Fedora 41 with the KDE Plasma desktop, running on a 2020 MacBook Pro.
The newest version of Fedora Linux is now available to install on your Apple Silicon Mac, thanks to the ongoing partnership between the Fedora Asahi SIG and the Asahi Linux project. I’ve just installed it onto my 2020 MacBook Pro for the first time and am genuinely impressed by how simple and straightforward the entire process is.
In a nutshell, Fedora Asahi Remix 41 brings the newest release of Fedora Workstation to newer Mac computers with Apple Silicon M1 and M2 series processors (so far). However, where “vanilla” Fedora uses the GNOME desktop as its flagship variant, Asahi Remix opts for KDE Plasma as its default desktop environment. (You can, however, choose GNOME during the installation.)
This is all possible thanks to the ongoing work and seemingly endless breakthroughs from the Asahi Linux team, which formed in late 2020 to begin reverse-engineering Apple Silicon SoCs. The end goal: to develop complete support for all Apple Silicon-powered computers and add that support to the Linux kernel.
From the Asahi Linux team: “Our goal is not just to make Linux run on these machines but to polish it to the point where it can be used as a daily OS. Doing this requires a tremendous amount of work, as Apple Silicon is an entirely undocumented platform.”
The team joined forces with Fedora in 2022 to produce Fedora Asahi Remix, which is considered the project’s flagship Linux distribution.
It’s been on the periphery of my radar for more than a year, but today was my first hands-on experience with it. I was delighted to see it’s all accomplished from macOS with a single Terminal command:
Downloading the Fedora Asahi Remix installer from the command line.
While it’s not nearly as fast as the traditional installation method of flashing a Linux distro ISO to a USB stick, I find it refreshing that it’s all accomplished from macOS. Instructions are clear throughout the process, and it even assists with resizing the existing macOS partitions on your drive.
I’m going to spend a few days with it to ensure things are running smoothly, then I’ll have some more detailed impressions. For now, everything on my MacBook Pro is working flawlessly, with the exception of the built-in microphone and fingerprint sensor.
Gaming On Fedora Asahi Remix?
I love gaming on Linux, but since I haven’t been tracking this project until now, I wrongly assumed gaming was completely off the table here. This is a Mac we’re talking about, after all. So, color me surprised that Fedora Asahi Remix also brings x86/x86-64 emulation to the party.
From what I’ve gathered, the Asahi team’s hard work culminated in delivering broader gaming support for M1 and M2 Macs than you even get natively on macOS. The ingredients all seem to be here: x86 emulation + Vulkan + Windows compatibility + Steam. I’ll definitely spend some time exploring gaming on this distro and report back. Mostly because I’m astonished at the mere concept of an ARM-powered MacBook that’s running Linux having stronger gaming potential than Apple’s direct offerings!
Fedora Asahi Remix 41 is available now. You can read the release announcement here.
