M4 Series Feature Support
This page details currently supported features on all M4 series (M4, M4 Pro, M4 Max) Apple Silicon Macs, as well as their progress towards being upstreamed. The tables herein can be interpreted as follows:
- Kernel release, e.g. 6.0: the feature was incorporated upstream as of this release
- linux-asahi (kernel release): the feature is stable, available for use in
linux-asahi, and should be upstream by the release indicated - linux-asahi: the feature is (mostly) stable and available for use in Fedora Asahi Remix and in
linux-asahi - asahi-edge: the feature is (mostly) stable and available for use in Fedora Asahi Remix. For historical reason it is available in the
linux-asahi-edgepackage in the linux-asahi Linux distribution - WIP: Development work on the feature is actively progressing, however is not yet ready for wider testing, use or distribution
- TBA: Active work on this feature is not being undertaken at this time
If a feature is not ready, then there is no estimation on when it will be ready. Please do not ask for estimations in support channels (e.g. IRC).
Table of Contents¶
Note that as these machines have not been released for general availability yet, supported and missing features are predictions based on what Apple has changed on a per-SoC and per-machine basis in the past. This page will change rapidly once work begins on support for these machines.
SoC blocks¶
These are features/hardware blocks that are present on all devices with the given SoC.
| M4 (T8132) |
M4 Pro/Max (T604x) |
|
|---|---|---|
| DCP | TBA | TBA |
| USB2 (TB ports) | linux-asahi | linux-asahi |
| USB3 (TB ports) | linux-asahi | linux-asahi |
| Thunderbolt | TBA | TBA |
| DP Alt Mode | WIP | WIP |
| GPU | TBA | TBA |
| Video Decoder | TBA | TBA |
| NVMe | 5.19 | 5.19 |
| PCIe | TBA | TBA |
| PCIe (GE) | - | - |
| cpufreq | 6.2 | 6.2 |
| cpuidle | linux-asahi (notes) | linux-asahi (notes) |
| Suspend/sleep | asahi-edge | asahi-edge |
| Video Encoder | TBA | TBA |
| ProRes Codec | TBA | TBA |
| AICv3 | TBA | TBA |
| DART | TBA | TBA |
| PMU | TBA | TBA |
| UART | 5.13 | 5.13 |
| Watchdog | 5.17 | 5.17 |
| I2C | 5.16 | 5.16 |
| GPIO | 5.16 | 5.16 |
| USB-PD | 5.16 | 5.16 |
| MCA | 6.1 / 6.4 (dts) | linux-asahi |
| SPI | linux-asahi | linux-asahi |
| SPI NOR | linux-asahi | linux-asahi |
| SMC | linux-asahi | linux-asahi |
| SPMI | linux-asahi | linux-asahi |
| RTC | linux-asahi | linux-asahi |
| SEP | WIP | WIP |
| Neural Engine | out of tree (notes) | out of tree (notes) |
M4 devices¶
| MacBook Pro (14-inch, Nov 2024) |
MacBook Pro (16-inch, Nov 2024) |
|
|---|---|---|
| Installer | no | no |
| Devicetree | TBA | TBA |
| Main display | TBA | TBA |
| Keyboard | TBA | TBA |
| KB backlight | TBA | TBA |
| Touchpad | TBA | TBA |
| Brightness | TBA | TBA |
| Battery info | TBA | TBA |
| WiFi | TBA | TBA |
| Bluetooth | TBA | TBA |
| HDMI Out | TBA | TBA |
| 3.5mm jack | TBA | TBA |
| Speakers | TBA | TBA |
| Microphones | TBA | TBA |
| Webcam | TBA | TBA |
| SD card slot | TBA | TBA |
| TouchID | TBA | TBA |
M4 Pro/Max devices¶
| Mac mini (2024) |
MacBook Pro (14-inch, Nov 2024) |
MacBook Pro (16-inch, Nov 2024) |
|
|---|---|---|---|
| Installer | no | no | no |
| Devicetree | TBA | TBA | TBA |
| Main display | TBA | TBA | TBA |
| Keyboard | - | TBA | TBA |
| KB backlight | - | TBA | TBA |
| Touchpad | - | TBA | TBA |
| Brightness | TBA | TBA | TBA |
| Battery info | - | TBA | TBA |
| WiFi | TBA | TBA | TBA |
| Bluetooth | TBA | TBA | TBA |
| HDMI Out | - | TBA | - |
| 3.5mm jack | TBA | TBA | TBA |
| Speakers | TBA | TBA | TBA |
| Microphones | TBA | TBA | TBA |
| Webcam | TBA | TBA | TBA |
| SD card slot | - | TBA | - |
| 1Gbps Ethernet | TBA | - | - |
| 10Gbps Ethernet | - | - | - |
| TouchID | - | TBA | TBA |
Note: Many peripherals depend on DART and PCIe support.
Notes¶
cpuidle situation¶
Some power management functionality on ARM machines is controlled via the PSCI interface. The kernel has a specific way of talking to PSCI that is not compatible with Apple Silicon, and a discussion is required with upstream maintainers in order to figure out the best way forward. Given that this discussion has failed to materialise for two years, the decision has been made to hack together a driver that directly calls WFI/WFE instructions in order to bring this functionality to Asahi Linux. This greatly improves the UX on laptops when coupled with energy-aware scheduling, as it resolves the issue of the machines running warm to the touch and significantly improves battery life. This can never be upstreamed, however the hope is that this hacked together driver becomes unnecessary at some point in the near future.
ANE driver¶
An out of tree kernel module is available. It will be merged into linux-asahi.