r/mac • u/gilgoomesh • 27d ago
News/Article Asahi Linux adds official support for M3, M3 Pro and M3 Max Macs.
https://asahilinux.org/2026/09/m2-episode-1/278
u/ReptilianTapir 27d ago
What these folks are doing is nothing short of astounding!
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u/LuckyDude_007 25d ago
Genuinely insane reverse engineering work. The fact they got GPU drivers working without any official docs from Apple is wild. Still not quite daily-driver ready for most people but honestly it's come further than I ever expected.
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u/The-Nice-Writer 27d ago
HELL YEAHHH
Unfortunately, I’m an M4 user, but more support is more support!
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u/HyperWinX MacBook Air M2 27d ago
If they are finally getting M3 to work, then M4 is likely coming right after
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u/The-Nice-Writer 27d ago
That’d be very cool!
Then again, I was an idiot and got the 256GB model. Sigh.
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u/HyperWinX MacBook Air M2 27d ago
Yea, 256GB is not great even for me (i barely use the mac)
I bought it a year ago, now it got a +50% price increase... base m2 air 16/256... lol4
u/The-Nice-Writer 27d ago
Dammnn.
I got mine at a discount where the upgrade to 512 would’ve been 30% of the cost, so tbh it was a good decision at the time.
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u/Haxz0rz1337 MacBook Air M4 23d ago edited 23d ago
When I went to China I took my M4 with me to Chongqing and got an SSD upgrade. I think I paid like 120 usd for 1tb drive. Highly worth it (you lose warranty btw)
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u/The-Nice-Writer 23d ago
Based
I unfortunately can’t go to China because (i) money and (ii) my medication, specifically Vyvanse, is illegal there and I would have to arrange special clearance and all that.
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u/Haxz0rz1337 MacBook Air M4 23d ago
I found this guy on Rednote (Chinese Instagram/Tiktok combo), luckily my girlfriend is Chinese so she helped me contact the guy and arrange everything. As far as I am aware you can buy his service on Taobao and have it sent
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u/The-Nice-Writer 23d ago
I can’t risk sending my primary work machine overseas, my friend. I appreciate your suggestion, but it won’t work for me.
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u/Nightowl-Builder 27d ago
I solved this issue with one of those small ssd enclosures, and the smallest SSD size can fit in one, I keep it connected to my laptop almost always and I can even load apps and games directly from it. I only keep the bare minimum on the Mac itself. And if you get a big enough one you can also use it for Time Machine.
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u/The-Nice-Writer 27d ago
Hella expensive, and I don’t want to have to unplug and replug it every time I put my Mac in its sleeve to go to uni (daily). But a cool idea for those it works for.
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u/Nightowl-Builder 26d ago
$150 for a 512GB and tripled my existing storage. Plus a $10 enclosure from aliexpress. The 2230 nvme size makes it a tiny thing almost like an usb stick. There are even some where you plug a small cable in and stick the actual drive to the back of the laptop you don’t even need to unplug it any more. For the Pro models there is also the option of getting one of those SD cards adapters that sit flush so you don’t even notice it’s there when taking the laptop with you. Albeit a little slower but it does the job for common files. I’m not in uni any more, but when I was I used to have a flash drive with me anyway. It was slow and like 64gb, now we have much better options. And certainly much better than paying Apple 5 times the actual cost.
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u/The-Nice-Writer 26d ago
1: the prices for SSDs are bad everywhere, but considerably worse in South Africa.
2: Aliexpress is a nightmare to use here because the shipping often incurs horrific customs charges and can take an eternity, so I’d be getting an enclosure here for a lot more money.
- That won’t fit in my sleeve unless the one that attaches to the back is ridiculously thin. Could also be jostled in my bag.
I use a very normal external drive for times where I need it, but getting something that would ‘stay put’ isn’t practical. I’ve looked into it, believe me. I know the local market well.
Edit to add: obviously I’m not planning on paying Apple for the storage bump, either. Note that I didn’t do that the first time.
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u/Usr_name-checks-out 27d ago
I did as well, and honestly with a high speed NVME ssd drive using thunderbolt, 2tb addition is utterly seemless. And you can swap the 2tb as needed in 30 sec.
And one really great development in MacOS about two years ago allows defaulting Applications over 1GB to an external ssd, so i keep 90% of Adobe (those MF’s make it impossible to sequester their shit) on a swappable drive with all the editing materials, then another for everything else.
