Fedora 18 on MacBook Pro
OSX crashed on me while i was trying to update firmware. Instead of recovering it, i decided to install Fedora 18 on my MacBook.
System Info
Installation
I had made couple of Fedora 18 x86_64 DVD’s for the Fedora freemedia program. I grabbed one of them and started the installation to find myself dropping into a prompt. Apparently it is one of known issues with the Fedora 18 CD/DVD. After typing in ‘(cd0,apple3)/EFI/BOOT/grub.cfg’ the installation started. There was no problem with the installation.
Tweaks
I am used to natural scrolling, enabled it using the following setting
$ cat /etc/X11/xorg.conf.d/99-wt-natural-scroll.conf
Section “InputClass”
Identifier “Natural Scrolling”
Option “ZAxisMapping” “5 4”
EndSection
I like my function keys, following sets the fn keys as primary in the apple keyboard
$ cat /etc/modprobe.d/hid_apple.conf
options hid_apple fnmode=2
Above option also can be passed using kernel command line. You will have to edit the grub.cfg for that /boot/efi/EFI/fedora/grub.cfg
Wireless
By default Fedora 18 didn’t detect my broadcom wireless network card (Broadcom Corporation BCM4331 802.11a/b/g/n (rev 02) to be exact) It needed a proprietary firmware. I downloaded b43-firware module from “russian fedora” http://pkgs.org/fedora-18/russian-fedora-nonfree-i386/b43-firmware-5.100.138-1.fc17.noarch.rpm.html and installed it. After the reboot things started working.
The proprietary driver doesn’t seem to support power management, it may cause problems during suspend/resume operation. So i instructed the power manager to unload the module while suspending the machine
$ cat /etc/pm/config.d/defaults
SUSPEND_MODULES=”b43″
Other bugs
GNOME 3 Desktop often doesn’t get show up after unlocking the screen https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=878736 If it happens press CTRL+ALT+F2 , login via tty and run ‘DISPLAY=:0 gnome-shell –replace’
The new kernel kernel-3.8.2-206.fc18.x86_64 panics while booting on MacBook Pro https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=922175
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Looks like you have an 8,2. I tried F18 on my 8,2 a couple of weeks ago. Gnome worked fine for me. I had other issues.
Do the fans behave? Mine were always on and maxed out with *any* disk activity.
Did that ‘(cd0,apple3)/EFI/BOOT/grub.cfg’ incantation result in an EFI install?
Could you turn off one video unit and use the other? I wanted to use the Intel video but never managed to disable the Radeon.
My fans behave fine. Yes the ‘(cd,apple3)’ is because i did a EFI install.
If i am not mistaken , i only have an intel video unit. I do not see radeon there in my device list. I have a 13inch MacbookPro 8,2
I had the opposite problem — my fans never came on — on my 9,1. I had success compiling https://github.com/MikaelStrom/macfanctld (written and packaged for Debian) and setting it up as a service on Fedora 18.
1. Download and extract https://github.com/MikaelStrom/macfanctld/archive/master.zip
2. Run `make`, then copy the resulting macfanctld to /usr/sbin or wherever you want it.
3. Copy macfanctl.conf to /etc
4. Create /etc/systemd/system/macfanctl.service as follows:
[Unit]
Description=Fan control for MacBook
[Service]
ExecStart=/usr/sbin/macfanctld
[Install]
WantedBy=multi-user.target
5. Run `systemctl enable macfanctl.service` and perhaps `systemctl start macfanctl.service`.
It’s supposed to put log output in /var/log/macfanctl.log, but it seems to just write to stdout for a reason I can’t quite figure out. You can see some of the output with `systemctl status macfanctl`.
I’m pretty new to Fedora, but I suppose I should try to package an RPM that does these things.
After typing (cd0,apple3)/EFI/BOOT/grub.cfg did you have a long period of black screen? I typed configfile cd0,apple3)/EFI/BOOT/grub.cfg after reading bugzilla about dropping into a terminal and black screen for me.
I tried multiple ways and Fedora did not install.
hi,
Was there anything special you had to do regarding the Russian broadcom RPM installation? I’m running Fedora 18 on a Macbook also with the same BCM4311 rev 02 wifi device, installed the RPM, rebooted and I still don’t have wifi. There are no obvious errors in dmesg or /var/log/messages.
I have this file openfwwf.conf in /etc/modprobe.d/ it has the following contents
options b43 nohwcrypt=1 qos=0
May be you should try creating that file and add those contents and try again
hi Arun,
Thanks for the reply. I had the same openfwwf.conf file. After the Russian rpm I tried the steps at http://wireless.kernel.org/en/users/Drivers/b43#Fedora. After running through these steps I can now see wireless connections, but when I try to connect to mine (I’m broadcasting my SSID, secured with WPA2/AES) I get a failure. There are a lot of messages in /var/log/messages, the following seem relevant:
NetworkManager[792]: get_secret_flags: assertion ‘is_secret_prop (setting, secret_name, error)’ failed
NetworkManager[792]: wifi_secrets_cb: assertion ‘nm_device_get_state (dev) == NM_DEVICE_STATE_NEED_AUTH’ failed
Please try disabling IPV6. You can open nm-connection-editor and ask nm to ignore ipv6
Hi,
Do you have any experince with power mgm of an apel keyboard?
17.6 W 100.0% Device USB device: Apple Internal Keyboard
The power consumption is extreme. When I remove the module the power consuption is great – except I do not have functional keyboard :).
what is the kmod name? applesmc?
yes it seems to be the case. Not sure how can I get a connection between HW and kmod, but I have this kmod active.
for change the old driver b43 for the new one wl
http://sc4bbk.blogspot.com.br/2013/07/getting-bcmwl-to-work-on-fedora-18.html