MacBook Pro 7,1 Ubuntu 10.10 (Maverick Meerkat)

This page aims to describe the steps needed, to fully enable all features of the 13.3 (MBP 7,1) when using Ubuntu 10.10, Maverick Meerkat.

Much of this page (even the formatting, I admit) is just taken from the guide for Lucid, so thank you to the contributor of that page. My goal is to make this specialized to Maverick and update a couple of the guides and fixes that worked and were documented for Lucid.

Please note that before going through any of the suggested fixes for this hardware, or installing any additional drivers, please make sure you RUN UPDATE MANAGER first and apply all updates to the system.

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
  Sensors (temps & fans)
  Suspend & Hibernate
  Screen
  Colors
  Reboot
  3D Acceleration, Video & Effects (Compiz)
  HFS/HFS+
  CD/DVD Writing
  Bluetooth
  Keyboard functions (Brightness,volume,...)
  Touchpad
  FireWire
  Ethernet LAN
  Wireless LAN
  Webcam
  CardReader
  Sound
  Microphone
  External Monitor
  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.

Most 7,1 models come with 4GB of RAM. Both the CD and DVD installer of Ubuntu automatically installs the PAE enabled kernel if it detects more than 3 Gb of available memory, however the PAE kernel packages are not present on the CD. If you do not have an Ethernet cable connected when installing you will only be able to access under 3GB. If you do not have a network connection you can always use the following command to install the PAE kernel afterwards:

sudo apt-get install linux-generic-pae linux-headers-generic-pae

Package Support for Intel Macs

You need some modules from the MactelSupportTeam/PPA :

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:mactel-support && sudo apt-get update

The mactel PPA modules needed on Ubuntu on this MBP are applesmc-dkms (driver for light sensor, temperatures, fans and keyboard backlight), nvidia-bl-dkms (driver for the LCD panel backlight) and pommed (daemon to control them all).

Sensors

The program lmsensors detects the sensors, however it does not know what they are yet. But coretemp will allow lm-sensor to detect the others sensors, the rotation speed of the fan and the GPU temperature.

sudo modprobe coretemp

Then add coretemp to the list of modules loaded during the boot process:

sudo gedit /etc/modules

It is highly recommended to use the fan controller daemon that is included in the mactel-support ppa called macfanctl. After enabling the ppa as shown above you can add this tool with the following command:

sudo apt-get install macfanctld

After installation you there is a config file located at /etc/macfanctl.conf. The default configurations seems to work well.

Suspend

Works without problem.

Screen

Set brightness manually

You can set your brightness manually using values from 0 (minimum - no backlight) to 15 (maximum):

echo 15 |sudo tee /sys/class/backlight/mbp_backlight/brightness

If this command isn't working, then it's because you are using a proprietary nVidia driver (the nvidia-current package installed via Additional Drivers). You must install nvidia-bl-dkms, which supports backlighting for latest nVidia graphic cards.

sudo apt-get install nvidia-bl-dkms

Then promote this module:

sudo modprobe nvidia-bl

Now, if you want to set the brightness, the values and the file you must write are different. Brighness values go from 0 (minimum - no backlight) to 44000 (maximum):

echo 44000 |sudo tee /sys/class/backlight/nvidia_backlight/brightness

Set brightness using F1 and F2

Installing nvidia-bl-dkms and pommed enables the control of the screen backlight with the keyboard keys F1 and F2. The help is then accessible from fn-F1.

Colors

MacBook Pros can use a program called xcalib to emulate the screen coloring calibration of OS X:

sudo apt-get install xcalib

sudo mount -t hfsplus /dev/sda2 /mnt
#(this mounts the mac partition [/dev/sda2] on /mnt)

sudo mkdir /etc/xcalib
sudo cp /mnt/Library/ColorSync/Profiles/Displays/* /etc/xcalib

Then, do an ls /etc/xcalib and note the name of the profile (for the next step).

Finally, add the following line to the end of either /etc/gdm/Init/Default (for standard Ubuntu/Gnome) or /etc/kde4/kdm/Xsetup (for Kubuntu/KDE), before the final "exit" statement:

/usr/bin/xcalib "/etc/xcalib/<insert name of profile here>"

Restart X by logging out and logging back in, or typing sudo /etc/init.d/gdm restart and your Mac OS X color profile will load as X starts.

Battery

This is kind of irrelevant, the biggest obstacle to battery life is usage, and everyone uses it differently.

