Mac
Installing Arch Linux on a MacBook (12"/Air/Pro) or an iMac is quite similar to installing it on any other computer. However, due to the specific hardware configuration of a Mac, there are a few deviations and special considerations which warrant a separate guide. For more background information, please see the Installation guide and UEFI. This guide contains installation-instructions that can be used on any Apple computer whose hardware is supported by the Linux kernel. Please see 'related' pages (on the top right of this page) for model-specific tips and troubleshooting.
Overview
Specifically, the procedure for installing Arch Linux on a MacBook is:
- Firmware updates: It always helps to start from a clean, backed up, and up-to-date install of OS X.
- Partition: Resizing or deleting the OS X partition to create partitions for Arch Linux.
- Setup boot loader: Making sure that the new partition is bootable.
- Install Arch Linux: Actually installing Arch Linux.
- Post-installation: MacBook-specific configuration.
Firmware updates
Before proceeding with the installation of Arch Linux, it is important to ensure that the latest firmware updates for your MacBook are installed. This procedure requires OS X. In OS X, open the App Store and check for updates. If your mac finds and installs any updates, make sure to reboot your computer, and then check again for updates to make sure that you installed everything.
It is advisable to keep OS X installed, because MacBook firmware updates can only be installed using OS X. However, if you plan to remove OS X completely, make backups of these files, which you will need in Linux for adjusting the color profile:
/Library/ColorSync/Profiles/Displays/*
Continue to #Partitions
Partitions
Partitioning of the storage drive is no different from any other PC or laptop. However, if you plan on keeping OS X for dual booting, you should consider that, by default, a MacBook's drive is formatted using GPT and contains at least 3 partitions:
- EFI: the ~200 MB EFI system partition.
- OS X: the main partition containing your OS X installation. It is formatted using HFS+.
- Recovery: A recovery partition present in almost all MacBooks running OS X 10.7 or newer. It is usually hidden from OS X but can be viewed with partitioning tools.
How to partition depends on how many operating systems you want install. The following options will be explained:
- Single boot: #Arch Linux only
- Dual boot: #Arch Linux with OS X or other operating systems (recommended so you can still return to OS X when needed)
- Triple boot: #OS X, Windows XP, and Arch Linux triple boot
Arch Linux only
This situation is the easiest to deal with. Partitioning is the same as any other hardware that Arch Linux can be installed on. Please refer to the standard Installation guide for details.
If you want to configure your system in order to have full-disk encryption, please look at the Dm-crypt/Encrypting an entire system page for details.
An example for a very basic partitioning, that does not consider a separate /home partition nor encryption or LVM, is the following:
partition mountpoint size type label /dev/sda1 /boot 200MiB vfat EFI /dev/sda2 /swap adjust swap swap /dev/sda3 / remain ext4 root
Once done, you can continue to #Installation.
Arch Linux with OS X or other operating systems
You need to partition your hard drive while keeping the partitions used for OS X/Windows. If you wish to keep OS X, the easiest way is to use partitioning tools in OS X and then finish with Arch Linux tools.
Procedure:
- In OS X, run Disk Utility.app (located in
/Applications/Utilities) - Select the drive to be partitioned in the left-hand column (not the partitions!). Click on the Partition button.
- Add a new partition by pressing the + button and choose how much space you want to leave for OS X, and how much for the new partition. Keep in mind the new partition will be formatted in Arch Linux, so you can choose any partition type you want.
- If the above completed successfully, then you can continue. If not, then you may need to fix your partitions from within OS X first.
- Boot the Arch installation media or LiveUSB by holding down the
Altduring boot. Proceed with #Installation.
It is possible to resize the newly created partition from within the Arch installation media, or delete it in order to proceed with the creation of other partitions (eg. swap).
Option 1: EFI
- Run cgdisk
- Delete the partition you made in Disk Utility.app and create the necessary partitions for Arch Linux. OS X likes to see a 128 MiB gap after partitions, so when you create the first partition after the last OS X-partition, type in +128M when cgdisk asks for the first sector for the partition. More information about Apple's partitioning policy can be read here. A simple example (no LVM, crypto):
- The swap partition is optional on machines with 4GB of RAM or more. A swap file can be created later.
- The easiest dual-boot option is to install rEFInd from inside OS X, to its root directory (default for
install.sh). Following that, copy the driver folder from the installation tarball into the new rEFInd location, and uncomment the lines "scan_all_linux_kernels" and "also_scan_dirs" options inrefind.conf. Configuration of boot options can then be done from arefind_linux.confin Arch's/bootdirectory. - If you want to be able to boot GRUB from the Apple boot loader, you can create a small hfs+ partition (for convenience, use OS X to format it in Disk Utility.app afterwards). Follow the GRUB EFI install procedure, and mount your
/efidirectory to the hfs+ partition you created. Finally, finish up again in OS X by blessing the partition. This will set GRUB as the default boot option (holding alt at startup goes to the mac boot options screen still. See https://mjg59.dreamwidth.org/7468.html)., - OS X's EFI partition can be shared with Arch Linux, making the creation of an additional EFI partition dedicated to Arch completely optional.
partition mountpoint size type label /dev/sda1 /efi 200MiB vfat EFI /dev/sda2 - ? hfs+ OS X /dev/sda3 - ? hfs+ Recovery /dev/sda4 - 100MiB hfs+ Boot Arch Linux from the Apple boot loader (optional) /dev/sda5 /boot 100MiB boot boot /dev/sda6 - ? swap swap (optional) /dev/sda7 / 15-20GiB ext4 root /dev/sda8 /home remaining ext4 home
Once done, you can continue to #Installation.
Option 2: BIOS-compatibility
- Run parted as root.
- Delete the empty space partition and partition the space as you would for any other installation. Note that MBR is limited to 4 primary partitions (including the efi partition). That leaves 2 primary partitions for Arch. One strategy is to have a system and home partition, and use a swap file (I have not tried to use logical partitions). Another is to dedicate one partition to a shared partition (see below).
- Next, create new filesystems on those partitions which need them, especially the partition which will contain
/boot. If you are not sure how to do this usingmkfs.ext2(or whatever), run/arch/setupand work through until you get to Prepare Hard Drive and use the "Manually configure block devices..." option, then exit the installer. This is necessary so that rEFIt will set the right partition type in the MBR in the next step (without an existing filesystem, it seems to ignore the partition type set by parted), without which GRUB will refuse to install to the right partition. - At this point you should reboot your computer and have rEFIt fix the partition tables on your hard drive. (If you do not do this, you may have to reinstall GRUB later on in order to have your Mac recognize the Linux partition.) When you are into the rEFIt menu, select update partition table, then press
y. Reboot. - Done, you can continue with #Installation.
OS X, Windows XP, and Arch Linux triple boot
This may not work for everyone but it has been successfully tested on a MacBook from late 2009.
The easiest way to partition your hard drive, so that all these operating systems can co-exist, is to use disk utility in OS X, use the formatter on windows XP, install XP and then finish with Arch Linux tools.
Procedure:
- In OS X, run Disk Utility (located in
/Applications/Utilities). - Select the drive to be partitioned in the left-hand column (not the partitions!). Click on the partition tab on the right.
- Select the volume to be resized in the volume scheme.
- Decide how much space you wish to have for your OS X partition, how much for XP, and how much for Arch Linux. Remember that a typical installation of OS X requires around 15-20 GiB, and XP about the same, depending on the number of software applications and files. Something like OS X 200Gb, XP 25Gb, Arch 25Gb should be fine.
- Put your decisions into action by pressing the + button and adding the new partitions, Label them as you like and make sure that your XP partition is the last one on the disk and is formatted for FAT32. It is probably best to have Arch formatted in HFS format as to not confuse you later, it will be reformatted anyway.
So in linux terms your partitions will be something like:
- sda (disk)
- sda1 (Mac boot partition - you cannot see this one in OS X)
- sda2 (OS X install in HFS+)
- sda3 (Arch install temporarly in HFS)
- sda4 (XP install in FAT32)
- Finally, click apply. This will create a new partition out of the empty space.
- If the above completed successfully, you can continue. If not, then you may need to fix your partitions from within OS X first.
- You will not be needing boot camp this way, the program rEFIt is much more flexible (though not as flexible as GRUB). Download and install rEFIt [1]
- Go into a terminal in OS X and perform the following, this will enable the rEFIt boot manager.
# cd /efi/refit # ./enable.sh
- Reboot to check the rEFIt is working, it should appear on boot. When it comes up go to the rEFIt partition manager and agree to the changes.
- Put your XP install CD and boot it with rEFIt - You may have to reboot a few times until it is recognized by the boot loader. Install XP and once it is installed use the OS X installation CD to get your drivers running nicely in XP.
