Back in August, we announced that Fedora Linux would soon be available on Apple Silicon Macs. We unveiled the Fedora Asahi Remix at Flock. This is a distribution developed in close collaboration with the Fedora Asahi SIG and the Asahi Linux project.
Today we are happy to announce that Fedora Asahi Remix 39 is now generally available! Based on Fedora Linux 39, the Remix provides a polished experience on Apple Silicon Macs with extensive platform and device support. All MacBook Air, MacBook Pro, Mac Mini, Mac Studio and iMac systems with M1 and M2 chips are supported. See the feature matrix on the Asahi Linux website for specifics about individual systems.
Fedora Asahi Remix offers KDE Plasma as our flagship desktop experience, which also features a custom Calamares-based initial setup wizard. A GNOME variant is also available, with both desktop variants matching what Fedora Linux offers. Both KDE and GNOME use Wayland out of the box, leveraging XWayland to support legacy X11 apps.
Fedora Asahi also ships with non-conformant OpenGL 3.3 support including GPU-accelerated geometry shaders and transform feedback, as well as the world’s first and only certified conformant OpenGL ES 3.1 implementation for Apple Silicon. High-quality audio is fully supported out of the box, thanks to our novel integrated DSP solution. This provides balanced sound with full loudness and dynamic range, without compromising battery life.
Fedora Asahi Remix also provides a Fedora Server variant for server workloads and other types of headless deployments. Finally, we offer a Minimal image for users that wish to build their own experience from the ground up.
You can install Fedora Asahi Remix today by following our installation guide. We also have an issue tracker for known bugs, a Discourse forum for user support and a Matrix room.
Fedora Asahi Remix is the result of a multi-year collaboration and we hope you will enjoy running it on your systems. We look forward to extending support to more devices and features in the future and continuing to provide the best Linux experience for Apple Silicon Macs.
Giuseppe
Amazing yes! BUT the name could be a bit shorter and better (now it kinda describes nothing to people without a clue).
“Fedora Asahi Remix 39” is just too much and too little? No indication of Linux either. But what could the name be? Set up a competition? =)
Btw: Fedora’s logo is often confused with Facebook by new comers. Even the colors are same… Then they get even more confused if no one tells them that Linux has nothing to do with Facebook and Fedora is a distribution and… and… Well.
iamteedoh
True! If they did something like Fedora Asahi Linux Remix 39, that’s probably very descriptive but no one would remember. Fedora Asahi Linux might be enough. You’ll know it’s Linux, Fedora being the flavor of Linux, and Asahi being the project of the flavor of Linux, which indicates it’s Apple Hardware Supported.
I think explaining what Linux is to anyone new is confusing in general because of the many available flavors. You’ll get the question of, “Why are there many flavors?; What is KDE?; What’s GNOME?, etc., etc.
Cheers!
dhime
Só chamar FAR 39.
mike
Excellent work!
iamteedoh
This hard work is paying off. Nice to see all of the accomplishments for this. The best part is that this project isn’t just about installing Asahi but it’s to bridge the gap of other Linux distributions to start their porting to Apple hardware.
Asahi is basically setting the foundations to make it easier for other distros to come onboard!
I love open source! Congrats to their team and open source devs around the world!
Benny F.
Amazing work. Just installed today. Works great and the install process was pretty simple. Thanks for the great work!
iamteedoh
Are you using M1 or M2? I have an M2 and it’s collecting dust because I use my Thinkpad with Fedora. Curious, if it’s stable enough to finally give Asahi a run on it
Giuseppe Della Bianca
https://asahilinux.org/fedora/
Ernesto di Terribile
I run it on a MacBook Pro M2 Max, basically for Monero Mining, when I’m not using it for production purposes. It’s quite stable. You can already run most linux Packages on the Mac through Homebrew and MacPorts, which will natively compile Linux Packages for the Mac.
For my servers, I use Proxmox, Kali, Alpine and Xpenology. So I’m already well versed in the Linux Universe, But running Gimp, Krita and InkScape through MacOS or Asahi does not make a lot of difference.
There is a difference in sound on YouTube my 16″ MacBook is a bit boomy on the voice in MacOS but it sounds way clearer in Asahi.
Ethan
Works great so far in the couple hours I’ve fiddled with it. Really highlights how few packages are compiled for ARM, though (Discord, Steam, etc.).
Scott Wilson
The project seems to be maturing. Very smooth process. I am not thrilled the security setting for Apple is set to permissive. I wonder how secure this is since we have to rely on Apple for the boot process
James Williams
Clicking on the “generally available” link in the second paragraph will take you to an Asahi Linux page. Scroll to the bottom of that page and you will see supported features in green and unsupported ones in pink. One of the pink ones says “USB-C displays.” Does that mean I won’t be able to attach my laptop to any display since I have only USB-C ports on the laptop? I spend 95% of the time on my computer with the laptop plugged into a dock with a full-sized keyboard and 27-inch monitor. If I won’t be able to work like that with Asahi, it won’t work for me. Please clarify this if I’ve got it wrong.
James Williams
(Continued) I see now on the Asahi page I mentioned that Thunderbolt is also in pink. Since all ports on Macs are Thunderbolt, does that mean that no external device will work on a Mac running Asahi? That’s quite a serious limitation! Again, please correct me if I’ve got that wrong.
Onyeibo
Super Interesting. Now Macs are attractive
Alex
Super operating system that runs perfectly, I installed it and I would like to know how to switch back to my Mac with macOS and vice versa in order to use both systems. If someone can help me, thank you!
Matthew Phillips
If it is anything like MACs of old you should be able to hold down the Option key during startup then pick what you want to boot.
Onyeibo
You mean dual-booting?
iamteedoh
I haven’t tried it yet but according to the Asahi project, this doesn’t wipe your MacOS installation and you should be able to boot to it or completely revert to it.
I’m looking forward to trying this but just haven’t had a chance yet.
mike
On my Air m2 with it powered off, I hold down the power key until you see the boot options.
Christian Bonnaud
You can have a look at :
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1iiFhhOkv14
You’ll have your answer and more.
Lorenzo
However, programs like Google Chrome and Dropbox won’t be available for Linux Arm, will they? Note that Chromium wouldn’t be enough since it doesn’t allow to synchronize bookmarks…
iamteedoh
How about Brave? I think that supports bookmark sync
Lorenzo
But it does not support synching bookmarks with Chrome, does it?
James Williams
Let me try my question one more time. Is it true that Thunderbolt isn’t supported yet and therefore you can’t use an external monitor (or any other peripheral) with Asahi yet? Thank you.
To the Asahi team: thank you for the hard work! I know you’ll get all this worked out.
Bill
James: I installed this today on a Mac Mini (M2 pro) with Apple Studio Display, which only attaches via Thunderbolt. While the install process is straight forward, when the Remix was booted, nothing appeared on the Apple display. Based on this, it looks like Thunderbolt support isn’t there just yet. Will install again when Thunderbolt support is in play.
James Williams
Bill, thank you for doing that experiment and passing on your results. I’m sure the Asahi team will get this working soon, but for now, I’ll have to pass. I can’t work for long stretches without a full-size keyboard and monitor.
Pavel
I’ve just installed Asahi with GNOME on an M2 Mac, it’s working very well. The install process was actually simpler than a standard Fedora install. I would say the installer asked too few questions, e.g. it didn’t ask me about the system hostname. USB devices are working if they are connected to the Mac but not to a Thunderbolt dock. Once surprising limitation is that Night Light is not available, it must be due to video driver limitations. I wish there were an option to use Mac-style keyboard shortcuts (without setting up every shortcut individually), but that’s a GNOME limitation.