marcan

Getting ready for take-off

Added 2020-12-25 10:21:40 +0000 UTC

As mentioned in the Community Chat last weekend, the project's official name is Asahi Linux! The name comes from the Japanese name for the McIntosh apple, 旭 (Asahi). This is the very same apple that gave the Mac its name.

I've registered the project's Twitter account, as well as a GitHub organization and the domain asahilinux.org. All code and documentation will be centralized on the GitHub orga, and I'll also make announcements via the Twitter account, so be sure to follow those!

I'm still working on the project's visual identity, so hang on while I get a logo ready :)

Asahi Linux will both centralize the M1 porting effort, as well as eventually be a remix of Arch Linux ARM that is designed to include bleeding-edge M1 support and convenient installation instructions. Any Arch Linux users should feel right at home.

On the technical side, I had been researching the USB-C controllers used on these Macs in order to figure out how to get a serial port out (which is step 0 of the porting effort, as mentioned in the stream). However, someone who has already done so contacted me shortly after the stream with the PD commands required to do this; they're working on a blog post so I won't jump the gun on them, but expect more info on that soon! Meanwhile, I'm now putting together the hardware to issue them and enable low level serial I/O for bring-up.

I have also submitted an application to GitHub Sponsors for review. Hopefully that will go through quickly. Any patrons interested in switching over to that platform, keep an eye on here as I will announce it when it is live. That way you will be able to switch over before the January 1st Patreon charge date.