Asahi Linux, the project that ports Linux to Apple Silicon Macs, has reached a milestone that its team had been working toward for some time: support for the M3 series of Apple's chips has been merged into the project's installer. In the project's own words, Linux support for M3-series SoCs and the machines powered by them is now in a state where almost everything that worked on M1 and M2 machines just works.
This official brand mark identifies the Asahi Linux initiative, which has achieved M3 chip support as described in the article.
That list of what works is substantial. According to the project's update, the webcam, internal microphones, USB up to the hardware limit of USB 3 at 10 gigabits per second, hardware-accelerated video decoding including AV1, Wi-Fi, and Bluetooth are all functional. In other words, the M3 port is not a bare-metal experiment; it is intended to be close to the experience the project already delivers on earlier Apple Silicon.
The two most visible gaps are both tied to the same underlying problem. The project names the GPU and full DCP support as the remaining major exceptions, and it is explicit that users should not expect performant or power-efficient 3D acceleration right now. Because full DCP support is not yet wired up, sleep does not currently work, and the HDMI port on equipped MacBooks is disabled. The team says it will have more news on the GPU in the coming months.
One practical consequence for early adopters is that the project initially gated M3 support behind the installer's Expert mode, a setting intended for users comfortable with a more hands-on setup. The project also published an update noting that Expert mode is no longer required, and it aims to drop that requirement in time for the release of the Fedora Linux 45 beta, barring major regressions. New users can install via a one-line command in a macOS terminal and are told to run a system upgrade after installation.
The documentation portal logo appears on the site where users find instructions for installing Asahi Linux on M3 Macs.
On the hardware front, MacBooks and iMacs with M3, M3 Pro, and M3 Max are supported, while the Mac Studio with the M3 Ultra is not yet supported. The project frames this as the culmination of years of work from multiple contributors, many of whom could only access M3 hardware through the project's funding.
A reader should also be clear about what the project is not claiming. This is a first-party progress report from the Asahi Linux team itself, not an independent review, and the performance and compatibility claims carry the team's own assessment rather than third-party verification. The one angle raised in the project's community that the post does address directly is GPU acceleration: for anyone hoping to run graphics-heavy or machine-learning workloads on Apple Silicon, the gap between the working webcam and a usable GPU is the difference between a port that runs and a port that is ready for daily use, and the project is candid that the latter is not yet the case.