Asahi Linux is a crowdfunding project initiated by Hector Martin (net name Marcan), a senior operating system transplant expert, with the goal of porting Linux to Mac devices equipped with Apple Silicon chips. The goal of Asahi Linux is not just to get Linux to run on these devices, but to eventually polish it to the point where it can be used as an everyday operating system, Marcan said.

Recently, the Asahi Linux team released a status report for November 2022, highlighting the recent open source progress in supporting Apple M1/M2 devices under Linux. The November update includes support for new hardware (audio, USB interface, keyboard backlight) , new features, and fixes for long-standing pain points.

Here’s an overview of progress:

• Previously, Asahi Linux could only use Thunderbolt ports as USB2, and the latest PHY driver enables Thunderbolt ports to support USB3 mode, but there may be some glitches when quickly hot-plugging devices.
• Asahi Linux bought a tweeter, and it blew up during testing, but the blown speaker helped Asahi Linux further fix the volume limit and instantaneous power safety system. MacBook/MacBook Pro/MacBook Air speakers were safely enabled at the time of testing, but have not yet been secured and so remain disabled by default.
• The CS42L84 headphone codec has been reverse engineered, and headphone jack support is available on a variety of devices.
• Keyboard backlight works fine on M1 chip devices, M2 support is coming soon
• Power management work, hibernate functionality from “s2idle” is being introduced, but it’s still in its infancy, no issues debugging drivers yet.
• Installer improvements, fixing many pain points in previous versions, such as an issue with macOS resizing security restrictions caused by miscalculated resizing.

Full technical details can be found on the Asahi Linux blog.