I am triple booting right now with linux/mac/windows. Mac OS X is actually my smallest partition. Any other linux users in here?
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Any other rMBP Linux users?
- Thread starter houkouonchi
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I've used fedora in the past but it required a fair amount of work to get it going, and I may throw it back on. I also used Ubuntu but I'm not liking the Unity UI (Yeah its linux and I can add gnome if I want). Regardless of the UI, Ubuntu required less work. I'm tempted to throw Linux back on to play with now that I have more space on my new MBP
+1. Interested in knowing how well xwindows runs as well as any specific tweaking needed to get hardware recognized. BTW,which distro?
I'm still hestitating between the rmbp and cmbp.
I am running quite an old version of sabayon (that has been updated over the years). It is basically gentoo with an overlay to portage so pretty much gentoo.
I didn't 'install' it per say as its not a clean install. Its the same install I have been using for many years. I just used a RIPLinux environment to create/format the partition, and rsync over my files from my desktop.
The gotchas so far are/were:
Nvidia drivers
Touchpad
The only way to get the nvidia drivers working is using grub 1.99 or newer (ones that support EFIboot). This is because the nvidia drivers will not work on linux when booted in BIOS mode using legacy grub 0.97 (what I originally was doing).
You also need:
Option "UseDPLib" "off"
In the xorg.conf. I have X working with full acceleration/performance/3d and have sucessfully used an external 2560x1440 resolution monitor via a DP -> dual link DVI adapter (monoprice one).
Wireless is pretty strait forward just needs the write kernel support on a newish kernel with the firmware such as what is outlined in:
http://www.ubuntubuzz.com/2011/10/macbook-pro-wireless-broadcom-bcm4331.html
On a newish kernel you only really need the firmware files (the newer kernel drivers support the wireless card without patches).
Wireless performance is not so hot though.
It looks like the gigabit ethernet driver will work with a patch to change the PCI ID but I have not personally did that yet but will be doing it soon. In the meantime i have been using a USB dongle for ethernet.
I am using my own compiled kernel (3.4.1) I am using these patches:
https://docs.google.com/open?id=0B_TqpycqH1iHQjdEWXdnZVBvOEk
Now i still could not get the touchpad driver to work right so I am stuck with a single click only for now which is the only real problem I have. I usually use an external mouse when I run linux anyway as it is when I am at work so it hasn't been a huge deal yet but I do plan to fix it.
Sound and pretty much everything else worked great.
Using efifb I get the full 2880x1800 resolution even in the text console during startup. It very pleased with the performance so far. If anyone is interested I could take a video.
I run X windows at 75 DPI because I like the desktop real-estate and things to be small so not sure how well the scaling looks for people who want things bigger.