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Dissecting the Apple M1 GPU, the end
- HelloUsername 1y ago(Why) are the M3 and M4 really that different from M1 and M2?
- dagmx 1y agoThey’re significantly different GPU architectures. They added support for hardware features like mesh shading, raytracing and better shader occupancy/dynamic caching. Beyond that, each M series generation also brings more of the system into the SoC. For example, the entire storage controller is part of the SoC in the M1, but the M2 brought in the trackpad controller as well. Bringing more functionality into the SoC has many advantages but it does make it more difficult to target because you can’t just make use of existing off the shelf controller knowledge to apply to it.
- jasoneckert 1y agoThis is an incredible achievement... not just for the technical depth, but for what it represents. Alyssa's work is nothing short of inspiring. The way she combined deep technical insight with years of dedication has not only brought open-source graphics to Apple Silicon, but also lit a fire under reverse engineers and open-source developers. She has shown a whole new generation that curiosity and persistence can break barriers. I thoroughly enjoyed watching the developments these past several years. Massive respect to her and everyone who made this possible, and kudos on her new position at Intel.
- zgwiuuurt 1y ago[flagged]
- xyzsparetimexyz 1y agoWhat?
- berbec 1y agoJust random internet bigotry - Alyssa Anne Rosenzweig is transgender. [1] 1: https://web.archive.org/web/20250520182445/https://rosenzweig.io/blog/growing-up-alyssa.html https://web.archive.org/web/20250520182445/https://rosenzwei...
- 6244859432 1y ago[flagged]
- nemomarx 1y agoWhen someone tells you they prefer going by a nickname, do you also complain that they're forcing you to ignore the evidence on their paperwork and refuse?
- AlexeyBelov 1y agoThe evidence of my eyes is two anonymous troll accounts that were just created for this thread. HN mods should really do something about it, it's way too easy to sign up and ban evade.
- miguelxpn 1y agoI can't wait to see what she accomplishes at Intel. She has a very bright future ahead of her!
- avbanks 1y agoCongrats! A great achievement.
- szidev 1y agoAlyssa is such an inspiring individual. I'm glad she's working on the things that interest her.
- BuildTheRobots 1y ago> I’m on the board overseeing Linux graphics. Half of us are trans. If all you care about is Linux, resist the attacks on trans people. > If you have any decency, fight back. https://web.archive.org/web/20250520182445/https://rosenzweig.io/blog/growing-up-alyssa.html https://web.archive.org/web/20250520182445/https://rosenzwei...
- xyzsparetimexyz 1y ago[flagged]
- abustamam 1y agohttps://asahilinux.org/docs/project/board/asahi-board/ https://asahilinux.org/docs/project/board/asahi-board/ The board is 7 people. I'm unclear what makes this awkward or inconvenient.
- alt187 1y agoThe proportion of trans people in humanity is less than 50%. Pointing this out makes it seem the board has a disproportionate number of trans people.
- nemomarx 1y agoI mean it probably does? A somewhat disproportionate number of people in software are trans. However, you could look at it the other way - if you take any group of 5-10 people I bet they're disproportionately something. Very few groups are selected evenly from all of humanity.
- stouset 1y agoOkay, and?
- abustamam 1y agoAnd HN has a disproportionate number of tech enthusiasts... We can point out random disproportionate number of X in any Y population; it doesn't make it relevant to GPUs or Asahi Linux
- giancarlostoro 1y agoInteresting that it cuts off at the M2, I guess the M3 was a massive enough shift that it did not transfer over as nicely. I certainly hope that the M3s and M4's are supported by the time Apple EOL's my M4 laptop so I can still slap Linux on it. The M4 series of Macbooks is one of the nicest laptops I've ever had the pleasure of owning and using.
- londons_explore 1y agoThe Apple GPU stuff is amazing, but I wish the rest of linux-on-apple work did better. For example neither suspend nor hibernate works in Apple hardware, which means if you put the laptop away for a day or two the battery will die and you'll lose everything you were doing.
- phkahler 1y agoI wonder if the Intel drivers are going be written in Rust.
- manav 1y agoVery cool and what an amazing way to learn so much beyond what you do in those years at university (at least in the engineering sense). I wish we had software and hardware open to be able to run custom setups whether its NVIDIA on x64 or Ampere/arm64 with MacOS.
