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

[kiffykroker]

I've been quite busy the last few days and haven't had much time to play around with this, since there's some issues regarding the 11" this is what I've encountered so far:

- The fix-i915 script does work with 11.04 and MBA4,1, just upgrade to 3.0.0 kernel

- I can't install any beta of 11.10 (have probably wasted 10+ discs), I always get "ubiquity closed unexpectedly", might be something wrong with my usb dvd drive, 11.04 installs however.

- Just for the sake of it I ran dfactos oneiric post-install script on my natty install and, while I ended up with a quite broke desktop interface, the script seemed to have done it's job regarding keyboard and touchpad.

So I still haven't tried anything on 11.10 but it seems that dfactos script might work just as well on MBA4,1 (thanks!).

At the moment I'm back on a fresh install of 11.04 with upgraded kernel and gonna see where I end up this time.

Once again thanks to defacto for your work!

[dfacto]

@kiffykroker Great! I suspected that the oneiric script would work for Natty too. The main thing really is that you need to be on the 3.0.0, as you already pointed out.

In fact, there is nothing in the script that should break anything. The worst that can happen is that some things simply won't install. I'm guessing the weird problems you had were from something else you did?

Please let me know if you find bugs. Remember you can always run each line copy-and-paste style to track what's happening. (In fact, that's usually how I run stuff.)

If you have a USB thumb drive, its MUCH easier/faster to just install from that. I have a script for that too.

Oh, and someone submitted patches for the 11" so hopefully those will be in for one of the release candidates of the 3.1 kernel. Probably the Ubuntu people will backport it too. Point being, with time my script won't do any kernel stuff, which would be great.

[kiffykroker]

@kiffykroker Great! I suspected that the oneiric script would work for Natty too. The main thing really is that you need to be on the 3.0.0, as you already pointed out.

In fact, there is nothing in the script that should break anything. The worst that can happen is that some things simply won't install. I'm guessing the weird problems you had were from something else you did?

Please let me know if you find bugs. Remember you can always run each line copy-and-paste style to track what's happening. (In fact, that's usually how I run stuff.)

I'm gonna try oneiric post install again on my fresh 11.04 install later tonight, but what I remember from last time was that Gnome looked really weird and my system said it was on 11.10(!).

If you have a USB thumb drive, its MUCH easier/faster to just install from that. I have a script for that too.

Oh, and someone submitted patches for the 11" so hopefully those will be in for one of the release candidates of the 3.1 kernel. Probably the Ubuntu people will backport it too. Point being, with time my script won't do any kernel stuff, which would be great.

I did buy me a USB thumb drive today actually (while I also loaded up on more CD-R), but your script is not for OSX right? My OSX partition on my MBA has all the iso and works as my main machine at the moment. I might try it on my Ubuntu server or XBMC machine though, since they're on wired network the iso download should be pretty fast aswell.

[hueythecat]

Hey dfacto

I'll get on to this this afternoon. Don't have my MBA on me this morning.
PS

The fix-i915.sh I ran was directly from https://help.ubuntu.com/community/MacBookAir4-2

I ran it yesterday so it would have had
# Sun Sep 18 00:55:17 EDT 2011 - MBA4,1 Panel-type code

Also when it first arrived I checked the panel type and it was the samsung.


Will supply full deets later today.

[hueythecat]

P.S You want me to change my install to 11.04 to 11.10 first?

[dfacto]

@kiffykroker I *think* it would work on Mac too. You'll need to change the path, I think Mac likes /dev/diskx over /dev/sdax. Off the top of my head it should work. The post-install script cannot possibly change any version-ing from 11.04 to 11.10.

@hueythecat Its up to you. Personally I'd install Oneiric (and I have) but I am curious if my script works on Natty. I guess it largely depends on your comfort with Ubuntu/Linux. If you think you can handle a few minor problems (ie compiz/unity bugs) then you'll be fine in Oneiric.

One other option is "both." You could install Natty then do:

sudo aptitude update
sudo aptitude safe-upgrade
sudo aptitude install
sudo do-release-upgrade -d

which would put you on Oneiric.

I like to do the install line because sometimes packages are held for various reasons.

[ingineer]

Thanks Defacto!

Oneiric installed without a hitch. I ran fix-i915 and rebooted w/o nomodeset and I had working graphics!

I then ran post-install-oneiric and let it do it's thing, and upon reboot, Everything still worked except Wifi. It shows up in the interface list and looks like iwconfig will talk to it, but it's dissappeared from the gui.

UPDATE: Looks like NetworkManager lost one of it's shared libraries when post-install did it's thing:

NetworkManager: error while loading shared libraries: libnss3.so: cannot open shared object file: No such file or directory

Not sure low to fix this. I also don't seem to have TouchPad support, but Bluetooth and KB are working OK. I'll keep poking around.