- Note: when installing XP make sure you select your XP partition and format it again inside the XP installer. If you do not reformat it will not work.
- Boot the Arch install CD, log in as root and run
# /arch/setup.
- Follow the install as normal but note that you will have to tell that arch installer to mount sda3 as the root partition and format it as ext3, there will not be a /boot or swap partition so ignore those warnings.
- At this point, if you are dual booting, you should reboot your computer and have rEFIt fix the partition tables on your hard drive. (If you do not do this, you may have to reinstall GRUB later on in order to have your Mac recognize the Linux partition.) When you are into the rEFIt menu, select update partition table, then press Y.
# reboot
- Done! You can continue to #Installation.
Setup boot loader
Using the native Apple boot loader with systemd-boot (Recommended)
Apple's native EFI boot loader reads .efi files located inside the EFI system partition at /EFI/BOOT/BOOTX64.EFI. Luckily, this is also the default install location for the systemd-boot binary. This means that booting linux using systemd-boot is very simple.
- First, make sure you mounted the EFI System Partition at
/boot - Proceed with #Installation normally
- Once inside the chrooted enviroment, type the following command to install systemd-boot:
# bootctl --path=/boot install
The above command will copy the systemd-boot binary to /boot/EFI/BOOT/BOOTX64.EFI and add systemd-boot itself as the default EFI application (default boot entry) loaded by the EFI Boot Manager.
- Proceed to systemd-boot#Configuration in order to correctly set up the boot loader
At the next reboot, the Apple Boot Manager, shown when holding down the option key when booting the MacBook, should display Arch Linux (it will be displayed as EFI Boot as a possible boot option.
$ diskutil mount disk0s1
Using the native Apple boot loader with GRUB
Despite using UEFI, the MacBook's native EFI boot loader does not use the EFI partition for booting. Instead, it looks for .efi files inside all the partitions in internal and external drives and shows them as possible boot options if certain conditions are satisfied. For example, MacBooks can detect an existing OSX installation after checking that:
- there is a partition formatted as HFS+
- the partition contains the partition id
af00 - in the root of that partition, there is a file called
mach_kernel - inside that partition, there a
boot.efifile inside/System/Library/CoreServices
This means that configuring an Arch installation to be automatically recognized by the MacBook boot loader is possible. Moreover, it simply requires a properly-formatted HFS+ /boot partition and does not require meddling with the EFI system partition. The advantage of this method is that it can coexist with OS X nicely and allows to avoid other boot loaders such as rEFInd. However, this requires manual configuration. The following steps will illustrate how to perform this configuration using GRUB.
- First, while configuring a new Arch installation, create a separate
/bootpartition. Many tools are available in the Arch ISO, for example cgdisk. - Make sure the partition is at least ~250 MB in size, since it will be used to store the kernel as well as any custom kernel you will install in the future. Moreover, make sure the partition type is set as Apple HFS/HFS+ (it will appear as
Apple HFS/HFS+in fdisk/cgdisk oraf00in gdisk) - Since the Arch installation ISO does not include the hfsprogsAUR package, we need to install it in the installation environment before proceeding with formatting the new partition as HFS+, install hfsprogsAUR, then:
# modprobe hfsplus # mkfs.hfsplus /dev/sdXp -v "Arch Linux"
Note: replace /dev/sdXp with the appropriate device and partition number.
- Done, proceed with #Installation
- Once inside the chrooted enviroment, install the grub and efibootmgr packages.
- Also, create a dummy
mach_kernelfile
# touch /boot/mach_kernel # mkdir -p /boot/EFI/arch && touch /boot/EFI/arch/mach_kernel
- The following steps install the GRUB UEFI application to
/boot/EFI/arch/System/Library/CoreServices/boot.efiand install its modules to/boot/grub/x86_64-efi.
# grub-install --target=x86_64-efi --efi-directory=/boot
After that, remember to create a standard configuration file:
# grub-mkconfig -o /boot/grub/grub.cfg
As you can see, the directory structure of the boot.efi is not correct, as the /System/Library/CoreServices directory is not supposed to be a subdirectory of the /boot/EFI/ folder. For this reason, we need to relocate the boot.efi stub in a location the MacBook boot loader is able to recognize:
# mv /boot/EFI/arch/System/ /boot/ # rm -r /boot/EFI/
After that, you need to create the following file
/boot/System/Library/CoreServices/SystemVersion.plist
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<plist version="1.0">
<dict>
<key>ProductBuildVersion</key>
<string></string>
<key>ProductName</key>
<string>Linux</string>
<key>ProductVersion</key>
<string>Arch Linux</string>
</dict>
</plist>
At the next reboot, the Apple Boot Manager, shown when holding down the option key when booting the MacBook, should display Arch Linux as a possible boot option. Selecting that option will boot GRUB.
Done! GRUB can now be selected on the standard MacBook boot loader and you can boot into your newly installed Arch Linux.
$ wget -O /tmp/archlinux.svg https://archlinux.org/logos/archlinux-icon-crystal-64.svg $ rsvg-convert -w 128 -h 128 -o /tmp/archlogo.png /tmp/archlinux.svg # png2icns /boot/.VolumeIcon.icns /tmp/archlogo.png $ rm /tmp/archlogo.png $ rm /tmp/archlinux.svg
Obviously, you can replace the Arch logo with any other icon you like.
Other methods
If you are going for an Arch Linux-only setup, installing the boot loader is no different than on any other machine: Install systemd-boot, rEFInd or other boot loader of your choice.
If, on the other hand, you are dual/triple booting, then read on.
Installing GRUB to EFI system partition directly
- If you would like to use GRUB as your main boot loader and use the "boot while holding the Alt/Option key" method to go back to OS X rather than using alternatives such as rEFIt (http://refit.sourceforge.net/, mentioned previously in #Option 2: BIOS-compatibility and #OS X, Windows XP, and Arch Linux triple boot) then you must install grub to your Mac's already-existing EFI partition (see below).
- These instructions are known to work on a MacBook Pro (Early 2011). Please read the procedure carefully as well as the details following it.
- With a new MacBook Pro (Mid 2014), this procedure worked only after installing the
efibootmgr package.
Procedure:
- Install grub
- Make a directory named
efiin/boot - Mount the already-existing EFI partition on your Mac to this
/efidirectory - Install GRUB to this directory
- Make a directory named
localein/boot/grub - Copy
grub.mofrom/usr/share/locale/en@quot/LC_MESSAGES/to/boot/grub/locale/ - Generate a configuration for GRUB
- Done! GRUB will now start on reboot and you can boot into your newly installed Arch Linux.
- Remember to hold
Alt/Optionkey while starting your computer if you want to boot back into OS X.
Details (quoted from GRUB EFI Examples#M5A97):
Finish the standard Arch install procedures, making sure that you install grub and partition your boot hard disk as GPT.
From GRUB#UEFI systems:
The UEFI system partition will need to be mounted at /efi for the GRUB install script to detect it:
# mkdir /efi # mount -t vfat /dev/sdXY /efi
Where X is your boot hard disk and Y is the efi partition you created earlier.
Install GRUB UEFI application to and its modules to /boot/grub/x86_64-efi using:
# modprobe dm-mod # grub-install --target=x86_64-efi --efi-directory=/efi --bootloader-id=arch_grub --recheck --debug # mkdir -p /boot/grub/locale # cp /usr/share/locale/en\@quot/LC_MESSAGES/grub.mo /boot/grub/locale/en.mo
Generate a configuration for GRUB
# grub-mkconfig -o /boot/grub/grub.cfg
Using blessing
It is possible to boot directly from GRUB in EFI mode without using rEFIt through what is known as "blessing" after placing GRUB on a separate partition. These instructions are known to work on a MacBook7,1. It is advisable to host GRUB on either a FAT32 or HFS+ partition, but ext2 or ext3 may also work. GRUB's appleloader command does not currently work with the 7,1, but support can be added with the patch available here.
After the GRUB install is in the desired location, the firmware needs to be instructed to boot from that location. This can be done from either an existing OS X install or an OS X install disk. The following command assumes that the GRUB install is in /efi/grub/ on an existing OS X partition:
# bless --folder /efi/grub --file /efi/grub/grub.efi
Compilation
Some models may need EFI_ARCH set to i386.
