Building a Linux GPU Driver for the M4 Mac Mini in One Month

Two developers built a fully OpenGL ES 3.0 compliant GPU driver for Apple's M4 Mac Mini and MacBook Neo in approximately one month—a process that typically takes years—by reverse engineering the GPU firmware and user-space components using a hypervisor and clean room techniques. The driver is functional enough to run applications like Chrome, Firefox, and Minecraft at 200fps with WebGL support, though it is not yet ready for end users. The achievement involved reverse engineering the M4, A18 Pro, and M5 hardware without examining Apple binaries, relying instead on hardware traces and custom implementations.