The Asahi Linux project and the community of the same name want to port a fully functional Linux distribution for daily use to ARM processors of the Apple Silicon type and already published an alpha for the M1 in March, M1 Pro and M1 Max released. Now comes support for the M2 and M1 Ultra.
Full support for Apple Silicon
After the first alpha version of Asahi Linux already supported systems of the type MacBook Air and MacBook Pro as well as the iMac and Mac mini with Apple's system-on-a-chip M1 and its expansion stages M1 Pro and M1 Max, the project now also delivers Support for the dual M1 Max aka M1 Ultra in Mac Studio, as well as Apple's latest SoC, the M2 processor. As a result, Apple Silicon is fully supported by Asahi Linux with the update.
M2 is here! A new Asahi Linux update is out, now with Bluetooth, M1 Studio/M1 Ultra, and M2 support! We've also fixed the macOS Ventura issue 😉.
Existing users, just pacman update to get everything!https://t.co/88Psu4HhQE
— Asahi Linux (@AsahiLinux) July 18, 2022
In addition to the new SoCs, the recently published “Release & Progress Report” further innovations, optimizations and error corrections for the free operating system for Apple computers.
- Support for M2
- Support for M1 Ultra
- Support for Mac Studio
- MacOS 13 Ventura support
- Trackpad support
- Bluetooth support
The developers point this out point out that Asahi Linux is still in the alpha stage and is very experimental, especially on systems with an M2 processor.
This is even more experimental than M1 support, so expect bugs. To get the option to install on M2, you need to enable expert mode in the Asahi Linux installer.
Asahi Linux
The alpha version of Asahi Linux installs the following system requirements:
- M1, M1 Pro, M1 Max, M1 Ultra or M2
- macOS 12.3 (“Monterey”) or macOS 13.0 (“Ventura”)
- At least 53 GB of free hard disk space
- An active internet connection
< li>MacBook Air, MacBook Pro, Mac mini, iMac or Mac Studio
< p class="p text-width">The foundation for Asahi Linux is the ARM version of Arch Linux, which has been reverse engineered to Apple Silicon's systems-on-a-chip.
The developers are currently using the modular free desktop KDE Plasma in version 5.24 as the user interface.
Asahi Linux is explicitly aimed at professionals
In its current state, the Asahi Linux project is primarily aimed at developers and experienced users. The operating system is currently not recommended for Linux beginners.
More information is available on the official website and the blog of the ambitious open source project.
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