$ bzr branch --revision -2 bzr://bzr.savannah.gnu.org/grub/trunk/grub grub
$ cd grub
$ ./autogen.sh
$ patch -p1 < appleloader_macbook_7_1.patch
$ export EFI_ARCH=x86_64
$ ./configure --with-platform=efi --target=${EFI_ARCH} --program-prefix=""
$ make
$ cd grub-core
$ ../grub-mkimage -O ${EFI_ARCH}-efi -d . -o grub.efi -p "" part_gpt part_msdos ntfs ntfscomp hfsplus fat ext2 normal chain boot configfile linux multiboot
$ cp grub.efi *.mod *.lst yourinstalllocation
Installation
- Boot from the Arch Linux install CD, or from a manually created bootable USB drive.
- On a MacBookPro7,1, I had an error booting the installation media Version 2012.12.01: "unable to handle kernel NULL pointer dereference at 0000000000000010" during pacpi_set_dmamode. To fix this problem, boot with the option:
acpi=off. After chrooting, addMODULES=(ata_generic)to/etc/mkinitcpio.confand regenerate the initramfs, see Installation guide#Configure the system. - Some MacBook users report strange keyboard output such as long delays and character doubling. To fix this problem, boot with the following options:
arch noapic irqpoll acpi=force.
- Proceed through the installation as described in the Installation guide except in the following areas:
- Skip the partition the disks stage, do only the partition formatting and mounting steps, taking care to assign the correct partitions. Partitions have already been created if you followed #Partitions
- When at the install boot loader stage, follow #Setup boot loader
-
(for booting with BIOS-compatibility) Edit the menu.lst file of Grub and add reboot=pci to the end of the kernel lines, for example:
kernel /vmlinuz-linux root=/dev/sda5 ro reboot=pci
This will allow your MacBook to reboot correctly from Arch. - In the configure system stage, edit /etc/mkinitcpio.conf and ensure the keyboard hook is in the HOOKS line somewhere after the autodetect hook. This will load the drivers for your keyboard in case you need to use it before Arch boots (e.g. entering a LUKS password or using the troubleshooting shell).
- When the install process is complete, reboot your computer.
- If using optical media, hold down the eject key as your MacBook starts, this should eject the Arch Linux install disk.
- If dual-booting OS X and Arch Linux, hold down the alt (option) key while the system boots to use the Mac boot loader to select which OS to boot.
Post-installation
See General recommendations for system management directions and post-installation tutorials like setting up a graphical user interface, sound or a touchpad.
Video
Different MacBook models have different graphic cards. To see which graphics card you have type:
$ lspci | grep VGA
- If it returns a string containing
Intel, read Intel graphics. - If it returns
NVIDIA, read NVIDIA. - If it returns two lines, with both
NVIDIAandIntel, your mac has dual graphics. See MacBookPro10,x#Graphics for an example of one such setup that might apply in other cases.
- Otherwise if it returns
ATIorAMD, read ATI.
NVIDIA note
For MacBooks with NVIDIA graphics, for the backlight to work properly you may need the nvidia-bl-dkmsAUR package.
- If backlight control does not work after installing nvidia-bl, you should blacklist apple_bl kernel module.
- If backlight control does not work even this way, try setting module parameters. Uncommenting
options nvidia_bl max_level=0x1ffff shift=11in/etc/modprobe.d/nvidia_bl.confshould do the trick. - Alternatively, you can choose to use the pommed-lightAUR package. If you do so, you may wish to change the step settings in
/etc/pommed.conf.mactelto something around 5000-10000 depending on how many levels of brightness you desire. The max brightness is around 80000, so take that into account.
iMac 2020 (with AMDGPU and 5k retina resolution)
It seems amdgpu driver has problems to set the native 5k resolution. If the display gets corrupted during boot when amdgpu driver module is loaded, try forcing a lower resolution. Add e.g. video=2560x1440@60 to your kernel parameters.
Touchpad
The touchpad should have basic functionality by default. A true multitouch driver which behaves very similarly to native OS X is included in the xf86-input-mtrack-gitAUR package. Configuration options are documented in the readme.
The following mtrack options work well on a MacBook7,1:
Option "Thumbsize" "50" Option "ScrollDistance" "100"
Probably, you also need to add:
MatchDevicePath "/dev/input/event10"
To disable tap-to-click (that is, to press down to click) by default, add the following to your mtrack configuration section
Option "TapButton1" "0" Option "TapButton2" "0" Option "TapButton3" "0"
Natural scrolling: To configure natural two finger scrolling similar to OS X, refer to Touchpad Synaptics#Natural scrolling.
If you are using xf86-input-mtrack-gitAUR, you can simply swap the scroll up and scroll down buttons (along with the scroll left and scroll right):
/etc/X11/xorg.conf.d/10-mtrack.conf
... Option "ScrollUpButton" "5" Option "ScrollDownButton" "4" Option "ScrollLeftButton" "7" Option "ScrollRightButton" "6" ...
Special Note About Older Macbook Models (confirmed on MacBook2,1): On older Macbook models (pre-multitouch), the touchpad will not function properly until you install the xf86-input-synaptics package. Please see Touchpad Synaptics for more information on installing and configuring this package.
Note on MacBookPro5,5: I found it is much simpler to use the xf86-input-synaptics in Extra. Although it does not have much function as 3 finger swipe, this driver provides faster response. gpointing-device-settingsAUR also provides a simple GUI config. Below is a Xorg config file /etc/X11/xorg.conf.d/60-synaptics.conf for reference only.
Section "InputClass"
Identifier "touchpad catchall"
Driver "synaptics"
MatchIsTouchpad "on"
MatchDevicePath "/dev/input/event*"
Option "SHMConfig" "on"
Option "TapButton1" "1"
Option "TapButton2" "3"
Option "TapButton3" "2"
Option "PalmDetect" "on"
Option "VertEdgeScroll" "off"
Option "HorizEdgeScroll" "off"
Option "CornerCoasting" "off"
Option "EdgeMotionUseAlways" "off"
Option "AreaLeftEdge" "10"
Option "AreaRightEdge" "1270"
EndSection
For some users, the two-finger right-click may not work correctly and trackpad may also become less responsive after these settings. For me, removing the 'AreaLeftEdge' and 'AreaRightEdge', solved that problem. OS X like MultiTouch Gestures currently broken due to newer synaptic drivers! For users looking to add more of OS X's multitouch gestures to Arch, xSwipe is a highly customisable, light weight perl script, which does just that. Once installed and configured (see xSwipe wiki on Github) I would recommend adding xSwipe as a start up item.
Keyboard
MacBook keyboards work by default. For swaping Fn keys with Fx keys see Apple Keyboard.
To enable it you can map with right application like xbindkeys or through DE preferences; but another very good way, that we recommend, is to install the pommed-lightAUR package.
Edit the /etc/pommed.conf according to your hardware on MacBook, building it from /etc/pommed.conf.mac or /etc/pommed.conf.ppc example files.
Note that you can also run it without a configuration file, the defaults may work for you. Then enable and start pommed.service.
Keyboard backlight
The keyboard backlight is controlled by /sys/class/leds/smc::kbd_backlight. Write the desired value to brightness in that directory.
Both acpilight or kbdlightAUR (stalled since 2015) allow to control keyboard backlight though scripts. With the appropriate udev rules or sxhkd they allow light-level changes without being root.
As of 2017-11-12, acpilight provides a "just-works" solution tested on a MacbookPro 8,1.
Alternatively you might want to check out the Keyboard backlight wiki page.
Ensuring the keyboard backlight is on when entering the LUKS decryption password
This can be done via initcpio hooks. First, create an executable install script in /etc/initcpio/install/mac_kb_backlight with the follwing:
#!/usr/bin/env bash
build() {
add_module applesmc
add_runscript
}
Next, create an executable hook in /etc/initcpio/hooks/mac_kb_backlight with:
#!/usr/bin/env bash
run_hook() {
if [ -f "/sys/class/leds/smc::kbd_backlight/brightness" ]; then
echo 100 > "/sys/class/leds/smc::kbd_backlight/brightness"
fi
}
Finally, add this custom hook to the HOOKS array in /etc/mkinitcpio.conf, and ensure it is placed before the encrypt hook:
HOOKS=(... mac_kb_backlight encrypt ...)
Remember to regenerate the initramfs images after these steps to include the custom script.
NVIDIA note
If the brightness does not function correctly through pommed, make sure you have installed the nvidia-bl-dkmsAUR package and insert
find . -name "*" -exec sed -i 's/mbp_backlight/nvidia_backlight/' '{}' \;
into the second line of the pommed PKGBUILD build() function and remake the package. From this forum post.
Another possible solution is to modify the pommed PKGBUILD build():
find . -name "*" -exec sed -i 's/nvidia_backlight/apple_backlight/' '{}' \;
If the previous does not work try the following,
run nvidia-settings, edit the file /etc/X11/xorg.conf and add this line into the Device section:
Option "RegistryDwords" "EnableBrightnessControl=1"
Save and reboot and check backlight buttons work. More information available at Ubuntu MacBookPro5,5.
