Helo World (v1.0.0-alpha)

Introductions

Hello and welcome to the first alpha release of T2-Atomic. For the last few months, the T2-Atomic organization** has been working to enable the joy of Fedora Atomic Desktops (Silverblue, Kinoite, and the many other minerals) on 2018-2019ish Apple laptops and desktops with intel processors and T2 security chips. **T2-Atomic Organization currently a singular "we", hi it's me "kansei" your faithful 25+ year Linux on Apple fanboy.

T2 Background

For brief background, the T2 security chip gates access to basic hardware such as the keyboard (and touchbar), trackpad, etc. without loading some kernel modules. Since the stock Fedora kernel used by the system and the Anaconda installer don't support T2, installing these requires a lot of .. fiddling. On Fedora Atomic, anything Fiddly on workstation gets amped up a bit. A few examples of things to get just right:

• Overriding the kernel with one from a copr
• pulling wifi/bluetooth firmware using a script (or in our case .. an Arch Linux repo and some Asahi bits to repackage on github actions)
• installing several packages from a copr to support the fan, audio, touchbar, enabling those systemd services
• getting some kernel modules to load early enough to support the keyboard for LUKS unlock
• blacklisting some modules to prevent notifications about the T2 internal usb ethernet not currently in use on Linux
• setting kernel arguments to enable or disable thunderbolt, force compatibility mode, and enable iommu
• enabling initramfs regeneration with rpm-ostree
• disabling deep sleep (and using s2idle) on Macs with recent Apple firmwares.
• and more

The mission of T2-Atomic is to make installing your favorite Fedora Atomic variants on T2 Macs as easy as installing Debian on a ThinkPad. In this initial stage, we're building off BlueBuild and Universal Blue OCI base images, using research and knowledge from the T2linux wiki. We have ambitious goals but to start, how we got here.

Our first Images

In March, the initial Silverblue (Gnome) T2-Atomic Image was published. Since then we've been busy. A lot of core hardware enablement work is complete and if not implemented, at least in a testing phase. Several T2-Atomic Images have been published since, including Plasma in March, COSMIC pre-Alpha in May, and as of this week Sway and Hyprland are being tested.

Current state: Installable Today?:

Since no official Silverblue support for T2 exists at this time, we're pretty comfortable stating this is in a state where one could install it if one wanted to. ISOs don't currently exist, but will be generated and shared once a few last scripts are finished (mostly bare metal first boot setup), and documentation is detailed.

Installation Steps

1. have Silverblue already on your T2 mac, albeit without keyboard, fan, touchbar, suspend support
2. Follow the readme which details the available T2-Atomic Images and the two-rebase two reboot installation process.
3. Remember to have a USB keyboard, pointing device, and a wired network connection available for the install.
4. Enjoy!

A Personal Note

I've been a computer nerd since before I had friends, and a Linux nerd since soon after (starting with Corel Linux 1 on a 486, then Debian on a ThinkPad T42 as I went off to university). Maybe it's an excuse for hoarding computers, but there's something so special about how Linux extends the livelihood of "obsolete" computers. From being a Gentoo Linux in 2004 (Linux gaming with other linux nerds in college), to hosting an Ubuntu first release party handing out CDs, to using Arch in 2005, I've been at it a while I guess. I still use a lot of these distros today. Can't stop won't stop distro hopping.

Professionally, I'm currently an unemployed senior IT professional, working on my mental health while looking for an employment situation that isn't bad for it. Personal projects like this keep me sane living fairly isolated in a small village (like being a sysadmin but with worse pay, creating and solving bugs for yourself). If you know anyone looking for a seasoned IT pro with current engineering skills looking for a job that will keep them challenged, reach out.

I've used Linux servers professionally since high school, and was educated using almost exclusively Linux (ok some Solaris and a little OS X) at RIT. Since, I've done everything from managing physical data centers of physical linux apache servers and physical data centers of virtual Debian nginx machines and SANs in the late 2000s running web hosting for hundreds of small business and healthcare clients, to managing remote fleets of thousands of Linux VMs for a couple big name web companies of the 2010s, to deploying hyperconverged linux hosting platforms to factory sites around the world in the late 2010s, to deploying Linux containers on private and public cloud in more modern times. I also manage devops, project management, system admin, help desk, and consultant teams. With the shift to the public cloud, most of my recent jobs have been people management and using a lot of SaaS and PaaS. I've built up a specialty in SAML SSO (Okta of course, but others too), MDM, collaboration tools (Atlassian, O365, G Suite), email security (DMARC/DKIM/BIMI), and HRIS/ATS/SSO integrations. Equally adept at getting hands on or managing the teams doing so.

I love big complicated systems what can I say. Enjoy the CI/CD pipeline I set up to make what started as a custom image for just one old laptop I had sitting around <3.

In addition to T2-Atomic I'm working on Kansei-Server, another image based on Universal Blue's uCore Fedora CoreOS image, for use as a home container host for public or private consumption. I run DNS and my unifi network app on the "test in production" oold water-cooled Ryzen gaming rig, powered by a canal (and solar) in an 1800s wool mill in a small village. I'm also building T2 support for Arkane Linux / arkdep, and after that branching that out to EndeavourOS and the other Arch-based.

Below, the T2-Atomic test fleet hanging with friends. Four Apple computers, all running Linux. From back left to front right, T2-Atomic on a 2018 13" MacBook Pro (T2), Ubuntu 4.10 Warty Warthog on a G3 iMac in 2024, a 2019 16" MacBook Pro (T2), and a MacBook Air M1 running Asahi. At the time of this photo a lot of COSMIC build testing.