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Building a Linux GPU Driver for the M4 Mac Mini in One Month

codyho.dev

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Re: Building a Linux GPU Driver for the M4 Mac Mini in One Month

#111

Post by literoldolphin »

ADevWithAnIdea wrote: post #61
MoltenMonster wrote: post #25

https://www.reddit.com/r/AsahiLinux/comments/1whecn1/comment... > The author was banned from Asahi Linux for hiding his extensive use of LLMs from us in another attempted contribution, and (more importantly) for concealing that he is a former Apple engineer with direct contacts to the people involved in Apple Silicon development. Make of this what you will.

> concealing that he is a former Apple engineer with direct contacts to the people involved in Apple Silicon development This is false. I am a former Apple engineer. I did not conceal it (it's the top item of my resume and my LinkedIn and I made my PR from my public Github with my name attached, as opposed to a pseudonym which is expressly allowed by Asahi policy). I also had no exposure, at all, to any internal info…

Ah, don't worry about those guys. This is very cool! I love the technical write up -- so interesting: )

Re: Building a Linux GPU Driver for the M4 Mac Mini in One Month

#112

Post by pclowes »

MoltenMonster wrote: post #25

https://www.reddit.com/r/AsahiLinux/comments/1whecn1/comment... > The author was banned from Asahi Linux for hiding his extensive use of LLMs from us in another attempted contribution, and (more importantly) for concealing that he is a former Apple engineer with direct contacts to the people involved in Apple Silicon development. Make of this what you will.

Why would anyone care about either of these things in a negative sense?

Isn’t that just saying “he uses modern tools and has subject matter expertise”?

Re: Building a Linux GPU Driver for the M4 Mac Mini in One Month

#113

Post by SXX »

kccqzy wrote: post #79
porphyra wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Very sad. I really want to get Linux on newer Apple chips working flawlessly but I can understand the legal minefield about this particular work.

That’s fine. Linux upstream won’t take his code but you can for your own purposes.

There is no reason Linux the Kernel upstream wont take his code. Asahi is not Linux upstream.

Re: Building a Linux GPU Driver for the M4 Mac Mini in One Month

#114

Post by liamgm »

ADevWithAnIdea wrote: post #18
AKSF_Ackermann wrote: post #17

I am not by any means a copyright lawyer, so can anyone enlighten me on if it is a good idea for upstream projects to accept such kind of code from an ex-Apple employee, especially since Apple is currently suing OpenAI.

Great observation, two things: - During my time at Apple I never saw any of the macOS source code, at all, even for userspace components. I had not even heard of things like SPTM. - I have not worked there since June 2025 I don't believe that there's any risk due to my former Apple employment. As another example, WINE does not ban all former Microsoft employees, they just ban anyone who has ever looked at the Windows…

Great job for bringing up new apple's silicon chip , m4 a18 to linux . I hope the project keep alive and maintained , and if you can't mainline it , remmber many other project do out-of-tree version well maintained [1] [2] [3] [4] [5] [6] [7] .

[1]: https://github.com/Rust-for-Linux/linux Rust for Linux

[2]: https://android.googlesource.com/kernel/common/ Android OS linux kernel

[3]: https://github.com/openzfs/zfs OpenZFS kernel module

[4]: https://github.com/awemorris/linux-pc98 Linux pc98 / 32 bit x86

[5]: https://github.com/OpenDingux/linux Linux on retro gaming device

[6]: https://github.com/AsahiLinux/linux Linux on older apple silicon M1/M2/M3 chip

[7]: https://github.com/microsoft/wsl2-linux-kernel Linux on Windows

Re: Building a Linux GPU Driver for the M4 Mac Mini in One Month

#115

Post by giancarlostoro »

MoltenMonster wrote: post #25

https://www.reddit.com/r/AsahiLinux/comments/1whecn1/comment... > The author was banned from Asahi Linux for hiding his extensive use of LLMs from us in another attempted contribution, and (more importantly) for concealing that he is a former Apple engineer with direct contacts to the people involved in Apple Silicon development. Make of this what you will.

The LLM use wasnt the part that bothered me so much, but having had an Apple contract is bad.