Ethernet

Works without problems, but get crazy regarding the power management:

WARNING, this broke my wired connection, apply only if necessary.

sudo gedit /etc/modprobe.d/blacklist.conf

and add at the end of the file:

blacklist forcedeth

Reboot

Run

gksudo gedit /etc/default/grub

and change the line

GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT="quiet splash"

to

GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT="quiet splash reboot=pci"

Now, on the terminal run

sudo update-grub

Finally, ask the computer to shutdown, then complete the shutdown by pressing the power button during five seconds when the shutdown process is stuck, wait few more seconds until the hard drive stop spinning and power it on again. Now it should work normally.

Touchpad

Coming soon. This section will document a newish project that enables the multitouch functions fully, including two-finger click and drag.

$ sudo add-apt-repository ppa:mactel-support && sudo apt-get update
$ sudo apt-get install bcm5974-dkms xserver-xorg-input-synaptics

--

Additional notes on touchpad:

Works. Side vertical scrolling is enabled by default, but two-finger scrolling and horizontal scrolling can be enabled through the mouse preferences. Single click works as expected (tap or press); right click is a tap or press with two fingers, and middle click (paste) is a tap or press with three fingers, and click and drag is a tap/click and slide. Swiping works as well, three finger swipe up is "back", three finger swipe down is "forward".

The touchpad by default (as described above) uses 'tap-to-click'. 'tap-to-click' doesn't work well for many people because the touchpad is so large and it is easy to palm or graze the touchpad which can be quite distracting.

The easiest thing to do is simply disable 'tap-to-click'. Go to System/Preferences/Mouse, click the Touchpad tab, then uncheck 'Enable mouse click with Touchpad'. With this configuration, when doing click and drag operations you will have to lift your finger and reclick if you reach the edge of the touchpad.

This situation can be improved by using the xf86-input-multitouch driver and bcm5974-dkms kernel driver from the mactel PPA. The multitouch driver has no configuration at this time and you cannot disable 'tap-to-click' via System/Preferences/Mouse. People can try the one in ppa:jdstrand/ppa, which is the driver from the mactel ppa with #define use_tapping 0 set in src/memory.c (and on Lucid also with a backported mtdev library). Once 'tap-to-click' is disabled and the bcm5974 and multitouch drivers are enabled, click and drag operations become clicking and holding at the bottom of the touchpad with one finger, and then using another finger to perform the drag (eg, to move a window, put the cursor on the title bar, click and hold with your thumb and then use your index finger to move the window). One, two and three finger clicks all work as expected (ie, one finger = left click, two finger = right click and three finger = middle click).

To enable the multitouch drivers, run this in a console:

sudo apt-get install xf86-input-multitouch bcm5974-dkms

Then add this to xorg.conf:

Section "InputClass"
    MatchIsTouchpad "true"
    Identifier "Multitouch Touchpad"
    Driver "multitouch"
    MatchDevicePath "/dev/input/event*"
EndSection

Then reboot (so that the new bcm5974 kernel module is loaded and X is restarted).

"Disable touchpad while typing" does not seem to work, but if you disable 'tap-to-click' this shouldn't be a problem.

NOTE: In Lucid and later, xorg is partially configured via snippets in /usr/{lib,share}/X11/xorg.conf.d. In particular, the synaptics configuration may override your multitouch configuration if you put the above into the xorg.conf.d directory. To ensure that the multitouch configuration is not overridden, it is recommended that the above be added to the /etc/X11/xorg.conf file (usually created when configuring the nvidia driver, but can also be created to have only the above snippet) which takes precedence over the xorg.conf.d snippets. Some forums documentation suggests that the MatchDevicePath "/dev/input/event*" is not needed, but in practice if the xserver-xorg-input-all package is installed (the default in Ubuntu) the synaptics driver could be picked up instead (as seen in /var/log/Xorg.0.log). The above snippet makes sure that the multitouch driver is loaded for all touchpad devices on the system.

FireWire

Works out of the box.

Video

You can enjoy 3D acceleration by using the nVidia proprietary driver which can be retrieved in the Ubuntu Additional Drivers menu. This operation will change the screen resolution appearing at every boot and shutdown of your laptop. If you want to get back the right resolution do as follow:

Install v86d

sudo apt-get install v86d

Edit GRUB configuration file

sudo gedit /etc/default/grub

Add to the line...

GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT="quiet splash"

The following:

nomodeset video=uvesafb:mode_option=1280x800-24,mtrr=3,scroll=ywrap

If you already applied the previous modifications on this line you should get:

GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT="quiet splash nomodeset video=uvesafb:mode_option=1280x800-24,mtrr=3,scroll=ywrap reboot=pci"

Close it and edit initramfs configuration file:

sudo gedit /etc/initramfs-tools/modules

Add at the end of the file,

uvesafb mode_option=1280x800-24 mtrr=3 scroll=ywrap

Close it and launch the following command,

echo FRAMEBUFFER=y | sudo tee /etc/initramfs-tools/conf.d/splash

Update GRUB,

sudo update-grub

Update initramfs,

sudo update-initramfs -u

--

Bug: There is a known issue with the video on this model. When watching video there may be lines when watching video. If you have this issue, please see Bug #681465 - nvidia-current - Video has horizontal lines on Nvidia GeForce 320M which affects both nvidia-current (closed source) and nouveau (open source).

regarding buggy display:

untested but: you may try downloading and compiling the latest nvidia drivers from their site, which includes kernel module and libraries. The ubunutu package I have gives me a splash that says "beta" on the bottom. the version at nvidia is 260.19.29 for amd64.

You may also try compiling older drivers (256.x 19x.x). 260 and 256 drivers contain features specifically for GF100 "FERMI" nvidia GPU's, and the chip here is an older GT200 "TESLA" architecture chip so a 19x type driver could be worth trying if the newer drivers continue to have issues.

Lucid packaged a 192.x driver, so you can check to see if the bug is present on lucid for this macbook.

using nvidia's driver will mean that you have to recompile the display driver every time there is a kernel upgrade. That can be automated with a script placed in /etc/kernel/postinst.d:

#/bin/sh

#symlink to driver, wherever,

DRIVER=/external_sw/src/nvidia/nvidia-driver 
                            
if [ -e /lib/modules/$1/kernel/drivers/video/nvidia.ko ] ; then
    echo "NVIDIA driver already exists for this kernel." >&2
else
    echo "Building NVIDIA driver for kernel $1" >&2
    sh $DRIVER --ui=none --accept-license --no-questions --no-nouveau-check --force-update -k $1  2>1 > /var/log/nvidia_istallation_output.log

    if [ -e /lib/modules/$1/kernel/drivers/video/nvidia.ko ] ; then
        echo "   SUCCESS: Driver installed for kernel $1" >&2
    else
        echo "   FAILURE: See /var/log/nvidia-installer.log" >&2
    fi
fi

exit 0

this is not my script, but I cannot find who to credit. check the options of the nvidia-driver script to ensure they are right and function correctly.

if you don't mind proprietary solutions (and you don't, if you are using an nvidia driver) you could consider a free version of software which applies security patches to the running kernel without the need for a kernel installation or reboot, leaving only non-security kernel upgrades to worry about. I think it's inappropriate to name a product but it's easy to find.

HFS+

• Read Only: Confirmed working out of the box.
• Read/Write: It is necessary to disable journal:
  1. Login macos and open a terminal.
  2. Identify the partition.
  3. Run diskutil to disable journaling.

$ mount
/dev/disk0s2 on / [...]
$ sudo diskutil disableJournal force /dev/disk0s2
Journaling has been disabled for volume [...] on disk0s2

Keyboard

If you want to invert the Control and Command keys to have the same configuration as Mac OS X you can create the following file:

# gedit ~/.xmodmap

and copy the following into it

!
! xmodmap script to swap right control & right command key
!

! remove both keycodes (to which Control_L & Super_L is attached)
!     from previous modifier map
remove control   = Control_L
remove mod4      = Super_L Hyper_L

! swap keysyms
keysym Control_L = Super_L Hyper_L
keysym Super_L   = Control_L

! re-add both keycodes to respective modifier maps
add    control   = Control_L
add    mod4      = Super_L Hyper_L

! ***** end of source *****

Close this file. Now you can activate it with

# xmodmap ~/.xmodmap

Next time you will boot and get to the desktop you will have to choose if this configuration has to loaded at every boot.

External Monitor

Nouveau drivers (which ship with Ubuntu by default) do not support external monitor Bug #681555. For external monitor to work, the nVidia binary driver needs to be installed (System > Administration > Additional Drivers).

With the latest nVidia drivers installed, the Mini Display Port and adapters work out of the box.