Wi-Fi
Different MacBook models have different wireless cards.
You can easily check what card do your MacBook have by:
# lspci | grep Network
- If you have an Atheros card, all should work out-of-the-box.
- If you have a Broadcom card, follow the Broadcom wireless page.
- 5.0 and 6.0 generation MacBooks may have a BCM43xx, follow the instructions for the broadcom-wl driver on the Broadcom wireless page. The interfaces can swap during reboot so its best to define them in a udev rule (instructions on the Broadcom wireless page).
- If you have the correct broadcom DKMS driver (i.e. broadcom-wl-dkms) installed and your wifi card is still not being recognised, try rebuilding the driver (See Dynamic Kernel Module Support).
- If your connection frequently drops, you may have to turn off Wi-Fi power management.
- Eduroam or similar may crash your network manager. Simply delaying the connection after login should do the trick
Power management
Powerdown is a very simple to set up set of scripts what will maximize your battery duration. A MacBook Air 2013 with powerdown provides about 11 hours of light usage with just powerdown installed. All the usual power management recomendations apply as well.
Disabling Thunderbolt
Linux still has poor power management for Thunderbolt adapters on Macs. This can cause the TB adapter(s) to be always-on and prevent the CPU from going into the deepest power-saving states [2], drawing ca. 2W additional power even when not in use [3]. An easy way to see the CPU states is using powertop. The problem arises when the CPU does not go below C3 as a package (Pkg%pc3).
One workaround is to add acpi_osi=!Darwin to the kernel parameters, thereby telling the firmware that the system is not compatible with macOS [4]. This should disable the TB adapter (at least on older Macs), and thus reduce power consumption greatly, but will probably come with side-effects (e.g. no Thunderbolt, maybe others?).
It is also possible to blacklist the thunderbolt module and then putting the controllers to sleep with
# echo auto > /sys/bus/pci/devices/0000:07:00.0/power/control
Check the correct device number with lspci. This can also be automated. This method reduces power consumption slightly, but still consumes 0.9 W more than the previous method on a Macbook Air 2013.
Suspend and hibernate
Suspending (suspend to ram) and hibernating (suspend to disk) work fine out of the box:
systemctl suspend
Issues were reported where the machine would "suspend immediately after resume" in certain conditions when suspending by closing the lid. This was solved by setting the option "sleep-inactive-ac-type" to "nothing" using dconf-editor, option path: org → gnome → settings-daemon → plugins → power).
See Suspend and hibernate for details on how to configure hibernation. Noticably, you will need a swap partition or file (see the mentioned article for further instructions).
If after suspend laptop is woken up after few seconds, may help to disable all stuff in /proc/acpi/wakeup, exclude LID0:
# echo XHC1 > /proc/acpi/wakeup
$ cat /proc/acpi/wakeup
Device S-state Status Sysfs node P0P2 S3 *disabled EC S3 *disabled HDEF S3 *disabled pci:0000:00:1b.0 RP01 S3 *disabled pci:0000:00:1c.0 RP02 S3 *disabled pci:0000:00:1c.1 RP03 S3 *disabled pci:0000:00:1c.2 ARPT S4 *disabled pci:0000:03:00.0 RP05 S3 *disabled pci:0000:00:1c.4 RP06 S3 *disabled pci:0000:00:1c.5 SPIT S3 *disabled XHC1 S3 *disabled pci:0000:00:14.0 ADP1 S3 *disabled LID0 S3 *enabled
And for permanent disabling:
/etc/udev/rules.d/90-xhc_sleep.rules
# disable wake from S3 on XHC1
SUBSYSTEM=="pci", KERNEL=="0000:00:14.0", ATTR{power/wakeup}="disabled"
If this does not work, check that ARPT is disabled, and add a corresponding rule to udev, like this:
SUBSYSTEM=="pci", KERNEL=="0000:03:00.0", ATTR{power/wakeup}="disabled"
If this still does not work, try disabling LID0. This way suspending via lid-closing should be made impossible, so you might want to follow the instructions in this forum post to make suspending via both lid-closing and systemd possible, by using systemd services.
Slow wake ups from a suspend state can be resolved by disabling Thunderbolt. See #Disabling Thunderbolt.
Wake up after suspend
Occasionally the Macboook Air may wake up immediately after suspend.
In /proc/acpi/wakeup check to see that XHC1 and LID0 are enabled. If they are, disabling them will fix the problem. After disabling them, the only way to wake up your computer from suspend is by using the power button.
To do this type to following command, edit /etc/systemd/system/suspend-fix.service.
Then add the following text and save:
[Unit] Description=Fix for the suspend issue [Service] Type=oneshot ExecStart=/bin/sh -c "echo XHC1 > /proc/acpi/wakeup && echo LID0 > /proc/acpi/wakeup" [Install] WantedBy=multi-user.target
And then enable and start suspend-fix.service.
Disabling only XHC1 is not recommended if you have this bug, since it may result in glitchy behavior.
Light sensor
The values can be read from /sys/devices/platform/applesmc.768/light.
A "cat" on this path returns two-tuples like (4,0). The below referenced lighter script ignores the second value - which always seems to be 0 - and uses the first number as measured environment lighting brightness value.
If you want to use the built in light sensor to automatically adjust screen and keyboard backlight brightness check out Lighter [5] (simple perl script, easy to fine-tune) and Lightum [6] (Requires Gnome or KDE but is older and more complete than Lighter).
Sound
First of all follow ALSA wiki page, then if something does not work correctly, continue reading this part.
Kernel options
Edit your /etc/modprobe.d/50-sound.conf or /etc/modprobe.d/modprobe.conf appending this line:
options snd_hda_intel model=intel-mac-auto
This should automatically specify the codec in your MacBook.
/etc/modprobe.d, test it by rebooting.Specific models may need more help. You can try specifying other options according to your hardware. All possible settings are listed in Kernel Documentation, available online:
- Advanced Linux Sound Architecture - Driver Configuration guide
- HD-Audio
- HD-Audio Codec-Specific Models
Model-specifics
For example, if you have a MacBookPro12,1, you might need
options snd-hda-intel index=1,0
instead. Alternatively, for MacBookPro5,X, you can use:
options snd_hda_intel model=mb5
(note that the jack output is controlled with "HP").
If you have an iMac8,1, you should instead use
options snd-hda-intel model=mbp3 position_fix=2
For Aluminium iMacs, see iMac Aluminium#Getting sound to work right
For MacBook2,1 (late 2008/early 2009)s with a SigmaTel STAC9221 A1 chip, use
options snd_hda_intel model=macbook
Disabling S/PDIF
Some (most?) Macbook models have an optical S/PDIF audio jack in the same jack as the headphone jack. You can see it when it is active as a red light glowing out of the headphone jack. It can trick PulseAudio into preferring it and routing all your audio out it.
If you are not getting any sound in or out, confirm that pavucontrol > Configuration > Profile says "Analog Stereo Duplex" instead of "Digital"
or just run
$ pacmd set-card-profile 0 output:analog-stereo+input:analog-stereo
Also check if you need to edit /usr/share/alsa-card-profile/mixer/paths/ to workaround faulty plug detection causing PulseAudio to failover to "Digital".
and see below for how to edit this to get the macbook2,1's microphone to work.
Auto-Mute Mode
The internal speaker might not be disabled when using the headphone jack. To solve this, enable "Auto-Mute Mode".
You can either do this using alsamixer:
- Run
alsamixer - Press F6 and pick "default:0 HDA Intel" to get more detailed controls
- Use the arrow keys to select "Auto-Mute Mode"
- Press Space to enable it
- (optionally) Run
sudo alsactl storeto make the change permanent
or with amixer:
$ amixer -c 0 cset name='Auto-Mute Mode' 1 && sudo alsactl store
USB audio interface
In some cases, it can actually be easier to set up sound using a USB audio interface rather than the jack directly.
For example, after plugging in a Focusrite Scarlett Solo, open pavucontrol, go to Configuration, choose Off for all devices and choose Analog Stereo Duplex for Scarlett Solo USB. You can then use the headphone jack on the Focusrite device for speakers or headphones. This should work immediately and on startup. This does not require any Focusrite software to be installed.
Bluetooth
Bluetooth should work out-of-the box. See the article on Bluetooth to install and configure all software needed.
Magic Mouse
If you use a magic mouse you will find it works nicely out of the box. You might want to tweak some settings such as scroll-speed or acceleration. There is no GUI for this at this time. The only way to set these settings is to instruct the kernel driver (hid_magicmouse) with parameters. Create a modprobe config file for your mouse.
