At the end of my rope with my M1 Mac with Asahi linux

Our Neighbors Asahi Linux Asahi General
23

Hey, everyone,

I am at the point where I see one option and if it does not pan out, I am left with trashing my M1 Mac, which is a drag because I shelled out $745 (via ebay) for it.

I kind of think the proper path is to communicate via dm but I can’t see that this forum has this functionality. Can someone let me know? And if not, I’ll communicate within this thread.

Thanks!

24

Hello you bought a second hand Mac and you are probably experiencing a hardware failure.

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25

There is a personal message option, but it’s reserved for Trust Level 2+ site members. (See Trust levels on Fedora Discussion (from newbie to super-hero!).

In general, the site philosophy is that it’s better to do this kind of troubleshooting in an open topic rather than private messages, because:

  • Even if a problem seems obscure, someone else may have the same issue in the future, and can benefit from the exchange
  • It may be that many people can help with a particular issue, and you’re more likely to get a quick and helpful response from a open topic
  • Even the top experts may miss some detail that another person reading the thread will recognize
  • No one here is paid to provide support. Individual conversations can be time-consuming and feel overwhelming. If someone offers help in a message, and then gets a bunch of private messages about it, this can feel like “punishment” for trying to help.
  • DMs are often targeted at the wrong person. For example, people often email me or otherwise individually ask me for technical help. Completely independent of the previous point, I usually have no idea.
26

Can you give more detail about what was attempted, and how those attempts failed? This is definitely one of those situations where I have no idea… but without more detail, it’s hard for anyone to guess what to tell you.

27

Well it worked when I got it, nevertheless, I definitely am open to the problem being hardware.

Thanks.

28

Well, Matt, if the following note is inappropriate I appreciate your need to delete it. Here we go…

As I wrote, I see only one option. This is wordy which is a weakness I have in my attempt to be thorough.

I live in a city of 550 people. I don’t know a single person with a Mac, much less one with one who might have anything near the expertise to do what I need.

The closest city of any meaningful population is 55 miles away and has a population of 25,000. I don’t know much of anyone there and don’t know anyone who owns a Mac.

The person I know with the most expertise is my brother. I am in South Dakota and he is in Massachusetts. I already sent my Mac to him and he did everything he could. This is when it had the menu with Restore, Reinstall, Safari, and Disk Utility options. Among the things he did was attempted Mac OS install via usb stick with an iso of the OS. After he was not successful, he took it to the Apple-sanctioned repair shop where they did all they could.

This is what I see is my option.

  1. Send my Mac to an “expert” and something like $100 and an “honor system”.

  2. If said expert can repair my Mac, send another $100 + shipping and have him send it back to me.

  3. If said expert cannot fix my Mac, it’s his.

I am hopeful someone here will take me on my offer.

29

Do you have a spare PC lying around? It is possible to do the DFU restore from Linux on a PC with idevicerestore. The “release” version is too old, but if you live boot or install Fedora (can be on a USB stick or whatever) on the PC, then sudo dnf install idevicerestore usbmuxd && sudo udevadm control --reload-rules, you should get a working version.

Follow Apple’s DFU instructions that I linked to connect the machines with the right Type C port. Run dmesg -e on the host machine and then do this:

  • Boot the target machine (in your case should be at the exclamation mark screen)
  • Hold down control, option, right shift
  • Press and hold the power button
  • Wait 10 seconds (the screen should shut down), then release the 3 keys and keep pressing the power button
  • Keep holding power until dmesg on the host machine shows a new USB device with Product: Apple Mobile Device (DFU Mode), then release.

Then run sudo idevicerestore -l. You can pick the latest firmware version when offered. This will attempt a revive (without erasing data). It is likely that this will fail, but worth a shot. If it fails, do the whole process all over again and try sudo idevicerestore -l -e. This will do a full wipe. If that still doesn’t work, try selecting an older version (like 12.6).

If the “revive” process works you’ll get a recoveryOS prompt. Choose your macOS volume and authenticate with your macOS credentials. It will go through an “authentication” process (it might prompt you to connect to the internet". Then select that OS to boot when it reboots.

If you end up doing a full wipe it will restore the machine to factory state and you’ll get the macOS first boot setup wizard.

If you run idevicerestore while the target machine is on the exclamation mark screen it will not work (it will prompt you for a version and appear to work, but it will get stuck).

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Macbook air M1 brick asahi Fedora 42
31

I just want to share that I know of an extremely strong linux person who accepted my offer to have a look at my computer.

He got it going and he said doing so was really tough. I know it had to do with the hard drive being nearly completely full.

So, I got a working Mac and he made $200. It was a win-win.

I don’t believe I could have fixed it on my own - over my head.

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