Macbook Pro 8,1 + Maverick

[yellow]

Has anyone had any luck with an external DVI, HDMI, or DisplayPort monitor connected to the i915 GPU? I was able to boot via EFI and get both console and X11 working with the Intel integrated graphics. It is also able to detect my external monitor and xrandr shows the right modes. Though Xorg acts as though the external monitor is working normally, it never seems to get a signal. I wonder if it's possible that the mux connects the DDC lines to the external port, but not all the necessary signal lines.

Since I use the MBP as a portable desktop, external monitor support is essential. I'd really like to be able to boot via EFI to reduce power use and startup time, but with recent improvements when booting via PC BIOS, I have less of a motivation. In particular, the optical drive started working with a recent Linux release and I found a pretty easy to way to cause the internal SATA host adapter to be used via AHCI, rendering a theoretical performance boost. Wifi also started working with Linux 3.2, though that probably behaves the same in both EFI and BIOS modes.

I've tried the same thing, but I'm afraid it might be a hard-wiring problem.
Even when you run MacOS, connecting an external monitor will switch you to (only) using the ATI GPU...
Looks like it simply cannot be done, although I'd love to hear that is a wrong assumption!

I'm also interested to know what your recent power usage improvements are when booting via BIOS: my experience is its draining the battery almost 2x as fast then (5 hours vs 2.5 hours of usage).
Under BIOS boot AFAIK you only 'get' to use/see the ATI GPU, which is the main culprit.

What I tried some months ago, but didn't succeed *yet* with, is trying to enable both the i915 and the ATI GPU from EFI boot.
That seems possible, and I've read others reporting some success with it.
If so, it then could be possible to use vgaswitcheroo to switch between these at runtime (requiring an X restart in between) and use the ATI GPU when connecting to an external monitor.
At one time I did manage to get some output on my external monitor that way, but it was horribly garbled and messed up.
But if someone can provide a working configuration + needed patches, I'd love to get that working.

What to me would seem a 'perfect' setup, is allow using the i915 for the internal display and the ATI GPU (only) for the external monitor, at the *same* time.
But if that is even remotely possible I have no idea (I'm not an X guru at all).
I got this idea when I stumbled on the ironhide project which kind of can do the same for nvidia based systems.

It might be a completely wild and and even undesirable idea, but having to restart X just to be able to attach an external monitor still isn't so great either.
Maybe someone who does know how this stuff really works can comment on this or else call me completely stupid?

[Anon7-2521]

Has anyone figured out the DVD drive problem? It would be nice if I could use the DVD drive to play games and/or watch videos in Linux.

[sugaraddict]

Please help me !

I have a MacBookPro8,1 with Lion (Mac OS 10.7.2) and Bootcamp running windows (Win 7)

I am trying to Install Ubuntu but always experience the same damn error. I am an engineering student and really need Ubuntu on my laptop, beside MacOSX and Windows.

After installing win 7 on the bootcamp partition, i reboot back into mac os x and using DiskUtility, i shrink the mac partition so i can put in a common partition (MS-DOS format) which will have no operating system and be used to share files between mac and windows partition freely.

Then i create 2 partitions: Ubuntu (80gb) and swap (2gb)

I put my CD in and restart, booting from cd (HOLD DOWN "C")
I select "try ubuntu" and in the installer, i select the third option, custom.

IN the custom partition part of the installation, i format the 2gb partition as LINUX-SWAP and then format the 80GB partition as EXT4 (Ive also tried EXT3) with mount point as "/".
I Select the 80GB partition as the grub partition, not "/".

The Installer installs and then half way through i get an error message about the drive or disc possibly being faulty.

I have tried:

• Ubuntu 11.10 Desktop - AMD x64 (Tried 6 times)
• Ubuntu 11.04 Desktop - i386 (Tried 2 times)

Im getting desperate here. Also ive been burning the .iso's at x1 speed with IMGBURN.
I have so many CDs and DVDs of Ubuntu burned but still no Ubuntu on my mac.

PLEASE HELP ME. IM DESPERATE..

[andybotting]

The Installer installs and then half way through i get an error message about the drive or disc possibly being faulty.

It might be helpful to firstly post the exact message the installer gives you.

Another thing you could do is to switch to one of the virtual terminals (ctrl+alt+F2/F3/F4 maybe?) where the installer information messages appear. It might give you a better idea of what is really going on.

If it's really something to do with the disc, you could try doing a net-install and pull all your packages down at install time. At least it would totally eliminate any supposed media errors.

[sugaraddict]

It might be helpful to firstly post the exact message the installer gives you.

Another thing you could do is to switch to one of the virtual terminals (ctrl+alt+F2/F3/F4 maybe?) where the installer information messages appear. It might give you a better idea of what is really going on.

If it's really something to do with the disc, you could try doing a net-install and pull all your packages down at install time. At least it would totally eliminate any supposed media errors.

Its a REALLY common message so i assumed someone else has encountered it before. It basically says "The disc or disc drive may be damaged" but 'its not really sure, thats just a guess' but my drive is perfectly fine and with 8 seperate burned cds using different software and high quality discs. Its not the media. Maybe how ive partitioned the drive? or formatted it?

[dentifrice]

Looks like they don't generate a real keycode. I do get a "KeymapNotify" event instead.

Hmm. When pressing F2, xev outputs this:

KeyRelease event, serial 41, synthetic NO, window 0x2a00001,
    root 0xb4, subw 0x0, time 29267064, (137,61), root:(888,831),
    state 0x0, keycode 233 (keysym 0x1008ff02, XF86MonBrightnessUp), same_screen YES,
    XLookupString gives 0 bytes: 
    XFilterEvent returns: False

All special keys but F3 & F3 are mapped to the appropriate XF86 code, which means I am likely to be able to have a program executed through configuring my window manager accordingly.

It would have been lovely to just be able to run pommed though and let it take care of everything as it should.

Do you guys get to see this in your logs? I have a bunch of them:

applesmc: ALV0: read data fail

[dentifrice]

Its not the media. Maybe how ive partitioned the drive? or formatted it?

Maybe. Since you're running Lion, I assume you just bought your MBP81. Can you confirm it's a late 2011 model? It may be possible that these models cannot boot in BIOS mode.

In any case, I suggest you try the installer in EFI mode and see what happens, since the CD drive is known to not be detected in BIOS mode (it may have been fixed, I dunno).

[dentifrice]

I've tried the same thing, but I'm afraid it might be a hard-wiring problem.
Even when you run MacOS, connecting an external monitor will switch you to (only) using the ATI GPU...
Looks like it simply cannot be done, although I'd love to hear that is a wrong assumption!

That sounds bad. Knowing that, getting vga_switcheroo to work in EFI mode would be very good. Has anyone successfully tried the patch?

[dentifrice]

Same here. I hope someone with some kernel driver insight can figure out how to fix this, 'cause I wouldn't like to have to live with linux 3.1.1 for the rest of my MBP82 days.

Does anyone know why the patch has never been included upstream? It's been submitted twice AFAIK, last time being April...

Any success on compiling i915 with the LVDS patch for current -rc kernels, anyone?

[Baughn]

Any success on compiling i915 with the LVDS patch for current -rc kernels, anyone?

No, it's just broken. This makes me sad.

I mean, the kernel compiles cleanly and all, but I mysteriously get a black screen.