December 25, 2025
Notch hacks, battery attacks
Asahi Linux with Sway on the MacBook Air M2
Linux on a cheap M2 Mac thrills, but comments rage over battery, M4 support, and 256GB
TLDR: Someone made Linux run smoothly on a $750 MacBook Air M2 and even turned the notch into a smart status bar. The comments love the hack but argue over poor battery life, whether to wait for M3/M4 support, and Apple’s tiny 256GB base storage—showing the trade-offs of Linux on Apple chips.
A tinkerer just slapped Asahi Linux onto a $750 MacBook Air M2, turned the camera notch into a stealth status bar, and said it felt smoother than their monster desktop. The crowd? Instantly split. One camp cheered the clever notch trick—“free real estate” vibes—with gsora calling the top-aligned bar idea “chef’s kiss.” Another camp hit the brakes hard: What about M3 and M4? OutOfHere voiced the fear many have—why buy an older model if newer Macs won’t work with Asahi yet?
Then came the power drama. rubymamis asked the question that haunts every Linux-on-Mac thread: is the battery life bad because of Linux itself, or early Asahi drivers? Cue memes about carrying a power bank like it’s just another dongle. Price drama also flared when SG- noted you can often find an M4 Air at roughly the same price, adding fuel to the “wait vs. buy now” fire. And the storage wars? commandersaki called the 256GB base model “criminal,” with multiple replies joking that Apple sells “courage” by the gigabyte.
Bottom line: the project looks shockingly polished and the notch hack is a hit, but the comments are a battlefield over battery life, tiny storage, and whether to hold out for newer chips. Tech soap opera? Absolutely.
Key Points
- •The author installed Asahi Linux on a MacBook Air M2 and notes Asahi currently supports up to M2 hardware.
- •Fedora Minimal was used as the base system; Wi‑Fi was configured via nmcli and packages installed via dnf, including Sway and common utilities.
- •The notch area is disabled by default; it was re‑enabled using grubby with apple_dcp.show_notch=1, and a Sway top bar was set to a 56 px height.
- •i3status was configured to avoid occlusion and to read battery status from /sys/class/power_supply/macsmc-battery/uevent.
- •Touchpad input was mapped to avoid the top bar region, and the author reports highly responsive performance and touchpad quality.