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This page describes how to install Debian on a MacBook Pro.

Most points are the same like the MacBook so we point out the differences only.

Status Updates

Other Resources

Install Debian

See the MacBook Install Debian section.

If the kernel panics when you press return at the ISOLINUX prompt, enter "install noapic" at the ISOLINUX prompt (the kernel may panic while enabling the IO-APIC IRQs, bug 381719).

For MacBook Pro 13 (7,1)

(Obsolete with squeeze) Current installer can not install. But you can use Iwamatsu's D-I.

For MacBook Pro 13 (8,1)

First of all, it is important that you read carefully the [[MacBook#Install_Debian|MacBook Install Debian] section, so that you can prepare your Macbook pro, and understand the terms needed for proceeding with the installation.

Note that the current Debian installer can not install, because it is not able to load the components from the cdrom (I was able to install Debian in Dualboot scheme). However, it is possible to proceed using a usb driver in which you'll dump all the archives of the same iso image used for burning the cdrom for making the installation and "cheating" the debian installer by mounting the usb in /cdrom as follows:

  1. Prepare the USB driver. For this, you'll need the same ISO (I used a netinstaller of debian testing) that you used for burning the cdrom and execute:

    dd if=debian.iso of=/dev/disk1
    Where /dev/disk1 correspond to your USB. Note that you can do this even in Mac OS X or other linux machine.
  2. Proceed with the installation following the MacBook Install Debian section. It is important to boot with the USB attached to your macbook pro (if you don't do it like this, it may fail then). But for installing, you are going to use the cdrom not the USB.

  3. When the installer tries to load the components of the cdrom, it will fail. Now, open a TTY by executing Ctrl + Alt + F2, and mount the USB stick in /cdrom as follows:

    mount /dev/sdX /cdrom
    Where sdX should correspond to your device. Sometimes it can fail to mount the USB drive, so try to unplug the USB and plug it again, and it should work.
  4. Go back to the installer by pressing Ctrl + Alt + F1 and keep doing the installation process up to GRUB or LILO. If you install either GRUB or LILO without syncing, Linux won't boot.
  5. At this step, you are going to open again a TTY and install refit and gptsync (I downloaded the 2 required debian packages in another USB),

    Note: I didn't try by doing modprobe tg3 and use the internet connection (actually I didn't have idea about the module used until now ;)), but it should be worthy to try it (Instead of using other USB drive).

  6. Mount that USB in /mnt:

    mount /dev/sdX /mnt

    Copy the deb archives of refit /target/tmp:

    cp /mnt/path/*.deb /target/tmp
  7. Chroot in /target and proceed to install refit and gptsync, and sync the MBR and GPT:

    chroot /target
    dpkg -i /tmp/*.deb
    refit
  8. Once you have synced, get back to the installer (Ctrl + Alt + F1) and proceed to install GRUB (I did, it and it worked), select as partition /dev/sdX3.

Done, enjoy Debian in your MacBook Pro 8.1.

Note: If you have a doubt or find an error do not hesitate to change this Wiki section or mail me: muammar at debian dot org.

Kernel

linux-2.6 2.6.22 should work out of the box.

linux-2.6 2.6.18-3 supports MacBook Pros out of the box, but you'll need to ensure that the appletouch module is loaded before the usbhid module. You can do so by creating a file /etc/modprobe.d/local.conf that contains the following line:

install usbhid /sbin/modprobe appletouch && /sbin/modprobe --ignore-install usbhid $CMDLINE_OPTS

For some reason, this doesn't always work.

The MacBook instructions suggest that you use the kernel parameters "noapic irqpoll acpi=force". I found that on a March 2008 MacBook Pro, the irqpoll option caused the CDROM drive (HL-DT-ST DVDRW GSA-S10N, ATAPI CD/DVD-ROM drive) to give errors along the lines of

Mar 13 19:52:24 rotten kernel: hda: status error: status=0x58 { DriveReady SeekComplete DataRequest }
Mar 13 19:52:24 rotten kernel: hda: drive not ready for command

Using "noapic acpi=force" instead solved the problem.

Using stock kernel and patch from svn

You can build your own kernel using the stock Linux kernel and the patches found in the mactel-linux SVN. Here is the steps to follow:

X Window System

See the MacBook page for other details.

