Macbook Pro

[enderandrew]

Are Mac's faster than PCs?

Are you talking about the OS or just the hardware?

If you're talking hardware, they use the same hardware as you can get in your PC, so really there isn't much difference, unless you want to talk EFI vs BIOS or the weird sensors they put in Macbooks.

[haveaniceday]

Hello there,
as I have problems finding the necessary information in this big thread, I will ask directly:
What is the best way to install Gentoo on a santa rosa macbook pro. I have already a linux partition, but I'm not really sure how to install as there re obviously various probems with drivers.
Could someone who has done the installation give me a short help, so that I don't have to download a livecd which doesn't work?
Thank you in advance!

Now the answer:
It runs perfectly. I used the minimal Livecd and made a networkless basic install by putting the necessary tarballs on an usb stick. With kernel 2.6.22 vanilla everything runs perfectly without patches. Unfortunately gentoo-sources have a problem when you enable high-resolution-timers so I'm stuck with vanilla and no framebuffer. WIFI with madwifi-ng 0.9.4. New nvidia-drivers support the macbook without patching.
I can only recomment this to everyone.

[b_koepke]

Hello, I don't know if I am the first person to do this or not.
I created a gentoo livecd (based off of the 2007.0 livecd) that has the new macbook pro madwifi driver
installed.
As of this moment it is compiled for amd64; however, it will still work for i686 installs.
I was able to boot gentoo linux off of the livecd and connect to the wireless network without any problems.
The driver "ath_pci" was even autodetected, so I didn't even have to modprobe it.
I don't know if anyone is interested in hosting it or not.
Just thought this was the right place to post.
You can email me at bdkoepke@gmail.com if you are interested in obtaining this livecd.

[brullonulla]

Hi,
I'm also considering buying a Macbook Pro SantaRosa (i.e. one of the latest) to install Gentoo on (I am waiting Leopard to come out, so that I have up-to-date OS X too). I'm focusing of the MBP just because it seems to provide good hardware combination/value for the money.

However I'm quite puzzled by the many troubles I've seen and by the fact that most information on the Gentoo Wiki and this thread are (obviously) related to pre-SantaRosa machines (e.g. newer MBP have NVIDIA cards). Can someone pinpoint the differences in installing between the two kinds of MBPs?

What about the problem of network not working on the Gentoo install disk / vanilla Gentoo kernel? Last time I installed Gentoo, I did it from a Knoppix (to have a decent working environment in the meantime), so I can first test with it...

Anyway, I'm most concerned about:
- Wireless
- Power management
- Videocard

problems. Where can I look for better info?

Thanks for any hint!

[gringo]

im a happy SantaRosa owner :

What about the problem of network not working on the Gentoo install disk / vanilla Gentoo kernel?

yes, it didnt work here, i just copied all i needed for a minimal install to my usb-pen, built a modern kernel and did the rest after rebooting.

- wifi apparently works, but havent played much with it.
- i dont know what exactly you mean with "power managment". Hibernating / suspending doesnt work accurately here, tried stock in kernel and suspend2.
- i never had any problems here with the binary from nvidia or opensource nv driver - maybe im just lucky But most known problems were fixed in the latest release afaik.

Two things that you didnt count :

- remote control - i dont know how to make this work. I thought it is supported by latest lirc but it doesnt seem to be even detected correctly.
- sound support, as of now, alsa has to be patched afaik. Havent playied with the microphone yet, but i dont expect it to work either.

cheers

[brullonulla]

im a happy SantaRosa owner :

- wifi apparently works, but havent played much with it.

I'll wait for more expert people

- i dont know what exactly you mean with "power managment". Hibernating / suspending doesnt work accurately here, tried stock in kernel and suspend2.

That's very good. But I also was referring to things related with battery life. Fans, backlight etc.

- remote control - i dont know how to make this work. I thought it is supported by latest lirc but it doesnt seem to be even detected correctly.

Please be patient with someone that never owned a laptop since the 386 days (and in those days, I was a child and it was my father's laptop): what do you mean with laptop remote control?

sound support, as of now, alsa has to be patched afaik. Havent playied with the microphone yet, but i dont expect it to work either.

