Asahi Linux is updated with numerous new features

Asahi Linux on Apple Silicon

Asahi Linux is a project created with the idea of ​​being able to bring Linux to Macs with Apple Silicon. It is a project and a community with the objective of carrying out what has been said, starting with the Mac Mini M1 2020, MacBook Air and MacBook Pro. The objective of these developers is not only to bring the operating system to the Mac, but also to polish all the details so that In the end it can be used daily. They have been commenting on the updates that they have been developing and this month of November, have added a few which makes us think that the final development is getting closer.

The goal of the Asahi community, is to bring Linux to Macs, but above all to those who own Apple Silicon. A difficult task, because for this they must make tremendous efforts to understand how the new chip and engine of the American company's Macs work. Developers must reverse engineer the GPU architecture and develop an open source driver for it. But they do not give up in their efforts and we are sure that sooner rather than later they will succeed.

In fact, this November They have released a version update with many new features and above all, based on hardware. There are new features and fixes for weaknesses that were in previous editions. Also, there is a new kernel branch with support and the display driver. Let's see how they have improved.

USB 3

This new version includes a new driver, ATCPHY, which has support for USB3. In case you didn't know, Asahi Linux had only supported USB2 on Thunderbolt ports. This is because at Apple trying to configure compatibility with USB 3 is not as easy as with 2. The latter has all the universal drivers, and that is why its configuration is relatively simple. However, with USB 3, many elements must be manually calibrated. Also, it was bumping again and again with Apple's own Hardware PHY and the high speeds of USB 3. But it seems to have been achieved, at least for now. Of course, although the developers think that the compatibility is very successful, it is likely and possible that there may be some technical problems. However, any transient problem can usually be resolved simply by disconnecting and reconnecting the device.

Audio

There are some advances in other fields, such as audio. Nevertheless, At the moment the speakers do not work on Macs with Apple Silicon if we use Asahi Linux. The reason is quite simple, but at the same time it is complicated. Not being able to determine a volume limit, it's easy to enable it to break the Mac's tweeters. In fact, in testing, this has already happened. Modern speakerphones require a sophisticated software equalizer to sound good, but they also require sophisticated security models! What macOS does and what the project wants to implement is to measure the current and voltage through the speaker. From this the instantaneous power can be calculated. Feeding this power, the temperature of the magnet and other elements can be estimated. This can implement volume limits if the temperature gets too high.

Backlight keyboard

The keyboard on Macs running Apple Silicon and the test version of Asahi Linux has been made to be backlit, so there's no excuse for working in low light. Fworks perfectly with KDE.

There are many more news that you can consult on the specific website. But to summarize:

What works so far

  • NVMe is turned off
  • WiFi go into S3 mode
  • The display (DCP) enters DPMS (backlight and screen completely off)
  • DART Power Gate and restore state on resume
  • The CPUs remain in shallow inactivity
  • Some miscellaneous devices (i2c/spi/etc) shut down
  • Wake up via power button or flip open

What doesn't work at the moment

  • No deep/idle CPU (also affects normal runtime, stuck on PSCI replacement)
  • USB2/3 is broken (drivers are reset and you may need to reconnect devices upon resume; do not suspend with mounted USB drives!)
  • Some miscellaneous devices they are not suspended yet (eg keyboard/trackpad will buffer keystrokes and may break)
  • No alternative trigger sourcess (keyboard/mouse/etc.)

If you want to try these new functions, you just have to install the new updates and restart the computer. Remember that if you upgrade to macOS Ventura, it will likely not boot Linux, because while it is rare, for an operating system to "break" when upgrading, it can and has happened before.

It is a good project and those of us who are passionate about Linux can only wait, even if it seems to be taking forever. But It sure is worth the wait.


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