First Cup of Ubuntu
I have successfully installed Natty on my MacBook Air. However, are there any ways to adjust the birghtness of the monitor? Also, I followed the instruction to install the bcm5974 but multitouch still doesn't work.
Also, I don't find /etc/X11/xorg.conf file. Should I make one?
Last edited by qweefb; August 4th, 2011 at 05:44 AM.
Spilled the Beans
FYI, I booted my MBA 2011 with Ubuntu installed while having my new mini display port to HDMI-cable attached to my external widescreen monitor. I did not use "nomodeset" while booting.
No image on laptop screen but 1920x1080 resolution external monitor, using Intel drivers.
Not much help when you want to go mobile but at least it seems the intel driver is working fine, just not together with the laptop screen (yet).
Btw, has anyone managed to get bluetooth working?
Way Too Much Ubuntu
@preacher37 Thanks for the info; I cross-posted your comment to the bug report.
I haven't tried bluetooth so I can't help. Have you gotten your fn key to work? (I miss pageup/down.)
5 Cups of Ubuntu
You need to logout, drop to a console, stop gdm, and then run the command:Originally Posted by qweefb
Code:Xorg -configure
Way Too Much Ubuntu
UPDATE (9/15):
Scripts to get Ubuntu Oneiric 11.10 running nicely on MBA 13" (11" coming soon!):
- setup_mac_usb_boot.sh script to show you how to make a mac bootable usb drive
- post-install-oneiric.sh script to get oneiric configured for the MBA 11" and 13"
Code post-install-oneiric.sh will automatically download:
- fix-i915.sh script to apply a hack to make video work
- keyboard-backlight script to control the keyboard backlight
- dotXmodmap settings to make the mouse "reverse scroll" and swap alt/super to be more like a PC
- btusb.patch update bluetooth driver for MBA4
- bcm5974.patch update trackpad driver for MBA4
- hid-apple.patch update keyboard driver for MBA4
Additional code that is not used but could be useful to some people:
- pommed.patch update pommed program for MBA4
UPDATE (9/12): A lot of this is out-dated (esp. if you're installing Oneiric) since it was too hard to describe the difference between the "new way" and the "old way." Basically all you need to do is run either,
post-install-natty.sh,
or
post-install-oneiric.sh,
depending on which flavor of Ubuntu you are using. The Natty script should work for versions prior to Natty as well. In fact, the Oneiric script should ALSO work for any version (in theory) but has only ever been tested on Oneiric. The Oneiric version uses more recent drivers, but will need to be re-run after every kernel update. The Natty version uses older drivers but they automatically recompile themselves when you get a new kernel. However, since the fix-i915.sh script relies on the same methods of the Oneiric script, you will likely have to manually re-run the script after each kernel update. (More details here.)
Bottomline: The Oneiric script is preferable (despite extra maintenance), but no one has told me if it works for versions other than Oneiric.
----
Here are all of the tweaks I've made so far. I will keep updating this post so there is a central source of information.(*) Just to recap, I edited both the trackpad driver and the keyboard driver as well as various conf files. The driver patches may or may not make it into oneiric (the patches were submitted however). At this point everything works for me except the video driver and suspend (I have not tested the microphone).
Update Aug 7: Thanks to koadman, the btusb dkms now works (although I personally have not tested it). Post-install.sh has been updated.
My post-install.sh script installs all the tweaks that I'm currently using. It isn't really tested so someone should go through and run each line manually and alert me if there are bugs (or if it works).
The script optionally relies on these four files:
bcm5974-dkms.patch
hid-apple-dkms.patch
dotXmodmap
xorg.conf
If it doesn't find these files in the current working directory then it continues gracefully. That is, if you don't want to build the debs yourself using my patches, you can just NOT download the patch files and pre-built debs will be downloaded. (Regarding the config files, if you don't want 'em installed, don't download 'em).
(Note: I know the Xmodmap has obvious bugs in it--I would love if someone figured out the right key codes/maps for me!)
For reference, the pre-built debs are here:
hid-apple-dkms_1.0.3_all.deb - MBA4,2 Keyboard Support
bcm5974-dkms_1.2.0_all.deb - MBA4,2 Trackpad Support
And you can see all files from this directory:
http://www.almostsure.com/mba42/
Also, for reference, here is my setup_mac_usb_boot.sh script to make a mac bootable flash drive. (Note that jonny has an additional comment regarding lucid which I have not incorporated into this script. Also note that f00fc7c8 points out that future Ubuntu releases will be much easier to make bootable USB images.)
(*) - It would be really great if someone transferred all of this information into the MacBookAir4-2 wiki. I'm pretty much tapped out here. The MacBookPro8-1Natty looks nice and should be our template (the other MBA ones seem not so polished). Also just to motivate you: the more people that use linux on MBA, the more support YOU have!
Last edited by dfacto; September 16th, 2011 at 04:51 PM.
5 Cups of Ubuntu
Just for kicks, what if you have the display port -> HDMI connected to the laptop, but no monitor? Does the laptop screen work?
Spilled the Beans
Good suggestion, I will check this as soon as I can. Am at work now and a bit busy tonight though, but will try to squeeze it in.
@dfacto: Great work at cataloging all the tweaks and general troubleshooting! Have not gotten as far as fn-keys yet I'm afraid, just been playing around with the install in my limited free time.
Way Too Much Ubuntu
No problemo.
Last edited by dfacto; August 5th, 2011 at 02:58 PM.
Spilled the Beans
Unfortunately no change, that is: without nomodeset just a black screen, with nomodeset fbdev and 1024x768 resolution.
First Cup of Ubuntu
Hi all, I just received a (shiny, new) 13" macbook air and have been following the discussion here to get ubuntu running. Many thanks to all of you!
Things are not yet running as well as they should based on dfacto's suggestions, and I have some questions about that. But first, I'd like to contribute something. I looked into the bluetooth issue and it seems to have been as easy as adding the correct vendor hardware codes to btusb.c. I've made an updated .deb with the driver and posted it here:
http://edhar.genomecenter.ucdavis.edu/~koadman/btusb-dkms_1.0-maverick-mactel4_all.deb
install with sudo dpkg -i
and then reboot and your bluetooth should be working.
Also of note for folks planning to use dfacto's script to build their kernel modules, you may need to install `sudo apt-get install debhelper` before the script will work (at least the current version as of August 6th requires this).
Now for my questions... I followed dfacto's instructions and used his scripts with a few changes required to fit my system. Unfortunately I am not able to use an external display with or without nomodeset, the kernel will not boot and instead complains about something being corrupt immediately after grub (sorry don't have the exact error message handy right now). Anyone else experiencing this?
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