What do you mean by "microphone"? Hasn't the MBP a sound input jack? I wanted to use it also for recording audio from outside

[gringo]

That's very good. But I also was referring to things related with battery life. Fans, backlight etc.

can´t tell much about battery life, haven´t timed it. Fans and backlight control worked out of the box. You need latest pomme to get FN keys working.

what do you mean with laptop remote control?

this laptop comes with a tiny remote control toy, check apple´s homepage.

What do you mean by "microphone"?

it ships with an onboard microphone, a laptop with a webcam but without a microphone won´t be that useful, right ?

cheers

[brullonulla]

That's very good. But I also was referring to things related with battery life. Fans, backlight etc.

can´t tell much about battery life, haven´t timed it. Fans and backlight control worked out of the box. You need latest pomme to get FN keys working.

Good.

this laptop comes with a tiny remote control toy, check apple´s homepage.

Ok, I've seen what it is. Something I can happily live without.

it ships with an onboard microphone, a laptop with a webcam but without a microphone won´t be that useful, right ?

Well, given how much I hate to talk to the phone, and the consequent fact that I own a webcam but not a microphone (what's wrong in seeing your fellows while using IM?), the presence of the microphone is more a curse than a bliss...

Thank for your comments, I feel that the MBP can be an option now.

[gringo]

Well, given how much I hate to talk to the phone, and the consequent fact that I own a webcam but not a microphone (what's wrong in seeing your fellows while using IM?), the presence of the microphone is more a curse than a bliss...

i don´t use the cam at all, but most people expect voice / video to work, and currently it doesnt.

cheers

[brullonulla]

Have you tested it? A couple of posts above you said that you didn't know.

[gringo]

FYI guys, a new alsa update which includes support for macbook pro v3 was just sent to Torvalds, so that coming kernels should work out of the box.

cheers

[echo6]

I've compiled je_fro's 2.6.23 kernel but I've lost AIGXL with compiz-fusion and x11-drivers/ati-drivers-8.40.4-r11

Code: Select all

chameleon echo6 # cat /var/log/Xorg.*.log | grep "(EE)"
        (WW) warning, (EE) error, (NI) not implemented, (??) unknown.
        (WW) warning, (EE) error, (NI) not implemented, (??) unknown.
(EE) AIGLX error: dlsym for __driCreateNewScreen_20050727 failed (/usr/lib/dri/fglrx_dri.so: undefined symbol: __driCreateNewScreen_20050727)
(EE) AIGLX: reverting to software rendering

[dreadhead]

Hello all!

I have a question regarding susend2ram... I can successfully suspend by calling "s2ram --force". The --force is needed because the MacBook Pro v3 is not known by suspend yet. When the MacBook is sleeping, openig the lid or pressing the power button wakes it up sucessfully. The only problem is, that it doesn't go to sleep whe I close the lid...

I tried modifying /etc/acpi/default.sh but the prolem is that the signal when opening and cosing the lid is the same (except a counter in the parameters that is counted up continously). So if I insert the s2ram command there the MacBook returns to sleep immediately after waking up when I open it.

Does anyone have a suggestion on how to solve this?

Thanks.

[dreadhead]

Hello all!

I have a question regarding susend2ram... I can successfully suspend by calling "s2ram --force". The --force is needed because the MacBook Pro v3 is not known by suspend yet. When the MacBook is sleeping, openig the lid or pressing the power button wakes it up sucessfully. The only problem is, that it doesn't go to sleep whe I close the lid...

I tried modifying /etc/acpi/default.sh but the prolem is that the signal when opening and cosing the lid is the same (except a counter in the parameters that is counted up continously). So if I insert the s2ram command there the MacBook returns to sleep immediately after waking up when I open it.

Does anyone have a suggestion on how to solve this?

Thanks.

I managed to get it working by using KLaptop...

OK, the only thing not running yet is the IR receiver... In the gentoo-wiki is written it should work out of the box as a keyboard extension. xev does not recognize it here. After some research i found out that it should also work using lirc with the macmini driver. This doesn't work here because it searches for /dev/hiddev0 but modprobing hiddev I don't get this device-file... Has someone got it working on a MacBook Pro v3?

