Asahi Linux Has Experimental Code For DisplayPort, Apple M3/M4/M5 Bring-Up Still Ongoing
Prominent Asahi Linux developer Sven Peter spoke at this week's 39th Chaos Communication Congress "39C3" in Hamburg, Germany. He provided an update around the still-in-the-works Apple M3 / M4 / M5 SoC and device support as well as other outstanding features like getting DisplayPort working on Apple Macs under Linux.
Sven covered the many patches they upstreamed this year from the Asahi Linux project to the mainline Linux kernel, many of which were covered on Phoronix. There was USB3 support, System Management Controller (SMC), SPMI, audio, and other bits that made it to mainline namely for the Apple M1 / M2 hardware.
Sven acknowledges that the biggest kernel code still not yet upstream is for the display controller and enabling the GPU driver functionality.
On the display side, Asahi Linux developers have been working on the DisplayPort connectivity. For that there are now experimental DisplayPort patches for Asahi Linux via their "fairydust" tree.
Supporting newer than the Apple M1/M2 hardware remains a significant challenge. With the Apple M3 they are dealing with co-processor communication changes, the power delivery controller moving to SPMI, new chicken bit initialization sequence, and other changes. The GPU support for the Apple M3 also requires "significant" work.
In recent weeks though a new contributor going by the name "IntegralPilot" has been working on M3 bring-up. There's been progress there with even getting DOOM running now on M3 hardware:
For getting Apple M4 and M5 hardware working on Linux there are more changes to tackle still. M4/M5 changes have also broke the existing Asahi Linux reverse engineering tools. So as we move into 2026, it looks like it will still be a while before the newer Apple M4 and M5 hardware is working gracefully on downstream Asahi Linux and then even longer before seeing it in the upstream kernel.
Those wishing to learn more about these Apple Silicon Linux happenings can see the 39C3 presentation by Sven Peter on media.ccc.de. There is also the PDF slide deck.
Sven covered the many patches they upstreamed this year from the Asahi Linux project to the mainline Linux kernel, many of which were covered on Phoronix. There was USB3 support, System Management Controller (SMC), SPMI, audio, and other bits that made it to mainline namely for the Apple M1 / M2 hardware.
Sven acknowledges that the biggest kernel code still not yet upstream is for the display controller and enabling the GPU driver functionality.
On the display side, Asahi Linux developers have been working on the DisplayPort connectivity. For that there are now experimental DisplayPort patches for Asahi Linux via their "fairydust" tree.
Supporting newer than the Apple M1/M2 hardware remains a significant challenge. With the Apple M3 they are dealing with co-processor communication changes, the power delivery controller moving to SPMI, new chicken bit initialization sequence, and other changes. The GPU support for the Apple M3 also requires "significant" work.
In recent weeks though a new contributor going by the name "IntegralPilot" has been working on M3 bring-up. There's been progress there with even getting DOOM running now on M3 hardware:
For getting Apple M4 and M5 hardware working on Linux there are more changes to tackle still. M4/M5 changes have also broke the existing Asahi Linux reverse engineering tools. So as we move into 2026, it looks like it will still be a while before the newer Apple M4 and M5 hardware is working gracefully on downstream Asahi Linux and then even longer before seeing it in the upstream kernel.
Those wishing to learn more about these Apple Silicon Linux happenings can see the 39C3 presentation by Sven Peter on media.ccc.de. There is also the PDF slide deck.