New year, new OS for this M1 MacBook Air!
I’ve been using Asahi Linux (via the flagship Fedora Asahi Remix) for a few weeks now. It’s been my everyday laptop and I’m really impressed with how it’s held up. Battery life is amazing, and the ARM Linux experience is fine for everyday use.
This video walks through how I installed Fedora Asahi Remix in December 2025, the process might change in the future and if it does, I might revisit it here or in a blog- watch for pinned comments I guess!
Important links:
- Asahi Linux project: https://asahilinux.org/
- Asahi Linux docs: https://asahilinux.org/docs/
- Asahi Linux “supported devices” page: https://asahilinux.org/fedora/#device-support
Links to help support unsponsored videos like these… Patreon and Ko-Fi members get access to my Discord/Matrix server where I hang out:
- Patreon: https://patreon.com/VeronicaExplains
- Ko-Fi: https://ko-fi.com/VeronicaExplains
- Buy a shirt: https://vkc.sh/merch
- Download my music: https://thestopbits.bandcamp.com/
Chapters:
0:00 What is Asahi Linux in the first place?
2:15 Installation caveats
3:27 Actually installing Asahi Linux on real hardware
7:34 About the experience
11:06 Asahi is awesome
#linux #apple #fedora
You must log in or register to comment.
One thing maybe not talked about is that this project is held up by a single person.
https://github.com/AsahiLinux/m1n1/commits/main/
seems like a good few people are working on it? jannau definitely is the lead tho
Yes, but unlike the openSUSE project or even the Linux project, if they decided they didn’t really want to work on this anymore due to health issues (which I would think happens frequently), it would be pretty unfortunate for users. I’m not sure how many maintainers there are on critical parts so I may be quite wrong, but I remember hearing that there is only one or two developers currently capable of reverse-engineering the inner workings of Apple’s GPU and silicon. My point would just be that Apple is not a very friendly hardware platform to run free software. Linux for the 15ILL9 has failed to call some Microsoft Modern Standby Extension for months because it was obscure, as just one example of hostile closed source hardware.
usb-c monitors not being supported is a dealbreaker for me for a daily driver, but I’ve been looking for a secondhand m1/2/3/4 air to install it on because I’m desperate to test it out
Once usb-c monitors are supported this may actually become my daily driver.
agreed! I donate to the developer every so often, just to keep the dream alive.
i thought m3/4 weren’t supported yet?
oh good call, you are correct! you’ve just saved me from embarrassment, thank you friend
I would love for touchid to work on it as well :(
same - I dual booted omarchy but still daily drive macos- use linux on the go or just use my pc (arch)
Hmm that might be something for some people in my life.
It’s pretty serviceable at this point. Fan and temperature monitoring in the kernel just made its way in too. I’ve been using Nixos with the Asahi kernel on a 64gb M1 Max MacBook Pro for the past few months and it’s been a pretty fantastic experience overall. Before that I was using it on a 8gb m1 air and it was decent enough. I wouldn’t say it’s perfect by any means but it is capable enough that I could not see switching it back to macOS for much of anything outside of some production stuff.
And Mac has ‘some production stuff’ that’s leagues better than anything Linux offers. So … great for everyday use … if you can get the Mac hardware at a great price.
What’s the battery life like?
It’s been pretty decent overall. I haven’t done a proper comparison or anything though. On the pro I haven’t even really used macOS as I bought it to put Asahi on. That reminds me that I should test the battery cap.
