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MacBookPro 5,4 and Ubuntu 10.04 (Lucid Lynx)
This page aims to describe the steps needed to fully enable all features of the 15 inch (MacBook Pro 5,4) 5-th Generation MacBookPro (release date: June 2009) when using Ubuntu 10.04, Lucid Lynx. Most likely it works the same for the 13.3 inch of the same generation (MacBook Pro 5,5), but I did not test.
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.
Basic Installation Instructions
Common things about installing and maintaining Ubuntu on Intel-based Macs: Intel CPU-based Macintosh Generic Installation Instructions
Note on the development status of Lucid Lynx
Ubuntu Lucid Lynx (expected to be released as Ubuntu 10.04) is currently in development and not intended for production machines. Only install it if you are comfortable with having an unreliably computer. Know how to recover from even serious errors including boot failures. Have a Live CD and an alternative computer ready. Follow the Lucid Lynx release schedule. It will link to release notes for each development milestone, which are recommended reading. At the time of writing, the Alpha 2 release notes are an important guide, though some issues (like the inability to create partitions during installation) have been fixed in the meantime. For details follow the links to the bug reports.
Additional Package Support for Intel Macs
Special keys (screen backlight, keyboard backlight, CD eject) and automatic keyboard backlight control require pommed to be installed. The package version from the standard repositories for Lucid Lynx is fine.
sudo apt-get install pommed
Edit /etc/pommed.conf to adjust settings for screen brightness and the like:
gksudo gedit /etc/pommed.conf
Then restart pommed:
sudo service pommed restart
In addition, you still need the nvidia-bl-dkms module from the MactelSupportTeam/PPA to make screen backlight adjustments work correctly (also together with pommed) . Note that at the time of writing there is no repository for Ubuntu 10.04 (Lucid Lynx) yet, but you can use the 9.10 (Karmic) version. (All other packages work fine when installed from the default repositories of Ubuntu 10.04 (Lucid Lynx)) :
deb http://ppa.launchpad.net/mactel-support/ubuntu karmic main deb-src http://ppa.launchpad.net/mactel-support/ubuntu karmic main
Then install the package:
sudo apt-get install nvidia-bl-dkms
nvidia-bl-dkms must be in /etc/modules file to load. Open the file in an editor with:
gksudo gedit /etc/modules
And add to the end this line:
nvidia_bl shift=2
The shift option reduces the dimming range to make it more comfortable. You can tune the value as you want.
Sensors (temps & fans)
Edit /etc/modules:
gksudo gedit /etc/modules
And add to the end:
coretemp
To enable temperature sensors.
Suspend & Hibernate
Suspend and Hibernate worked flawlessly on this machine with Ubuntu 9.10 (Karmic Koala) if the machine had the latest EFI update (version 1.7) and after installing the proprietary nvidia drivers (there were reports of these features not working with the free drivers).
At the time of writing (snapshot from Jan 31, between Alpha 2 and 3, using kernel version 2.6.32-12-generic), suspend and hibernate did not work with Ubuntu 10.04 (Lucid Lynx) according to my first tries, but more testing is required.
The help page for Ubuntu 9.10 (Karmic Koala) on the MacBook Pro 5.5 remarks that if you cannot resume after suspend, it might be due a known bug in Linux kernel, which seems to be avoided by setting "RenderAccel" as "off" in your xorg.conf. Thus you can try adding these lines to your /etc/X11/xorg.conf inside the "Section Device" part. I did not test this in Ubuntu 10.04 (Lucid Lynx):
Option "RenderAccel" "off" # Option "AccelMethod" "EXA"
Video & Effects (Compiz)
You should use the restricted driver. Note that in Ubuntu 10.04 (Lucid Lynx) Alpha 2, the graphical manager for restricted drivers (jockey) does not yet work with updated infrastructure that is now in place for the restricted driver. Refer to the Known Issues section in the Alpha 2 release notes for a manual workaround. Using the nvidia-current driver (as in the example in the Known Issues) worked for me.
HFS+ (only read)
Confirmed working out of the box.
Bluetooth
Confirmed working out of the box:
- Detection of devices
- Sending files to devices (OBEX push)
- Bluetooth Mouse
- Bluetooth Keyboard
On other devices, the Mac is found. It does not offer any services, but this seems to be a software problem.
Keyboard Functions
After installing the nvidia-bl-dkms and pommed packages everything works:
- F1 and F2 for LCD dimming (dependent on nvidia-bl-dkms and pommed)
- F3 and F4 can be correctly associated with any command in the system preferences.