To enable a cycle displays function (which is handy if you do a lot of presentations) you can use disper and a small script to switch through the modes "LCD/External/extend over LCD+Ext./Clone"

Install disper:

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:disper-dev/ppa
sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get install disper

create a script called /usr/bin/display_mode_switcher.sh

status_folder="~/.display_mode_switcher/"
status_file_name="status.txt"
status_file=$status_folder$status_file_name
if (cat $status_file); then
 echo "Swtichting display mode.."
else
 echo "No status file found. Creating "$status_file
 mkdir -p $status_folder
 echo "0" > $status_file
fi

status=$(cat $status_file)
if [ "$status" -eq "0" ]; then
 echo 1 > $status_file
 disper -s
elif [ "$status" -eq "1" ]; then
 echo 2 > $status_file
 disper -S
elif [ "$status" -eq "2" ]; then
 echo 3 > $status_file
 disper -e
elif [ "$status" -eq "3" ]; then
 echo 0 > $status_file
 disper -c
else
 echo 0 > $status_file
 disper -s
fi

make the script executable for everyone

sudo chmod ugo+rx-w /usr/bin/display_mode_switcher.sh

If you have compiz running use "CCSM->commands" to assign display_mode_switcher.sh to Fn+F3. Alternatively you can use "System->preferences->keyboard shortcuts" or add it to .xmodmap as explained in the keyboard section.

Wireless

In the Ubuntu Additional Drivers menu you can choose a wireless driver. There is a free and a proprietary driver. The proprietary driver is known as working, also with WPA2. You can have difficulties to activate it before general updates have been performed so manage to get a wired connection to make this initial updates:

sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get dist-upgrade

Free

Haven't tried this yet.

Proprietary

I was seeing very bad performance using the proprietary wireless driver but discovered two workarounds for this issue. Turning off power-management and compiling the latest Broadcom drivers.

Turn off power-management

I discovered that the default power management state was causing frames to be dropped which in turn caused very high latency. I addressed this by turning off power management on the wireless interface. This probably has a negative effect on battery life but I would prefer a network connection that performs well.

You can disable power management manually by running the following command:

/sbin/iwconfig eth1 power off

You can automate this by placing a script named wireless in /etc/pm/power.d:

!/bin/sh
# /etc/pm/power.d/wifipower
# Matt's Macbook Pro 7,1 wifi power adjuster
#
# I've found that turing off power management fixes performance problems with the
# BCM4322 802.11a/b/g/n Wireless Controller found in the Macbook Pro 7,1
#

/sbin/iwconfig eth1 power off

Make sure to make the script executable:

sudo chmod +x /etc/pm/power.d/wifipower

Compile latest Broadcom Drivers - 32-Bit

If you would like to have a stable connection w/out the downside of more power-consumption, you have to compile the latest Broadcom driver. The latest driver is much more efficient than the older one. You will get a stable connection, less disconnects and much more throughput. As written in the Readme.txt, you have to download the latest driver from the Broadcom homepage, compile it and copy it to the kernel-specific destination.

Download the latest driver here and save it to your prefered location.

Now "cd" to that location (here "dev") and extract the package.

cd dev
tar xvzf hybrid-portsrc_x86_32-v5_100_82_38.tar.gz
cd hybrid

and compile the driver.

make

Finaly, we have to rmmod the current module, copy the new one to the destination and load it.

cp wl.ko /lib/modules/`uname -r`/updates/dkms/wl.ko.new
cd /lib/modules/`uname -r`/updates/dkms/
rmmod wl
mv wl.ko wl.ko.orig
mv wl.ko.new wl.ko
depmod
modprobe wl

Wifi will work a few seconds after loading the wl module. You will have to repeat that workaround with every kernel-update!

Bluetooth

Works after installing bluetooth package from mactel PPA repository. Restart after install to get bluetooth working.

sudo apt-get install btusb-dkms

Webcam

The Webcam, which is called iSight, works out of the box. You can test it using cheese or any other of your choice.

Sound

From the terminal, type:

   gksudo gedit /etc/modprobe.d/alsa-base.conf

Add the following line to the end of the file.

   options snd-hda-intel model=mbp55

Save and close the file, then reboot.

Front speakers is initially muted and need to be unmuted,

alsamixer

Then use the key M to mute/unmute the channels front speaker and surround. You can also mute S/PDIF and S/PDIF-D channels if you don't use a digital cable, this will save battery.

My alsamixer settings were not restored after reboot. This caused the S/PDIF to come back in an enabled state after every boot. To make it stay off I did the following:

Muted S/PDIF using alsamixer

Issued the following command:

sudo /sbin/alsactl store 0

Then I added a new startup application using Startup Applications under the System -> Preferences menu. I used the following settings in Startup Applications Preferences:

Click Add
Name: Restore Alsa State
Command: /sbin/alsactl restore
Comment: Turn off Optical Out

Now the optical audio out will turn off when you login.

Microphone

The microphone is muted out of the box. Go to System-->Preferences-->Sound-->Input and either move the slider to 100%. You can snap your finger or speak in front of your laptop to see the capture bar moving and adjust it if needed.

If you are using skype, don't forget to turn off automatic volume adjustment in skype program: Options > Sound Devices > Allow Skype to automatically adjust my mixer levels

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