Linux 7.2 Will Be Able To Boot On Apple M3 Macs - But Far From Useful For End-Users
([Apple] 25 Minutes Ago
Linux 7.2 On Apple M3)
- Reference: 0001638111
- News link: https://www.phoronix.com/news/Linux-7.2-Boots-Apple-M3
- Source link:
The upcoming [1]Linux 7.2 mainline kernel is expected to be able to boot on Apple M3 devices including the M3-powered iMac and MacBook products. But before getting too excited it's still a long ways to go before it will actually be useful for any Apple M3 daily usage under Linux with the overall support at this stage still being very limited for these 2~3 year old Apple Macs.
Sven Peter today sent out the Apple SoC Device Tree updates planned for the Linux 7.2 kernel, which will see its merge window happen in mid-June. The Apple SoC DT changes for Linux 7.2 include a set of patches by Janne Grunau for establishing the Apple M3 Device Tree files. This is coming up on the third anniversary of the Apple M3 / M3 Pro / M3 Max launch.
As Sven Peter points out in the [2]pull request , it's a very minimal bring-up at this point with not doing much more than booting the Linux kernel to a simple serial console:
"Add minimal device trees for all t8122 / base M3 based devices and some required new compatibles to the dt-bindings. These are enough to boot Linux on these devices to a simple serial console but future work is required to make these machines useful for end users."
It's a long road ahead given the limited Asahi Linux team and the big architectural changes from Apple M2 to M3 and a lot of work especially on the Asahi Linux graphics bring-up side and there not yet being the mainlined kernel graphics driver either yet.
Janne Grunau summed up the initial DT support for these patches queued ahead of Linux 7.2:
"Add minimal device trees for all t8122 based devices. The devices are
- iMac (24-inch, M3, 2023)
- MacBook Air (13-inch, M3, 2024)
- MacBook Air (15-inch, M3, 2024)
- MacBook Pro (14-inch, M3, 2023)
The device trees have a minimal set of devices limited to CPU cores, interrupt controller, power states, watchdog, serial, pin controller, i2c and the boot framebuffer.
The device trees for the notebooks add a PWM controller for the keyboard LED illumination.
The iMacs and the 14-inch device trees add the i2c based Apple cd321x USB Type-C port controller."
So it's still looking to be quite a while before the Apple M3 devices become usable on Linux, followed by the Apple M4 and M5 still needing to happen and with Apple M6 expected later this year.
With the downstream Asahi Linux code, [3]this documentation page sums up the current status of their work in bringing up different features of the M3 SoC, which amounts to a lot of TBA and WIP.
[1] https://www.phoronix.com/search/Linux+7.2
[2] https://lore.kernel.org/lkml/20260320-apple-m3-initial-devicetrees-v1-9-5842e1e393a8@jannau.net/
[3] https://asahilinux.org/docs/platform/feature-support/m3/
Sven Peter today sent out the Apple SoC Device Tree updates planned for the Linux 7.2 kernel, which will see its merge window happen in mid-June. The Apple SoC DT changes for Linux 7.2 include a set of patches by Janne Grunau for establishing the Apple M3 Device Tree files. This is coming up on the third anniversary of the Apple M3 / M3 Pro / M3 Max launch.
As Sven Peter points out in the [2]pull request , it's a very minimal bring-up at this point with not doing much more than booting the Linux kernel to a simple serial console:
"Add minimal device trees for all t8122 / base M3 based devices and some required new compatibles to the dt-bindings. These are enough to boot Linux on these devices to a simple serial console but future work is required to make these machines useful for end users."
It's a long road ahead given the limited Asahi Linux team and the big architectural changes from Apple M2 to M3 and a lot of work especially on the Asahi Linux graphics bring-up side and there not yet being the mainlined kernel graphics driver either yet.
Janne Grunau summed up the initial DT support for these patches queued ahead of Linux 7.2:
"Add minimal device trees for all t8122 based devices. The devices are
- iMac (24-inch, M3, 2023)
- MacBook Air (13-inch, M3, 2024)
- MacBook Air (15-inch, M3, 2024)
- MacBook Pro (14-inch, M3, 2023)
The device trees have a minimal set of devices limited to CPU cores, interrupt controller, power states, watchdog, serial, pin controller, i2c and the boot framebuffer.
The device trees for the notebooks add a PWM controller for the keyboard LED illumination.
The iMacs and the 14-inch device trees add the i2c based Apple cd321x USB Type-C port controller."
So it's still looking to be quite a while before the Apple M3 devices become usable on Linux, followed by the Apple M4 and M5 still needing to happen and with Apple M6 expected later this year.
With the downstream Asahi Linux code, [3]this documentation page sums up the current status of their work in bringing up different features of the M3 SoC, which amounts to a lot of TBA and WIP.
[1] https://www.phoronix.com/search/Linux+7.2
[2] https://lore.kernel.org/lkml/20260320-apple-m3-initial-devicetrees-v1-9-5842e1e393a8@jannau.net/
[3] https://asahilinux.org/docs/platform/feature-support/m3/