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Comment by Npovview | Hacker News Reader

Similarly on the higher end, I want to run linux on Apple Macbook laptops.

I do this nonstop using the UTM app in Apple Silicon virtualization, not QEMU, mode. I've done this from M2, M2 Max, and M5 machines, it basically wraps the hypervisor.framework (or the current name) and i had used Asahi on an M1 before that.

With UTM wrapping hypervisor.framework, i have a complete fullscreen desktop running Linux (i use fedora earlier but Arch the last several months) with full graphics as if it were on a dedicated host.

Because it's running in an Apple Silicon hypervisor, i have macos tahoe running concurrently on separate desktops: no dual booting unlike when i was using Asahi.

I haven't looked to see if i can access graphics hardware directly or if it's hidden behind a virtio layer in UTM's wrapping of the hypervisor.framewirk.

Are you able to play Steam games?

posted as a sibling to your comment, but you'd likely be interested in

https://scottjg.com/posts/2026-05-05-egpu-mac-gaming/

never tried so I don't know. it's easy for you to fire it up and try though

You can play 64-bit macOS Steam games using ... Steam for macOS. This works fine (at least until they kill Rosetta2), though you are still translating x86.

And most Windows Steam games (32- or 64-bit) via Crossover. (Expect about half the frame rate of a native ARM/Metal port at the same settings.)

But you may be asking whether you can run Proton well in a Linux VM. I think it would depend on having a good Vulkan implementation that works well with a hardware GPU, so I expect the answer is yes with an eGPU, no with the internal GPU.

> You can play 64-bit macOS Steam games using ... Steam for macOS

Assuming they are kept updated. Unfortunately, the way macOS works is that Apple expects developers to constantly update their apps to keep them working on newer macOS versions, and for games especially this is often not the case a few years after the release.

Worse yet, many titles are marked as working, but if you actually try to use them, various things break, e.g. hi-DPI.

Yes, Apple's notorious contempt for backward compatibility raises its ugly head again.

people have gotten this to work (for a sufficiently sketchy definition of work) for linux run in QEMU at least.

https://scottjg.com/posts/2026-05-05-egpu-mac-gaming/

in particular, the conclusion of that article is "You can run cyberpunk 2077 on a M4 macbook air w/ a 5090 eGPU".

That looks completely esoteric, incredible stuff.

It’s surprisingly good to do with full screen and the Apple hvm is very nice. Don’t let the experimental tag scare you.

Isn't there Asahi Linux that boots on Apple Silicon? Never tried it, but people here on HN mention it from time to time.

There is but it lags behind the latest apple hardware.

Asahi only supports M1, M2, and alpha support for M3.

Not that I blame them for the lag, there's a lot of reversing work because apple doesn't document this stuff.