[arch-general] Anyone willing to share experiences running Arch on a current-gen MacBook Pro?

[Scott Lawrence]

Hi Ankur,

2009 (I think) MacbookPro here - a bit older than you wanted, but hey.

On Tue, 20 Mar 2012, Ankur Sethi wrote:

> Hi,
>
> I'm in the market for a high-end development + gaming machine (dual boot).
> I've been a Mac user for the last 4 years and I'm used to their hardware, so
> I'm naturally considering a MacBook Pro as one of my options. My old white
> MacBook from 2008 runs Arch very well, but can the newer unibody MacBook Pros
> run it? More specifically, I'm looking at the 2.4GHz model (MD322LL/A) on this
> page:
>
>    http://www.apple.com/in/macbookpro/specs.html
>
> Here are some things I'm particulary worried about:
>
>  1. Does suspend/resume work?

I haven't gotten it to, but then, I haven't put much effort in. I'm given to 
understand it's possible, especially since it worked back in my ubuntu days.

>  2. Does WiFi work? Does it work even after you suspend/resume?

WiFi works, with the broadcom driver from AUR (broadcom-wl or 
dkms-broadcom-wl). No comments on suspend/resume.

>  3. Can I boot the Arch installer from USB? This is a big one, since the
>     optical drives in MacBooks _always_ fail after a few months of use.

I believe so. (Well, it worked with FreeBSD...) My optical drive hasn't failed 
yet, though :)

>  4. Does multi-touch work? If not, is the trackpad at least usable without
>     multi-touch support?

Yes. syntaptics is better than mtrack, IMO, but you may want to try both.

>  5. Does that AMD card play well with Linux? If not, is there a way to tell the
>     machine to ignore the discrete GPU and always use Intel HD Graphics?

Unknown - I have nvidia video, and it works really well with nouveau.

>  6. Does the keyboard backlight work? What about the ambient light sensors?
>     Audio? Webcam?

keyboard backlight works. No idea about ambient light sensors - I don't /want/ 
them to work. Audio and webcam both functional.

>
> I know there are many guides for installing Arch on a Mac, and I've read a lot
> of them, but none of them go on to mention how pleasant (or unpleasant!) their
> long-term experience with Linux on Mac has been. Is it worth all the trouble?

Yes.

> Is it usable for doing actual work?

Yup. Just don't do kernel upgrades late sunday night when only wireless is 
available to you (see comment below).

> Do things randomly stop working if you
> upgrade your firmware?

No.

Kernel upgrades sometimes cause problems with wireless, and you have to wait 
for a patch to make it to AUR.

> Do the Apple Store employees try to wipe your Linux
> partition when you take your machine in for repairs?

No personal experience - I've heard no, that the apple store employees are 
very cooperative with linux folk.

-- 
Scott Lawrence

Linux jagadai 3.2.9-1-ARCH #1 SMP PREEMPT Thu Mar 1 09:31:13 CET 2012 x86_64 Intel(R) Core(TM)2 Duo CPU P8700 @ 2.53GHz GenuineIntel GNU/Linux