The first MBP versions have an ATI card built in (MBP 2,2: ATI Technologies Inc M56P [Radeon Mobility X1600]). Later versions (MBP 3,1 and up) have an Nvidia card.

The installation of x.org should work out of the box with the lenny (and later) version of x.org (nv or radeonhd drivers).

ATI graphics

Lenny contains the free radeonhd driver (package name xserver-xorg-video-radeonhd) which supports the ATI card and 3D. Squeeze defaults to the free radeon driver (xserver-xorg-video-radeon); you need to install the package firmware-linux-nonfree to use 3D acceleration.

If you wish to use the binary vendor driver on ATI cards, install the non-free fglrx-driver package and, in the Device section of /etc/X11/xorg.conf, change the driver from "ati" to "fglrx". Afterwards, to enable 3D you need to build the kernel fglrx module:

apt-get install fglrx-control fglrx-kernel-src module-assistant
m-a a-i fglrx

PowerPlay does not work with the fglrx driver as of v8.42. A patched radeontool is available at http://www.g2inf.one.pl/~anszom/MBP-ATI/.

NVidia graphics

With MacBookPro5,5 under Debian Lenny (2.6.26), use the NVidia proprietary driver. Brightness adjustment can be obtained by using Ubuntu packages

echo "deb http://ppa.launchpad.net/mactel-support/ubuntu intrepid main" >> /etc/apt/sources
aptitude update
aptitude install bcm5974-dkms usbhid-dkms applesmc-dkms hid-dkms hal-applesmc
echo "nvidia_bl shift=2" >> /etc/modules

For MacBookPro7,1 download the driver from Nvidia (Geforce GT 320M) and install it manually. (Obsolete with squeeze)

Wireless

See the MacBook/Wireless page.

Atheros

With the lenny/madwifi-source version in lenny (1:0.9.4+r3772.20080716-1), the AR5418 802.11abgn Wireless PCI Express Adapter works. See WiFi/ath_pci.

Because MadWifi is not free, you could also give a try to ath5k (which decently works with recent kernel).

Broadcom

For the March 2008 MacBook Pro, which has a Broadcom 4328 (rev 5) chipset and PCI id 14e4:4328, ndiswrapper and the Windows driver included in boot camp work. Note that the drivers supplied with boot camp (and also found on the CDs shipped in the box) are included in an installer executable, and can be extracted into individual files from Linux using an un-RAR tool supporting SFX archives (such as the unrar tool from WinRAR).

For MacBookPro5,5, see the Debian procedure.

For MacBookPro7,1 use the Kernel 2.6.35-rc3 and apply the Broadcom patch from Ubuntu (5.60.48.36+bdcom-0ubuntu5 from https://launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/bcmwl). (Obsolete with squeeze)

Bluetooth

(Obsolete with squeeze) For MacBookPro7,1 apply the following patch to Kernel 2.6.35-rc3:

diff --git a/drivers/bluetooth/btusb.c b/drivers/bluetooth/btusb.c
index 5d9cc53..6871d24 100644
--- a/drivers/bluetooth/btusb.c
+++ b/drivers/bluetooth/btusb.c
@@ -65,6 +65,9 @@ static struct usb_device_id btusb_table[] = {
        /* Bluetooth Ultraport Module from IBM */
        { USB_DEVICE(0x04bf, 0x030a) },
 
+       /* Apple MacBook Pro 7,1 */
+       { USB_DEVICE(0x05ac, 0x8213) },
+
        /* ALPS Modules with non-standard id */
        { USB_DEVICE(0x044e, 0x3001) },
        { USB_DEVICE(0x044e, 0x3002) },

Then modprobe btusb.

Sound

See the MacBook Sound section.

MacBookPro2

With a Core 2 Duo MacBook Pro and kernel 2.6.18-3-amd64 sound only works with the headphone but no speaker output.

With a Core2 Duo MacBook Pro (built fall 06) running (unpatched) 2.6.18-3-686, sound output can be changed as follows in alsamixer:

MacBookPro3

With MBPv3 (mid 2007), sound works out-of-the-box starting with kernel 2.6.24.