- pbkompasz 1y agoHe did a great job
- tiahura 1y agoCongrats on a job well done.
- syntaxing 1y agoWhat an end to an era. It's crazy to think she started this journey at 18 and now finished 5 years later. Not many people believed they would be able to make the GPU work in Asahi linux. Kinda curious what her "Onto the next challenge!" link means. Is she working for Intel Xe-HPG next?
- kccqzy 1y agoYes I think so. Her resume says she started working for Intel on open source graphics driver this month.
- monocasa 1y agoGood luck to her. That's one of the pieces of Intel I think will survive its slow motion implosion.
- pjmlp 1y agoHardly, Phoronix has a few reports from Linux driver folks being layed off at Intel.
- monocasa 1y agoEverywhere in Intel will be subject to layoffs. My point was that the graphics division itself will still be around, as integrated mobile SoCs are basically the only revenue stream Intel still has a good handle on. That requires a graphics core, and all of the other usable options are either not for sale to Intel, have burned Intel in the past, or are owned by Arm.
- porphyra 1y agoI just hope that Intel doesn't squander the talent like they did with Jim Keller.
- lotsofpulp 1y agoIntel still has all the same short sighted bosses, the board of directors at Intel hasn’t changed.
- mrheosuper 1y ago>For years I juggled my courses with my part-time job and my hobby driver Man I wish i had half of the energy of this author.
- kbbgl87 1y agoi think it's a woman?
- wglb 1y agohttps://rosenzweig.io/ https://rosenzweig.io/
- dang 1y ago> I wish i had half of the energy of this guy Trolling will get you banned here, so please don't.
- mrheosuper 1y agoi swear i'm not trolling, i had no idea the author is woman.
- Quizzical4230 1y agoWhat a legend in the making!
- allenrb 1y agoNot much to say beyond a hearty “well done, you!” That, and looking forward to see what’s next.
- ActorNightly 1y agoIm glad she stepped away from Asahi linux. Its absolutely great from a techincal perspective and the progress that team has made, but talented people like her shouldn't be trying to reverse engineer software/hardware from shitty anti-consumer company that can make the entire project work in a heartbeat by publishing documentation, in lieu of building better stuff from the ground up.
- amiga386 1y agoUltimately we didn't need Jon Lech Johansen's work (and Derek Fawcus's, and others') on cracking DVD DRM or cracking Apple's FairPlay DRM, as there have always been alternatives. But their efforts did push the fight against DRM in our favour, and who knows what the world would be like if we had done nothing? Creating things is a gamble, as mass adoption is almost never by technical merits, but by marketing. So you could make open documented everything but still end up with nobody benefiting from that openness, because a competitor (whether open or not) wipes you out. You saw this happen even in the era where electronic devices were expected to come with full schematics -- there were winners and losers even then. But, if something has become widespread and well adopted, and it's not open, that's a problem. It absolutely should be opened up and documented. Especially if it's not because the money-grubbing creators of the something are deliberately hiding how it works and locking down control in order to extract more money from everyone else's pockets. The sooner you put an end to that, and the more often you fight against that, the sooner society itself becomes more efficient and fairer for everyone.
- ronsor 1y ago> in lieu of building better stuff from the ground up To be fair, even if you have the best CPU and GPU designers, it's not as if you can call up TSMC and have them do a run of your shiny new processor on their latest (or even older) process. You can't fab them at home either.
- overfeed 1y agoFortunately for her, Intel - her new employer has "fabs at home". Though on older nodes, TBF.
- GeekyBear 1y agoYou set an ambitious goal and executed beautifully despite a very busy schedule. Well done.
- brcmthrowaway 1y agoDoes Xe HPG compete with NVIDIA?
- wmf 1y agoXe HPG is also known as A750 and B580 so yes, it competes with the 3060/4060/5060.
- ornornor 1y agoPretty cool. She’s achieved more at 23 than I have after over a decade in the industry. What a talented engineer.
- iwontberude 1y agoNo clue who you are, but real talk she’s achieved more than I will in my entire life. I’ve been in the industry for decades.
- Tiberium 1y agoSorry to hijack, but since the topic is related: is the development of Asahi Linux still actively ongoing, or has slowed down a lot? The progress for M1 and M2 was steady and now almost everything is done, but the M3+ work still seems to not have started. And with major contributors leaving the project I'm kind of worried for the future of Asahi (on newer Apple hardware).