/etc/modprobe.d/magicmouse.conf
options hid_magicmouse scroll-speed=55 scroll-acceleration=1 emulate_3button=0
This will instruct the driver to have a fast scroll-speed, do exponential acceleration and do not emulate a 3 button mouse. You can find an overview of all parameters and their current settings in /sys/module/hid_magicmouse/parameters.
To play with the settings without rebooting you can also set them through the command line, like so:
# echo 55 > /sys/module/hid_magicmouse/parameters/scroll_speed
Webcam
iSight
isight-firmware-tools if it does not work normally.iSight webcams on MacBooks or pre 6,2 MacBook Pros (6,2 came out around 2010) require the Apple's proprietary firmware that cannot be redistributed. It must be extracted from OS X and loaded onto Arch.
There is a pre-extracted copy at https://archive.org/details/macbook-isight-webcam-linux.
If you want to do it yourself you will need to install isight-firmware-toolsAUR to extract the firmware. This package also includes a udev rule and ELF binary that are necessary, even once you have extracted the firmware file into /lib/firmware/isight.fw, for the file to be loaded every time you boot your computer (namely /etc/udev/rules.d/isight.rules which uses /usr/lib/udev/ift-load).
Instructions:
First you need to get the firmware out of a particular file located on your OS X install. It is located in /System/Library/Extensions/IOUSBFamily.kext/Contents/PlugIns/AppleUSBVideoSupport.kext/Contents/MacOS/AppleUSBVideoSupport.
AppleUSBVideoSupport file from a OS X 10.6 (Snow Leopard) installation may not work properly. If possible, use the file from OS X 10.5 or earlier.To mount the OS X drive if multi-booting:
# mkdir /media/OSX # mount -t hfsplus /dev/sda2 /media/OSX
Then, install the isight-firmware-toolsAUR package.
Locate the AppleUSBVideoSupport file in the OS X directory listed above. Either copy it over to your Arch system (Any OS X installation should do, such as an iMac, not just one specific to your system) or, if multi-booting, mount the OS X drive and navigate to the directory. (On 10.6 (Snow Leopard) and 10.7 (Lion) the directory is /System/Library/Extensions/IOUSBFamily.kext/Contents/PlugIns/AppleUSBVideoSupport.kext/Contents/MacOS.) In that directory you can go ahead and extract the driver:
# ift-extract --apple-driver AppleUSBVideoSupport
When it is done, check that the firmware has been found:
# ls /lib/firmware/isight.fw
Once successful, completely SHUTDOWN your Mac and start it back up again (to clear the hardware state of the webcam). Do not reboot.
It should be automatically loaded at boot; if it is not you can load the uvcvideo module manually or load it at boot.
FaceTime HD Camera
Recent Macbooks include the FaceTime HD Camera, which may be connected by PCIe. You can confirm this by looking for "FaceTime HD Camera" in the output of lspci. The bcwc-pcie-gitAUR package installs a facetimehd module (and firmware) to support these devices. The module should be loaded automatically after installation.
If the webcam shows incorrect colors, this may be due to missing sensor calibration files. Instructions for extracting the calibration files from Apple BootCamp drivers are given in this page: https://github.com/patjak/bcwc_pcie/wiki/Extracting-the-sensor-calibration-files
You can use many applications to test the webcam:
- MPlayer
# mplayer tv:// -tv driver=v4l2:width=320:height=240:device=/dev/video0 -fps 30
- Cheese
- Skype
- Ekiga
A simple solution to take snapshots is:
# mplayer tv:// -vf screenshot
and the pressing the s key to take a snapshot. Files are of the format shot\d\d\d\d.png and are reported in the standard output.
Temperature Sensors
For reading temperature just install lm_sensors. See the lm_sensors page for more information.
Color Profile
We can use color profiles from OS X.
First, install the xcalib package.
Second copy pre-saved color profiles placed in /Library/ColorSync/Profiles/Displays/ on OS X partition to ~/colorprofiles/ for example.
There are color profile files agree with in MacBook models; select the right one:
- Color LCD-4271800.icc for MacBook Pro with CoreDuo CPU
- Color LCD-4271880.icc for MacBook with Core2Duo
- Color LCD-4271780.icc for MacBook (non-Pro) based on CoreDuo or Core2Duo.
/Users/<username>/Library/ColorSync/Profiles.Finally you can activate it by running
# xcalib ~/colorprofile.icc
Apple Remote
First, to correctly install and configure the lirc software that control IR see LIRC wiki.
Then make LIRC use /dev/usb/hiddev0 (or /dev/hiddev0) by editing /etc/conf.d/lircd. Here is how mine look:
# # Parameters for lirc daemon # LIRC_DEVICE="/dev/usb/hiddev0" LIRC_DRIVER="macmini" LIRC_EXTRAOPTS="" LIRC_CONFIGFILE="/etc/lirc/lircd.conf"
Use irrecord (available when installing lirc) to create a configuration file matching your remote control signals (alternatively, you can try to use the lircd.conf below):
# irrecord -d /dev/usb/hiddev0 -H macmini output_conf_file
Start lircd and use irw to check if it works.
Example of an /etc/lirc/lircd.conf:
begin remote
name lircd.conf.macbook
bits 8
eps 30
aeps 100
one 0 0
zero 0 0
pre_data_bits 24
pre_data 0x87EEFD
gap 211994
toggle_bit_mask 0x87EEFD01
begin codes
Repeat 0x01
Menu 0x03
Play 0x05
Prev 0x09
Next 0x06
Up 0x0A
Down 0x0C
end codes
end remote
HFS partition sharing
First, install the hfsprogsAUR package.
we have to list our partitions. Use fdisk.
Example output:
# fdisk -l /dev/sda
Device Boot Start End Blocks Id Type /dev/sda1 1 26 204819 ee GPT /dev/sda2 26 13602 109051903+ af Unknown /dev/sda3 * 13602 14478 7031250 83 Linux /dev/sda4 14478 14594 932832+ 82 Linux swap / Solaris
As we see, the "Unknown" partition is our OS X partition, which is located in /dev/sda2.
Create a "mac" folder in /media:
# mkdir /media/mac
Add at the end of /etc/fstab this line:
/dev/sda2 /media/mac hfsplus auto,user,rw,exec 0 0
Mount it :
# mount /media/mac
and check it:
$ ls /media/mac
HFS+ Partitions
Journaling
HFS+ partitions, now the default in OS X, are not fully supported by Linux and are mounted as read-only by default. In order to write to an HFS+ partition, the safe way is to disable journaling. This can be accomplished using the OS X Disk Utility. Refer to this Apple support page for more information or try to do it from the command line:
Find your partition:
# diskutil list
/dev/disk0 #: TYPE NAME SIZE IDENTIFIER 0: GUID_partition_scheme *750.2 GB disk0 1: EFI EFI 209.7 MB disk0s1 2: Apple_HFS OSX 149.5 GB disk0s2 3: Apple_HFS Macintosh HD 599.2 GB disk0s3 4: Apple_Boot Recovery HD 650.0 MB disk0s4
In this example we will use disk0s3 partition named as Macintosh HD. To know if journaling is activate or not you could execute:
# diskutil info /dev/disk0s3 | grep -i journal
File System Personality: Journaled HFS+
Name (User Visible): Mac OS Extended (Journaled)
Journal: Journal size 49152 KB at offset 0x1176000
As you can read the journaling is active. To turn off the journaling you could execute:
# diskutil disableJournal disk0s3
To verify it is done execute the info command again.
If you get noting as output, then journaling is disabled.
However, if you fail to disable journaling. You can change "auto,user,rw,exec" in /etc/fstab to "auto,user,force,rw,exec" and mount it.
Yosemite and later
This section addresses error message when mounting hfsplus partition:
# mount -t hfsplus dev/sdX force,ro
wrong fs type, bad option, bad superblock on /dev/sdX, missing codepage or helper program, or other error.
Since Yosemite, HFS+ partitions are now wrapped a CoreStorage volume. Verify that you have an CoreStorage volume.
# fdisk -l /dev/sdX
Disk /dev/sdX: 298.1 GiB, 320072933376 bytes, 625142448 sectors Units: sectors of 1* 512 = 512 bytes Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 4096 bytes I/O size (minimum/optimal): 4096 bytes / 4096 bytes Disklabel type: gpt Device Start End Sectors Size Type /dev/sdX1 40 409639 409600 200M EFI System /dev/sdX2 409640 623872871 623463232 297.3G Apple Core storage /dev/sdX3 623872872 625142407 1269536 916.0M Apple boot
HFS+ uses two volume headers, one 1024 bytes into the device and one 1024 from the end of the device. With the HFS+ partition wrapped in the CoreStorage volume the end of the partition is not actually 1024 bytes from the end of the /dev/sdX2 partition. To fix this you need to specify sizelimit=X when mounting.
