Talk Around Town: Asahi Linux Says M3 Support Is Nearly Ready and a CPU Power Fix May Finally Clear the Upstream Logjam

What Folks Are Sayin' Down at the Feed Store

Well, grab a sweet tea and pull up a hay bale, because the Asahi Linux project posted what it calls a Linux 7.2 progress report in August 2026, and the tech barn is buzzing louder than a cicada convention. According to the project's own report — which Phoronix and Linuxiac both covered within hours like hound dogs on a hot scent — the team says M3 Mac support is nearly buttoned up and ready for an official installer release. That is the claim, friend. The project is saying it, two specialist outlets are reporting it, and now everybody from here to the county line is talkin' about it.

Linuxiac reports that, per the Asahi Linux project, webcams, built-in microphones, USB 3.0, and Thunderbolt now all function across the M3 Mac lineup. Phoronix, covering the same report, describes the project as hoping to ship a release for M3 devices soon. No firm date has been set, consistent with what Phoronix and Linuxiac both note is Asahi's longstanding tradition of not nailing a calendar to the barn door.

What We Actually Know for Certain

Here is the part where we separate the cornbread from the cornmeal. The Asahi Linux project's August 2026 progress report exists and is publicly readable. Phoronix and Linuxiac, two independent specialist outlets, both covered it on August 27, 2026, with their own editorial framing. That gives the core hardware claims some genuine corroboration beyond just the project's own say-so.

Specifically, both Linuxiac and the Asahi Linux project report that webcam support now covers all M3-series Macs. The project's report notes that the M3 Max previously had a skipped initialisation message in the image signal processor, and that specific issue has been resolved. The project also reports that Apple changed the audio hardware for the M3 generation, requiring extra reverse-engineering before microphone support could be added — a detail Linuxiac independently echoes.

On the upstreaming front, the Asahi Linux project's own prior progress report — corroborated by LWN.net's February 2026 write-up — documents the patch-set reduction: from 1,232 patches at kernel 6.13.8 to 858 at 6.18.8, with downstream code dropping from roughly 95,000 to 83,000 lines. That trajectory is independently observable and has been noted by specialist press over multiple reporting cycles.

The Asahi Linux Wiki, predating this report, independently documented that Linux cannot issue SMC or HVC instructions on Apple Silicon because there is no EL3 — establishing the PSCI incompatibility as a real, pre-existing technical problem, not a new claim invented for this announcement.

What Nobody's Been Able to Verify Yet

Now here's where the coon dog loses the scent. The Asahi Linux project says the UEFI Runtime Service-based PSCI conduit being developed by a contributor identified as Sven will satisfy upstream ARM64 maintainers and preserve virtualisation support — but that upstream acceptance has not happened yet. It is a plan, not a done deal, and the ARM64 maintainers have not publicly signed off as of this writing.

No independent benchmark data exists yet to confirm whether the new PSCI approach actually delivers the battery-life and efficiency improvements that the Asahi Linux project describes as vital. The project's own report, as covered by Phoronix, frames proper CPU core power management as essential — but 'essential' and 'achieved' are two different critters entirely.

M4 and M5 bring-up is described by the project as underway but with significant work remaining. No specialist outlet has independently assessed how far along that work actually is. DisplayPort Alt Mode for USB-C external display output also remains an unresolved gap, a point Phoronix noted as far back as February 2026 with no resolution apparent in the 7.2 report.

And as for that official M3 installer release the whole county is buzzing about: the Asahi Linux project itself has set no firm date, and both Phoronix and Linuxiac acknowledge this. 'Close' in open-source project time can mean next Tuesday or next groundhog season.

The PSCI Problem, Plain as a Fence Post

Let's talk about that CPU power management situation, because it is the hinge on which the whole upstream barn door swings. The Asahi Linux Wiki and the project's own report both explain that standard ARM64 Linux requires something called the Power State Coordination Interface — PSCI — to manage CPU core power states. On most ARM64 hardware, the kernel issues SMC or HVC instructions to talk to firmware sitting at a privilege level called EL3. Apple Silicon has no EL3. Full stop. The kernel cannot make that call, so it cannot use PSCI, and without PSCI, the upstream ARM64 kernel maintainers have historically refused to accept Apple Silicon support patches.

The Asahi Linux project reports that a prior workaround — having the kernel call WFI and WFE instructions directly — was assembled as a stopgap but was never a viable upstream candidate because it breaks virtualisation. The project's own prior documentation noted that a two-year discussion about a proper fix had failed to produce results, leading to that hack. Now, according to the Asahi Linux project's 7.2 report and as covered by Phoronix, developer Sven is working on routing PSCI through UEFI Runtime Services, which the project describes as a standards-compliant path that could preserve virtualisation and finally satisfy upstream. Whether the ARM64 maintainers will actually agree is, as of right now, an open question taller than a longleaf pine.

Our Analysis: The Tractor Is Running, But It Ain't Left the Lot

This is analysis, not a news report, so take it as such. If the PSCI UEFI conduit approach works and upstream maintainers accept it, that would remove the single most structurally stubborn barrier to Apple Silicon landing in the mainline kernel — a bigger deal than any individual hardware feature. The patch-set shrinkage from over twelve hundred patches to under nine hundred in roughly one kernel year suggests the project is genuinely closing the gap, not just talking about it.

That said, the history of this particular problem — two years of failed upstream discussion, a stopgap hack, and now a new architectural approach still in development — should inspire careful optimism rather than barn-dance celebration. The Asahi Linux project has always done solid, serious engineering work, but the upstream kernel community is a demanding crowd with its own timeline, and no amount of goodwill from specialist press coverage makes a patch land faster.

The M3 hardware milestone is meaningful on its own terms regardless of the PSCI story. Webcams, microphones, USB 3.0, and Thunderbolt working across a full chip generation is the kind of completeness that justifies an installer release, and the project says that release is close. For everyday users who just want Linux on their M3 MacBook and are not worried about virtualisation semantics, that is the headline that matters most — even if the precise date remains as unknown as next year's corn yield.