KAIT2EN is through the door

This is a copy of the text I wrote on Reddit in July 2026 when KAIT2EN was releeased and this website didn't yet exist. Keeping it here for historical reasons. This is the link to the original post: Reddit

Some of you may know me as "Deqrocks" from the T2 Linux Discord server. And you may also know I have been very active over the past months with contributing to the community and codebase.

So I started this Fedora project with another guy from Germany ("4f1sh3r" on Discord). We called it "KaiT2en", which refers to the Japanese word kaizen, which stands for constant little improvements. A bit cheesy, but that is what the idea is about.

Initially, we started this because we were overwhelmed by the variety of T2 Linux distros and the amount of repos and quirks needed to make things work - on I believe 16 different T2 Mac models? In effect, when I offered code changes and wanted them tested, I had to deal with not directly comparable results and a lot of distro-specific "noise".

Now, Asahi has shown the value of concentrating development around a single reference platform. It's not so much about my personal opinion or wanting to step into Asahi's big footsteps (never ever I was competent enough). It's just my view as a dev from a practical standpoint. We have made so much progress in the last months with KaiT2en on three Macbooks. Because we could finally focus.

Eventually, the project became useful enough that we decided to open it up to other users and developers here on reddit.

I gotta be careful here: Mind you, this is not a try to bash T2 Linux. We are part of this community and we love it. Also our work is based on T2 Linux code. We don't want to take credit from their work. What we want is offering a transparent concept in exchange for your engagement. And if Linus so will - upstream code.

We are talking about 8 to 6 year old devices here. Most devs from back in 2018 to 2020 have moved on to Apple Silicon or other things in life. Developing Linux kernel modules for T2 Macs is hard work because of reverse engineering. Upstreaming to Linus is also hard, because Apple's stuff is out of the ordinary for kernel maintainers, which are meticulous by nature. I believe we are a PITA for them whenever we show up on Lore.

T2linux also can't maintain their distros forever. It takes time, money, blood, sweat, tears, you name it... to keep that going over the years. And they did. Oh boy. They did their job well...

OK, so here is our stuff. It is, as we believe, a good concept. The docs in the repo should explain everything you want to know: https://github.com/kaiT2en/KaiT2en-Fedora

If you decide on joining the project, here is a Discord link: https://discord.gg/AGfjRk4ydj