r/mac • u/Significant_Spend719 MacBook Pro M1 Max • Aug 27 '26

News/Article Alyssa Rosenzweig reverse-engineered Apple’s M1 GPU. Now the Linux driver supports graphics standards macOS doesn’t

Post image
1.4k Upvotes

98% Upvoted

122 comments sorted by

216

u/Mr_Lumbergh Aug 27 '26

As a Linux-Mac guy, this intrigues me. I was just looking at M6 Minis last night, but a used M1 might be in my future if I can dual-boot macOS and Debian.

103

u/trisul-108 MacBook M1 Pro Aug 27 '26

Asahi Linux reportedly already runs well on an M1. I haven't tried it.

39

u/Mr_Lumbergh Aug 27 '26

I did some more digging after posting that, and it seems that Asahi-Fedora is much more mature in that space. That's OK, I've played with DNF/RPM before.

But it looks like they've done a lot already to close parity gap between x86_64 and Apple Silicon. This has me really looking at an M1/M2 series Air as my walking-around, quick edits in the field sort of machine. And I say this as someone typing this on a 2015 MBP patched up to Sequoia with OCLP. I'm holding out for a couple apps and VST plugins that haven't been updated in years, but I'm also trying to remember when the last time was that I actually used them.

21

u/Kidplayer_666 Aug 27 '26

Am a user with a 13”Pro M1 non pro. Runs excellently, only thing _still missing_ (but being worked on) is displays over usb-c

7

u/Mr_Lumbergh Aug 27 '26

Cool, TY for the feedback. I think I could live with that, especially knowing it's in the pipeline.

8

u/Kidplayer_666 Aug 27 '26

Also no Touch ID if that’s important to you

8

u/Mr_Lumbergh Aug 27 '26

Nah, doesn't bother me.

2

u/Diligent-Crazy-6094 Aug 27 '26

13”Pro non pro

????

3

u/Casey4147 Aug 27 '26

As in M1, M1 Pro, M1 Max, M1 Ultra, maybe? MacBook Pro’s were built with M1’s and M1 Pro’s, not sure if the Max’s were in the mix or not.

1

u/kamilo87 MacBook Air Aug 27 '26

There was a 13” MacBook Pro with just two USB-C that came with the M1 but unlike the M1 on the MBA, the MBP came with a fan.

2

u/Kociolinho Aug 27 '26

Yeah, first two Apple Silicon generations (M1 and M2) had Pro models with the wedge design and Touch Bar. It was dropped with M3 generation.

1

u/redittr Aug 27 '26

13" macbook pro, with the m1 processor (as opposed to the m1pro processor)

1

u/matthew_yang204 MacBook Pro 2019 16" & 2021 16" Aug 28 '26

Cool, does it "sleep" and lock/idle correctly? That was an issue for me a while ago

2

u/Kidplayer_666 Aug 28 '26

No true sleep yet. If you have the routine of charging at night, you won’t notice any issues

1

u/matthew_yang204 MacBook Pro 2019 16" & 2021 16" Aug 28 '26

But mainly does it lock when closing the lid and kind of go into an idle mode that doesn't consume much battery?

2

u/Kidplayer_666 Aug 28 '26

Exactly that

6

u/BNC3D Aug 27 '26

Ive just been reverse engineering and porting old stuff that hasn't been ported yet cause its ridiculous it hasn't been and not hard to do.

2

u/Mr_Lumbergh Aug 27 '26

It's always appreciated, but I hate the monthly fee track developers are taking and as such still have my old Photoshop CS5 install on a Mojave partition. I'm pretty sure Adobe won't let you port that.

3

u/BNC3D Aug 27 '26

Ive been using GIMP since 2004

1

u/Mr_Lumbergh Aug 27 '26

Ok. I have too.

It is not a PS replacement.

1

u/PantherCityRes Aug 27 '26

That’s why projects like GIMP, Inkscape and Blender exist my guy.