[audun1]

Hello and what a long discussion

I tried to install Gentoo 2007 on my MacBook Pro v3 but no luck.
If i download the live-cd its just complaining that X cant start.

If i use the minimal-cd i cant find any of my network cards only firewire.
Is there something i can do except reading 27 pages?

Thanks and sorry if this question has been answered earlier.

[dreadhead]

Hello and what a long discussion

I tried to install Gentoo 2007 on my MacBook Pro v3 but no luck.
If i download the live-cd its just complaining that X cant start.

If i use the minimal-cd i cant find any of my network cards only firewire.
Is there something i can do except reading 27 pages?

Thanks and sorry if this question has been answered earlier.

Hi,

It's right that the live-cd doesn't support network interfaces yet. Somewhere in this thread there is a post where one created a livecd with network support. Anyway, you could do an install copying the neccessary files to a USB pendrive (Most of us did it that way). For the most hardware-related things read this article in the gentoo-wiki: http://gentoo-wiki.com/HARDWARE_Apple_MacBook.

Good luck!

[synss]

I tried to install Gentoo 2007 on my MacBook Pro v3 but no luck.
If i download the live-cd its just complaining that X cant start.

If i use the minimal-cd i cant find any of my network cards only firewire.
Is there something i can do except reading 27 pages?

You can also use a *buntu CD. And you can even enjoy browsing while Gentoo compiles.

[dreadhead]

You can also use a *buntu CD. And you can even enjoy browsing while Gentoo compiles.

That Santa Rosa thing is that fast that you'll enjoy watching it compiling


Anyways, still noone got the IR receiver to work on the v3?

[brullonulla]

Ok, MacBook Pro Gentoo gurus, this message is first of a long series probably...

I now have the laptop (and, after a week with OS X, I'm more than sure to want Gentoo on it), a MacBook Pro Santa Rosa 2.4 GHz, with 2 Gb of RAM.

I begun to re-read the howtos etc. and I already found some question. Basically I think to follow (apart from the Gentoo Handbook):
http://gentoo-wiki.com/HARDWARE_Apple_MacBook
http://www.odi.ch/prog/macbookpro/index.php (this is an unofficial but well done and step-by-step howto about gentoo on the MBP)

Q1:
The wiki tells to use BootCamp OR rEFIt for partitioning and bootloader ("Download and run the rEFIt installer if you are not using bootcamp. "), but odi.ch seems to use both ( http://www.odi.ch/prog/macbookpro/index.php#1 ). Can someone explain me the issues? Can I use BootCamp for partitioning and rEFIt for bootloading (since this one seems more configurable?) What is advisable? I guess this is what I want but I'm very confused

Q2:
About rEFIt: does someone know if the infamous keyboard firmware bug ( http://refit.sourceforge.net/doc/c4s3_keyboard.html )is fixed in newer Macbook Pro models?

Q3:
What about the kernel mactel patches? I think I remember there is some dedicated mactel overlay, but I can't find it... am I wrong? What overlays should I use?

Q4:
Does anyone know of any OS X Leopard-specific issue?

Thanks to everyone!
m.

[gringo]

That Santa Rosa thing is that fast that you'll enjoy watching it compiling

he, indeed

Anyways, still noone got the IR receiver to work on the v3?

i dont´know what to do with this damn thingy either, any tip would very much appreciated !


@brullonulla : i´m no guru but will answer a few :

Q1:

i installed refit and that was it to boot the installcd or linux. I think bootcamp is just there for those who need the drivers for windows and dualboot macosx/windows; if you also need the drivers, just unpack the bootcamp dmg file and there you go.

Q2:

afaik you will only hit this if you use lilo.

What about the kernel mactel patches?

patch it yourself or use the overlay maintained by je_fro -> http://overlays.gentoo.org/dev/je_fro/b ... sys-kernel

cheers

[dreadhead]

Ok, MacBook Pro Gentoo gurus, this message is first of a long series probably...

