Fedora Asahi Remix 43 Arrives for Apple Silicon Macs with 120 Hz Support and KDE Plasma 6.6

The Fedora Asahi SIG and the Asahi Linux project have jointly announced the general availability of Fedora Asahi Remix 43, the latest version of the community-built Linux distribution designed to run on Apple Silicon Macs. Released today, March 18, 2026, the new version merges all significant improvements from the upstream Fedora Linux 43 cycle — itself released in October 2025 — while layering in a set of Apple-specific hardware enhancements and system-level upgrades.

The release is the result of ongoing close collaboration between the Fedora Asahi Special Interest Group and the broader Asahi Linux project, which has spent years reverse-engineering the proprietary hardware interfaces of Apple’s M-series chips to make full-featured desktop Linux possible on these machines.

New Hardware Support: Mac Pro, M2 Microphones, and 120 Hz Refresh Rates

Perhaps the most immediately visible improvement for existing users is native support for 120 Hz high refresh rate on the built-in displays of the MacBook Pro 14-inch and 16-inch models. Previously, users were limited to the standard 60 Hz mode even on hardware capable of higher frame rates. With this release, the ProMotion display feature is fully unlocked through the Linux display stack.

The release also resolves a long-standing limitation for MacBook users equipped with M2 Pro and M2 Max chips: microphone array input now works correctly on these models, completing a key piece of day-to-day usability that had been missing.

Additionally, the Mac Pro joins the list of officially supported devices for the first time, rounding out the Mac lineup of machines based on M1 and M2 chipsets.

Package Management Overhauled: RPM 6.0 and DNF5

On the infrastructure side, this release adopts RPM 6.0 — the same upgrade carried in the Fedora 43 base — and brings forward the DNF5 backend for PackageKit, a feature originally slated for Fedora Linux 44, making Fedora Asahi Remix an early adopter. The new package management stack directly benefits graphical software centers: both KDE Plasma Discover and GNOME Software benefit from meaningfully faster and more reliable software installation and update operations.

Desktop Environments: KDE Plasma 6.6 and GNOME 49

Fedora Asahi Remix 43 ships KDE Plasma 6.6 as its flagship desktop environment, synchronized with the Fedora KDE Plasma Desktop 43 release and incorporating platform-specific patches contributed directly to the KDE project. Users benefit from Wayland-native rendering, fine-grained HiDPI scaling controls in 5% increments, trackpad customization, Night Color for blue-light reduction, and broad support for Apple hardware features — all working out of the box.

A GNOME 49 variant is also available for users who prefer that desktop paradigm, matching what the official Fedora GNOME spin offers. Both desktop editions come with a custom Calamares-based initial setup wizard to streamline first-boot configuration.

Additional Editions: Server and Minimal Images

Beyond the standard desktop variants, this release introduces a Fedora Server edition aimed at headless server workloads and other monitorless deployment scenarios on Apple Silicon hardware. A Minimal image is also provided for advanced users who wish to build a fully customized system environment from scratch, without any desktop environment pre-installed.

Supported Devices — and the M3/M4/M5 Caveat

It is important to note that Fedora Asahi Remix 43 retains its M1 and M2 chip focus. Full, stable support for M3, M4, and M5 chip generations has not yet arrived in this release. Apple introduced the M3 family in late 2023, and M4 and M5 are now found in most current Apple Mac models — meaning a large portion of the current Mac lineup remains unsupported for daily-driver Linux use outside of a virtual machine.

Community efforts to bring basic Asahi Linux support to M3 hardware are ongoing, with early reports of limited functionality (display, keyboard, trackpad, and internal SSD), but this is not yet suitable for regular use. No timeline has been announced for official M3 or later support.

Users wishing to run Linux on newer Apple Silicon hardware — M3, M4, or M5 — can still do so through ARM virtualization using tools such as UTM, VMware Fusion, or Parallels on macOS. Note, however, that ARM Linux (whether native via Asahi or virtualized) does not have the same binary compatibility as standard x86-64 Linux, and some proprietary software may require an x86 compatibility layer.

How to Install

Fedora Asahi Remix 43 can be installed on supported hardware running macOS 13.5 (Ventura) or later using the official installer available at asahilinux.org/fedora. Users already running Fedora Asahi Remix 41 or 42 can upgrade through the standard Fedora upgrade process via KDE Plasma Discover or the dnf system-upgrade command. The full announcement and technical details are published on Fedora Magazine.