Fedora Asahi Remix: Making Linux accessible on Apple Silicon Macs

Fedora Linux is set to be accessible on Apple Silicon Macs through Fedora Asahi Remix, created through a collaboration between the Fedora Asahi Special Interest Group (SIG) and the Asahi Linux project. The Fedora Asahi Remix is aimed at providing a seamless experience for both Workstation and Server usage. It serves as a blueprint for other distributions to follow, with the Asahi team focusing on reverse engineering, driver development, and software patching to enable support for Apple Silicon.

The choice to utilize a Remix is a response to the fast-changing Apple Silicon ecosystem and the pursuit of an optimal user experience. The Remix, rather than the original Fedora Linux, allows for the integration of hardware support as it becomes available, given the dynamic nature of this ecosystem. There are indications that Fedora Asahi Remix is set to feature the KDE Plasma desktop environment as its default choice, but confirmation is still pending.

Despite doubts about the viability of Linux on Apple's ARM-based M-series chips due to limited support from Apple, the Asahi project emphasizes the flexibility and versatility of Linux in accommodating new hardware architectures, encouraging the expansion of Linux's scope. The Asahi project involves complex tasks such as reverse engineering, driver creation, and software optimization, and it has already made several contributions to Fedora, including hardware enablement packages.

The first official Fedora Asahi Remix release is expected by August 2023. Meanwhile, development builds for testing can be found at https://fedora-asahi-remix.org/, but they are unsupported and may be unstable until the official release. More information and testing builds are available on the project website.