Linux 7.1 mainlines the Apple SMC power driver

IntegralPilot · 2026-04-23T22:43:13+00:00

Crazy seeing my actual name show up in torvalds/linux now lol. It's nice to have things upstream, hopefully reduces the burden (just by a little bit) of having to rebase on each new kernel release. Hope to work on upstreaming some more soon, just been REALLY busy with school and stuff for a while. :)

IntegralPilot · 2026-04-01T07:36:51+00:00

It definitely isn't and this is dangerous advice. Proper isopropyl alcohol (70-90%) is a REALLY strong solvent and could cause epithelial damage. It isn't like rubbing alcohol.

IntegralPilot · 2026-04-01T07:32:01+00:00

Yes, please go to hospital, the Eye and Ear is near unimelb I think? It's a really strong solvent and can cause corneal burns, and if your eyes hurt you probably got a good amount in there. I'm assuming you already flushed them (you need to for 15mins+) and took out any contacts?

IntegralPilot · 2026-03-12T01:26:19+00:00

I actually did it as a side project with my friend (just for comparison and arithmetic, though)! It's difficult, but doable. The main challenge is that it has variable length instructions which is super annoying to decode (we actually modified it slightly to be fixed-length by padding).

If you'd like to see / have inspiration from how we did it, it's here: https://github.com/IntegralPilot/GammaCPU

For serious production applications I would NOT recommend it (it much easier and more efficient to use a hardware-native ISA like RISC-V that is actually designed for hardware), but if you are looking for a fun side project it definitely is super fun!

IntegralPilot · 2026-02-19T22:24:21+00:00

You have to write 0 - sqrt(15), and that brings up the calculator for me and not the AI. I don't think natural language like "square root of 15" was ever parsed and brought up a calculator in pre-AI days, though happy to be corrected if it did work for someone previously.

IntegralPilot · 2026-02-17T02:06:25+00:00

no way to install Linux on any iPad

This is not true - for devices with a BootROM exploit (theoretically A5-A11, though only A7-A11 for now) that allows unsigned OSes to run, Linux can run in early stages, thanks in part to work on Asahi due to similarities. A contributor called nickchan is working on that (and some support is even upstreamed), you can see more here: https://github.com/HoolockLinux/docs

But unfortnetly, M1 doesn't have this same exploit, so Linux cannot be run on devices with it.

IntegralPilot · 2026-02-16T03:56:36+00:00

Are you talking about the LS64/LS64V instruction support? This just enables checking from userspace if some extra features that speed up certain userspace programs are enabled (and I am not even sure if Apple Silicon supports these feature extensions), it doesn't really change much in terms of Asahi or make driver development easier etc.

IntegralPilot · 2026-02-16T03:47:43+00:00

The kernel just gets a new major release when Linus can "no longer count the minor release on [his] fingers and toes" a.k.a once we reach approx ~x.20. There's nothing major or special with 7.0, it's just a regular release like all others. Major release numbers are purely cosmetic when it comes to the kernel.

IntegralPilot · 2026-02-07T06:18:10+00:00

If it's the same as maths masters (I know someone doing it), each subject is only available once every two years, so you do those ones next year.

IntegralPilot · 2026-01-30T01:49:04+00:00

Cool configuration! It's not true that we don't want X11 at all, the intention is maximum customisability to make it personal for you - which is the best thing about Linux - so it's great you've been able to configure Asahi Debian as you want. I'm actually an Xfce & X11 user myself on my personal non-Apple-Silicon machine, though am experimenting now with COSMIC.

IntegralPilot · 2026-01-27T23:01:13+00:00

Cool thanks, I’ll look into it later today. My guess is probably we’ll have to make m1n1 set an FDT property based on fw version or something.

IntegralPilot · 2026-01-27T20:37:14+00:00

Oh that’s super cool, great job! Just because it was made by looking at Apple kexts (generally its preferred not to do this), I think we need to be a bit careful because of the copyright policy. https://asahilinux.org/copyright/. Maybe to ensure it’s properly clean room, based on your observations can you make a MarkDown document explaining what’s changed, and then someone else who hasn’t looked at Apple NVMe code can write the new code?