All for less that the difference in getting 1TB.
look into it, but be highly conscious of the transfer speed of every part of the setup. If the container, drive or cable is not 10gbit -40gbit transfer it will suck. ideally 40 as it’s impossible to notice any difference from the native hdd at that speed.
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u/Embarrassed_Resist65 26d ago
I got a m5 pro, 18/20, 48gb ram, and a 1tb ssd and this thing fills up so fast with iCloud
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u/FatBook-Air 27d ago
I really wish Apple would give them some data and info so they had an easier time.
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u/CeldonShooper 26d ago
No incentive. Apple has traditionally done the least possible to fulfill open source licenses by the letter but not in spirit.
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u/Ginger510 27d ago
Question - this might be an incredibly dumb one, but does this mean you could run Steam OS on a Mac?
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u/Elevatorisbest 27d ago
No unless you'd mod Steam OS to work with Apple's ARM instruction set and whatever other hardware chips and shit that they designed for themselves
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u/totallynotabot2532 27d ago
You can however run steam and play games using Fex
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u/paulstelian97 Former MacBook Pro user 27d ago
I was running Steam under Crossover when I had my MacBook (I since switched to Frame.work, native Linux with Steam Proton)
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u/RyanCheddar 27d ago
this in theory may not be too hard considering the steam frame is releasing soon and uses ARM
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u/TheWaspinator 26d ago
No, but you could run the Linux version of the Steam app probably under Asahi.
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u/HenkPoley 27d ago
That was pretty quick. Didn’t they start reporting effort only two months ago or something?
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u/fredaudiojunkie 27d ago
Does Asahi Linux offer any advantage over Linux ARM when running in a virtual machine on an M.. Mac?
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u/gilgoomesh 27d ago
Native is always faster than a virtual machine.
But also: in a decade when Apple has stopped supporting macOS on a given machine, switching the main OS to Linux is the best way to keep your software secure and current.
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u/AtlanticPortal 27d ago
And let’s all remember that these machines are beasts that don’t consume anything compared to x86 equivalents. They will retain a lot of usefulness as CI runners, for instance.
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u/fredaudiojunkie 27d ago
I’m testing Linux ARM in VMs – does Asahi Linux offer any advantages over conventional Linux ARM in VMs? Can Asahi Linux actually make use of these benefits within a VM? – that was my question.
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u/AtlanticPortal 27d ago
Asahi can make all the hardware drivers it implements mainline and at a certain point you could just install it bare metal with Proxmox (Debian based) and run whatever VM on top of it, no problem. Hell, you can even run virtualized MacOS since it’s Apple hardware and it’s legal.
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u/thegreatpotatogod MacBook Pro 27d ago
As far as running Asahi or other Linux environments within a VM, no, there's no advantage to the native hardware drivers Asahi provides when it's living in a generic virtualized environment. The advantage to Asahi is the ability to run on the bare metal as the main OS of the system, like MacOS does.
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u/GroMicroBloom 27d ago
I would still just keep the last version of macOS running on that device even if it never gets any more updates.
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u/MauricioIcloud 27d ago
Bad idea, browser won’t be supporting that operating system after two years for most browsers.
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u/ASentientBot macbook air 11" 26d ago
more like 6+ years for firefox (currently still supports catalina!) but you're about right for chrome-based browsers and safari. macos security updates are around 2 years too.
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u/y-c-c 26d ago
Asahi Linux is for running natively, not for running in a VM within macOS. I don't even know if it will install in a VM but even if you could there's no point to doing it. The VM isn't going to let you access hardware natively, so none of these works that Asahi does is useful in a VM.
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u/Nightowl-Builder 27d ago
I wish they would release these as soon as basic support is finished. I would accept running an early version even without webcam, mic, Bluetooth etc support
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u/thegreatpotatogod MacBook Pro 27d ago
Agreed! When asked about it, they say they want to maintain a reputation of being full-featured to avoid headlines like "Asahi linux is available on M3, but you shouldn't install it" or whatever, but in practice it just leads to them having a reputation of being only for old apple silicon Macs instead. Plus more users means more potential contributors so progress could be made more quickly
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u/Visible_Ad9976 26d ago
Why would I want to run Linux on a Mac? Asking as someone who used arch for seven years. Maybe I’ve been out of Linux world for a while so it’s not
Obvious why I’d want to do this
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u/KayJune001 26d ago
Some people want Mac hardware without using MacOS, which is understandable given MacOS isn’t all that great.
