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MacBook Pro(5,1) and (5,2) on Ubuntu 11.04 (Natty Narwhal)

This page aims to describe the steps needed, to fully enable all features of the 5th Generation Macbook Pro (release date: late 2008, early 2009) when using Ubuntu 11.04, Natty Narwhal.

IconsPage/terminal.png You can find out what model you have by typing at the terminal:

sudo dmidecode -s system-product-name


This should either return MacBookPro5,1 or MacBookPro5,2. If not, this page is not really so well suited for your situation. If you have a MacBook Pro, but a different hardware revision, please go to the MacBook Pro start page. If you have a different Intel CPU-based Macintosh product, go to the Mactel Community Help Pages to 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

    Sensors (temps & fans)

    IconsPage/ok.png

    Suspend & Hibernate

    IconsPage/ok.png

    Reboot

    IconsPage/ok.png

    Desktop Effects (Compiz)

    IconsPage/ok.png IconsPage/info.png

    HFS+ (only read)

    IconsPage/ok.png

    CD/DVD Writing

    IconsPage/ok.png

    Bluetooth

    IconsPage/ok.png

    Screen brightness adjustment

    IconsPage/ok.png

    Keyboard functions (Brightness, volume, etc)

    IconsPage/ok.png

    Sound

    IconsPage/ok.png

    Microphone

    IconsPage/ok.png

    External Monitor

    IconsPage/ok.png

    Wireless (AirPort)

    IconsPage/ok.png IconsPage/info.png

    Trackpad

    IconsPage/ok.png

    Webcam/iSight

    IconsPage/ok.png

    Apple Remote Control

    IconsPage/question.png

IconsPage/ok.png (works out-of-the-box)
IconsPage/ok.png IconsPage/info.png (works, with remarks)
IconsPage/warning.png (needs manual install)
IconsPage/dont.png (won't work)
IconsPage/question.png (not yet documented)

Basic Installation Instructions

Common things about installing and maintaining Ubuntu on Intel-based Macs: Intel CPU-based Macintosh Generic Installation Instructions, but remember that rEFIT supports this MacBook only from 0.12. For 64Bit Ubuntu use rEFITt 0.14 or higher. Info rmation about rEFIt can be found at http://refit.sourceforge.net/

Package Support for Intel Macs

Ubuntu 11.04 requires no extra packages from the Mactel PPA anymore, all required packages are available in the standard distribution.

Boot/GRUB/Plymouth

The Natty LiveCD will not boot out of the box on MBP5,1 / MBP5,2 since nouveau fails on the 9600MGT (upstream bug report) - you can work around this by manually specifying the kernel command line option:

nouveau.noaccel=1 Some people have noticed that X wont start even with this setting unless the 9600Card is the selected card in macOS X here is the bug about it: https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/linux/+bug/787071

EFi booting / Disabling 9600Gt

This is doable but requires a little bit of manual intervention. Make sure to boot from the efi grub from live cd/USB when installing ubuntu. if you pick the auto-option when installing. The installer will install an efi boot-loader. After rebooting into ubuntu (refit will show you an efi icon for ubuntu) boot into single mode by adding single to your kernel parameter list in grub. You should also add nopat (this is required for X to start for me later on). lspci |grep VGA will show you that both cards are available. unload the nvidia module if loaded. run gpupwr

That will disable the card for you. load the nvidia driver. run lspci -H1 if you want to verify that the card has been disabled. type /etc/init.d/gdm start to start your desktop environemnt.

if you run nvidia-settings it will only show you the 9400 card.

some notes: i noticed a bug after reboot. Where apt wants to remove grub-efi and replace it with grub-pc right after my first reboot. Seemed to be some kind of dependency bug/error. If you accept all packages your efi grub will be removed so be on the look out.

the reason to start in single mode and unloading the driver is that when i tried after closing X it hung my laptop. Happy booting!

On the forum people have had to edit one value in gpupwr.c depending on wich graphicscard you have enabled in macosx. Worst case if you pick the wrong one. Your display will just be disabled and you have to reboot.

Reboot

Works fine out of the box.