- F7, F8 and F9 are correctly associated with audio player's 'previous', 'play/pause', 'forward' commands.
- F10, F11, F12 correctly mute and tune audio volume (after having correctly configured audio, see below)
- Capslock, command key, etc.
Some people find the default setting of the /etc/pommed.conf, in the "Keyboard backlight control"-section annoying. To change this you may use some of these alternative settings:
# default value for automatic backlight (0 - 255) default = 0 --- # step value (1 - 127) step = 16 --- # enable/disable automatic backlight auto = no --- # idle timer - switches off keyboard backlight automatically (timeout in seconds, -1 to disable) idle_timer = 300
To swap the fn key functionality (e.g. use fn+F1 to dim the LCD etc..), edit /etc/pommed.conf and set the variable fnmode to 2, or add this line to /etc/modprobe.d/options:
options hid_apple fnmode=2
Touchpad (bcm5974)
The touchpad fundamentals work out of the box and can be adjusted from menu System -> Preference-> Mouse-> Touchpad. Two-finger scrolling is enabled by default.
On my machine the "Enable mouse clicks with touchpad" checkbox under the Touchpad tab was not checked by default, but the touchpad still reacts to taps (even very light ones) which can be annoying. Similarly annoying is the fact that the touchpad does not register finger movement when the thumb rests on the lower part of the touchpad (i.e., where a "normal" touchpad would have buttons). These finer points could be adjusted by a HAL policy file in previous Ubuntu versions. However, 10.04 (Lucid Lynx) apparently removes HAL and I have not yet found out how to make these adjustments in 10.04.
Note from Ubuntu 9.10 (Karmic Koala)
The shipped driver (including the current one in 10.04 (Lucid Lynx)) does not allow click-and-drag which, together with the non-existing dedicated touchpad buttons, makes dragging frustrating. In 9.10 (Karmic Koala) the recommendation was to install an experimental version that adds such feature. I have not tested this in 10.04 (Lucid Lynx)
sudo apt-get install dkms wget http://launchpadlibrarian.net/24871974/bcm5974-dkms_1.1.4_all_test.deb sudo dpkg -i bcm5974-dkms_1.1.4_all_test.deb sudo modprobe -r bcm5974 sudo modprobe bcm5974
Wireless (AirPort)
The Broadcom driver was not installed by default. The graphical restricted driver manager (Jockey) in menu System -> Administration -> Hardware Drivers proposes two different drivers. The B43 driver did not work in Ubuntu 9.10 (Karmic Koala) and therefore I have not tested it in 10.04 (Lucid Lynx). Simply choose the STA one and let the driver manager handle the rest. If this does not work (there were some reports that it sometimes didn't in Ubuntu 9.10 (Karmic Koala)), install the driver in the Terminal:
sudo apt-get install bcmwl-kernel-source
Then reboot the system and you're OK.
iSight
Confirmed working out of the box. Tested using cheese (sudo apt-get install cheese). When cheese is running, a green light comes up in the laptop lid next to the camera - this works for the first time for me in Ubuntu 10.04 (Lucid Lynx).
Sound
Sound just requires to unmute the front speakers and increase their volume. Otherwise it works out of the box. It's easiest to use gnome-alsamixer to make the front speaker adjustments. Install the package:
sudo apt-get install gnome-alsamixer
Start the mixer from menu Applications -> Sound and Video -> Gnome ALSA Mixer. Uncheck the "Mute" box next to the front speaker settings and also move their slider to maximum. If you want to enable the optical output you need to check the IEC958 option; you'll see a red light coming from your headphone jack.
If you don't want to use gnome-alsamixer, then using alsamixer on the command line works just as well.
External Monitor
Dual monitor was tested successfully with Twinview on Ubuntu 10.04 (Lucid Lynx) using the nvidia-current driver.
Apple Remote Control
Text from Jaunty: It Works with Remarks. Volume control works. Forward and back works (even on Mozilla Firefox) Menu has no action Pause/Play not tested.
Install gnome-lirc-properties:
sudo apt-get install gnome-lirc-properties
gnome-lirc-properties will give you an entry "Infrared Remote Control" in menu System > Administration. After launching this it will guide you through the configuration. Though my remote is model No A1294, gnome-lirc-properties detects its signals (however, he Enter button is detected as an additional Play button). Although this seems to work, on my mbp 5,4 the remote does not actually control any applications, like the Totem Movie Player - more testing is required.
Firewire
Not tested yet, but worked in Ubuntu 9.10 (Karmic Koala).
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