Things that don't suck.

Contents MacBookPro 5,3 and Ubuntu 9.10 (Karmic Koala) Overview Basic Installation Instructions Package Support for Intel Macs Sensors (temps & fans) Suspend & Hibernate Reboot Video & Effects (Compiz) Known issues HFS (only read) CD/DVD Writing Bluetooth Keyboard Functions Touchpad (bcm5974) Wireless (AirPort) iSight Sound Try this first Only try this if the above steps did not work for you Microphone External Monitor Apple Remote Control Firewire

MacBookPro 5,3 and Ubuntu 9.10 (Karmic Koala)

This page aims to describe the steps needed, to fully enable all features of the 15.4 inch 5-th Generation MacBookPro Aluminium (Unibody) (release date: June 2009) when using Ubuntu 9.10, Karmic Koala.

You can find out, what model you have by typing at the terminal:

sudo dmidecode -s system-product-name

• If you have a different model, please go here and find the right wiki.

Overview

This explanation assumes that you just installed your system Karmic therefore you should not have installed the networking support wireless therefore henceforth assume that is connected to the wired network connection.

Anything not mentioned here probably already works out of the box. If not, please refer to the Ubuntu Apple Users forum.

• Feature	Support status
  Sensors (temps & fans)
  Suspend & Hibernate
  Reboot
  Video & Effects (Compiz)
  HFS (only read)
  CD/DVD Writing
  Bluetooth
  Keyboard functions (Brightness,volume,…)
  Touchpad (bcm5974)
  Wireless(AirPort)
  iSight
  Sound
  Microphone
  External Monitor	(not yet documented)
  Apple Remote Control	(not yet documented)
  Firewire

(works out-of-the-box)
(works, with remarks)
(needs manual install)
(won’t work)
(not yet documented)

Basic Installation Instructions

Common things about installing and maintaining Ubuntu on Intel-based Macs: Intel CPU-based Macintosh Generic Installation Instructions

Package Support for Intel Macs

Install the modules from the MactelSupportTeam/PPA. Karmic Koala have in the Kernel 2.6.31 all that need you to make work fine your MacBook Pro 5.3, but to Make work the buttons for keyboard backlight and screen dimming just add this PPA in your “/etc/apt/sources.list” file and follow this instructions.

deb http://ppa.launchpad.net/mactel-support/ppa/ubuntu karmic main  deb-src http://ppa.launchpad.net/mactel-support/ppa/ubuntu karmic main

and do: to add the karmic ppa as well:

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:mactel-support 

Install:

• pommed (Make work the buttons for keyboard backlight and screen dimming)

If you want to install them:

sudo apt-get install pommed

Sensors (temps & fans)

Confirmed working out of the box.

Suspend & Hibernate

Suspend and Hibernate work if the machine has had the latest EFI update (version 1.7).

Suspend has a bug if you unplug the power adapter before waking (see gnome-power-manager bug #425411). This is resolved by the following:

1. Run gconf-editor

2. Go to apps -> gnome-power-manager -> actions

3. Uncheck the box next to event_when_closed_battery.

Reconnecting wireless after waking from sleep is very slow. Especially in contrast to some of the other operating systems you may run on your Macbook Pro. A simple fix is to not notify NetworkManager of sleep status. This is done by:

1. Edit /usr/lib/pm-utils/sleep.d/55NetworkManager

2. Insert “exit 0” (without the quotes) after the comments about how nifty Apple is.

3. Save the file.

Reboot

Confirmed working out of the box.

Video & Effects (Compiz)

You should use the restricted driver, install from: System -> Administration -> Hardware Drivers. Select the NVidia graphics driver you want and Activate (Confirmed working fine NVIDIA 185 driver). Reboot to apply the change.

Or try too the NVIDIA 190 (available as third party repository this way

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:nvidia-vdpau

Known issues

Bug #505242

HFS (only read)

Confirmed working out of the box.

CD/DVD Writing

Confirmed working: Burning CD/DVD images.

Bluetooth

Confirmed working out of the box: * Detection of devices * Sending files to devices (OBEX push)

Keyboard Functions

Sound key functions works out the box,

What works: F10, mute sound F11/F12 volume up/down
F5/F6, dimming the keyboard brightness (Fixed with pommed installation) F1/F2, dimming the LCD brightness (Fixed with pommed installation)
If you’d like to swap the functionality of these keys such that hitting F2 sends F2 instead of increase brightness and Fn FX is required for the functions then simply follow this. For karmic though make your modules options file (/etc/modprobe.d/options) have this line instead:

options hid_apple fnmode=2

Lastly, need to update ramfs:

sudo update-initramfs -u -v -k `uname -r`

Touchpad (bcm5974)

Confirmed working out of the box

Left-click, right-click (two finger)use and basic trackpad work out of the box. To enable two finger scrolling and tap to click:

• System > Preferences > Mouse > Touchpad

Wireless (AirPort)

The Broadcom driver was not installed by default on Karmic, and it was not asked to do so either. The B43 driver doesn’t seem to work here on the mbp5,3, so you’ll need the STA one, connect to the Network with wired then update your apt and then Jokey (System > Admin > Hardware Drivers) will display it right Driver you can Active the Broadcom STA Driver or you can install in the Synaptic or in a terminal with the command:

 sudo apt-get install bcmwl-kernel-source

If it doesn’t work/show up you may need to enable the CD as an apt source (System>Admin>Software Sources), if you don’t have another network connection to work with.

