--- title: Apple Silicon Linux Driver Adapted To Help Older... description: A developer is extending the 'macsmc' driver to support older Intel-powered Macs, aiming to replace the aging 'applesmc' driver. Atharva Tiwari sent out an RFC... canonical: https://daily.dev/posts/apple-silicon-linux-driver-adapted-to-help-older-intel-powered-macs-v5olfx7rs twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:site: @dailydotdev og:type: website og:site_name: daily.dev og:title: Apple Silicon Linux Driver Adapted To Help Older Intel-Powered Macs | daily.dev og:description: A developer is extending the 'macsmc' driver to support older Intel-powered Macs, aiming to replace the aging 'applesmc' driver. Atharva Tiwari sent out an RFC... og:url: https://daily.dev/posts/apple-silicon-linux-driver-adapted-to-help-older-intel-powered-macs-v5olfx7rs og:image: https://api.daily.dev/og/posts/V5olFX7rS.png og:image:alt: Apple Silicon Linux Driver Adapted To Help Older Intel-Powered Macs og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 630 og:locale: en --- > ## Documentation Index > Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://daily.dev/llms.txt > Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further. # Apple Silicon Linux Driver Adapted To Help Older Intel-Powered Macs **[Phoronix](https://daily.dev/sources/phoronix)** · 2 min read · 0 upvotes · 0 comments ## Summary A developer is extending the 'macsmc' driver to support older Intel-powered Macs, aiming to replace the aging 'applesmc' driver. Atharva Tiwari sent out an RFC patch series for this work. The applesmc driver lumps fan control, sensors, light sensor, motion sensor and keyboard backlight into one monolithic file, making it hard to extend. The system management controller works the same way on Intel and Apple Silicon Macs, differing only in the communication interface, so much of the Asahi code can be shared. The patches are currently under review. ## Full article daily.dev links to this article rather than hosting it. Read it at the original source: ## Questions this post answers ### What is replacing the applesmc driver for Intel Macs on Linux? The macsmc driver, originally written for Apple Silicon Macs under Asahi Linux, is being extended to support older Intel-powered Macs as a replacement for applesmc. Developer Atharva Tiwari sent out an RFC patch series for this work. The system management controller works the same way on both platforms, differing only in the communication interface, allowing much of the Asahi code to be reused. _Developers tracking Linux hardware support for older Macs can follow driver changes like this on daily.dev._ ### Why is the applesmc Linux driver considered hard to maintain? The applesmc driver is very old and lumps fan control, sensors, the light sensor, the motion sensor, and the keyboard backlight into a single file with its own method of talking to the system management controller, making it hard to extend or support new machines. This monolithic design motivated extending the newer macsmc driver to cover Intel Macs instead. _Anyone maintaining legacy kernel drivers can keep up with refactoring efforts like this via daily.dev._ ## Similar posts on daily.dev - [Linux 7.1 Lands The Apple SMC Power Driver For Reporting Battery Metrics On MacBooks](https://daily.dev/posts/linux-7-1-lands-the-apple-smc-power-driver-for-reporting-battery-metrics-on-macbooks-nj0k3cxhg) · Phoronix · 0 upvotes · 0 comments - [A new Linux driver gets us one step closer to daily driving the OS on an M3 MacBook](https://daily.dev/posts/a-new-linux-driver-gets-us-one-step-closer-to-daily-driving-the-os-on-an-m3-macbook-yhiwvxvfm) · XDA Developers · 0 upvotes · 0 comments - [Progress Report: Linux 6.18](https://daily.dev/posts/progress-report-linux-6-18-xidwuae25) · Asahi Linux · 0 upvotes · 0 comments - [Apple SMC Power Driver Posted For Linux Kernel To Finally Expose Battery Stats](https://daily.dev/posts/apple-smc-power-driver-posted-for-linux-kernel-to-finally-expose-battery-stats-dooru1sf6) · Phoronix · 0 upvotes · 0 comments --- Tags: [#linux](https://daily.dev/tags/linux), [#hardware](https://daily.dev/tags/hardware), [#asahi-linux](https://daily.dev/tags/asahi-linux) [View this post on daily.dev](https://daily.dev/posts/apple-silicon-linux-driver-adapted-to-help-older-intel-powered-macs-v5olfx7rs) ```json {"@context":"https://schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"Organization","@id":"https://daily.dev/#organization","name":"daily.dev","url":"https://daily.dev","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://daily.dev/apple-touch-icon.png","width":180,"height":180},"sameAs":["https://twitter.com/dailydotdev","https://github.com/dailydotdev","https://www.linkedin.com/company/daily-dev-ltd"]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https://daily.dev/#website","url":"https://daily.dev","name":"daily.dev","publisher":{"@id":"https://daily.dev/#organization"},"potentialAction":{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https://daily.dev/search?q={search_term_string}"},"query-input":"required name=search_term_string"}}]} {"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"TechArticle","headline":"Apple Silicon Linux Driver Adapted To Help Older Intel-Powered Macs","url":"https://daily.dev/posts/apple-silicon-linux-driver-adapted-to-help-older-intel-powered-macs-v5olfx7rs","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://daily.dev/posts/apple-silicon-linux-driver-adapted-to-help-older-intel-powered-macs-v5olfx7rs"},"datePublished":"2026-10-30T10:14:07.668Z","dateModified":"2026-10-30T10:14:42.187Z","description":"A developer is extending the 'macsmc' driver to support older Intel-powered Macs, aiming to replace the aging 'applesmc' driver. 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