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When the C absolutist maintainers fought for control over the ability to keep Rust out of their ballpark, I didn't expect the reverse to happen. Still, I think

When the C absolutist maintainers fought for control over the ability to keep Rust out of their ballpark, I didn't expect the reverse to happen. Still, I think it makes a lot of sense. Completely new GPU drivers are quite rare and the macOS drivers from Asahi are a showcase proving that Rust and GPU drivers work together well. If there's any subcomponent switching to Rust-first for new contributions, it makes sense for it to be the one that had already been proven to be Rust-compatible.

imcritic 9mo ago
Asahi project looks barely alive, almost abandoned. I know that their explanation of low activity is that they are being active elsewhere, supposedly pushing all their work upstream, but this has been happening for months and they don't give any reports about their progress, so I'm worried it will all die soon. And given that the project barely brought some Linux compatibility for m1 and m2 hardware and no prospects for bringing similar compatibility for newer generations - I fear it all will be kinda useless in the end.
- kryptiskt 9mo ago
  Wasn't it just a couple of weeks ago that they started supporting M3? That smells like progress to me.
  - mathfailure 9mo ago
    One can start working on creation of a teleportation device. Doesn't mean we have it. https://asahilinux.org/docs/platform/feature-support/m3/ https://asahilinux.org/docs/platform/feature-support/m3/ What do you see as progress here? Nothing is supported, everything is "to be announced" (i.e. unsupported).
    - throawayonthe 9mo ago
      they likely meant this progress post showing a desktop booting on an M3 mac: https://www.reddit.com/r/AsahiLinux/comments/1qnddjd/m3_now_has_fedora_43_asahi_remix_working_with_kde/ https://www.reddit.com/r/AsahiLinux/comments/1qnddjd/m3_now_... albeit with software graphics
      - mathfailure 9mo ago
        Looks believable that they are indeed the devs behind the project, but it's weird to post stuff like that to... reddit? They have a site for the project, why not post there?
        cermicelli 9mo ago
        You could read the updates... https://asahilinux.org/2025/10/progress-report-6-17/ https://asahilinux.org/2025/10/progress-report-6-17/ Not marketing a not yet complete feature on their website makes total sense. People on internet hating Asahi linux just cause seems like weird to me.
- c0balt 9mo ago
  > this has been happening for months and they don't give any reports about their progress This seems a bit exaggerated, their latest progress report is barely two months old: https://asahilinux.org/2025/12/progress-report-6-18/ https://asahilinux.org/2025/12/progress-report-6-18/ They inarguably have slowed down, but this should be expected as the project matures. It has also inevitably now faced the time when new generations of contributors are needed as existing ones retire/ move to other projects.
  - charcircuit 9mo ago
    >as the project matures How can it be mature if it can't even boot on newer MacBooks. The slowness does not seem to be due to running out of impactful work that needs to be done.
    - GeekyBear 9mo ago
      The new leadership team blogged last year that their priority would be on upstreaming their existing work. > Our priority is kernel upstreaming. Our downstream Linux tree contains over 1000 patches required for Apple Silicon that are not yet in upstream Linux. The upstream kernel moves fast, requiring us to constantly rebase our changes on top of upstream while battling merge conflicts and regressions. Janne, Neal, and marcan have rebased our tree for years, but it is laborious with so many patches. Before adding more, we need to reduce our patch stack to remain sustainable long-term... Where do the M3 and M4 fit in? Until upstreaming and CI progress, the core team cannot prioritize new hardware. https://asahilinux.org/2025/02/passing-the-torch/ https://asahilinux.org/2025/02/passing-the-torch/ I think the majority of that upstreaming work (that isn't on hold until the kernal is ready for the Rust graphics driver to land) has happened and additional features like DP alt mode for USB C have been demoed. The next update from the team should land on their blog after 6.19 ships
    - electronsoup 9mo ago
      That's some weird gatekeeping. The hardware they do support is supported well.
- jeroenhd 9mo ago
  Activity has died down as a result of general Linux kernel developer drama, petty in-fighting, and other factors, but that doesn't change the results they did produce during their most prolific phase so far. Without proper support from upstream like AMD, Intel, and Qualcomm (to some extent) are doing, Linux will never work as well on Apple's hardware as it does on normal hardware.
pantalaimon 9mo ago
I would envision to see some more GPU drivers from Chinese companies like MooreThreads
anthk 9mo ago
The Rust crustaceans should apply their knowledge to Redox OS and top sending Rust crapware (which it might be fine for security, but Cargo it's a nightmware to maintain) and stop messing with GNU/Linux and, by proxy, the rest of the BSD's. As tons of distros adopted LibreSSL, it might happen the same with KMS/DRM+MESA as it happened with Xenocara for X.org under OpenBSD and the special X server under NetBSD for legacy machines with really weird adapters leaving out the modular X.org -mainstream- to ports. They might call it VEGA (for MESA) and Iridium (for Gallium middleware).
- neobrain 9mo ago
  > Cargo it's a nightmware to maintain To my knowledge, the Linux kernel doesn't use Cargo to build Rust code.