Then reboot the system and you’re OK.

iSight

Confirmed working out of the box WITHOUT loading the isight-firmware-tools. Tested using cheese (sudo apt-get install cheese).

Detects webcam but does not work out of the box with kernel 2.6.31-15-generic. Works when you install the latest version manually:

wget http://linuxtv.org/hg/~pinchartl/uvcvideo/archive/tip.tar.bz2  tar xjf tip.tar.bz2  cd uvcvideo*  make && sudo make install  sudo rmmod uvcvideo videodev v4l2-compat_ioctl32 v4l1_compat  sudo modprobe uvcvideo

Between make and make install the compilation fails on firedtv if it doesn’t find “dma.h”. You can “fix” this by disabling firedtv:

gedit v4l/Makefile.media

In that file, search for the following line:

obj-$(CONFIG_DVB_FIREDTV)  = firedtv.o

and comment it out by putting a “#” in front of it.

Same if you get a compile error “error: sound/aci.h: No such file or directory” you need to comment in v4l/Makefile.media the line :

obj-$(CONFIG_RADIO_MIROPCM20)  = radio-miropcm20.o

Then continue installation as stated above. After installing the new uvcvideo, dmesg should say something like:

Linux video capture interface: v2.00  uvcvideo: Found UVC 1.00 device Built-in iSight (05ac:8507)  input: Built-in iSight as /devices/pci0000:00/0000:00:04.1/usb1/1-4/1-4:1.0/input/input14  usbcore: registered new interface driver uvcvideo  USB Video Class driver (v0.1.0)

and cheese should show an image.

Sound

Try this first

This worked on my macbook pro 5,3 after installing the ALSA modules backports package and unmuting the front speakers. To install the modules for the default kernel, run:

  sudo apt-get install linux-backports-modules-alsa-karmic-generic

Restart the computer. linux-backports-modules-alsa-karmic-generic is a meta-package and will ensure an automatic module upgrade when Ubuntu upgrades the linux kernel package.

To unmute the front speakers run alsamixer from the Terminal, or use gnome-alsamixer:

  sudo apt-get install gnome-alsamixer

In gnome-alsamixer you should obtain something like that:

To enable the optical output, check the IEC958 option, and you’ll see a red light coming from your headphone jack.

Only try this if the above steps did not work for you

The following needs to be re-run each time new kernel is installed. (you can save it as a script in your home directory as “reinstall_alsa.sh” ):

sudo rm -rf /lib/modules/`uname -r`/kernel/sound  sudo aptitude reinstall linux-headers-`uname -r` linux-image-`uname -r`  rm alsa-driver-snapshot.tar.gz  wget ftp://ftp.kernel.org/pub/linux/kernel/people/tiwai/snapshot/alsa-driver-snapshot.tar.gz  tar xf alsa-driver-snapshot.tar.gz  cd alsa-driver  sudo ./configure --enable-dynamic-minors --without-oss --with-cards="hda-intel"  sudo make  sudo make install

Reboot.

And then, install gnome-alsamixer

sudo apt-get install gnome-alsamixer

and run gnome-alsamixer in a terminal. Unmute and raise the volume to 100% for “frontspeaker” and “surround” (which enables the bass speaker). For some reason it is not possible to change these from the standard volume control.

Warning: future kernels may not play well with this fix. Hopefully this will be updated if something breaks.

Microphone

Also working, see above.

External Monitor

Confirmed working for some monitors; configuration is only possible with NVIDIA’s proprietary tool (install package nvidia-settings).

You may experience some trouble with the external VGA and the new drivers: if the detected resolution of externally connected monitors doesn’t go beyond 640x480, you will need to inactivate EDID. Add:

Option     "NoEDID" "True"

to /etc/X11/xorg.conf

External VGA’s resolution tested up to 1920x1200.

Unfortunately, you may also find that your monitor is not working, and that you get a distorted out-of-sync-like image. Manually installing the latest the 190.40 NVIDIA drivers instead of the supplied 185.18.36 will at least get you some image on a lower resolution. If you start the driver in debug mode ( $ nvidia-xconfig —mode-debug ), you will find:

(WW) Oct 18 00:09:05 NVIDIA(0): Mode is rejected: Mode exceeds available DisplayPort  (WW) Oct 18 00:09:05 NVIDIA(0): bandwidth.

The new 175.* drivers should remedy this issue and allow you to run in the native resolution, but they are not released yet by NVIDIA.

Apple Remote Control

It Works with Remarks. Volume control works. Forward and back works (even on Mozilla Firefox) Menu has no action Pause/Play not tested.

Firewire

Works out of the box.

CategoryMac

Please update this page, if you have figured out anything, that is not mentioned here!

The MactelSupportTeam is about to restructure and reorganize the documentation for Intel-based Macs. If you are interested in helping, please visit our team page for information. For all Mactel wikis, there is a starting place here. There is also a thread about planning the Mactel docummentation going on.

CategoryMacIntel

I’m about to give this a whirl. Bookmarking for later use.