Introduction

This page is dedicated to installing Kubuntu 15.04 Vivid Vervet on a MacBookPro9,2.

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 appropriate wiki.

Overview

(works out-of-the-box) (Needs manual configuration) (Doesn't work) (Not yet documented)

Wireless

Wireless (Broadcom Corporation BCM4331 802.11a/b/g/n [14e4:4331] (rev 02) does not work out of the box with the open source drivers, even after fully upgrading. Hence, one must use an alternate connection (ethernet, USB WiFi dongle, USB-to-ethernet, etc.).

b43

The open source drivers aren't functional with 802.11n as per here.

bcmwl

Unfortunately, the proprietary drivers have severe performance issues with 802.11n as outlined here.

Power Management

Unfortunately, with the proprietary bcmwl driver, Power Management is turned on by default. In theory, having power management on reduces power consumption, nominally lowers internal computer temperature, nominally lowers electricity costs, etc. However, vendor implementations of this tend to not be perfect. Hence, it is recommended to disable this.

Disable power management via systemd

Execute in a terminal:

sudo nano /etc/systemd/system/wl.service

[Unit]
Description=Start wl, and disable power management at startup.
After=multi-user.target

[Service]
Type=oneshot
ExecStart=/sbin/modprobe wl
ExecStart=/bin/sleep 5
ExecStart=/sbin/iwconfig wlan1 power off

[Install]
WantedBy=multi-user.target

sudo chmod u+x /etc/systemd/system/wl.service
sudo systemctl daemon-reload
sudo systemctl enable wl.service

The following procedure does not work in persisting this change through a reboot:

sudo nano /etc/pm/power.d/wireless

/sbin/iwconfig wlan0 power off

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

Restart.

CategoryMac