- Tiberium 1y agoFound out from some Reddit discussions that the developers aim to first upstream everything for M1/M2 to the kernel, and as of https://asahilinux.org/2025/08/progress-report-6-16/ https://asahilinux.org/2025/08/progress-report-6-16/: > With Linux 6.16, we also hit a pretty cool milestone. In our first progress report, we mentioned that we were carrying over 1200 patches downstream. After doing a little housekeeping on our branch and upstreaming what we have so far, that number is now below 1000 for the first time in many years, meaning we have managed to upstream a little over 20% of our entire patch set in just under five months. If we discount the DCP and GPU/Rust patches from both figures, that proportion jumps to just under half! So if the discussions are true, it can take years for the developers to finish M1/M2 upstreaming with all the Linux kernel bureaucracy. That is, unless they decide to start working on M3 before finishing the upstreaming
- laweijfmvo 1y agoi hope some day a used M1/M2 macbook air will be the greatest linux laptop around
- rc00 1y agoI would hope not. That would mean that no other vendor has shipped working ARM hardware support for Linux or has upstream support in the kernel. Forget the hostile nature Apple has proven to possess when consumers dare treat their hardware as if paying for it makes it their own. Qualcomm has been beating the marketing drum on this instead of delivering. Ampere has delivered excellent hardware but does not seem interested in the desktop segment. The "greatest Linux laptop around" can not be some unmaintained relic from a hostile hardware company.
- jimmydoe 1y agoLucky you, Intel.
- airtonix 1y ago[dead]
- judge123 1y agoThe author basically speedran modern graphics APIs on 'impossible' hardware and then just... walks away. Total mic drop.
- adrian_b 1y agoSwitching to work on Intel GPUs is not walking away. It is accepting a new challenge.
- adastra22 1y agoIt is walking away from her user base. (I’m not complaining — I’m an open source dev too and recognize I have no right to put demands on her time. But what is the future for Asahi Linux after this? I don’t see one.)
- deleted 1y ago[deleted]
- rowanG077 1y agoHonestly kind of heartbreaking to see her leave asahi Linux. She has done insane work building the vulkan driver from scratch. I wish her well working at Intel. If I ever buy an Intel GPU I can rest much easier it will work well on Linux. If she is working on the Linux driver stack that is.
- finaard 1y agoThere isn't really anything left to do for her - everything missing (including work on the newer graphics chips) can be somewhat easily done by less talented people, building on her work. She did the challenging stuff she cares about. One aspect of nerd brain often is that you can hyperfocus on challenging stuff, but can't get the motivation to work on stuff you don't care about - and even what would be a 20 minute task can end up taking days because of that. It's great that she has the self awareness to set goals, and step away once they're done. I didn't have that in that age - and still sometimes struggle. I was lucky enough that my employer back then recognized my issues, and paired other people with me for doing the stuff I was not interested in, and now usually manage to load those issues onto other co-workers by myself.
- rowanG077 1y agoM3, M4 and soon to be M5 are ready to be cracked open :). From what I understand they are actually different somewhat hardware wise. So it's really not like there would not be a continuations of this work. But of course it's natural to want something else after years of working on the project.
- finaard 1y agoTake into account that she's focusing on the 3D stack, not the overall hardware. Even with hardware differences there's a good chance it's not different enough to make it an interesting new challenge.
- zozbot234 1y agoGiven the features that have been advertised for the M3+ graphics and compute stack, there's rather a good chance that it is different enough to create big, new challenges for third-party support.
- tiffanyh 1y agoKind of amazing Alyssa didn’t end up working at Apple (instead of Intel).
- wmf 1y agoMaybe she doesn't want to.
- ninjin 1y agoThey seem closely aligned with the Free Software Foundation (FSF), so I could very well imagine that being a major ideological reason not to want to work with Apple. Yes, Apple sometimes upstream patches and they do contribute to open source here and there, but they certainly are no FSF poster child. Intel on the other hand are about as open as it gets when it comes to their track record in the graphics space. I personally have nothing but admiration for Rosenzweig's work and I hope they will continue to find environments where they can flourish and do great things in the years to come.
