Aptivi<p><strong>Linux 6.17 will be able to reboot Silicon Macs</strong></p><p>One of the most important hiccups, alongside the Apple graphics card drivers support for the mainline Linux kernel, was that Linux wasn’t able to reboot the M2/M1 Silicon Macs, because the necessary Apple System Management Controller (SMC) driver was missing in the mainline Linux kernel, and that only the Asahi Linux kernel provided such driver.</p><p>Starting from Linux 6.17, Silicon Macs, such as the latest MacBooks, can now reboot the system, which is one of the most important functions that every computer has to implement when building an operating system. This is because Linux 6.17 has provided the Apple SMC driver that not only handles system reboot, but also handles temperature sensors, voltage and power meters, and more.</p><p>The work needed to be done is finally done on <a href="https://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/lee/mfd.git/commit/?h=for-mfd-next&id=e038d985c9823a12cd64fa077d0c5aca2c644b67" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">this patch</a> that adds the <code>macsmc</code> driver to the MFD driver section. The commit message explains how this driver works:</p><blockquote><p>The System Management Controller (SMC) on Apple Silicon machines is a piece of hardware that exposes various functionalities such as temperature sensors, voltage/power meters, shutdown/reboot handling, GPIOs and more.</p><p>Communication happens via a shared mailbox using the RTKit protocol which is also used for other co-processors. The SMC protocol then allows reading and writing many different keys which implement the various features. The MFD core device handles this protocol and exposes it to the sub-devices.</p><p>Some of the sub-devices are potentially also useful on pre-M1 Apple machines and support for SMCs on these machines can be added at a later time.</p></blockquote><p>To be more specific, <a href="https://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/lee/mfd.git/commit/?h=for-mfd-next&id=51bb1f6d4694cd84491847ea59eb194311b7d7f8" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">another patch</a> is introduced that adds reboot bindings to the device tree definition, which is required as the new Silicon Macs talk to SMC and write to NVMEM cells. Writing to those cells will use the below properties:</p><ul><li><strong>shutdown_flag</strong>: Flag indicating shutdown (as opposed to reboot)</li><li><strong>boot_stage</strong>: Stage at which the boot process stopped (0x30 for normal boot)</li><li><strong>boot_error_count</strong>: Counter for boot errors</li><li><strong>panic_count</strong>: Counter for system panics</li></ul><p>In the <a href="https://social.treehouse.systems/@sven/114907716752552601" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">Treehouse Mastodon</a> instance, Asahi Linux developer Sven Peter has confirmed that the Apple SMC driver has just made it to the Linux 6.17 merge window, and that it’s now finally possible to reboot the Silicon Macs normally. Further Apple drivers will be merged to the mainstream Linux kernel later.</p><p>The only thing remaining is that Linux distros will have to update to Linux 6.17 before the Silicon Macs will gain ability to reboot from Linux, which will take time, depending on the kernel update policy. It may take from the matter of days in rolling distros, such as Arch Linux, to weeks or months in non-rolling distros.</p><p>Ubuntu 25.10 Questing Quokka will use Linux 6.17 as the final kernel release, which means that this version of Ubuntu will be the first version that supports rebooting the Silicon Macs.</p><p><a href="https://www.pexels.com/photo/woman-hotel-laptop-freelancer-12663146/" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">Photo by Anna Shvets</a></p><p><span></span></p><p><a rel="nofollow noopener" class="hashtag u-tag u-category" href="https://officialaptivi.wordpress.com/tag/linux/" target="_blank">#Linux</a> <a rel="nofollow noopener" class="hashtag u-tag u-category" href="https://officialaptivi.wordpress.com/tag/linux-6-17/" target="_blank">#Linux617</a> <a rel="nofollow noopener" class="hashtag u-tag u-category" href="https://officialaptivi.wordpress.com/tag/m2/" target="_blank">#M2</a> <a rel="nofollow noopener" class="hashtag u-tag u-category" href="https://officialaptivi.wordpress.com/tag/macbook/" target="_blank">#MacBook</a> <a rel="nofollow noopener" class="hashtag u-tag u-category" href="https://officialaptivi.wordpress.com/tag/macbook-pro/" target="_blank">#MacBookPro</a> <a rel="nofollow noopener" class="hashtag u-tag u-category" href="https://officialaptivi.wordpress.com/tag/news/" target="_blank">#news</a> <a rel="nofollow noopener" class="hashtag u-tag u-category" href="https://officialaptivi.wordpress.com/tag/tech/" target="_blank">#Tech</a> <a rel="nofollow noopener" class="hashtag u-tag u-category" href="https://officialaptivi.wordpress.com/tag/technology/" target="_blank">#Technology</a> <a rel="nofollow noopener" class="hashtag u-tag u-category" href="https://officialaptivi.wordpress.com/tag/update/" target="_blank">#update</a></p>