
this post was submitted on 09 Jun 2026
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True but also sadly as all the new models are a struggle to get working. So locked down they will likely end up much more in the landfills.
My daily driver is an M2 Macbook air running Asahi Linux. There are certainly some hardware parts I wished worked better right now, but its fully for my needs usable as is. Improvements are occurring regularly by the development team. Apple hardware really is solid, and I'm very happy that in the rare cases I do have to use a commercial OS (Netflix streaming for example), I don't have to use Windows. Its a dual boot machine (Linux/OSX).
Overall I'm pretty happy with Linux on this M2. Theres a handful of us here on Lemmy running it. You can find us at !asahilinux@lemmy.world
A quick question before research: is it fully working by now? Or are there some things you can live without?
E.g. I remember Thunderbolt wasn’t working, and wasn’t sure what that means. Either the port is not functioning or it works slower. I’d like to have a functioning display, so that matters to me. I’ve got an impression that Linux can work on Apple Silicon, if you’re ready to abandon some things here and there. I’d love to have it at least mostly functioning.
A quick question before research: is it fully working by now?
Is every hardware function in the laptop that works in OSX available in Asahi? No.
I’d like to have a functioning display
I think you're asking about "DisplayPort Alt Mode" which is where you can plug a dongle into one of the USB-C ports and output the local GPU to DP or HDMI. The answer to that is "yes, depending on how adventurous you are". There's an experimental kernel that does support it today. I don't think its in the main branch yet. I intentionally run version 43 (1 behind the current 44). However, I use a USB-C DisplayLink HDMI adapter for an external display and it does most of what I want right now without the experimental kernel. I do want "DisplayPort Alt Mode", and will use it when its available though.
If you have an M1 or M2 Macbook Pro with HDMI port built-in, those work right now. The challenge being worked through is a display port that gets unplugged, which only happens on the USB-C port Display Port.
I’ve got an impression that Linux can work on Apple Silicon, if you’re ready to abandon some things here and there.
I wouldn't use the word "abandon" but rather "wait for". Power management efficiency doesn't come close to native Apple OSX, but under Asahi it has enough battery for my needs. I only charge to 80% (supported natively in Fedora KDE) and get about 3 hours of runtime on battery for light to moderate use. I also read that this has improved a chunk in version 44, but again, I'm not running that version yet.
Another piece of hardware not supported on Asahi yet is the MLX engine. I've been experimenting with running local LLMs, and they do run under Asahi Linux, but the hardware includes MLX in OSX. There are some models specifically made to utilize MLX which result in significant performance improvements in inferencing speeds. The unified memory of the Macbooks means system RAM is available for LLM use, so I can run 16GB models while still having 8GB of RAM left over for other applications and OS functions on this Macbook Air. The RAM footprint for LLM works in both Asahi and OSX.
Keep in mind, this is a dual boot system. I still have OSX available if I need one of those Apple OSX specific function or extended battery life only one reboot away.
The main stopper from merging the fairy dust branch (the one with thunderbolt/dp over usbc) is the fact that upstreaming will require a large refactor to the entire Thunderbolt system in the kernel because the entire thunderbolt system is apparently designed with a single manky implementation for an Intel chip iirc
Thank you for this excellent long answer. I had the same questions and you addressed them all.
EDIT: One question. Did you follow a guide to setup the dual boot and if you did, can you link it?
The dual boot is the default install. The installer is a single terminal command in OSX with the installer being the guided setup. The installer is right on the front page of the distro web site: https://asahilinux.org/
It is literally just:
curl https://alx.sh/ | sh
The biggest decisions you have to make are how you want to partition the SSD between OSX and Linux.
I’ve been installing Linux in various ways since the late 90s using Slackware, and the Asahi installation experience was the easiest and seamless installation of Linux I’ve ever experienced. It on only occurred to me later why the installer could be so good. Asahi only runs on M1/M2 hardware. The developers knew exactly what the hardware would be and could tailor the experience around it.
I wouldn’t really recommend Asahi if you only have 8GB of RAM and a 256GB SSD in your Mac. It will certainly run, but is cramped in daily use.
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Meh, I've only had trouble with TouchBar MacBooks: because TouchBar, sound and webcam processing are delegated to a secondary chip, they do not work natively on Linux.
If it's T2 Mac, you should use T2Linux. If it's a non-T2 TouchBar Mac... Maybe something in the T2Linux wiki helps? At least on T2 Macs, certain modules needs to be loaded in specific order, or the TB won't work.
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Pfft you should try installing arch or Proxmox on a t2
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"Golden Gate"? That's the lamest name for a macOS release ever IMO.
Edit: As expected, half the page on Apple's website talks about AI with only vague things about performance and UI improvements. I'll be staying on Tahoe for now.
While I loathe AI bullshit, Apple is at least prioritizing local, on-device AI and end-to-end encryption with their cloud AI services.
I'll still be passing on any of this bullshit, but I appreciate that they tried to make a less problematic version.