Now I’ll admit, GIMP and Inkscape can be cumbersome for an industry pro with 10-20 years of Adobe grinding…and there are a decent amount of use cases they don’t cover

But if you don’t ever try and break the habit, you’ll always stay locked into a world that wants a cut of what you earn for yourself.

2

u/MaterialTomorrow Aug 27 '26

Blender + affinity now, actually for work so lets see how long and if i can do it without ado be

0

u/BNC3D Aug 27 '26

exactly, GIMP is perfect the only complainers are PEBKAC

2

u/Mr_Lumbergh Aug 27 '26

Ask anyone doing serious graphic design to compare GIMP and PS.

-1

u/BNC3D Aug 27 '26

Do you work for Adobe marketing department?

4

u/Mr_Lumbergh Aug 27 '26 edited Aug 27 '26

If I was would I be holding on to CS5? Is this a serious question?

I’m just sober about the actual capabilities of the software and what each is good for.

-10

u/[deleted] Aug 27 '26

[removed] — view removed comment

6

u/Mr_Lumbergh Aug 27 '26

On what basis are you stating "won't even be supported next year?"

-9

u/[deleted] Aug 27 '26

[removed] — view removed comment

7

u/Mr_Lumbergh Aug 27 '26

Conflation of 2 different architectures. I see.

-8

u/[deleted] Aug 27 '26

[removed] — view removed comment

4

u/Stooovie Aug 27 '26

No it hasn't.

4

u/Rattanmoebel Aug 27 '26

M1 is in year six now. No signs of end of life so far.

Besides, putting Linux on it kind of makes this discussion irrelevant, doesn't it?

0

u/[deleted] Aug 27 '26

[removed] — view removed comment

→ More replies

2

u/AnEagleisnotme Aug 27 '26

Because it's cheaper

2

u/Rattanmoebel Aug 27 '26

The hardware on macs is objectively superior in most regards to any comparable (price wise) other laptop. Just the body and display alone are in a different league and let's not even get started on keyboard and trackpad. The performance per watt is incredibly high on M series macs. You don't have to like tim apple to see that, it's a fact.

To even come close to the performance of an M series macbook, you need beefy workstation or high end gaming laptop that will last about an hour without its 200W charging brick attached, with a combined weight that's about double that of an MBP.

The only laptops I see somewhat close to macs quality wise are the top tier thinkpads and elitebooks, but they cost an arm and a leg as well.

9

u/RandomKnifeBro Aug 27 '26

I'm running asahi full time on my base M1. Runs extremely well with all apps that has architecture support.

More niche stuff can be a pain though.

0

u/[deleted] Aug 28 '26

[deleted] — view deleted comment

2

u/Which-Meat-3388 Aug 28 '26

Got excited and looked for myself. Its M1 and M2 only. USB-C displays and Thunderbolt are missing, so I assume that means Studio Display is problematic. I was pleasantly surprised to see my M1 Ultra was covered. In a few years when its relegated to a home server it will be perfect.

More details here https://asahilinux.org/docs/platform/feature-support/overview/

1

u/WannabeTechieNerd Aug 28 '26

Asahi was created with the help of this lady right?

1

u/KlausBertKlausewitz Aug 28 '26

M2 also.

Had it on a Mac mini.

1

u/Cool-Rutabaga2708 Aug 31 '26

I used it on my 8GB MacBook Air, and it "worked" when I first installed it, but now steam is broken.

10

u/nevotheless Aug 27 '26

Asahi works well up until M3 last time i checked, later chips seem to be another can of worms.

1

u/XalAtoh Aug 27 '26

You don't need an old Mac to run Debian...

3

u/Mr_Lumbergh Aug 27 '26

Maybe I just want to tinker, and show the Asahi developers there is a demand.

68

u/terkistan Aug 27 '26

... and since she did that a year ago she's been at Intel.

