Gentoo on a Macbook?

[Kreon]

I tried concorrent emerges and computer-intensive multi-threaded programs and the applications are still being executed only on CPU0. My kernel has SMP, SMT and CPU_HOTPLUG enabled.

Hi,

take a look at you make.conf. Have you set the MAKEOPTS variable correctly? MAKEOPTS="j-4" should be right.

greets
Thomas

[iamscared]

I tried concorrent emerges and computer-intensive multi-threaded programs and the applications are still being executed only on CPU0. My kernel has SMP, SMT and CPU_HOTPLUG enabled.

Hi,

take a look at you make.conf. Have you set the MAKEOPTS variable correctly? MAKEOPTS="j-4" should be right.

greets
Thomas

Yes, MAKEOPT was set correctly.

I just found the problem. When I booted a Suspend2 kernel with suspend-to-disk capabilities, my SMP/SMT support was gone. The solution was to remove the resume2=file parameter on grub.

[moros]

For those having trouble with suspend to ram on the Macbook non-pro Core 2 Duo within X11, try upgrading xf86-video-i810 to 2.0.0 and using the "echo mem > /sys/power/state" method. I added a new section to the wiki describing the setup I'm using at moment which seems fairly reliable.

Also something everyone should try is using colour calibration profile that comes with OS X. It really makes a huge difference.

[dmvianna]

Works on the MacBook Pro CoreDuo too. I've updated the wiki, it's a different color calibration file for that one. Excellent tip!

[Dirk.R.Gently]

I can say finally that I am real happy with how my MacBook is running today. Due to an odd occurrence lately, I've had to reinstall my Gentoo nearly from scratch. And I can tell you this system now rocks! I no longer need 915 resolution, all resolutions available are in the Screen Resolution Control Panel. Gnome-power-manager works as expected. I.e. is able to change the brightness of the screen, does so when the power is unplugged, and Suspends! Yep suspend works nice! Trackpad and screen don't hang. And yesterday I finally got the guts to install Beryl!

Thats not to say there aren't a few problems. WiFi still refuses to resolve an IP, and gnome-volume-manager won't mount my disks on my desktop (only works if dbus is restarted). That said I'm ecstatic, very very happy.

BTW, I updated the Beryl section in the Wiki. I put in a description and a basic instruction. I was a bit scared installing Beryl (as this is the first time I did it) but after a little bit of research it wasn't too bad. And it Wild! It does have a hitch or two. It interferes with my gnome-power-manager, and it doesn hang time to time, so it's probably not for everyone.

[Dirk.R.Gently]

Also something everyone should try is using colour calibration profile that comes with OS X. It really makes a huge difference.

Thanks moros. Thats something else. Coool!

[piwacet]

FYI, I just bought a macbook, downloaded the current trunk version of the atheros driver for the wireless, and it more or less works perfectly, I'm using WEP 128 bit encryption. For some reason the scripts don't always generate a connection to the network, but usually when I try a second time they do connect; once the connection is made the network seems to be working perfectly.

[dmvianna]

The speakers stopped working with 2.6.21-r2 + mactel patches here. Anyone got the same?

[Dirk.R.Gently]

Yeah? The built in speakers? I'm using that build too - vanilla sources. I'm not using the patches though as I noticed some mactel patches have made it into the rc: smc, temperature sensor, and appletouch. Maybe you can try that.

[Ibn al-Hazardous]

Hi! I found the guide on gentoo-wiki, and it has given me a good start with my shiny new MacBook.

Here's some feedback:
I used the kernel-config on the wiki with the suspend2-mactel-2.6.20-kernel and bizarrely enough, neither SCSI-Disk (needed for SATA) nor keyboard were enabled. It took a couple of reboots to figure out. Maybe the suspend2-mactel ebuild should provide a config of its own? (Is the author reading this thread?)

And some questions:
I've tried pommed - but it doesn't recognize my machine as a mac, and won't start. Is there a work-around - or should I wait for a newer version?

I'd like to try KVM with MacOSX. Has anyone done this before?

Cheers!

Edit:
When I added applesmc, it refused to compile. Make complained that jiffies and HZ wasn't defined in the driver (both as module and compiled in). Any ideas?