[dfacto]

Yep, I had this too. I also had xorg-edgers take a crap on me (fixed with ppa-purge).

Install this and you'll be good to go:
64bit:
http://packages.ubuntu.com/oneiric/a...bnss3/download

32bit:
http://packages.ubuntu.com/oneiric/i...bnss3/download

BTW, its not post-install that did that, its Canonical. Welcome to development branch!

On the plus side, todays updates made the keyboard buttons work properly so you don't need my keyboard-backlight script.

[hueythecat]

Tried to install the daily of oneric - got through the install but rebooting always lead to -> missing operating system & refit didnt say it wanted to resync

Re installing natty went fine

Deets post initial update(have not yet run fix-i915.sh)

Linux jman-MacBookAir 2.6.38-11-generic #48-Ubuntu SMP Fri Jul 29 19:02:55 UTC 2011 x86_64 x86_64 x86_64 GNU/Linux

no right click

no fn+up or down

backlit keyboard ok

no bluetooth icon & launching bluetooth says no hardware detected

cat /etc/issue
Ubuntu 11.04 \n \l

cat /sys/class/dmi/id/product_name
MacBookAir4,1

sudo get-edid 2>/dev/null|strings -5
LTH116AT01A04
Color LCD

[ingineer]

@Defacto, Thanks again. I had already located another libnss3, which did fix NetMan. Now I have everything working but touchpad. Keyboard, Bluetooth, KB LEDs, etc, all ok!

I've tried all variants of xorg.conf, nothing seems to make a difference.

What modules should be loaded for the current iteration of touchpad support?

Module                  Size  Used by
btrfs                 648895  0 
zlib_deflate           27139  1 btrfs
libcrc32c              12644  1 btrfs
ufs                    75303  0 
qnx4                   17677  0 
hfs                    54782  0 
minix                  36322  0 
ntfs                  101885  0 
vfat                   17585  0 
msdos                  17332  0 
fat                    61475  2 vfat,msdos
jfs                   186662  0 
xfs                   831526  0 
reiserfs              248828  0 
nls_utf8               12557  1 
hfsplus                88963  1 
parport_pc             36962  0 
ppdev                  17113  0 
snd_hda_codec_hdmi     32040  1 
snd_hda_codec_cirrus    18601  1 
rfcomm                 47946  8 
bnep                   18436  2 
snd_hda_intel          33390  2 
snd_hda_codec         104802  3 snd_hda_codec_hdmi,snd_hda_codec_cirrus,snd_hda_intel
wl                   2568210  0 
snd_hwdep              13668  1 snd_hda_codec
snd_pcm                96755  3 snd_hda_codec_hdmi,snd_hda_intel,snd_hda_codec
snd_seq_midi           13324  0 
snd_rawmidi            30547  1 snd_seq_midi
snd_seq_midi_event     14899  1 snd_seq_midi
uvcvideo               72711  0 
lib80211               14991  1 wl
bcma                   20219  0 
videodev               93004  1 uvcvideo
snd_seq                61896  2 snd_seq_midi,snd_seq_midi_event
arc4                   12529  2 
v4l2_compat_ioctl32    17083  1 videodev
applesmc               19554  0 
input_polldev          13896  1 applesmc
btusb                  18600  2 
snd_timer              29991  2 snd_pcm,snd_seq
snd_seq_device         14540  3 snd_seq_midi,snd_rawmidi,snd_seq
brcmsmac              631693  0 
bluetooth             166112  23 bnep,rfcomm,btusb
snd                    68266  14 snd_hda_codec_hdmi,snd_hda_codec_cirrus,snd_hda_intel,snd_hda_codec,snd_hwdep,snd_pcm,snd_rawmidi,snd_seq,snd_timer,snd_seq_device
brcmutil               17837  1 brcmsmac
mac80211              310872  1 brcmsmac
soundcore              12680  1 snd
snd_page_alloc         18529  2 snd_hda_intel,snd_pcm
cfg80211              199587  2 brcmsmac,mac80211
binfmt_misc            17540  1 
crc_ccitt              12667  1 brcmsmac
apple_bl               13225  0 
i915                  556365  3 
mei                    41480  0 
drm_kms_helper         42558  1 i915
drm                   236330  4 i915,drm_kms_helper
i2c_algo_bit           13423  1 i915
video                  19412  1 i915
lp                     17799  0 
parport                46562  3 parport_pc,ppdev,lp
hid_apple              13281  0 
usb_storage            57901  0 
uas                    18027  0 
usbhid                 47198  0 
hid                    95463  2 hid_apple,usbhid