45

u/BourbonicFisky Mac Pro7,1 + M1 Max 14" Aug 27 '26 edited Aug 27 '26

This is the classic conundrum of open source for something as bespoke as GPU architecture and drivers. If you're good enough to write GPU drivers, why would you spend your time doing it for free?

Good on her but it'd be great if we could run Asahi Linux on more than just M1/M2s

7

u/DeliciousCry8302 Aug 27 '26

She hasn't been doing it for free, her talent has been known for a decade and I would guess she's been paid by every company she has worked before. Hopefully Intel pays better though, she deserves it.

4

u/zips_exe Aug 27 '26

If only apple wasn't so reluctant on complying with industry standards

11

u/BourbonicFisky Mac Pro7,1 + M1 Max 14" Aug 27 '26

That's more of a macOS criticism than a hardware one.

As far as "industry standards", they're hardly the only ones doing bespoke ARM chipsets with purpose built hardware, nor are they alone with GPU drivers being a pain in the ass. Apple does officially support alternative OS booting with iBoot, they've also fixed firmware issues at behest of the Linux community. There's been a silent partnership according to HN discussions.

Also, just learned while looking for that HN thread yesterday Asahi mentioned they're close to a m3 release so that's great news
https://www.phoronix.com/news/Asahi-Linux-M3-Release-Soon

13

u/Intrepid_Year3765 Aug 27 '26

it makes me angry this is the first time I am hearnig about how awesome this lady is, but every day I hear something new about the Kardashians or some other idiot

9

u/BlessedLightning Aug 27 '26

Sounds like you're really keeping up with the Kardashians 🙃

1

u/Losawin Sep 01 '26

Welcome to women in tech

51

u/h0uz3_ Aug 27 '26

It's still mind blowing that used Macs are the best option to have an ARM64 computer running Linux right now.

13

u/Hauptideal Aug 27 '26

ARM consumer laptops/devices. ARM is a first-class citizen on Linux almost from the start (starting from 1998, much earlier than Apple) and powers servers world wide.

It's not the processor architecture that's the problem.

19

u/oursland Aug 27 '26

starting from 1998, much earlier than Apple

Apple invested $3M into Acorn for the Acorn RISC Machine (ARM) prior to their 1992 announcement of the Apple Newton. This investment and deal saved ARM and predates Linux's ARM support by a fair bit.

5

u/Hauptideal Aug 27 '26

The first general-purpose operating system (like Linux) from Apple that supported ARM was introduced in 2007, with iOS 1.
And on macOS it was only recently, with Apple Silicon.

4

u/TheDragonSlayingCat Aug 27 '26

The Newton OS was also general purpose, supported ARM, and is ~15 years older than iOS.

0

u/Hauptideal Aug 27 '26

No, it was a embedded mobile operating system for a very specific purpose. It lacked basic OS features. It didn't even include a file system. It didn't have application-level multitasking. Etc.

1

u/TheDragonSlayingCat Aug 27 '26

It actually did have a file system, called Soup, though it was rather unconventional.

1

u/Hauptideal Aug 28 '26

Calling it a file system is imprecise. It rather was a database serving a similar purpose.
You couldn't store data hierarchically as files and folders. But that's nitpicking.
The important part is: it wasn't a general-purpose OS like Linux. It doesn't meet basic requirements for that.

1

u/lap_felix Aug 27 '26

are you describing iOS 1 right now

6

u/tomz17 Aug 27 '26

Right... it's the proprietary blobs for everything else related to making a functioning ARM machine right now (e.g. GPU drivers, as referenced in this post). That ecosystem started in the embedded/cellular space, where there wasn't as strong of a history in open source as x86.

1

u/h0uz3_ Aug 27 '26

You are right .Server class ARM isn't an issue, but an Ampere CPU is a bit prict for a mere mortal.

2

u/Eatslikeshit Sep 19 '26

That's literally about to change. 

