MacBookAir4,1 & MacBookAir4,2 (MBA 2011) support

[daveMustane]

@daveMustane Does this mean you didn't try my xorg.conf?

I am using your xorg.conf. I only replaced the long <b>Section "InputClass" with Driver "mtrack"...</b> with those 6 lines. I was not able to find one particular setting in the long list to cause the issue. I think it is probably easier to apply some (likely needed) additional settings from a (mostly) working base, than trying to finetune a broken configuration. To have all possible settings in the file, but in remarks is really a great idea. If there wasn't some sort of side effect. Maybe a parsing error. Maybe some outremarked special character causing issues.

Please apply the change and lmk if your two finger touchpad behaviour doesn't improve a lot.

[dfacto]

I am using your xorg.conf. I only replaced the long <b>Section "InputClass" with Driver "mtrack"...</b> with those 6 lines. I was not able to find one particular setting in the long list to cause the issue. I think it is probably easier to apply some (likely needed) additional settings from a (mostly) working base, than trying to finetune a broken configuration. To have all possible settings in the file, but in remarks is really a great idea. If there wasn't some sort of side effect. Maybe a parsing error. Maybe some outremarked special character causing issues.

Please apply the change and lmk if your two finger touchpad behaviour doesn't improve a lot.

Hrmm seems fishy to me--commented out is equivalent (I'm sure the parse library is >20yo by now...). In theory that is a working base as its what I am using. Oh well, hopefully someone can figure it out. BTW, the settings that are in there are what I cherry-picked (then tested) from the mtrack thread.

[dfacto]

So if you're on 3.0.0-10, here is how you can remove all the -dkms packages (except btusb-dkms). This isn't necessary and I don't want to add this to post-install.sh as I don't like it entirely. More importantly, you should only follow these steps if you're running Oneiric.

Anyway, if you want to put your install a bit closer back to "what it should be" AND you are on 3.0.0-10, then you can run:

sudo dpkg -r applesmc-dkms bcm5974-dkms

which removes two of the packages that my post-install.sh installed.

Removing hid-apple-dkms (and hid-dkms) is more interesting.

For some reason my hid-apple patch made it to the 3.0.0 source tree but its not in the binary. Honestly, I didn't even know this was possible and seems mildly disturbing. In any event, the following steps will get rid of two more of our custom dkms:

sudo apt-get build-dep --no-install-recommends linux-image-$(uname -r)
apt-get source linux-image-$(uname -r)
cd linux-$(uname -r|cut -d- -f1)/drivers/hid
make -C /lib/modules/$(uname -r)/build M=$(pwd) hid-apple.ko
sudo make -C /lib/modules/$(uname -r)/build M=$(pwd) modules_install
sudo dpkg -r hid-apple-dkms hid-dkms

Its probably better to reboot for this one to take effect.

So to summarize: Following these steps keeps everything working as before, but puts us back on "stock" Ubuntu kernels, with the exception of i915 and btusb-dkms (which we should be using the non-dkms version which is newer). Obviously the re-make of above is "stock" but there was no editing to the file...

Update: Perhaps these disturbing out-of-sync issues (also the cp line in fix-i915.sh) are related to this message which I did not notice when I pulled the source before (in which I used apt-get):

Picking 'linux' as source package instead of 'linux-image-3.0.0-10-generic'
NOTICE: 'linux' packaging is maintained in the 'Git' version control system at:
http://kernel.ubuntu.com/git-repos/u...tu-oneiric.git

Update 2: All new changes are in new-post-install.sh. This is for Oneiric only! If you are using Oneiric, then new-post-install.sh is much better to use than the original. Also, you can re-run new-post-install.sh everytime there is a kernel upgrade (in fact you MUST do this until i915 and btusb are fixed).

Update 3: The cp hack in fix-i915 and new-post-install.sh is now resolved. I was using the wrong path (obviously).

[mike909]

To update those that might stumble on this thread w/ out reading it's entirety...Using MBA 4,2 13" stock 11.04 (natty) and running post-install.sh, according to this dfacto post. Everything working great for me, except microphone.
Don't forget to unmute 'surround' in alsamixer to get audio.

[dfacto]

Microphone should be working too. Are you sure its unmuted?

[jonny]

Trackpad is working much better for me after a reboot, but I can't get a 4-finger tap or swipe to show Dash or the Unity launcher in the way it's supposed to. Three finger tap and swipe to move windows is simply awesome... I love it!

One very minor problem is that the function keys don't map perfectly. F10 reduces the volume instead of muting; F11 increases the volume instead of reducing it; and F12 attempts to eject a non-existent CD instead of increasing the volume.

Getting happier all the time!

[jonny]

And, after a kernel update today, suspend seems to work perfectly - both from the menu and by shutting the lit. This is good... very good!

[dfacto]

@jonny My .Xmodmap fixes that.

Also to everyone else. If you are just installing Oneiric, please use new-post-install.sh.

It sets-up things the "right way" as opposed to the original post-install.sh which did things in a way that is not as nice (but also has its own merits). Basically the old post-install is more "stable" but the new one is "better."

For Oneiric users: you can re-run new-post-install.sh every time there is a kernel upgrade (in fact you MUST do this until i915 and btusb are fixed). Eventually it will ask you if you want to continue setting the system up, at which point you can say 'no' to not proceed.

Hopefully this all makes sense to someone. Trust me, everything you need is in these scripts (I'm not a documentation person!).

[daveMustane]

Hrmm seems fishy to me--commented out is equivalent (I'm sure the parse library is >20yo by now...). In theory that is a working base as its what I am using. Oh well, hopefully someone can figure it out. BTW, the settings that are in there are what I cherry-picked (then tested) from the mtrack thread.

The only setting that is causing me touchpad issues is 'IgnorePalm'.

'IgnorePalm' defaults to 'false'. If set to 'true', it becomes impossible to thumb click anything, without lifting the index finger first. Doing so often dispositions the mouse pointer. And you end up clicking the wrong thing. Painful! So I guess this is a bug in code. All other settings in xorg.conf are OK. And in theory, this one is as well.

[dfacto]

The only setting that is causing me touchpad issues is 'IgnorePalm'.

'IgnorePalm' defaults to 'false'. If set to 'true', it becomes impossible to thumb click anything, without lifting the index finger first. Painful! So I guess this is a bug in code. All other settings in xorg.conf are OK. And in theory, this one is as well.

Thanks for tracking that down. I had enabled it under the hope that it would prevent spurious mouse movements while typing. There is another program listed on the mtrack thread that should accomplish this, but I have not tried it.