MacBookPro5,5

With MacBook Pro 5.5 (mid 2009) with kernel 2.6.26, the following little hack helps to enable sound under Lenny.

rm -rf /lib/modules/`uname -r`/kernel/sound
aptitude reinstall linux-image-2.6.26-2-686 linux-headers-2.6.26-2-686

Reboot

wget ftp://ftp.kernel.org/pub/linux/kernel/people/tiwai/snapshot/alsa-driver-unstable-snapshot.tar.gz
tar xf alsa-driver-unstable-snapshot.tar.gz
cd alsa-driver-unstable
sudo ./configure --enable-dynamic-minors  --without-oss --with-cards="hda-intel"
sudo make
sudo make install

Under Squeeze, with kernel 2.6.32, simply add the following line to /etc/modprobe.d/alsa-base.conf

options snd-hda-intel model=mbp55

MacBookPro7,1

(Obsolete with squeeze) For MacBookPro7,1 with the kernel 2.6.35-rc3 and above, append the following line to /etc/modprobe.d/alsa-base

options snd-hda-intel model=mbp55

The front speaker can be unmuted with the gnome-alsamixer or with the alsamixer from console.

Touchpad

To get two finger vertical scrolling, disabled tap to click, good mouse acceleration, and speed. Use the following in /etc/X11/xorg.conf

Section "InputDevice"
    Identifier      "Synaptics Touchpad"
    Driver          "synaptics"
    Option          "SendCoreEvents"        "true"
    Option          "Device"                "/dev/input/mice"
    Option          "Protocol"              "auto-dev"
    Option          "SHMConfig"             "true"
    Option          "New AccelFactor"       "0.03"
    Option          "LeftEdge"              "100"
    Option          "RightEdge"             "1120"
    Option          "TopEdge"               "50"
    Option          "BottomEdge"            "310"
    Option          "MinSpeed"              "0.94"
    Option          "MaxSpeed"              "1"
    Option          "AccelFactor"           "0.0015"
#tapping
    Option          "FingerHigh"            "30"
    Option          "FingerLow"             "20"
    Option          "MaxTapTime"            "150"
    Option          "FastTaps"              "0"
    Option          "TapButton1"            "0"
    Option          "TapButton2"            "0"
    Option          "TapButton3"            "0"
#edge scroll
    Option          "VertEdgeScroll"        "0"
    Option          "HorizEdgeScroll"       "0"
    Option          "VertScrollDelta"       "5"
    Option          "HorizScrollDelta"      "0"
#two finger scroll
    Option          "VertTwoFingerScroll"   "1"
    Option          "HorizTwoFingerScroll"  "1"
EndSection

Hibernate

To be able to easily suspend to disk, or suspend to ram you can use the hibernate package. Note: Tested on MBP 2006

apt-get install hibernate

To use it use the command

hibernate

For MacBookPro7,1 suspend to RAM works with s2ram from package uswsusp with the command

s2ram -f -p -m

For squeeze see the section 'Debian 6 (squeeze) on MacBookPro7,1' below.

In combination with the acpi script lid.sh (I simply hacked that line into the script as last statement within the closing condition) it does exactly what you would expect on MacOS - the MBP suspends when closing the lid and awakens when it is opened. While sleeping, the LED is blinking.

AppleIR

With MacBookPro5,5 (Debian Squeeze), this HowTo was successful.

Create config file /etc/lirc/lirc.conf with

irrecord -H macmini -d /dev/usb/hiddev0 lirc.conf

Set the driver in /etc/lirc/hardware.conf

DRIVER="macmini"

Associate buttons with software/functions in .lircrc (make sure to use the same button names as in lirc.conf). See examples here

Make sure that daemons are launched at session start-up (Gnome > System/Preferencies/Session):

irexec -d
irxevent

iPhone or iPod Touch

This Howto is reported to works. Under Squeeze, after iOS 4.3 update, you perhaps will need to update to following package from wheezy (testing) repositories :

apt-get install libimobiledevice1

In that case, you even need not to create SysInfoExtended yourself : simply install gvfs-fuse & ifuse; add yourself to the fuse group, reboot, plug your iPhone and launch Rhythmbox. That's it.

Debian 6 (squeeze) on MacBookPro7,1

Here is just the configuration for the hardware, that does not work out of the box. (sound and graphics work fine)

Installation

You can use the Kernel 2.6.32-5-amd64. Installation from CD works out of the box.

Wireless

Follow the procedure.

Bluetooth

Just modprobe btusb.