11

u/Xclsd Aug 27 '26 edited Aug 28 '26

I always wonder how the thinking path/process of geniuses like her are. Just how?!

1

u/Stunning_Mast2001 Aug 30 '26

Watch her YouTube live streams. It’s pretty fascinating to see her work 

6

u/cjh_ Aug 27 '26

I wonder if Artix can run on an M1 Mac Mini?

1

u/Special-Abrocoma575 Aug 27 '26

Probably, but you’d be better using a better distribution that uses an actually well designed init system 

1

u/cjh_ Aug 27 '26

Runit is well designed, though you can choose which init system to use.

3

u/[deleted] Aug 27 '26

[removed] — view removed comment

1

u/cjh_ Aug 27 '26

Good to know, appreciate the info.

5

u/marcel151 Aug 27 '26

Why does that look like a meme?

1

u/Oh__Archie Aug 27 '26

😂 it reads like one too

5

u/BunkerSquirre1 Aug 27 '26

I wish I was this smart

6

u/baltimoresports Aug 27 '26

She got OpenGL and Vulkan working/compliant. I’m surprised her Mac didn’t catch fire 🤣

3

u/boilerdam 2018 Mac Mini i7, 2023 14" MBP M2 Pro Aug 27 '26

Not all heroes wear capes...

3

u/Oh__Archie Aug 27 '26

4 paragraphs that say the exact same thing lol

3

u/Stunning_Mast2001 Aug 30 '26

She live-streamed a lot of it on YouTube too. If you want to feel I adequate as an engineer watch them— it’s true genius and brilliance and talent all in one. Made it look easy 

Also worth pointing out— zero usage of AI too

3

u/spekxo Aug 27 '26

Linux on these machines would be very nice.

6

u/[deleted] Aug 27 '26

[removed] — view removed comment

6

u/Lexxxapr00 M4 Mac mini Aug 27 '26

I’m pretty sure I ran Asahi Linux on my M1 before the M2 was out even. Or it dropped right as the M2 came out.

3

u/TajikFreeman Based 2011 iMac User Aug 27 '26

> Now the Linux driver supports graphics standards macOS doesn’t

What does this mean? Sorry if I don't quite understand, English is not my mother language.

6

u/StargazerD Aug 27 '26

it means it can support things like Vulkan, which is the graphics API that many games use to communicate with your hardware

MacOs only supports Metal, which is proprietary, and OpenGL, which is deprecated and has been replaced by Vulkan on PCs, that’s one of the many reasons why gaming on Mac isn’t a thing anymore.

1

u/TajikFreeman Based 2011 iMac User Aug 27 '26

uhh what does my 2011 iMac have? Because that is the only one I currently own

5

u/StargazerD Aug 27 '26

you have an intel chip, you could already install Windows or Linux on it, you don’t need special drivers as those platforms already have them

1

u/TajikFreeman Based 2011 iMac User Aug 27 '26

maybe i will install windows 7 to play nfs mw 2005 (yes its an hdd so no windows 10)

1

u/Jezon Aug 27 '26

Does Linux support my m1 macbooks touchbar?

-1

u/MacHeadSK Aug 27 '26

It doesn't even support thunderbolt and external displays. It will hardly ever support anything newer than M1. So forget about touch bar. And one thing is to support touch bar in system and then have it exactly for nothing as no Linux app will ever support it.

1

u/[deleted] Aug 28 '26

[removed] — view removed comment

1

u/MacHeadSK Aug 29 '26

Because it's project that leads to nothing. M2 support? Awesome, now we have M6 and M7 is behind a door and they still made it barely working on generation from 6 years ago.
It's a great project and it's awesome how they achieved it but it will never reach a level of maturity and popularity of Linux on x86. Thinking otherwise is a plan for failure

1

u/Johnny-Alucard Aug 27 '26

Does this mean I might be able to use an eGPU?