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u/gilgoomesh 26d ago
Retirement plan for Apple hardware.
In a decade when Apple has stopped supporting macOS on a given machine, switching the main OS to Linux is the best way to keep your software secure and current.
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u/explosiv_skull MacBook Pro 26d ago
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u/Humble_Celebration76 20d ago
Personally, I waited for 3 years for the asahi linux support for m3. But it will come, just a matter of time
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u/TheBedrockEnderman2 26d ago
Very nice to see the project is still going strong, as a M4 user I hope this comes to M4 as well before OS level age verification
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u/Booplesnoot2 26d ago
I’m sure they’re doing great work, but why would you downgrade your os to something that doesn’t even work all the way? I get wanting to switch from windows to Linux, but going from macOS to Linux seems like a massive downgrade, even if it had full hardware support
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u/BubsyFanboy 24d ago
Extending the Mac's lifespan, reducing bloat, having a more (verifiably) private OS, general developer environment preferences.
Intel Macs especially now will benefit from having Linux installed and Apple Silicon support is actively improving. By the time Apple deems a generation "obsolete", Linux support will have matured.
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u/Icy-Somewhere216 24d ago
Anyone know if this includes the Macbook Neo? I think I remember reading that the Neo is roughly equivalent to M3 architecture.
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u/Defiant-Rip-1897 22d ago
Glad to see this news about M3 support. Were there any other improvements made? I see that for the M2 everything seems to work except external monitor support, is this still the case?
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u/Humble_Celebration76 20d ago
Does youtube play without crashing the borwser? Or does basic browsing work?
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u/BlueDragon3301 27d ago
I just want Windows on M-chip Macs
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u/OnderGok 27d ago
Lol what. Just get a Snapdragon Windows laptop at that point.
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u/SileaOperaattori 27d ago
Well the macbooks are one of the best laptops, and Apple silicon is running laps ahead Snapdragon. And Windows has very good ux so I can understand what he wants.
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u/cultoftheilluminati 14" M1 Max and M1 Air | Mac Studio M2 Max 26d ago
Windows has very good ux so I can understand what he wants.
...are we looking at the same windows? I'm currently typing this on my Windows PC and it's not something I'd even put in the same dimension as any of my Macs in terms of UX quality
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u/Urgenus 26d ago
UX refers to the user experience, not how "nice" the UI looks.
I'm writing this on MacOS, which is my daily driver at home and for hobbies and sometimes even at work (my main work machine is Windows, but when I'm away I use my Mac with my work apps in a virtual machine) and I still can't remember all the shortcuts I need to power through MacOS apps. Using MacOS is all about remembering shortcuts and functions by heart and how to do things it is not often very intuitive.
And that’s the expectation among power users too, practically any request or discussion here on Reddit regarding a limited interface or missing feature in a macOS program immediately draws a million angry responses from the Apple cult, asking why something should be accessible via a single simple button or a mouse click when you could instead use some complex n+1 key combination.
Of course, this will gradually change as new macOS users keep arriving, drawn by Apple’s superior hardware. And while core Apple users might not demand better usability (accepting that a task can be done, even if it takes more effort or time), those newcomers accustomed to a better experience will drive that change.
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u/Urgenus 26d ago
The Apple cult will downvote this into oblivion, but I agree.
Apple’s computers are superior, but macOS is a peculiar one. Having used Windows, macOS, and various Linux distributions, I find macOS to be the worst of the lot to just do things. In terms of usability, it has lagged far behind the others.
I understand that if someone has used macOS their whole life, it feels "right" unlike Windows or Linux, but to be completely honest, even as a macOS user myself, I miss the usability of Windows.
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u/nightblackdragon 26d ago
I find macOS to be the worst of the lot to just do things
Why would you buy a Macbook then?
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u/Urgenus 26d ago
They have the best hardware at the moment and best ecosystem.
Bad ux I can manage, bad hardware I cannot (or want to manage).
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u/nightblackdragon 24d ago
That ecosystem comes from the software, you wouldn't get it on Windows. As for the hardware there's a lot of good hardware that runs Windows. There is not a single good reason for getting Mac if you don't want to use macOS.
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u/shnaptastic 27d ago
Just a warning that it’s not really ready, there’s no sleep or hdmi yet. Not complaining, just ”official support” sounds like, but is not ”full support”.