Gentoo on my M2 Pro MacBook using Asahi Linux

Important note: I will miss things in this "guide". Do not take this as a guide, please consult help if you have issue. This is more of a personal logbook.

After installing Gentoo Linux onto my MacBook Pro (14" M2 Pro, 2023) using the Asahi project, I wanted to install Hyprland, since:

• Wayland actually works a lot nicer on those systems
• Trackpad support is a little better on Wayland
• Automatically extending the display when plugging in a HDMI cable is a gamechanger. The way this worked on macOS was sub-par.
• Animations go brr

What did I need to do to get stuff working?

I followed the wiki, untill I had to manually start doing things "the Gentoo way".

Kernel and GPU stuff

One of the Asahi-devs gave me a kernel .config file, which I customised and built. I also had to build an initramfs, commands to do all of those are down below:

You want to make sure to have installed rust and bindgen:

su root
emerge -avq rust bindgen kmod
cd /usr/src/linux-6.6.0_p12-asahi # YMWV
make -s rustavailable # Rust must be available

Then go ahead and emerge mesa::asahi.

emerge -avq mesa::asahi

After doing these, go into make menuconfig and exit, then go into make menuconfig again. Set:

CONFIG_DRM_ASAHI=m
CONFIG_DRM_APPLE=y

Now we can build the kernel/

su root
mount /dev/nvme0n1p4 /boot # Change device, YMMV
cd /usr/src/linux-6.6.0_p12-asahi # Change dir, YMWV
env-update && source /etc/profile # Important if you miss certain modules, I have this set inside root's bashrc
make -j10 # Use your CPU core count here, for me that's 10
make install -j10 # Same as previous command
make modules_install -j10 # Same as previous command
dracut --kver $(make -s kernelrelease) --force --zstd
grub-mkconfig -o /boot/grub/grub.cfg
update-m1n1 # Very important to do after every update of m1n1 or kernel update!

Speakers

emerge -av media-libs/asahi-audio # The dependencies will list Pipewire with the correct USE-flags
rc-update add speakersafetyd default
usermod -aG pipewire liv # Replace `liv` with your username

You should add gentoo-pipewire-launcher to your autostart.

Support for DRM content like Spotify

emerge widevine-installer::asahi
widevine-installer

Other tools you might want to use

Part of these needs GURU, to enable it:

emerge app-eselect/eselect-repository
doas eselect repository enable guru
emerge --sync guru

USE-flags are listed inside dotfiles GitHub repository.

emerge -avq media-sound/playerctl app-misc/brightnessctl gui-apps/swaybg gui-apps/swaylock gui-apps/tofi media-gfx/imv gui-apps/wl-clipboard gui-apps/grim gui-apps/slurp media-sound/pavucontrol gui-apps/waybar sys-apps/ripgrep

Building element-desktop

Since you also need sqlcipher, we'll install that first.

Building sqlcipher (dependency)

git clone https://github.com/sqlcipher/sqlcipher ~/.local/src/sqlcipher
cd ~/.local/src/sqlcipher
./configure --enable-tempstore=yes CFLAGS="-DSQLITE_HAS_CODEC" LDFLAGS="-lcrypto"
make -j10
doas make install -j10

Building Element itself

This should work, however the .AppImage did not work for me personally. The dist/linux-arm64-unpacked folder had a binairy that worked, however.

git clone https://github.com/element-hq/element-desktop ~/.local/src/element-desktop
cd ~/.local/src/element-desktop
yarn install
yarn run fetch --noverify --cfgdir element.io/release
yarn add matrix-seshat
yarn add electron-build-env
yarn run build:native # Needed for encrypted room searching
nvim package.json # Eliminate all targets under build.linux.target and add "AppImage"
yarn run build

Resources

• Are we Wayland yet? website that shows the current state of Wayland.