[piwacet]

Interesting I have both of your problems too, on my recently purchased macbook. Pommed errors out saying non-apple machine, just after a line which says the SMBios detected apple as the vendor. And I can not compile the smc module in my kernel. I'm using the vanilla kernel, version 2.6.20.11 with the mactel patches. I did not post because I am not using one of the known working kernel combos. But interesting that you have the same problem. My plan was to wait until vanilla 2.6.22 was released, which is supposed to include many of the mactel patches, including I think the smc patch.

The pommed problem, however, I'm not sure about. I'm using refit version 9, maybe it's the problem? I haven't tried any other bootloaders.

[naelq]

hello world!!
i'm reporting another success installing Gentoo on a Core2Duo MacBook.

using:
>> suspend2-sources-2.6.21-r5
>> mactel-patches-2.6.21 though i didn't use s2ram yet!
>> madwifi-hal-0.9.30.13-r2351-20070519

wifi with WPA is working 101%, though the signal is *only* ~70% (the AP is just besides the MacBook! LOLOLOL!)
running X & KDE, pommed handles the keys fine, though an OSD feature would be nice. (i know that pbbuttons has the OSD..).

Kpowersave handles the battery/power management fine. (though i didn'y use s2ram yet!)
KNetworkManager works very very well running my wifi WPA connection.


stuff to do:
1. improve battery time!! guys, on OSX i have at least 4 hours, with wifi, lowest brightness (my eyes are still ok!) & BT off. with Linux & same config, it's no more than 3 hours!! (i know that the wifi driver is a factor..)
2. i suspect that the soundcard isn't performing as good as in OSX, i will try to use the alsa-driver.
3. setup dual monitor lappy+my 20" LCD, maybe next week or two when i get the mini-dvi to dsub adapter.


PS, most of the info/fixes i've found on Ubuntu's wiki/forums rather than on Gentoo's!! guys we most work harder!! i'm working on a detailed log for my work so far..

if any of you needs one (or more) of my config files, i'll be more than happy to help.

[naelq]

on a side note, do you know if this kbd/mouse set would work with linux?
http://www.logitech.com/index.cfm/keybo ... 8&cl=us,en

thnx

[Dirk.R.Gently]

Pleasant to hear that all went well, naelq. Installing the first time is large achievement. I just upgraded to gnome-2.18 and felt the same thing (though it's still a bit buggy.)

i suspect that the soundcard isn't performing as good as in OSX, i will try to use the alsa-driver.

Changing from the kernel driver to the alsa driver won't make any difference as they are essentially reincarnations of the same driver.

i'm working on a detailed log for my work so far..

if any of you needs one (or more) of my config files, i'll be more than happy to help.

Nice to see other peoples work. Everyones experience is different, so contributions are always welcome,

[Jimmers]

Does anyone know if pbbuttons is working with the Macbooks?

[naelq]

sure it works

[pertheusual]

Hello all,
I'm new to Gentoo and first, thanks a bunch for keeping an awesome Macbook Wiki section. I've got a 2GHz Macbook Core2Duo with suspend2-sources-2.6.21 with mactel patches. I haven't actually tried to suspend yet though.

I spent the past few days getting everything I wanted squared away and I had a few things I wanted to ask.

What sort of temperatures are you guys registering?
Gkrellem is giving me 58 at pretty much idle.
I was testing out VLC and Beryl at the same time and the temp went up to 66 or so with the fan speed increasing to 6200 automatically.
I also feel like the fans just generally don't speed up enough for a given temperature.
Maybe it's just registering the wrong temp?

What sort of Wifi signal strength is everyone getting?
I saw a few other people mention things in here about Wifi signal strength in this thread.
I can connect to WEP networks and such using NetworkManager in gnome, but the strength is only around 35%, even sitting right next to the thing.

Does everyone have Pommed running?
I installed it and when I press eject, the icon displays and that works fine, but none of the other features work.
Pressing F1 brings up help. Fn+F1 does nothing, F2 does nothing, FN+F2 brings up another help, and so on.

Anyone here tried VMWare Server?
I've installed it and it works nicely, but I haven't been able to get the network bridging to work with the wireless. Works nicely with eth0 though.

VLC/Video programs working?
After I emerged VLC, any attempt to play large videos gave me an X Window System Error: "The error was 'BadAlloc (insufficient resources for operation)'". I have no idea what causes it. The resolution I found in VLC was to set the video output module to "X11" instead of Default. So yeah, anyone else seen that or know an actual solution?

Thanks much!

[john-boro]

Does anyone know if pbbuttons is working with the Macbooks?