What does end-to-end encryption even accomplish when you're just feeding the information into an obscured, blackbox AI on the other end?
Like yes, I understand the importance of E2EE, I'm just making a point, it's all rather ridiculous.
Thank you, this is exactly true.
Most internet things are E2EE nowadays, but it matters not when the other end is AWS, Google, Cloudflare, or OpenAI.
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The WWDC presentation yesterday was hilarious. Almost everything they said about the UI could be boiled down to: "We're undoing some of the incredibly bad decisions we made last year. Not all of them, but some of the big ones!"
They then went on to demo the new improved Siri, and as someone who doesn't use Siri, all I could think was "wait...Siri couldn't do this 10 years ago?!"
What a sad state of affairs.
It was incredibly tonedeaf. AI is not what people want, Tim.
More like 'golden shower'
I'll lift a comment I posted elsewhere on the topic of the name.
From a 9to5mac article on the topic:
Breaking with tradition, Apple didn’t name macOS 27 after a national park, lake, or other natural landmark. Instead, this year’s release is named after San Francisco’s iconic Golden Gate Bridge.
Typical of 9to5mac "reporting." The Golden Gate is a natural landmark, it's the strait between San Francisco and Marin which the famous bridge spans. Nowhere in the OS release even says the word bridge.
Fun fact. While it might seem safe to assume the "gold" in Golden Gate refers to the gold discovery about 100 miles upriver that started the California gold rush, it was in fact named the Golden Gate prior to the gold discovery. John C. Fremont (my favorite early Californian) named it such because of the color of the hillsides when he first arrived.
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RIP Hackintosh 💔
I have a 2019 MacBook Pro and stopped updating it at Sonoma. The new OSes are just too much for that Intel chip anyway.
The M-series processors are amazing though, I've had such a good experience with them.
Yeah, say what you will about Apple, but they really nailed the M processors.
Just install Asahi or Fedora and get your speed back.
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I thought they already did that a few years back?
Very few Intel devices supported Mac OS 26. They’d been winding down supported machines for a while before that.
they just used their own arm chips, but didn't require them for macos until now. that meant up until now you could still use older intel macs with the newest macos version, but won't be able to do that anymore starting with 27. only apple chips will get the newest version.
Stop being so pushing with the 26.5 update on my my devices. Everyday multiple times a day holy fuck. I need Linux mobile devices.
Just a quick heads up for those planning on installing Linux on their Mac. There are about three types of Macs: Intel Macs, T2 Macs and Apple Silicon Macs.
- Linux should work fine on Intel Macs, but some people at least seem to have problems with the Touch Bar.
- T2 Macs are a flavor of Intel Macs. If your Mac has T2 chip, you must use T2Linux flavor of your distro. The overall experience might not be perfectly smooth, expect some issues with at least Touch Bar, suspend and connectivity. Some fixes should arrive later this year, as far as I know.
- Asahi Linux currently supports M1 and M2 Macs. M3 and M4 are unsupported.
As a T2 Ubuntu user, the only thing that I really notice is that sleep/wake is pretty iffy. It’s annoying, but not a deal breaker by any means.
For anyone thinking of making the jump: the installation is pretty straight forward if you follow the directions
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At this point put Linux on them. There are distros that even look and feel like Mac OS out there too.
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A good thing in my book. Intel models are getting cheaper now. (Me eyeing a Mac mini, or a couple even.)
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Those Intel Macs aren't really that old. I had the last good MacBook Pro they made in 2015, which still had the glowing logo, then the the slump with the touchbar shits happened in 2016-2017.
In 2017 I traded the MacBook for a Dell XPS 13. Like the MacBook, the build quality is really good. It's running as a server in my media room. I'm running Ubuntu and I open it up daily to acquire new media, organize files, tweak my Jellyfin settings, etc.
There is no reason that 2017 XPS laptop couldn't serve as my daily driver. My OS is fully up to date and I applied a firmware update last night. The end of life for that device is nowhere in sight; it's peaking honestly. But if I had kept the MacBook, which was the highest quality laptop hardware you could possibly buy, for a premium price, Apple would be telling me it was no longer supported?
Regardless, Linux rocks so I hope Mac owners find joy installing a fun new OS on their good quality hardware. Here's to the next ten years of life!
Honestly Linux desktop is in such a good state these days that I have absolute zero care what happens to the rest of desktop ecosystem. If you're looking to get away from macos then just do it - get linux with gnome and you won't regret it. If you're moving from windows get KDE instead but both are incredible desktop environments that are far ahead of competition.
My touchbar pro 😞
Anyone got good recommendations for what distro will work on it?
I guess “f- them ‘poor’ developers.” Like, Hackintosh people had a chance to learn macOS development, but now? Why buy that spendy hardware? And I’m not talking about shops. I mean, indie developers.
This is one of the reasons why I stopped buying Mac's.
Apple talks a lot of trash about windows and Linux, but both offer far better long term support
Win 11 required TPM 2.0 (even though they went back and forth on it). That’s essentially the same thing, and Apple supported intel for a lot longer than was expected
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