To determine sizelimit do the following:
- Run
testdisk /dev/sdXand select your drive - Select
EFI GPT - Select
Analyseand thenQuick Search
Sample output:
TestDisk 7.0, Data Recovery Utility, April 2015 Christophe GRENIER <[email protected]> https://www.cgsecurity.org Disk /dev/sdX - 320 GB / 298 GiB - CHS 38913 255 63 Partition Start End Size in sectors P EFI System 40 409639 409600 [EFI] P Mac HFS 409640 623147815 622738176 P Mac HFS 623872872 625142407 1269536
What you see now is the output of the HFS partition itself without the CoreStorage volume. Take the size in sectors (622738176 in this example) and multiply by the number of bytes in your logical sector size (512 in this example).
622738176 * 512 = 318841946112
Finally, mount your disk with the sizelimit=X option.
mount /dev/sdX -t hfsplus -o ro,sizelimit=318841946112
Home sharing
UID synchronization
In OS X
Step 1: change UID and GID(s)
Pre-Leopard
- Open NetInfo Manager located in the /Applications/Utilities folder.
- If not done for you already, enable access to user account transactions by clicking on the closed lock at the bottom of the window, and entering your account password, or root password if you have created a root account.
- Navigate to /users/<new user name> where <new user name> is the name of the account that will have read/write access to the folder that will be shared with the primary user in Arch.
- Change the UID value to 1000 (the value used by default for first user created in Arch).
- Also change the GID value to 1000 (the value used by default for user account creation in Arch).
- Navigate to
/groups/<new user name>, automatically saving the changes you have made so far.
Leopard
In Leopard, the NetInfo Manager application is not present. A different set of steps is required for UID synchronization:
- Open System Preferences.
- Click on Users & Groups.
- Unlock the pane if not already done so.
- Right-click on the desired user and select Advanced Options.
- Write down the value of the User ID field, you will need it later on. Change both the UID and GID to match the UID and GID of the account wished to be shared with in Arch (1000 by default for the first user created in Arch).
Step 2: change "Home" permissions
- Open up Terminal in the
/Applications/Utilitiesfolder.
- Enter the following command to reclaim the permission settings of your home folder, replacing <your user name>, <your user group> and <your old UID> with the user name whose UID and GID values you just changed, the group name whose GID value you just changed and the old UID number, respectively.
# find /User/<your user name> -user <your old UID> -exec chown <your user name>:<your user group> {} \;
In Arch
To synchronize your UID in Arch Linux, you are advised to perform this operation while creating a new user account. It is therefore recommended that you do this as soon as you install Arch Linux.
Now you must substitute Arch's home with OS X's home, by modify entries of /etc/fstab.
Avoid long EFI wait before booting
If your MacBook spends 30 seconds with "white screen" before booting you need to tell the firmware where the booting partition is.
Boot OS X, if you do not have it installed, you can use the install DVD (select language, then click Utilities->Terminal) or another MacBook with OS X (connect the two computers via firewire or thunderbolt, start the other MacBook while holding the T button, boot your MacBook while holding the Options button (alt)).
Either way, once you have got a OS X terminal running on your MacBook you need to execute a different command (as root) depending on if you use EFI or not:
# bless --device /dev/disk0s1 --setBoot # if the booting partition is EFI
or
# bless --device /dev/disk0s1 --setBoot --legacy # if the booting partition is not EFI
(given that if your GRUB or EFI is on sda1, /dev/disk1s2 if it is on sdb2, etc). See also https://bbs.archlinux.org/viewtopic.php?pid=833215.
Mute startup chime
The startup chime volume is controlled by the EFI variable SystemAudioVolume-7c436110-ab2a-4bbb-a880-fe41995c9f82. So it can be muted with
# printf "\x07\x00\x00\x00\x00" > /sys/firmware/efi/efivars/SystemAudioVolume-7c436110-ab2a-4bbb-a880-fe41995c9f82
Bear in mind that the file may have the immutable bit set by default, which will prevent even root from overwriting the file. See File permissions and attributes#File attributes. To remove it, issue the following:
# chattr -i /sys/firmware/efi/efivars/SystemAudioVolume-7c436110-ab2a-4bbb-a880-fe41995c9f82
After that, run the printf command and it should overwrite the file properly. Verify the file's contents and then set the immutable bit again with chattr +i once satisfied.
Alternatively, you can use a OS X install disk to mute the chime. Boot from it, select language, then click Utilities > Terminal, and enter
# /usr/sbin/nvram SystemAudioVolume=%01
(or whatever volume you want).
kworker using high CPU
Sometime with the addition of Yosemite, some users found that kworker CPU usage will spike, as disccused here. This is sometimes the result of runaway ACPI interrupts.
To check and see, you can count the number of recent ACPI interrupts and see if any of them are out of control.
$ grep . -r /sys/firmware/acpi/interrupts/
If you see that one particular interrupt is out of control (possibly GPE66), i.e., registering hundreds of thousands of lines, you can try disabling it (replace XX with the runaway interrupt):
# echo "disable" > /sys/firmware/acpi/interrupts/gpeXX
Disabling random ACPI interrupts could cause all kinds of problems, so do this at your own risk. If this fixes the problem, there is discussion about how to make a systemd service that automatically disables an interrupt at every boot here.
rEFIt
- You probably want to have a look at rEFInd, which is some type of successor of rEFIt.
- This is not a requirement. It only gives you a menu to choose between OS X and Arch Linux upon every boot.
For more see, rEFIt myths.
In OS X, download the ".dmg" from rEFIt Homepage and install it.
Open up Terminal and enter:
# cd /efi/refit; # ./enable.sh
Problems with rEFIt
If you experience problems after the install of Arch or rEFIt, especially is the right OS is not showing up to boot to or if it dumps you at a GRUB prompt stuck like the following:
GRUB>_
Then have a look at this link:
http://mac.linux.be/content/problems-refit-and-grub-after-installation
It can give you a basic idea on how to boot off the Arch live cd, mount the problem Arch install, chroot, use gptsync, and reinstall GRUB. This is probably for more advanced users who can translate the commands from a debian system to an Arch system and also apply it to the partitions on their machine. Be careful not to install GRUB in the wrong spot.
If you need gptsync, install gptsyncAUR.
Mavericks upgrade breaks Arch boot option
For some multi-boot users who utilize a separate Linux boot partition, the OS X Mavericks upgrade may overwrite the boot partition with Apple's own recovery boot filesystem. This breaks the Arch Linux boot option in rEFIt/rEFInd. The best way to proceed in this situation is to abandon a separate boot partition and use the EFI system partition (ESP) to install the boot loader of your choice. It is also recommended that you use rEFInd instead of rEFIt as development on the latter has halted.
Assuming grub2 as the boot loader:
Use the Arch LiveCD to boot to a shell and chroot to your broken Arch Linux environment.
Mount the ESP on /boot.
Edit the fstab and remove the old boot partition and make ESP the new boot partition. Now mount the ESP as the new /boot parition.
# mount -a
Create a new initramfs and vmlinuz in /boot.
# mkinitcpio -p linux
Install grub.
# grub-install --target=x86_64-efi --efi-directory=/boot --bootloader-id=grub --recheck --debug
Create a new grub.cfg file.
# grub-mkconfig -o /boot/EFI/grub/grub.cfg
Make sure that grub.cfg is in the same directory as grubx64.efi.
Generate a new refind_linux.conf file in /boot simply by running mkrlconf.sh which comes with rEFInd.
Exit the chroot environment.
Reboot. You should see a new entry for Arch Linux in rEFInd and it should boot to your Arch Linux installation.
Model-specific information
MacBook
April 2016 12" - Version 9,1
- Booting from USB via EFI works fine, when giving the
intremap=nosidkernel option. Remember to hold the Alt key on booting to enter the boot menu. In order to allow Linux boot directly from your system disk, you will first need to install https://www.rodsbooks.com/refind/ from within OSX recovery mode (hold cmd+r during boot, then open terminal, then run refind-install script). - The wireless card works out of the box with
brcmfmac. - Suspend / hibernate does not work. The problem seems to be the NVMe that does not wake up. When booting from an external drive, suspend / hibernate works out of the box.