I know that pommed is now in portage, and it does a far better and more specialised job with macbooks than pbbuttons did, for me anyway. Gpomme is the graphical notification package for it, but I'm not sure if this is in portage yet.

[dmvianna]

Gpomme is the graphical notification package for it, but I'm not sure if this is in portage yet.

Oh, that is part of app-laptop/pommed! You just have to run the pommed init script (/etc/init.d/pommed start) and then run gpomme every time you launch your WM (mine is fluxbox) or GE (Gnomme, KDE). It's all explained in http://gentoo-wiki.com/HARDWARE_Apple_MacBook#pommed.

[Jimmers]

I really liked pbbuttons on my iBook, though. On my iBook, it did the suspend, throttling, all the keys, etc, and was really convenient, all without any graphical stuff.

Although, I've recently merged the 0.8.0 version oif pbbuttonsd in portage (it seems to support Macbooks, KEYWORDS="ppc ~x86") onto an ~amd64 Macbook. It compiles fine, but it doesn't run:

Code: Select all

WARNING: No event devices available.  Please Check your configuration.
WARNING: No backlight driver available - check your Kernel configuration.

Code: Select all

$ cat /usr/src/linux/.config | grep "EVENTS\|BACKLIGHT"
CONFIG_PROC_EVENTS=y
CONFIG_BACKLIGHT_LCD_SUPPORT=y
CONFIG_BACKLIGHT_CLASS_DEVICE=y
CONFIG_BACKLIGHT_DEVICE=y

Anyone gotten pbbuttons to run on an ~amd64 Macbook, or should I just do a 32-but kernel?

[piwacet]

I believe the recent problems with getting pommed to start from the "unknown vendor" error may be solved in the 1.6 release, as per change log on the debian website:

pommed (1.6~dfsg-1) unstable; urgency=low

* New upstream release.
+ Support new "Apple Inc." SMBIOS vendor ID.

-- Julien BLACHE <jblache@debian.org> Sun, 27 May 2007 16:08:26 +0200

I'm trying to hack together an e-build to give this a try, but no luck so far.

[dmvianna]

I believe the recent problems with getting pommed to start from the "unknown vendor" error may be solved in the 1.6 release, as per change log on the debian website:

pommed (1.6~dfsg-1) unstable; urgency=low

* New upstream release.
+ Support new "Apple Inc." SMBIOS vendor ID.

-- Julien BLACHE <jblache@debian.org> Sun, 27 May 2007 16:08:26 +0200

I'm trying to hack together an e-build to give this a try, but no luck so far.

Pic0's overlay has a working ebuild for pommed cvs.

Code: Select all

$ cat /etc/layman/layman-picoverlay.xml 
<?xml version="1.0" ?>
<layman>
  <overlay
      type = "svn"
      src  = "svn://svn.tuxfamily.org/svnroot/picoverlay/ebuilds/trunk"
      contact = "guill.p@gmail.com"
      name = "picoverlay">
    <link>
      http://picoverlay.tuxfamily.org/
    </link>

    <description>
      This is an overlay for Gentoo Portage containing some useful ebuilds for
      Intel based Apple laptops (MacBook and MacBook Pro), plus other random
      ebuilds.
    </description>
  </overlay>
</layman>

[Dirk.R.Gently]

I would like to see pommed add support for the function key - hard to believe that it hasn't been added yet to the keyboard driver. I wonder if there will be conflicts with pommed and gnome-2.18. I just noticed that gnome-2.18 has support for keyboard and volume, plus the interface:

http://www.archive.org/download/ToddPar ... Volume.png

Still doesn't have brightness, but it does have eject.

Also I just put Compiz on my MacBook. Took a bit of work, I'll post what I did on the wiki.

[piwacet]

So I ended up just downloading the source tarball for the pommed 1.6 release, and compiled and installed it by hand, and it seems to be working, no "unknown vendor" problem. I haven't tested all the functionality, but at least I've been able to eject the CD that's been in the dvd drive for weeks now.

[Ibn al-Hazardous]

So I ended up just downloading the source tarball for the pommed 1.6 release, and compiled and installed it by hand, and it seems to be working, no "unknown vendor" problem. I haven't tested all the functionality, but at least I've been able to eject the CD that's been in the dvd drive for weeks now.

I just took the 1.5 ebuild and renamed it, and the patch. The only hitch was that the ebuild insisted on downloading pommed 1.5, but named as 1.6. When I did a manual download of 1.6, it worked perfectly.