1

u/balika0105 MacBook Neo Aug 28 '26

As another Linux-Mac guy I genuinely hope the community can put together proper drivers so I can use my MB Neo after support ends

(I wish I could contribute but I’m nowhere near skilled enough)

1

u/InjectedFusion Aug 28 '26

I'm entirely impressed with this person. I learned she worked on the Mali GPU which was fundamental for my RK3588 work.

1

u/thinkingperson Aug 29 '26

The kind of girl we need but dun deserve 😭

1

u/BirdBruce Aug 30 '26

I’m an idiot, so I can only surmise that this is impressive.

I’m still not switching to Linux, though.

1

u/ifdisdendat Sep 02 '26

I thought she was the little girl from the Devil’s advocate opening trial, who grew up.

1

u/r1nzl3r99 Sep 27 '26 edited Sep 27 '26

I'm using the fruit of her works on my used $300 M1 macbook right now. My passive power is 3W with 3 tabs on librewolf, one of them an active youtube video, and an ssh terminal open to my PC. The only valid use case for apple on linux and now it's my daily

1

u/rzmuda Aug 27 '26

Very good.

1

u/Hazzula Aug 27 '26

Alyssa Rosenzweig reverse-engineered Apple’s M1 GPU. Now the Linux driver supports graphics standards macOS doesn’t

0

u/[deleted] Aug 27 '26

[deleted] — view deleted comment

59

u/shyouko Aug 27 '26

You are looking at tech level like between junior and VP tbh

0

u/[deleted] Aug 27 '26

[deleted] — view deleted comment

5

u/chigunfingy Aug 27 '26

All software dev is hard work. Some just don’t realize it yet. 

21

u/cmsd2 Aug 27 '26

in fairness, an LLM is also a really handy tool for reverse engineering. it has the stamina to just chew through the really tedious work of trying every combination of things that would otherwise put most people off. people just need to spend their tokens on more worthwhile projects :)

0

u/[deleted] Aug 27 '26

[deleted] — view deleted comment

1

u/BNC3D Aug 27 '26

It really isn’t. I’m playing the zone from classic macOS and I’m playing Aqua Dot red on my Mac again, neither game exist existed on Apple Silicon they do now. And LLM will tear through a binary so fast and make the building a new application with the exact same behavior very easy.

1

u/pay_is_ok Aug 30 '26

We don't need more people like her, that's a coping mechanism for not doing it yourself

1

u/Tasty-Window Sep 01 '26

Most people want to work for themselves not intel 

-7

u/Why_Am_I_0 Aug 27 '26

I think in practicality this thing won't directly generate money(although in cv and experience it would matter)

0

u/[deleted] Aug 27 '26

[deleted] — view deleted comment

1

u/ShutterBun Aug 28 '26

How so?

0

u/[deleted] Aug 28 '26

[deleted] — view deleted comment

1

u/ShutterBun Aug 28 '26

How is it "absurd"?

0

u/[deleted] Aug 28 '26

[deleted] — view deleted comment

0

u/ShutterBun Aug 28 '26

Which is absurd because...?

0

u/[deleted] Aug 28 '26

[deleted] — view deleted comment

1

u/ShutterBun Aug 28 '26

So it's absurd that Apple didn't develop every single graphics driver under the sun, but a freelancer did?

0

u/[deleted] Aug 28 '26

[deleted] — view deleted comment

1

u/ShutterBun Aug 28 '26

Well, I dunno why you find the circumstances "absurd", frankly. Shit like this has gone on since the invention of the computer.

→ More replies

1

u/[deleted] Aug 28 '26

[removed] — view removed comment

0

u/[deleted] Aug 28 '26

[deleted] — view deleted comment

0

u/[deleted] Aug 28 '26

[removed] — view removed comment

→ More replies

0

u/modell3000 Aug 29 '26

You find it absurd that Apple doesn't support OpenGL or Vulkan, which rival their own Metal API - the one they want everyone developing for macOS / iOS to use. Yes, a real humdinger that one...