Synaptics

The Touchpad can be configured by some settings in xorg.conf. But when I installed Debian with XFCE, the were no xorg.conf. I simply created a new xorg.conf with the following content. With this configuration, the touchpad has a similar behaviour of MacOS (multi finger scroll, tapping, right-click with two fingers, mouse middle click with three fingers).

Section "ServerLayout"
    Identifier     "Layout0"
    InputDevice    "Mouse0" "CorePointer"
EndSection

Section "InputDevice"
    Identifier     "Mouse0"
    Driver         "synaptics"
    Option         "SendCoreEvents" "true"
    Option         "Device" "/dev/input/mice"
    Option         "Protocol" "auto-dev"
    Option         "SHMConfig" "true"
    Option         "New AccelFactor" "0.03"
    Option         "LeftEdge" "100"
    Option         "RightEdge" "1100"
    Option         "TopEdge" "50"
    Option         "BottomEdge" "700"
    Option         "MinSpeed" "0.94"
    Option         "MaxSpeed" "1"
    Option         "AccelFactor" "0.0015"
#tapping
    Option         "FingerHigh" "30"
    Option         "FingerLow" "25"
    Option         "MaxTapTime" "180"
    Option         "FastTaps" "0"
    Option         "TapButton1" "1"
    Option         "TapButton2" "3"
    Option         "TapButton3" "2"
#edge scroll
    Option         "VertEdgeScroll" "0"
    Option         "HorizEdgeScroll" "0"
    Option         "VertScrollDelta" "10"
    Option         "HorizScrollDelta" "10"
#two finger scroll
    Option         "VertTwoFingerScroll" "true"
    Option         "HorizTwoFingerScroll" "true"
EndSection

Hibernate

Hibernate has also suspend to ram with the command 'hibernate-ram'. So if you want to suspend to ram when the lid is closed, you can install hibernate and acpi-support (apt-get hibernate acpi-support) and create a file named '/etc/acpi/local/lid.sh.pre' with the following content:

grep -q closed /proc/acpi/button/lid/*/state
if [ $? = 0 ]
then
  hibernate-ram -k -f
fi

If you know a better solution, please post it here!

Appendix: Santa Rosa/LED MBP

Mostly everything is the same with a few changes. The testing distro has enough working drivers to get you started. The stable distro, however does not have a new enough version of the ethernet drivers to work. The other caveat here is that 'apt-get install grub' seems to give you grub2 which didn't seem to work for me. If you're using rEFIt to boot to a boot loader then you should turn use Lilo or grub 1.

See also: https://cbg.dyndns.org/wiki/ReadingCorner/LinuxOnMacbookPro

Ethernet

Requires a new version of sky2 available on the testing CD, but I am unsure as to what the minimum kernel version is. However, it works out of the box with kernel 2.6.22.

Video

Since v100.14.19, the binary nvidia driver works nicely on x86 and x64, no patches needed. The OSS driver 'nv' works too, but has very limited HW support.

Touchpad

The touchpad works fine with the synaptics driver, though maybe not as smooth as with OSX. Use GrabEventDevice if you want misc usb mice and synaptics touchpad special functions to work simultaneously. Patches from http://www.mactel-linux.org are optional.

Suspend2RAM

For MBPv3: For some reason, suspend2ram does not work with the free nv driver from xorg (bug 453782).

Works with binary nvidia drivers. VT/X-switching is needed with old nvidia drivers. Note that usb is necessary for keyboard/mice to work. These drivers should not be reloaded, otherwise the synaptics driver will lose its grab(GrabEventDevice, synaptics(5)) on the device. I also unload v4l, sky2 and madwifi before s2ram.

I used acpid to disable networking and echo mem > /sys/power/state on PWBTN.

Tested in debian/unstable, with vanilla linux 2.6.22/23. Alsa, uvcvideo and madwifi drivers taken from their corresponding repositories, i.e. working with various revisions of recent development drivers.

AppleIR

Patch your kernel with https://cbg.dyndns.org/store/apple-remote-quirk-hiddev.patch. Enable CONFIG_USB_HID and CONFIG_USB_HIDDEV. When loading usbhid, a device /dev/usb/hiddev0 should be created. Use lirc to configure your remote. Reported to work with other remotes, too.

For a step by step guide, including elisa setup see http://www.e-hoffman.org/wiki/pmwiki.php?n=Main.AppleMacBookProV3

Plan

Here's what needs to be done: