Borealis Vulkan driver forks Asahi code for M1 to M5 chips
TL;DR
Aurora Silicon says its new Borealis Vulkan driver runs on Apple M1 through M5 hardware by forking Asahi Linux code. The project introduces new policies allowing AI assistant contributions.
Aurora Silicon has forked the Asahi Linux project's HoneyKrisp Mesa Vulkan driver to create a new driver named Borealis. Aurora Silicon says the software runs on Apple M1 through M5 chips alongside the A18 Pro. The project aims to deliver a Linux experience on Apple hardware and port Windows to the platform.
The Borealis driver lives in a separate Mesa fork rather than upstream Mesa. Aurora Silicon registers it under the ID VK_DRIVER_ID_AURORA_BOREALIS, though it currently reports as VK_DRIVER_ID_MESA_HONEYKRISP until the pull request merges. The repository strips out upstream Mesa AI agent policies and replaces them with a custom policy permitting AI contributions. Code changes for this policy update were co-authored by Claude Opus 5.5.
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