I don’t know if in good muggles you know the project Asahi Linuxbut if you are librists and you are running in architecture Apple Siliconit is sure that it speaks to you. Besides, I had already presented the subject here A few years ago.

If I am involved today, it is because after the resignation last February of Hector Martin, the founder of the project, it is the turn of Asahi Lina, a key developer of the project, to leave the ship.

Indeed, the latter has just announced on her Bluesky account, which she suspended her work on Apple GPU pilots for Linux indefinitely. She was specialized in the backbone of the GPU interface of the M1 chips and the development of a Kernel DRM driver written in Rust (the very first gpu Driver of the Linux nucleus written in this language, just that!), And her work was crucial to allow Linux to properly exploit the graphic performance of the Apple fleas.

Unfortunately, his departure represents a blow for the community and the users Asahi Linux which thus loses any possibility of improving for the moment, the graphic support of Linux on the Mac M1/m2.

These 2 resignations in the background are a lot of talk & mldr; For Hector Martin it would be linked to a burnout, many frustrations with users and the Linux community and many tensions also around the integration of rust in the Linux nucleus. And for Lina, it would be for “personal reasons”, even if in her message, she also says that she no longer feels in “security”.

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In short, it is strange, even if sometimes the environment in open-source communities is really toxic, so you can understand its position.

Unless Apple sent them a small wooden coffin with black roses inside. Go know ^^ & mldr;

But hey, the project will continue its route, without Hector and without Lina. The remaining team still includes talents like Alyssa Rosenzweig, Davide Cavalca, Neal Gompa and some other brave coders who have not yet thrown the sponge. They have just announced the beta version of Fedora Asahi Remix 42proof that the project is not completely dead.

That said, Asahi Linux still lacks a lot of features like Thunderbolt and the support of USB-C screens, to which the challenges of GPU support is added without Asahi Lina & MLDR; For the moment, on Mac M1/M2, it works, but do not expect to turn Cyberpunk in 4K, if you see what I mean.

All these departures still ask questions about the climate within the Linux community. Between the unrealistic expectations of certain users and tensions around new technologies like Rust, it is not always joy for these developers who often work voluntarily in their free time.

And for those who are endowed with programming or backtracking and who want to advance the cause of free software while kicking narcissistic perverts, it may be the time to get involved to help the project overcome this difficult period! They need new blood, especially on the GPU side.

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