- sroussey 1y agoMaybe she didn’t pass a leetcode interview. :p
- technofiend 1y agoYou do have to wonder how that kind of interview would go. Hopefully it would be actual engineers that created what she reverse engineered instead of some gatekeeper trying to one up her somehow.
- ndiddy 1y agoAlyssa's post mentions how lots of the work she's done has at least started as side projects while she's working on something else (Panfrost while at high school, M1 drivers while at Collabora). Obviously I'm not her so I can't say anything specific to her. In general, Apple doesn't allow its developers to work on open source projects on the side while employed at the company. I think this is a stupid idea that costs them a lot of talent, but I doubt Apple cares what I think. I've seen multiple cases where an active open source contributor gets hired by Apple, then their presence in open source communities vanishes. Based on all the open source work she's done so far, I think it would take a lot to make her stop all contributions like that.
- mrcwinn 1y agoHuge respect for her. I consider myself a talented software engineer. I can’t get anywhere close to this accomplishment.
- abnercoimbre 1y agoGenuine question: is she a once-in-a-generation prodigy? We forget this class of people indeed exists. As fellow professionals are we inspired or deeply ashamed of ourselves?
- contrarian1234 1y agoI never understood this project. Maybe I'm missing something, but the timescale is such that by the time they're done the product isn't even being sold anymore At least with Panfrost it made more sense bc it still being used M1 chip laptops can only be bought second hand at this point
- syabro 1y agoWhy only m1? Just installed stuff on my M2 Max Some texts says m3 also supported...
- aloha2436 1y agoWhy would the product have to be available new for the project to be worth it? There are still many M1 chips out there, and this helps prolong the usefulness of those chips.
- adrum 1y agoI believe Walmart has a deal[1] with Apple to sell[2] M1 MacBook Airs. This has been the case for a year or so, so I don't think it's old stock. They have been in stock for since that date, and slowly getting cheaper. [1]https://9to5mac.com/2024/03/16/walmart-m1-macbook-air-launch/ https://9to5mac.com/2024/03/16/walmart-m1-macbook-air-launch... [2]https://www.walmart.com/ip/Apple-MacBook-Air-13-3-inch-Laptop-Space-Gray-M1-Chip-Built-for-Apple-Intelligence-8GB-RAM-256GB-storage/609040889 https://www.walmart.com/ip/Apple-MacBook-Air-13-3-inch-Lapto...
- contrarian1234 1y agoOh interesting! I for some reason thought Apple devices can only every be purchased from Apple (maybe that was only during the Steve Jobs era) But 8GB of RAM.. that's unfortunately completely unusable by most developers. (Panfrost drivers you can at least use on RPi-like devices) Maybe in another 5 years it'll work on the M3/4 and I'll revisit this. Good to know the devices are still being built so long after release
- MBCook 1y ago
- anubhav200 1y agoGreat work
- blu3h4t 1y agoMay I ask something, I want an apple silicone MacBook Air and I am probably just be running Linux on it, what are pros and cons of getting an m1 vs m2? Except for more ram or so. Thx
- 4gotunameagain 1y agoWhat is this, quora ?
- Perz1val 1y agoThe short answer is that it's just a stupid idea (and a waste of money). Asahi only works somewhat ok on M1.
- blu3h4t 1y agoSorry but I just can let it, I bought a Microsoft dev kit 2023 just to test hundreds of gigabytes of windows software I’m responsible for would deploy on it with the system center :D If that software would also Work ofcourse is another thing. :D
- Jnr 1y agoAgreed, it is not that stable/usable. I tested it on M1 Pro and was hopeful, but after some years I realized it is not viable for daily use. Many things still don't work and I doubt that they will any time soon. Last year I was given M4 Pro at work and it is not supported at all. Looking at the drama and people stepping down, I don't think MacBooks will be properly supported on Linux in this decade.
- flkiwi 1y agoOn the other hand, I have an M2 Air and it's stable, fast, and I haven't thrown anything at it that it doesn't handle perfectly. But the fingerprint reader doesn't work. (The M3/M4 are in progress but not supported. That's public on the project's compatibility chart.)