Re: Building a Linux GPU Driver for the M4 Mac Mini in One Month

#116

Post by cannonpalms »

thrwy19940314 wrote: post #85
ADevWithAnIdea wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Great observation, two things: - During my time at Apple I never saw any of the macOS source code, at all, even for userspace components. I had not even heard of things like SPTM. - I have not worked there since June 2025 I don't believe that there's any risk due to my former Apple employment. As another example, WINE does not ban all former Microsoft employees, they just ban anyone who has ever looked at the Windows…

At least according to your own accounts on the Asahi IRC rooms, you were very aware of SPTM (which is part of the AS platform) and knew the people working on it: https://oftc.catirclogs.org/asahi-dev/2026-06-04#35383763

All of this was public knowledge, and there is nothing damning about knowing someone who worked on something.

Re: Building a Linux GPU Driver for the M4 Mac Mini in One Month

#117

Post by SXX »

ADevWithAnIdea wrote: post #61
MoltenMonster wrote: post #25

https://www.reddit.com/r/AsahiLinux/comments/1whecn1/comment... > The author was banned from Asahi Linux for hiding his extensive use of LLMs from us in another attempted contribution, and (more importantly) for concealing that he is a former Apple engineer with direct contacts to the people involved in Apple Silicon development. Make of this what you will.

> concealing that he is a former Apple engineer with direct contacts to the people involved in Apple Silicon development This is false. I am a former Apple engineer. I did not conceal it (it's the top item of my resume and my LinkedIn and I made my PR from my public Github with my name attached, as opposed to a pseudonym which is expressly allowed by Asahi policy). I also had no exposure, at all, to any internal info…

FFS Linux kernel have tons of patches with "Asahi Lina" specified as "author" even though commiters are real people:

https://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/torvalds/lin...

Just call yourself "Idea Llmina" or whatever and let someone else commit it.

Re: Building a Linux GPU Driver for the M4 Mac Mini in One Month

#118

Post by [deleted] »

thrwy19940314 wrote: post #86
ADevWithAnIdea wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> concealing that he is a former Apple engineer with direct contacts to the people involved in Apple Silicon development This is false. I am a former Apple engineer. I did not conceal it (it's the top item of my resume and my LinkedIn and I made my PR from my public Github with my name attached, as opposed to a pseudonym which is expressly allowed by Asahi policy). I also had no exposure, at all, to any internal info…

At least according to your own accounts on the Asahi IRC rooms, you were very aware of SPTM (which is part of the AS platform) and knew the people working on it: https://oftc.catirclogs.org/asahi-dev/2026-06-04#35383763

[deleted]

Re: Building a Linux GPU Driver for the M4 Mac Mini in One Month

#119

Post by SXX »

bigyabai wrote: post #104
rowanG077 wrote: post #101

Awesome to see that another project has started that does use LLM to build linux on top of apple silicon. Asahi linux was dead in the water for me once they made their extreme anti-LLM stance clear.

If contributor policies are enough to make projects "dead in the water" for you, the rest of Linux' desktop efforts will leave you appalled.

It's okay to have policies against shitty code, blatant copyright violations or being an ass.

It's not okay to ban tool use when a person is honest about it. The only thing you can achieve with a ban is that people will learn to lie about it and conceal it better.

Re: Building a Linux GPU Driver for the M4 Mac Mini in One Month

#120

Post by SXX »

thrwy19940314 wrote: post #85
ADevWithAnIdea wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Great observation, two things: - During my time at Apple I never saw any of the macOS source code, at all, even for userspace components. I had not even heard of things like SPTM. - I have not worked there since June 2025 I don't believe that there's any risk due to my former Apple employment. As another example, WINE does not ban all former Microsoft employees, they just ban anyone who has ever looked at the Windows…

At least according to your own accounts on the Asahi IRC rooms, you were very aware of SPTM (which is part of the AS platform) and knew the people working on it: https://oftc.catirclogs.org/asahi-dev/2026-06-04#35383763

And if I'm connected on Linkedin with half of silicon valley, and know a lot of people from different companies I not allowed to contribute anywhere?
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