- Audio recording works out of the box. Audio playback works out of the box for headphones, not for built-in speakers. Cirrus driver patch needed for making the speakers work: https://github.com/leifliddy/macbook12-audio-driver
- The keyboard and the touchpad do not work out of the box. There is a work-in-progress driver available that works well: macbook12-spi-driver-dkmsAUR. Sometimes the touchpad does not work after booting but this can be fixed by reloading the driver with
rmmod applespi && modprobe applespi. - The keyboard backlight does not work (no solution yet).
- For Bluetooth driver, see macbook12-bluetooth-driverAUR
Mid 2007 13" - Version 2,1
Boot loader
The macbook2,1 is an unusual system, being a x86_64 machine that runs a 32-bit pre-boot EFI OS. This means that while you should (and will, if you are using official Arch ISOs) install a 64 bit Linux, you need to make sure the boot loader you choose is compiled for 32-bits.
With GRUB, this is done by
# grub-install --target i386-efi --efi-directory=/boot/ --removable
You can also use rEFInd, as explained next.
Installation via 201212 ISO image
Since older Macbooks have a 32bit EFI running, the usual installation image is not recognized. You need to either remove the UEFI support from the disc (Unified Extensible Firmware Interface#Remove UEFI boot support from optical media) or build a 32bit EFI version of the disc. The paragraphs below will take the first path to success, booting into BIOS mode and its pitfalls. For a try the other way round, read Unified Extensible Firmware Interface#Create UEFI bootable USB from ISO first.
First prepare your harddisc according to your wishes. In this scenario it was a "Linux only" approach with
/dev/sda1 HFS+ AF00 200M -> EFI boot system on Apple HFS+ partition /dev/sda2 ext4 8300 147G -> arch system /dev/sda3 swap 8200 1G -> swap
The hfsprogsAUR package contains the tools to handle HFS/HFS+ filesystems. The rEFInd boot loader recognizes it on its own. Usually the partition for the EFI boot loader is a FAT32 (vfat) partition. In this case I tried rEFIt first, which apparently needs the HFS+ filesystem to work, and kept it at that.
The mount points are:
/dev/sda2 -> / /dev/sda1 -> /boot
The boot loader in use was rEFInd instead of rEFIt. To install it, the rEFInd homepage provides a good guide. Usually it is simply done by copying rEFInd:
# mkdir /boot/EFI # cp -vr /usr/share/refind/drivers_ia32 /boot/EFI/refind/ # cp -vr /usr/share/refind/tools_ia32 /boot/EFI/refind/ # cp -vr /usr/share/refind/fonts /boot/EFI/refind/ # cp -vr /usr/share/refind/icons /boot/EFI/refind/ # cp -v /usr/share/refind/refind_ia32.efi /boot/EFI/refind/ # cp -v /usr/share/refind/refind.conf-sample /boot/EFI/refind/refind.conf # cp -v /usr/share/refind/refind_linux.conf-sample /boot/refind_linux.conf
The pitfall here is, that the system bootet in BIOS compatibility mode and not in EFI mode. You cannot therefore use efibootmgr, because the EFI variables (even with 'modprobe efivars') are not available. While installing the system get mactel-bootAUR. The hfs-bless utility comes in handy, when blessing the EFI boot loader. This is done by calling:
# hfs-bless /boot/EFI/refind/refind_ia32.efi
Since the Linux kernel does come with EFI stub enabled, it seems a good idea to run it through a boot loader first. Especially if it runs not out of the box. But using rEFInd makes GRUB (or any other boot loader) obsolete, because of that.
/boot/.Not running out of the box is unfortunately the initial stage for the kernel. Since we installed it in BIOS mode, two modules are missing to grant access to the root partition while booting. Hence the 'initfsram-linux.img' can not be found/loaded. Adding the following modules to your MODULES array in /etc/mkinitcpio.conf solved this (original post).
/etc/mkinitcpio.conf
MODULES=(ahci sd_mod)
The boot loader rEFInd can scan kernels even out of the /boot/... directory and assumes an efi kernel even without the extension .efi. If you do not want to try out special kernels, this should work without the hassle to copy each kernel after building to some spot special.
If you happen to get multiple entries for one boot image, it often results of a previous installation of a boot loader within the MBR. To remove that, try the following - taken from the original post. This is valid for GPT partitioned discs, so please check your environment and save your MBR first.
# dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/sda bs=440 count=1
Installation via 202104 ISO image
Rebooting
The MacBook will not reboot properly by default. It needs the kernel command line parameter reboot=pci. To add it, if you are using GRUB, add the parameter with:
(echo; echo '# Repair macbook rebooting: https://askubuntu.com/a/7132'; echo 'GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX="$GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX reboot=pci"') >> /etc/default/grub
Then make sure to regenerate with
grub-mkconfig -o /boot/grub/grub.cfg
If you are using syslinux then use its APPEND operation.
Microphone 2,1
If your microphone is not working, you have probably run into a driver bug which makes the macbook think the digital microphone is always plugged in, disabling the normal microphone.
To work around it, disable the pulseaudio plug detector with this patch:
--- a/usr/share/pulseaudio/alsa-mixer/paths/analog-input-mic.conf +++ b/usr/share/pulseaudio/alsa-mixer/paths/analog-input-mic.conf @@ -23,6 +23,8 @@ [Jack Mic] required-any = any +state.plugged = unknown +state.unplugged = unknown [Jack Mic Phantom] required-any = any @@ -31,6 +33,8 @@ [Jack Mic - Input] required-any = any +state.plugged = unknown +state.unplugged = unknown [Element Capture] switch = mute
MacBook Pro
Mid 2010 - Version 6,2
On this model only the open source NVIDIA driver nouveau is installable in UEFI mode (The proprietary driver nvidia-340xx-dkmsAUR causes a black blank screen when Xorg loads).
The solution is to provide the init_on_alloc=0 kernel parameter.
Early 2015 13"/15" - Version 12,x/11,4+
Wireless
The brcmfmac driver is working as of 2015-11-20, with newer firmware necessary for working 5GHz support (see here.)
brcmfmac driver can not be started and the following errors occur in the journal:
brcmfmac: brcmf_chip_recognition: chip backplane type 15 is not supported brcmfmac: brcmf_pcie_probe: failed 14e4:43ba
Then check whether PCI runtime power management is enabled on the device, and disable it if so.
Bluetooth
Bluetooth is fully supported starting from kernel-4.4.0.
Suspend and power Off (11,4+)
The 11,4 and 11,5 MacBook Pros do not shutdown or suspend correctly with the default kernel. This issue is being addressed in Bug 103211 and a temporary patch is currently available in linux-macbookAUR. Note that Linux 4.13.0 has this patch included, and will be released shortly.
Keyboard and trackpad
Haptic feedback works out of the box due to the trackpad's built-in firmware.
There are several drivers available that provide multitouch support. The following have been confirmed working with the MacBookPro12,1.
For xf86-input-libinput the following configuration emulates some features from the OS X functionality. For more options see libinput(4).
/etc/X11/xorg.conf.d/90-libinput.conf
Section "InputClass"
Identifier "libinput touchpad catchall"
MatchIsTouchpad "on"
MatchDevicePath "/dev/input/event*"
Driver "libinput"
Option "NaturalScrolling" "true"
EndSection
For xf86-input-synaptics the following configuration is necessary to make the touchpad work fully.
/etc/X11/xorg.conf.d/60-magictrackpad.conf
Section "InputClass"
Identifier "Trackpad"
Driver "synaptics"
MatchIsTouchpad "on"
MatchDevicePath "/dev/input/event*"
EndSection
Further, some US/ANSI keyboards suffer from an issue where the tilde key (~, the key vertically between Esc and Tab) registers as < and >. The following config file fixes this issue.
/etc/modprobe.d/hid_apple.conf
options hid_apple iso_layout=0
See this kernel bugzilla for more details and the relevant patches for earlier kernels.
Graphics
For Intel-only graphics, install the xf86-video-intel package. For more information or OpenGL/3D support, follow instructions at Intel graphics.
As of linux kernel 4.16.6 dual graphics switching does work on the 11,5 (2015) with Intel modesetting and the AMD GPU utilizing the radeon driver (amdgpu is untested). See MacBookPro11,x#Graphics to enable the integrated graphics. Once the laptop boots with integrated graphics enabled you can use VGA Switcheroo controls to power down the discrete GPU. However, if you keep it powered on you will be able to utilize HDMI connections and using switcheroo-controlAUR you can run applications on the AMD GPU.