Suspend & Hibernate

Suspend is working out of the box felt pretty fast.

Hibernate not tested.

Wireless

When installing choose 'Enable non-free software' and the Broadcom STA driver should be installed at first boot. If not, enable the driver using the 'Additional Drivers' application and reboot.

Sensors

The following sensors should be available out of the box:

  • One motion sensor

  • Ambient light sensor

  • One fan sensor

  • 16 temperature sensors

You can verify this by using

dmesg | grep applesmc

Output should be something like:

[  975.586518] applesmc: Apple MacBook Pro 5 detected:
[  975.586522] applesmc:  - Model with accelerometer
[  975.586524] applesmc:  - Model with light sensors and backlight
[  975.586526] applesmc:  - Model with 20 temperature sensors
[  975.587187] applesmc: device has already been initialized (0xe0, 0x00).
[  975.587189] applesmc: device successfully initialized.
[  975.588120] applesmc: 2 fans found.
[  975.590446] input: applesmc as /devices/platform/applesmc.768/input/input10
[  975.594503] applesmc: driver successfully loaded.

Unfortunately, none of the sensors have correct names. There is a legacy description suitable for other MacBook's at the old mactel-linux site with an (incorrect) sample sensors.conf at this mactel 2007 mail thread.

Add this to your sensors.conf or sensors3.conf file to provide context for some of the temperature sensors (this was generated on a MBP 5,2):

chip "applesmc-isa-0300"
    label "temp1" "TB0T Enclosure Bottom 0"
    label "temp2" "TB1T Enclosure Bottom 1"
    label "temp3" "TB2T Enclosure Bottom 2"
    label "temp4" "TB3T Enclosure Bottom 3"
    label "temp5" "TC0D CPU Diode"
    label "temp6" "TC0F CPU ???"
    label "temp7" "TC0P CPU Pin"
    label "temp8" "TG0D GPU Diode"
    label "temp9" "TG0F GPU ???"
    label "temp10" "TG0H GPU Heatsink"
    label "temp11" "TG0P GPU Pin"
    label "temp12" "TG0T GPU Transistor"
    label "temp13" "TG1H GPU 2 Heatsink"
    label "temp14" "TN0D Northbridge Diode"
    label "temp15" "TN0P Northbridge Pin"
    label "temp16" "TTF0 Unknown"
    label "temp17" "Th2H Heatsink 2"
    label "temp18" "Tm0P Memory Controller"
    label "temp19" "Ts0P PCI Express Slot Pin"
    label "temp20" "Ts0S PCI Express Slot (unk)"
    label "fan1" "Left Fan"
    label "fan2" "Right Fan"

chip "coretemp-isa-0000"
   label temp1 "Core0"

chip "coretemp-isa-0001"
   label temp1 "Core1"

Keyboard functions

All keyboard functions work out of the box except the Expose and Dashboard keys. In Ubuntu you can initiate an Expose like preview using 'Apple + w' keyboard shortcut. Ubuntu has no equivalent of the Dashboard.

Bluetooth

Pairing works out of the box. Access options from the bluetooth applet in the top panel.

Trackpad

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

Unity also provides a number of multitouch shortcuts which also work out of the box (such as 3 finger zoom / pinch to maximize / unmaximize a window, three finger drag to move a window, 4 finger tap to reveal the dash, and 4 finger swipe to expose / hide the launcher)

Desktop Effects (Compiz)

You must enable the a non-free graphics driver to use Compiz. Start 'Additional Drivers' and choose the 'NVIDIA accelerated graphics driver (current version)' and then reboot.

External Monitor

Works out of the box.

Sound

Works out of the box.

Microphone

Works out the box.

Make sure the microphone is not muted and the correct input is selected by selecting 'Sound Preferences...' from the audio menu on the top panel.

Remote Control

No tested.

Screen brightness adjustment

Works out of the box.

Known issues

None so far.


CategoryMac




IconsPage/users.png
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 documentation going on.


CategoryMac

MacBookPro5-1_5-2/Natty (last edited 2013-12-14 00:51:23 by knome)