imcritic 9mo ago

Asahi project looks barely alive, almost abandoned. I know that their explanation of low activity is that they are being active elsewhere, supposedly pushing all their work upstream, but this has been happening for months and they don't give any reports about their progress, so I'm worried it will all die soon. And given that the project barely brought some Linux compatibility for m1 and m2 hardware and no prospects for bringing similar compatibility for newer generations - I fear it all will be kinda useless in the end.

kryptiskt 9mo ago
Wasn't it just a couple of weeks ago that they started supporting M3? That smells like progress to me.
- mathfailure 9mo ago
  One can start working on creation of a teleportation device. Doesn't mean we have it. https://asahilinux.org/docs/platform/feature-support/m3/ https://asahilinux.org/docs/platform/feature-support/m3/ What do you see as progress here? Nothing is supported, everything is "to be announced" (i.e. unsupported).
  - throawayonthe 9mo ago
    they likely meant this progress post showing a desktop booting on an M3 mac: https://www.reddit.com/r/AsahiLinux/comments/1qnddjd/m3_now_has_fedora_43_asahi_remix_working_with_kde/ https://www.reddit.com/r/AsahiLinux/comments/1qnddjd/m3_now_... albeit with software graphics
    - mathfailure 9mo ago
      Looks believable that they are indeed the devs behind the project, but it's weird to post stuff like that to... reddit? They have a site for the project, why not post there?
      - cermicelli 9mo ago
        You could read the updates... https://asahilinux.org/2025/10/progress-report-6-17/ https://asahilinux.org/2025/10/progress-report-6-17/ Not marketing a not yet complete feature on their website makes total sense. People on internet hating Asahi linux just cause seems like weird to me.
c0balt 9mo ago
> this has been happening for months and they don't give any reports about their progress This seems a bit exaggerated, their latest progress report is barely two months old: https://asahilinux.org/2025/12/progress-report-6-18/ https://asahilinux.org/2025/12/progress-report-6-18/ They inarguably have slowed down, but this should be expected as the project matures. It has also inevitably now faced the time when new generations of contributors are needed as existing ones retire/ move to other projects.
- charcircuit 9mo ago
  >as the project matures How can it be mature if it can't even boot on newer MacBooks. The slowness does not seem to be due to running out of impactful work that needs to be done.
  - GeekyBear 9mo ago
    The new leadership team blogged last year that their priority would be on upstreaming their existing work. > Our priority is kernel upstreaming. Our downstream Linux tree contains over 1000 patches required for Apple Silicon that are not yet in upstream Linux. The upstream kernel moves fast, requiring us to constantly rebase our changes on top of upstream while battling merge conflicts and regressions. Janne, Neal, and marcan have rebased our tree for years, but it is laborious with so many patches. Before adding more, we need to reduce our patch stack to remain sustainable long-term... Where do the M3 and M4 fit in? Until upstreaming and CI progress, the core team cannot prioritize new hardware. https://asahilinux.org/2025/02/passing-the-torch/ https://asahilinux.org/2025/02/passing-the-torch/ I think the majority of that upstreaming work (that isn't on hold until the kernal is ready for the Rust graphics driver to land) has happened and additional features like DP alt mode for USB C have been demoed. The next update from the team should land on their blog after 6.19 ships
  - electronsoup 9mo ago
    That's some weird gatekeeping. The hardware they do support is supported well.
jeroenhd 9mo ago
Activity has died down as a result of general Linux kernel developer drama, petty in-fighting, and other factors, but that doesn't change the results they did produce during their most prolific phase so far. Without proper support from upstream like AMD, Intel, and Qualcomm (to some extent) are doing, Linux will never work as well on Apple's hardware as it does on normal hardware.

pantalaimon 9mo ago

I would envision to see some more GPU drivers from Chinese companies like MooreThreads

anthk 9mo ago

The Rust crustaceans should apply their knowledge to Redox OS and top sending Rust crapware (which it might be fine for security, but Cargo it's a nightmware to maintain) and stop messing with GNU/Linux and, by proxy, the rest of the BSD's. As tons of distros adopted LibreSSL, it might happen the same with KMS/DRM+MESA as it happened with Xenocara for X.org under OpenBSD and the special X server under NetBSD for legacy machines with really weird adapters leaving out the modular X.org -mainstream- to ports. They might call it VEGA (for MESA) and Iridium (for Gallium middleware).

neobrain 9mo ago
> Cargo it's a nightmware to maintain To my knowledge, the Linux kernel doesn't use Cargo to build Rust code.