MacBook 5,1 and Ubuntu 13.04 (Raring)

This page aims to describe the steps needed, to fully enable all features of the 1st Generation MacBook Unibody (release date: late 2008) when using Ubuntu 13.04, Raring.

You can find the Ubuntu 13.04 Mac desktop image here: Ubuntu 13.04 (Raring Ringtail) Daily Build. When doing a full disk installation you can savely pick the regular 64bit build (not the Mac version). The only difference is that EFI is disabled in the Mac version (Source, answer #2).

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

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

• Feature	Support status
  Wireless (AirPort)
  Desktop Effects (Unity)
  Touchpad (appletouch)
  Keyboard functions (Brightness,volume,...)
  Fans
  Sound
  Suspend & Hibernate
  CD/DVD Writing
  Bluetooth
  External Monitor
  iSight
  Apple USB 56K Modem
  Apple Remote Control

(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.

You can also install Ubuntu by replacing MacOS as the installer offers you. This makes full disk encryption easy since you can use the corresponding full-disk-install option.

When doing a MacOS replacement install: To decrease booting time do the following after you have installed Ubuntu: restart and hold the alt/option-key. Press enter while holding the control-button. This will decrease the time for the initial "lit-screen" from about 45 to 12 second.

Wireless (AirPort)

You need to check "Third-Party"-Software while installing or do the following afterwards: Open and choose Broadcom STA in:

• System -> Administration -> Additional Drivers

Desktop Effects (Unity) & Keyboard functions (Brightness)

If you want to enable proprietary graphic drivers you can do that here. I strongly recommend that you install the following before activating Nvidia drivers:

sudo apt-get install linux-headers-`uname -r`

Otherwise you probably will encounter a black screen or a login promt instead of lightdm after your netxt reboot.

• System Settings -> Software & Updates -> Additional Drivers

Tested: "Experimental NVIDIA ... from nvidia-experimental-310 (proprietary)"
After installing 310 you have to follow these steps to get you brightness-control-keys to work again: Brightness control not working- Ubuntu 12.04 LTS - Macbook pro 5,5.

When switching back to the open source driver you could encounter the problem that the solution will be set 640xSomething and that you can't increase it the regular way. When confronted with that, do the following:

sudo rm /etc/X11/xorg.conf
sudo apt-get purge xserver-xorg-video-nouveau
sudo apt-get install xserver-xorg-video-nouveau

Note: You should be able to disable the Nvidia branding this way: disable nvidia splash screen.

Fans

If you get the impression that you Mac runs hotter than usual (as I did), then add the Mactel PPA repository and install the following package. It will start your fan sooner. You can uninstall/reinstall it anytime and should hear the effect immediately.

sudo apt-get install macfanctld 

Note: You can observe CPU temperature with this tool: https://launchpad.net/~alexmurray/+archive/indicator-sensors.

Trackpad

Left-click, right-click (two finger-)use and basic trackpad work out of the box.

You can switch to two-finger-scrolling here:

• System Settings -> Mouse & Touchpad

Suspend

I had to install the Nvidia drivers as shown above to get it to work. It then worked with and without full-disk encryption.

Booting a LiveCD & reinstalling

If you have installed Ubuntu as a Mac replacement you get the problem that booting from the Ubuntu live cd just gives you a grub rescue shell. The long way to solve this would be to use the MacOS cd to format the harddrive. The short to do the following (as adapted from here):

set root=(cd0)
linux /casper/vmlinuz.efi boot=casper nopromt noeject
initrd /casper/initrd.lz
boot

Sidenodes

Nvidia driver blackscreen / login promt after reboot (with or without EFI enabled)

If you encounter

Module build for the currently running kernel was skipped since the
kernel source for this kernel does not seem to be installed.

after trying to install the Nvidia drivers (on your Mac 5.1 with or without EFI enabled) do the following (as recommended above):

sudo apt-get install linux-headers-`uname -r`

then reinstall your Nvidia driver, e.g.

sudo apt-get purge nvidia-current
sudo apt-get install nvidia-current