I now have the laptop (and, after a week with OS X, I'm more than sure to want Gentoo on it), a MacBook Pro Santa Rosa 2.4 GHz, with 2 Gb of RAM.

I begun to re-read the howtos etc. and I already found some question. Basically I think to follow (apart from the Gentoo Handbook):
http://gentoo-wiki.com/HARDWARE_Apple_MacBook
http://www.odi.ch/prog/macbookpro/index.php (this is an unofficial but well done and step-by-step howto about gentoo on the MBP)

Q1:
The wiki tells to use BootCamp OR rEFIt for partitioning and bootloader ("Download and run the rEFIt installer if you are not using bootcamp. "), but odi.ch seems to use both ( http://www.odi.ch/prog/macbookpro/index.php#1 ). Can someone explain me the issues? Can I use BootCamp for partitioning and rEFIt for bootloading (since this one seems more configurable?) What is advisable? I guess this is what I want but I'm very confused

I use rEFIt and Grub. Just like the wiki says. I would suggest installing rEFIt on you MacOSX. It automatically installs the bootloader also. Then, repartition from Mac OS X. Make sure not to make more than 4 Partitions (excluding the EFI-Partition) or you'll have to use the extended partition scheme.

Q2:
About rEFIt: does someone know if the infamous keyboard firmware bug ( http://refit.sourceforge.net/doc/c4s3_keyboard.html )is fixed in newer Macbook Pro models?

I never experienced any problems with rEFIt. So I think the bug should be fixed.

Q3:
What about the kernel mactel patches? I think I remember there is some dedicated mactel overlay, but I can't find it... am I wrong? What overlays should I use?

You don't need the tha mactel-patches any more. But I would suggest them because for example the trackpad works much smoother with them applied. Just download them and patch your favorite kernel (I tried gentoo-sources and vanilla-sources). I also didn't find that overlay. But I'm going fine with the standard portage tree. To get your remote working you need an additional patch. I have posted it on the wiki.

Q4:
Does anyone know of any OS X Leopard-specific issue?

Haven't installed Leopard yet. To be honest I haven't booted Mac OS X any more since gentoo is installed... But If there should be a problem with Leopard you'll notice it right at the beginning when installing rEFIt.

Good Luck!

[dreadhead]

Anyways, still noone got the IR receiver to work on the v3?

i dont´know what to do with this damn thingy either, any tip would very much appreciated !

As said in my previous post I got it to work with an additional patch that you can find in the wiki. ATM I use it to control the volume and play/pause/skip in amarok. But I'm thinking of writing a little App that controls Amarok, KMplayer etc through DCOP (or DBus for KDE 4) allowing to control all Media with that 6 Buttons (similar as FrontRow does).

[gringo]

As said in my previous post I got it to work with an additional patch that you can find in the wiki.

nice, thanks for that

cheers

[brullonulla]

So repartitioning with diskutil from OS X and using rEFIt / Grub is the way?

How do rEFIt and Grub interact? rEFIt chainloads to Grub?

Are there no problems with 3d acceleration? (I've read that using grub or lilo needs BIOS compatibility mode to have 3d acceleration, but how do I enable that?)

[brullonulla]

Ok people, I'm stuck at diskutil:

Code: Select all

Macintosh-2:~ sudo diskutil resizeVolume disk0s2 60G "Linux" "Linux" 25G "Linux" "LinuxHome" 64G
Password:
Linux does not appear to be a valid file system format
Valid filesystems: "Journaled HFS+" "HFS+" "Case-sensitive HFS+" "Case-sensitive Journaled HFS+" "HFS" "MS-DOS FAT16" "MS-DOS FAT32" "MS-DOS FAT12" "MS-DOS" "UDF" "UFS" "ZFS"

Had I been bitten by a Leopard?

edit: In the meantime, I installed rEFIt 0.10 (it seems to work) and just resized the OS X partition (dropped anything after "60G" in the diskutil command).

It seems I can use GNU Parted to create the Linux partitions, since Parted is somewhat GPT-aware (and you can resync partition tables with rEFIt partitioning tool. any experience on that?)