- The kernel parameters
acpi_backlight,i915.lvds_downclock,i915.enable_ips, andintel_iommuare no longer necessary as of kernel 4.2. - (Kernel 4.10.8, MacBook Pro 11,4+) If you experience system lock ups and/or tearing in Xorg, remove the .xf86-video-intel completely, including any config file you made for it. Xorg will default to its modesetting DDX driver. The performance of this driver is good and the locks go away. See also Intel graphics.
- If you are experiencing flickering issues with Xorg, you can set
i915.enable_rc6to0parameter into the kernel parameters which will disable to power saving of Intel graphics.
2012 - 2014 models
- MacBookPro11,x (Late 2013—Mid 2014)
- MacBookPro10,x (Mid 2012—Early 2013)
MacBook Air
Early 2014 11" - Version 6,1
This is almost the same as the 2013 version, where the only known difference is a slightly faster processor. The version numbers have not been changed since the 2013 version.
It works excellently after following the instructions for the MBA 2013 13" here and in the forum thread. Bluetooth, which has been reported not working for some people with the 2013 version, works without trouble for the 2014 version, although it should be exactly the same.
Unresolved issues:
- There is no driver for the webcam yet.
- rEFInd uses 30 seconds to start booting. Using the bless trick stops rEFInd from loading, and it has to be re-installed.
Mid 2013 13" - Version 6,2
Installing and booting
Booting from a normal 2013.6 USB key works fine, but I could not seem to get either GRUB or Syslinux working.
I was able to boot by first installing Arch Linux following the MacBook guide at the wiki (having a separate FAT32 /boot partition). Skip the boot loader installation.
Installing rEFInd from OS X (important!) and installing the EFI stub loader made me able to boot fine.
Arch Only Installation
This method works without rEFInd and uses grub to boot EFI. Partition as follows:
/dev/sda1 200M Microsoft basic data /dev/sda2 256M Linux filesystem /dev/sda3 4G Linux swap /dev/sda4 108.6G Linux filesystem
sda1 can also be a HFS+ partition for EFI. This example chooses to use FAT32 (vfat). Although swap is optional, it is required for hibernation. Instead of sda4 for root and home, an alternative partition scheme would be to make sda4 as root and sda5 as home.
Format and mount:
# mkfs.vfat -F 32 /dev/sda1 # mkfs.ext2 /dev/sda2 # mkswap /dev/sda3 # swapon /dev/sda3 # mkfs.ext4 /dev/sda4
# mount /dev/sda4 /mnt # mkdir /mnt/boot # mount /dev/sda2 /mnt/boot # mkdir /mnt/efi # mount /dev/sda1 /mnt/efi
Finish the installation according to the Installation guide and skip anything after the boot loader. After you have generated your initramfs and set root passwd follow below to setup grub. First, install grub efibootmgr, then:
# mount -t efivarfs efivarfs /sys/firmware/efi/efivars # grub-install --target=x86_64-efi --efi-directory=/efi --bootloader-id=grub --recheck --debug # grub-mkconfig -o /efi/EFI/grub/grub.cfg # cp /efi/EFI/grub/grub.cfg /boot/grub/grub.cfg # cp /efi/EFI/grub/grubx64.efi /efi/EFI/boot/bootx64.efi}}
Now you can exit/unmount/reboot:
# exit # umount -R /mnt # reboot
Stability problems
libata.force=1:noncq to the kernel parameters solves the problem.This is the big worry for me. Every now and then my system hangs for a brief moment and everything involving net or disk access just hangs there for a while and then it seems to work. So far it only seems to happen when I run something disk or CPU-intensive. Also had an occasion when I could not start X and just got this repeating all over my screen:
ata1.00: failed command: WRITE FPDMA QUEUED
ata1.00: cmd 61/08:f0:10:8c:c2/00:00:0b:00:00/40 tag 30 ncq 4096 out
res 40/00:00:00:00:00/00:00:00:00:00/00 Emask 0x4 (timeout)
ata1.00: status: { DRDY }
On the next attempt it worked fine. I did SMART short and long tests on my disk and they returned fine: smartctl -a
There are some messages in my boot that indicate this could be disk and/or ACPI related.
These are with 2013-06 ISO, 3.9.7-1 2013 x86_64 kernel.
journalctl -b Seems to only work with the headphone jack, not with the speakers.
Marvell ATA suspend bugs
If you have 2013 MacBook Air with a Marvell 128 or 256 GB drive, you might get the following ata errors instead after pm-suspend/resumes:
ata1: exception Emask 0x10 SAct 0x0 SErr 0x10000 action 0xe frozen
ata1: irq_stat 0x00400000, PHY RDY changed
ata1: SError: { PHYRdyChg }
ata1: hard resetting link
ata1: SATA link up 1.5 Gbps (SStatus 113 SControl 310)
ata1.00: unexpected _GTF length (8)
ata1.00: unexpected _GTF length (8)
ata1.00: configured for UDMA/33
ata1: EH complete
Try what Patrick and Tejun figured out on the linux bug. I followed what Patrick describes with sata_alpm, and I have not seen the issue since.
There are more steps on how to resolve this issue in this thread on the Arch forum
Suspend/Resume
Brightness is either 0% or 100% after resuming from suspend. Adding the kernel parameter "acpi_osi=!Darwin" to your boot loader fixes the problem, though may have other side effects including disabling the thunderbolt port.
WiFi
WiFi does not work out of the box. Install broadcom-wl-dkms to connect to a network. If booting from the official Arch Linux ISO, one needs to unload a few standard modules in order to use the included wl module. Do so as follows:
# rmmod b43 ssb bcma wl
Now simply load the wl module:
- modprobe wl
This should automatically load the onboard wifi which can be seen by issuing: ip a. From here follow the wpa_supplicant#Connecting with wpa_cli article to bring up the wireless network.
Touchpad
Since 3.10.3 kernel touchpad works perfectly with xf86-input-synaptics.
Audio
ALSA may recognise the HDMI audio out as card 0 which will be the default card. Confirm this by checking the output of
$ aplay -l
If that is the case, you may need to create a /etc/asound.conf with below entries:
defaults.pcm.card 1 defaults.ctl.card 1
to use the HDA Intel card, ie. the built-in speakers / headphones.
Mid 2012 11.5" — Version 5,1
If you have issues with waking from sleep while in X11 such as a black screen or showing the console with a frozen mouse cursor then remove xf86-input-synaptics and install xf86-input-mtrack-gitAUR. This fixed errors such as
(EE) [dix] bcm5974: unable to find touch point 0
and backtraces that causes X11 to crash. This might apply to Version 5,2 assuming they use the same trackpad.
Mid 2011 — version 4,x
Works out-of-the-box since kernel 3.2.
Mid 2009 — version 2,1
Everything works, except the WIFI. You need to install the b43-fwcutter and b43-firmwareAUR packages.
Append options b43 pio=1 qos=0 to /etc/modprobe.d/b43.conf.
Early 2008 — version 1,1
Everything works out of the box though you will need the b43-fwcutter package (or simply b43-firmwareAUR) for the wireless adapter to work.
Since this model has only one USB port, you may find it easiest to install Arch with a powered USB hub. Plug a USB network adapter (wireless or ethernet adapter to plug into a USB port) and your Arch installation media into the USB hub.
If you cannot get any result by scanning wireless network after boot, unload modules b43 and ssb and load them again:
# rmmod ssb # rmmod b43 # modprobe b43
There is a good chance you will find what's wrong with DMA from the dmesg log.
Even if you can scan wireless networks after reloading the modules, it is still possible that you will only be able to connect to some networks, but not all of them. According to a more detailed discussion here: https://crunchbang.org/forums/viewtopic.php?id=17368, adding pio=1,qos=0 options to the b43 module can solve this problem.
I tested this for a 13' MacBookAir1,1 with a BCM4321 chipset, and it works.
Mac Mini
2018
Attempting to modify UEFI boot parameters with efibootmgr is likely to crash in the kernel. Including GRUB install phase
Luckily firmware on this model can function without it, using following adaptation of the #Using the native Apple boot loader with GRUB
- Instead of creating HFS+ partition create a fat32 partition for the boot loader
- Instead of using grub-install create grub image and installation manually OR boot with efi=noruntime parameter
- Manual installation:
# mkdir -p /boot/grub/fonts # grub-mkimage -O x86_64-efi -o /boot/System/Library/CoreServices/boot.efi -p /boot/grub part_gpt hfsplus fat ext2 btrfs normal chain boot configfile linux appleldr minicmd loadbios reboot halt search font gfxterm png all_video # cp -r /usr/lib/grub/x86_64-efi /boot/grub/ # cp /usr/share/grub/unicode.pf2 /boot/grub/fonts/
- Touching
/boot/mach_kernelis not necessary anymore.
See also
- MacBook Air
- MacBook Pro