Ubuntu on new (unibody) Macbook Pro?

[cyberdork33]

WLAN works out of the box on the MBP...

Things that are working:

4) Wireless

This is interesting to note because there are a few people posting that cannot get it to work for some reason or another. Do you know what driver you are using?

[jimmij01]

Product Name: MacBookPro5,1
Family: MacBook Pro
Product Name: Mac-F42D86C8
Version: Mac-F42D86C8

04:00.0 Network controller: Broadcom Corporation BCM4322 802.11a/b/g/n Wireless LAN Controller (rev 01)

filename: /lib/modules/2.6.27-7-generic/volatile/wl.ko
alias: pci:v000014E4d0000432Dsv*sd*bc*sc*i*
alias: pci:v000014E4d0000432Csv*sd*bc*sc*i*
alias: pci:v000014E4d0000432Bsv*sd*bc*sc*i*
alias: pci:v000014E4d0000432Asv*sd*bc*sc*i*
alias: pci:v000014E4d00004329sv*sd*bc*sc*i*
alias: pci:v000014E4d00004328sv*sd*bc*sc*i*
alias: pci:v000014E4d00004315sv*sd*bc*sc*i*
alias: pci:v000014E4d00004313sv*sd*bc*sc*i*
alias: pci:v000014E4d00004312sv*sd*bc*sc*i*
alias: pci:v000014E4d00004311sv*sd*bc*sc*i*
depends: ieee80211_crypt
vermagic: 2.6.27-7-generic SMP mod_unload modversions
license: MIXED/Proprietary
parm: oneonly:int
parm: piomode:int
parm: nompc:int
parm: name:string

[jimmij01]

Something new I just came across. When rebooting, the machine does not go all the way down and reboot. It shutdown, but never powers off. I have to manually hold the power button to turn the machine off and then manually power it on to reboot.

On the flip side, Suspend and Hibernate are both working perfectly for me.

[kosumi68]

I also have one of the new Macbook Pros. I am running the latest 8.10 packages. I have also added the packages from the mactel ppa. The only things that don't work are:

1) LCD Screen brightness
2) Sound only works with headphones

Things that are working:

1) Media Keys
2) Keyboard brightness key
3) Sensors(playing neverball)
4) Wireless

On a side note, battery life seems terrible. I'm not sure if this is directly related to the screen brightness or not. I am migrating from a Macbook 4,1 where the battery life was much better.

Please let me know what I can provide to get this thing supported.

I presume you got the trackpad to work as well.

1) LCD brightness: unknown territory here, but the most likely culprit would be no current support in XRandR. If you cannot get xbacklight to work, it is even more likely, since it is using the same method.

2) You tested the standard solution, adding the 'options snd_hda_intel model=mbp3' in /etc/modprobe.d/alsa-base?

Battery is interesting. The program 'powertop' is excellent to check what drains your power, if you havent tried it. Running the processor on power save, reducing screen brightness, using laptop-mode, all those help. Even though a different machine, maybe this page helps: https://help.ubuntu.com/community/Ma...1 and Intrepid

[jimmij01]

xbacklight just says "No outputs have backlight property"

jimmij@laptop:~/Desktop$ grep -i mbp3 /etc/modprobe.d/*
/etc/modprobe.d/alsa-baseptions snd_hda_intel model=mbp3

I've played with powertop a bit. I'll spend some more time with it.

[Psy-Q]

jimmij01, good point, our test model also never shuts down without forcing it to do so.

About the bad battery life: Let's find out if frequency scaling (powernowd, cpufreq or one of those) works on the MBP. Is yours getting very hot when running GNU/Linux as well? I suppose frequency scaling isn't working, and I also believe that the graphics card is running full steam all the time. That would explain the bad battery life etc.

I'm quite sure the nv driver doesn't support PowerMizer or any other frequency scaling/power saving. Have you tried the proprietary Nvidia driver? That plus nvidia-settings should be able to tell you if PowerMizer works and how fast the GPU core is running.

[Nikos.Alexandris]

Hi all!

Not sure if I should follow this thread or the other one entitled "New Macbook Ubuntu Ready???" [1]

So, I am a new tester with a MBP 5.1 for 3-4 days. It depends on what finally works and what not and if there are any dangerous issues (like the one with the temperature).

I don't know from where exactly to start since I read some rEFIt and some BootCamp only solutions.

I am not interested in working with OSX. But I understand that it's good to have it for firmware updates.

Any "first things to do" hints are welcome.

Cheers, Nikos

[1] http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=947947

[cyberdork33]

I don't know from where exactly to start since I read some rEFIt and some BootCamp only solutions.

I am not interested in working with OSX. But I understand that it's good to have it for firmware updates.

Any "first things to do" hints are welcome.

I would definitely keep OS X around for update especially on such new hardware. Another option is to install it on an external hard drive which you can boot to only to get updates.

Basically, If you want to dual boot, start with rEFIt, and partition with BootCamp. then boot the ubuntu live cd and start gparted. With gparted, delete the bootcamp partition and install Ubuntu to the "largest free space".

If you plan to eliminate OSX from the drive, just boot the LiveCD and tell it to use the entire disk.

[Nikos.Alexandris]

I would definitely keep OS X around for update especially on such new hardware. Another option is to install it on an external hard drive which you can boot to only to get updates.

Basically, If you want to dual boot, start with rEFIt, and partition with BootCamp. then boot the ubuntu live cd and start gparted. With gparted, delete the bootcamp partition and install Ubuntu to the "largest free space".

If you plan to eliminate OSX from the drive, just boot the LiveCD and tell it to use the entire disk.

cyberdork33, thank you a lot. I finally left OSX exist . I don't have currently any external device with more than 10GB (that's what it needs for minimum, right?).

Initially I couldn't resize the OSX partition (using diskutil from within OSX). I erased and re-installed (in a "case-sensitive" partition). I reduced the OSX partition to 23.something GB.

Now, I bootet with Ubuntu 64-bit. It seems that the description in https://help.ubuntu.com/community/MacBook%20Aluminum is a bit different from your recomendation(?). Or does it not make any big difference (that is: partition-ing with BootCamp everything or just have free space and partition-ing with gparted). I already followed the steps described in previous link -- so I have to go through this.

I will go ahead and try the XFS filesystem. Is it a bad idea?

Kind regards, Nikos

[Nikos.Alexandris]

So, if I get it right there is now way to have more than 4 partitions?

One is the OSX and another one the EFI. I would like to split Linux in "/", "/home" and "swap", that is another 3 partitions. Or should I just forget the idea... ?

Any help highly appreciated, Nikos