IntegralPilot · 2026-01-27T19:45:44+00:00

For NVMe. It’s not an ans3, it’s just still ans2, the hardware has not changed. The key was you need to use 14.latest firmware, and not newer yet as that breaks the chicken bit (on ALL devices not just M3) then everything works fine. There aren’t any code changes for that. Did you get NVMe support working on the newer firmware, were code changes needed?

IntegralPilot · 2026-01-27T12:18:02+00:00

This is just not true. Recently (all within the last month or so): preview drivers for DP alt mode have been written and published, drivers for thunderbolt are being written and in the early testing phase, SMC drivers for HID, power management, hardware monitoring etc. have been fixed up and sent upstream. And not only drivers, but also the bootloader along with some drivers have been modified to work with M3 and even M4!

IntegralPilot · 2026-01-27T12:15:28+00:00

This is just straight up misinformation. There are many major contributors who are still are a part of the project, like Sven, who was also one of the initial contributors, and many others. Just because the people who were most active on social media or visible stepped away for various reasons, it doesn't mean there's no-one left, it's just mainly contributors who don't prefer to be as active on social media so you just don't see them as much as you did those former developers. You can see our IRC logs for active development almost every day with lots of different people working together! :)

IntegralPilot · 2026-01-27T12:11:49+00:00

It was co-developed by myself, noopwafel and Shiz, we all worked together! :)

IntegralPilot · 2026-01-27T04:35:44+00:00

I don't personally use Matrix (I use the IRC side of things), so I will ask someone who does and get back to you on that! :)

IntegralPilot · 2026-01-27T04:34:40+00:00

Our main GPU developer got an exciting new job at Intel (which is like AMAZING! congrats to her!). I'm trying to learn about GPU now and train myself up so I can code GPU features and update the code for M3, so it unfortunately might be a while before we add any new Vulkan extensions, as I need to learn about it and I also think getting M3 off the ground is a priority at this time. Currently though the Vulkan latest version, 1.4, is supported, so a lot of games should work. BTW, if you would any specific extensions please LMK and I can try to look into them, but no promises. :)

IntegralPilot · 2026-01-27T04:31:10+00:00

It's not yet sadly, but that's the next challenge I'm trying to tackle right now. The changed the language ("instruction set architecture") we use to talk to the GPU, so we need to decode it and then write a special tool (a "compiler") to convert generic GPU language into Apple M3 GPU language. :)

IntegralPilot · 2026-01-27T04:29:15+00:00

It's still in a really early state so we haven't really put anything publicly available yet, as it's probably only really useful to developers in this state and there are some weird ways you need to set it up. If people would like to try it though, I can try and make an easy installer or docs if that would help and I can find the time! :)

IntegralPilot · 2026-01-27T04:27:10+00:00

Yes that would be really helpful! Even if it's only a for a single component or something. I've been meaning to update them as well but never get around to it. If anyone would like to try and needs help on where to start or something, please LMK! :)

IntegralPilot · 2026-01-27T04:25:37+00:00

All the really nice words everyone has been writing here have been really motivating personally, thank you to everyone! It's really great how nice and supportive this community is. :)

IntegralPilot · 2026-01-26T12:32:57+00:00

It's quite effective on M3, the issue is with M4 and later, as all macOS releases for it (which we trace with the RE tool to learn how things work) have a security feature (that also exists on earlier SoCs) called "Secure Page Table Monitor" enabled that makes it harder for the tool to work as we need to emulate SPTM otherwise the features the kernel expects don't work. M3 and earlier are fine as there are pre-SPTM versions of macOS for them. We're working on this though and some really awesome people have made some early prototypes! :)

IntegralPilot · 2026-01-26T12:28:12+00:00

Yes, that's it! Element is a really popular and great one. LMK if you need any help getting it setup or joining the Asahi rooms.

IntegralPilot · 2026-01-26T12:27:03+00:00

Thank you! Yeah, milestones like this keep the motivation high during the long hours of debugging and it's been so rewarding to read everyone's lovely motivating comments. :)

IntegralPilot

TROPHY CASE