- 1y ago
- sangeeth96 1y agoInspiring stuff! I didn't even expect basic Linux support on M1 to be so good in such a short time-span, leaving graphics aside. I was very pleased when I tried booting up Asahi on M1 a couple months back and went on to get work done in it and even enjoy some games. Thanks for all your amazing contributions Alyssa and all the best for the road ahead!
- sheepscreek 1y agoShe just started working at Intel in August and has already accomplished more than most would in a year[1]. Incredible! [1] https://rosenzweig.io/resume-en.pdf https://rosenzweig.io/resume-en.pdf
- thebharathpost 1y ago[dead]
- anon-3988 1y ago1. student at uoft 2. a lead in a job at Collabora 3. very succesful and ambitious hobby project how tf does she juggle and managed to do all this? I can barely do one of the above properly.
- comonoid 1y agoPerhaps, "Deep Work" by Cal Newport can explain that.
- kubb 1y agoOne of the few people who are actually competent. Although most likely she’s well compensated, and doesn’t have to waste time on useless efforts at work, this level of discipline and striving towards a goal is just very rare in general. Possibly also no family, limited social life and no other hobbies.
- jandrese 1y agoShe does a bunch of social media stuff with her girlfriend on top of that, so “limited social life and no other hobbies” may not be a good description.
- xyzsparetimexyz 1y agoIgnorant comment. I'll happily be incompetent if it means I have those things
- MegaDeKay 1y agoMany people are competent. She's exceptional.
- jonathanlydall 1y agoFor myself, when I lived on a different continent to my family, had limited social life and job with strictly set hours, it was much easier to have the time needed to make significant progress on a hobby. However, discipline is an enormous factor too, actually using that extra available time on something “productive” is no easy feat. Now I have kids and live in the same area as my parents and siblings again, entirely happy, but less free time.
- reader9274 1y ago[flagged]
- lysp 1y agoHave a read of other posts and see what you might want to edit in yours.
- yfhuli 1y agoAmazing work! Panfrost driver was very impressive to me before, and now just know the lady also solved the GPU driver on Mac. Not sure Intel will be a good career path for her. :)
- spamjavalin 1y agoWhat a legend.
- Fokamul 1y agoI'm curious, why are not these people hit with C&D from Apple? And other great projects, like Corellium (Actual iOS VM, not that crap Apple makes) are hit hard with lawsuits etc. (You know, great project for these people who is still RE iOS for 0days and report them to Apple, which is behind me long time ago, reporting 0days for peanuts, yeah right :) )
- deleted 1y ago[deleted]
- MBCook 1y agoThe Asahi team had made comments that it’s clearly Apple is ‘silently encouraging’ what they’re doing. With all of Apple’s secure boot stuff they had more than enough ways tot totally squash running alternate OSes on the machines like a bug. Instead they seem to have gone out of their way in a few places to make it not only possible but secure. They’ll NEVER say anything publicly, or give documentation, but they’re leaving doors open on purpose.
- dagmx 1y agoCompletely different projects in terms of what they’re providing. Correlium was selling and distributing access to Apple’s software along with security bypasses. Asahi is not redistributing any Apple IP, are using Apple sanctioned methods to run, and are not commercial.
- jajuuka 1y agoBiggest thing is Asahi project is not a for-profit venture. It also mutually benefits Apple since that encourages hardware sales from non-traditional customers.
- creesch 1y agoIf I had to guess. One seeks to reverse engineer hardware to run an open source OS. The seeks to emulate a platform to run a proprietary closed source OS. If I remember correctly, Apple at the introduction of M1 made some explicit statements about the hardware not being locked down. Something along the lines of nothing preventing Linux to run on it.
- marsven_422 1y ago[dead]
- whitehexagon 1y agoJust to say a big thank-you to the Asahi team, and especially for the GPU work. It is still on my list to get back to some OpenGL dev work. Especially since I recently made fedora-asahi remix my daily driver, and I have to say it is amazing. It feels like I once again own my computer. Their work has inspired me to continue bashing away at my Zig PinePhone code, although I'll never have the skills to get it's GPU running anything beyond a poke'd framebuffer. That checklist of supported APIs in Asahi is mind blowing, especially in such a short timeframe. Again, well done, thank-you, and best of luck at intel.
- jacquesm 1y agoWhat a project. Of all of the IT work that I'm aware of I have a hard time choosing between this and Fabrice Bellard's output, both are - for me at least - equally impressive.