Hi! I'm Hector Martin "marcan", and I like putting Linux on things - most recently on the PS4.

Apple just released a new range of ARM-based Apple Silicon Macs that blow every other ARM machine in the same class out of the water. Wouldn't it be nice if they could run Linux too?

As it turns out, they can, but someone needs to do the work. Since these devices are brand new and bespoke silicon, porting Linux to run on them is a huge undertaking. Well beyond a hobby project, it is a full-time job.

This is where I need your help. By becoming a sponsor, you will be allowing me to focus on this project as my primary job, and spend much more time on it that I ever could as a side project.

The goal is to bring Linux support on Apple Silicon macs to the point where it is not merely a tech demo, but is actually an OS you would want to use on a daily driver device. To do this, there is a huge amount of work to be done. Running Linux on things is easy, but making it work well is hard. Drivers need to be written for all devices. The driver for the completely custom Apple GPU is the most complicated component, which is necessary to have a good desktop experience. Power management needs to work well too, for your battery life to be reasonable.

Thanks to your support, we can make this a reality! I have launched the community project as Asahi Linux, please check out our website for more information and community channels!

At this support level I can dedicate enough time to the project to make it worth doing, but not full time just yet, so all further support will help speed up development. The next goal is the level of support where I can dedicate myself fully to this project. If we meet that goal, it will mean I no longer need to take on any other freelance/consulting jobs, and Asahi Linux will have a full-time engineer dedicated to the project.

In order to make this an educational endeavour, I am also documenting my progress and doing occasional public live streams so others can follow along. You can follow my progress on my YouTube channel!