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When the Asahi Linux team released its first alpha version of a GNU/Linux-based operating system for Macs with Apple M-series processors in 2022, things were still pretty rough around the edges. Thunderbolt, Bluetooth, cameras, and sleep mode weren't working yet. And neither was hardware-accelerated graphics.
That's all changed over the past few years. Last fall the team even announced you could play AAA games thanks in large part to developer Alyssa Rosenzweig's work reverse engineering Apple's M1 GPU to develop conformant OpenGL and Vulkan drivers as well as support for Valve's Proton software. This month Asahi announced that the software will be enabled in the upstream Mesa 25.2 driver, which "completes our transition to a fully upstream graphics stack." Now Rosenzweig says she's ready for her next challenge – she's moving on from working on Apple hardware and has taken a job with Intel where she's working to develop open source drivers for Intel's GPUs.
According to her updated resume, Rosenzweig "designed and developed OpenGL Vulkan drivers to improve gaming on Linux." The use of past tense here is interesting, although I can't tell if that means the work is already complete or if it's just a way of keeping formatting consistent with the rest of her resume.
The hire could mean good things for Intel's ongoing commitment to supporting Linux, and it seems like a smart move at a time when Valve's Steam Deck (and some other handhelds) have shown that there's demand for Linux-based gaming PCs. So far most handheld gaming PCs released in recent years have been powered by AMD processors, but Intel clearly wants in on this space.
But it also means that Rosenzweig will no longer be working on GPU drivers for Apple Silicon. While she notes that other developers are carrying on her work, her departure from the Asahi team comes less than half a year after Asahi founder Hector Martin left the project. So it'll be interesting to see what kind of impact those changes have on the Linux-on-Apple Silicon community over the coming months and years.
via Phoronix and Hacker News
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