Project leader of 'Asahi Linux,' which aims to port Linux to Macs with Apple silicon, resigns, explaining the circumstances so far
Hector Martin, known as Marcan, who served as project leader of
Resigning as Asahi Linux project lead - marcan.st
https://marcan.st/2025/02/resigning-as-asahi-linux-project-lead/
In the late 2000s, Martin was involved with Team Twiizers ( fail0verflow ), a team developing software to run homemade games on the Wii. However, the project eventually fizzled out because many users were trying to play pirated games, contrary to Martin's intentions. 'We do not support piracy and have never directly enabled it,' Martin said.
Martin, who said he was tired of the cat-and-mouse game between Nintendo and game software manufacturers as users appeared who tried to run pirated games, decided to focus on Linux-related development after the successor to the Wii U was released and not get involved in the development of jailbreaks and exploits that could be used as tools for pirating games.
When Apple announced the M1 , Martin realized that 'running Linux on a Mac with Apple Silicon was my dream project,' and he quickly launched the Asahi Linux project, which received a tremendous amount of support and donations.
'Asahi Linux' appears, aiming to run on Macs equipped with Apple Silicon - GIGAZINE
'The first two years have been amazing. We've built this platform from nothing into one of the most comfortable Linux experiences you can get on a laptop,' said Martin. Building a Linux distribution from scratch without vendor support or documentation was an impossible feat, and Martin realized he had accomplished something unprecedented.
But after a while, things started to get less fun, Martin said. First, there were issues with contributing code to the Linux kernel, and being in a position where you have to contribute code across virtually every Linux subsystem was a very difficult experience.
Martin also said that he was fed up with the increasing number of requests from users such as 'When will Thunderbolt be supported?', 'Asahi Linux is useless until I can use a monitor with USB-C', 'Battery life is too poor compared to macOS', 'I can't even check the CPU temperature', and 'When will M3/M4 support come?' In addition, he was also fed up with the fact that Asahi Linux andFedora Asahi Remix were continuously called 'alpha', 'unstable' and 'not suitable for everyday use' even after they were released in a fully usable state.
'No matter how great an accomplishment we made, people always wanted more,' Martin said. 'Meanwhile, donations and support slowly tapered off, and have been doing so since the start of the project. In the short term, it didn't have a major impact on my dream of developing Asahi Linux full-time, but I began to wonder if these accomplishments were truly appreciated. Donations peaked in the first month or two. The more we accomplished, the less support we got.'
And beyond the criticism from users, Martin says the reason is also the conflict in the Linux community over the integration of Rust into the Linux kernel.
Rust's integration into Linux has led to conflict between several kernel subsystem maintainers, leading to the resignation of one of the lead Rust for Linux maintainers.
According to Martin, Asahi Linux has succeeded in developing GPU drivers and other things in a short period of time using Rust. However, Martin claims that in the Linux kernel community, there was strong resistance from some maintainers to the adoption of Rust, and sometimes there was even obstruction with abusive language and private harassment.
Under these circumstances, it has become extremely difficult to integrate Asahi Linux code into the upstream kernel, Martin said. And, 'Every time we update the latest Linux kernel, we have to maintain our own patches, which increases our workload,' 'Compatibility with container technology is limited, preventing users from using important features,' and 'Developer morale is declining, raising questions about the long-term viability of the project.' For these reasons, it is no longer possible to continue maintaining code that cannot be integrated into the upstream kernel.
Ultimately, after being hindered by maintainers opposed to the Rust integration, Martin decided to resign as an upstream kernel maintainer for the Apple Silicon code, sending a message to the Linux kernel development mailing list saying, 'I have no confidence in the kernel development process or the community management approach.' He also announced that he would resign as leader of the Asahi Linux project. However, the Asahi Linux project will continue, and the remaining developers will continue to focus on upstreaming the Linux kernel.
Martin said, 'When I started developing Asahi Linux, I poured most of my time and passion into this project. I gave up most of my hobbies and spent significantly more time on the project than I did full-time. It was fun at the time, but it's not fun anymore. I have my Mac with M3 Pro in the box, but I haven't turned it on yet. I hate the startup process. It just doesn't seem worth the hassle. I miss the free time to relax and not worry about features that haven't been released yet. I miss making music. I miss joining jam sessions. I miss going out to dinner with friends and family and not having to worry about the amount of stuff I'm not upstreaming. I miss being able to sit down and play games or watch movies without feeling guilty.'
At the time of his resignation, Martin posted a series of criticisms and complaints about his previous obstructionism on Mastodon (which had been deleted at the time of writing), but Linus Torvalds, the benevolent lifelong dictator of the Linux kernel, responded to this by saying, 'First of all, why don't you accept the fact that you may have problems? You probably understand that very well. However, the current development process is working well. Of course there are problems, but problems are a part of life. Nothing is perfect. However, I would say that I don't want to be involved in your social media brigading at all. Even if there are problems with the kernel development model, social media is not the solution, just like it's not political. We need technical patches and discussion, not social media brigading... no thanks.' He replied to the mailing list.
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