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Linux on 2019 Macbook Pro w/ Touchbar

nickdalzell1

nickdalzell1

macrumors 68030
Original poster
Dec 8, 2019
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I have tried two distros so far, had rEFInd install properly, turned both Secure boot off and enabled booting from external disks. Turned SiP off.

Boot USB drive running Elementary OS (a mac-like distro) it booted properly, but nothing worked. I could see the install screen, but not interact with it. No keyboard/mouse/trackpad.

Same with regular Ubuntu. Is it not possible to install Linux (or windows if I wanted to) on this thing?
 
T2 Chip yes. It has the touchbar and the secure enclave. So I've settled for just running Linux in Parallels. If you try using Linux on a T2 Mac, you lose keyboard, touchbar, touchpad, wifi, sound support. You'd have to use a couple of USB hubs, type-C-to-type-A dongles, and an external keyboard, wifi card, mouse, and live with no sound otherwise.

Guess that means Bootcamp and Windows is also not possible. Not that I want windows. I'm a bit miffed though since the Apple-supplied free e-book for my Mac bragged about running any OS you want via Bootcamp.
 
I would love to run Linux on a surplus Air or Macbook, and have tried for years so that I would have a portable 'nix on high quality hardware.

Certainly I can get Debian installed, but it is always... unsatisfactory. I forget all the problems, but I can remember fans that won't turn off, trackpads that work "backwards" or not at all, wireless connections that are forgotten on power off, purple borders on some windows... etc. And there is always some needed function that just absolutely will not work. So, unless you wish to spend many thousands on a certified Linux laptop, then your choice is to run sort-of on Apple, or really well on low-end plastic junk.
 
I didn't even get that far. I got rEFInd installed fine, It booted the Linux Live USB stick fine, video working. but no keyboard, sound, mouse/trackpad. I found out that if I put my dongle into the second USB-C port and plug a mouse in, (logitech wireless mouse) the mouse worked. So apparently the T2 chip controls drivers for keyboard, sound, wifi, mouse. I turned secure boot off, SiP off, everything I was supposed to do. Just no keyboard, sound, mouse, or wifi.

I just run Linux in Parallels. It's slow, the fans run full hilt, and my system temp is in the 90s, it's uncomfortably hot in my lap, and battery life is halved. But anything is better than more flat UI design ala Big Sur.
 
A while back I got Fedora Linux working using this project: https://github.com/mikeeq/mbp-fedora

At the time, it was missing key functionality, but the keyboard, trackpad, onboard storage and GPU all worked properly. I eventually stopped using it because of the audio and wifi problems, and I needed the space for other things. Looks like they may have sorted the wifi problem out, but buyer beware.
 
This initially sounded like something that would be really fun to try as a hobby, "just because" project. But everything I've read leads me to conclude that unless Apple hardware and software go together, neither one of them is worth the hassle. You can turn lots of good laptops into good Linux systems, and these days it doesn't even require all that much effort, as long as you avoid Nvidia graphics. I've never been able to get predictable behavior from Nvidia on Linux when it comes to suspend/resume.
 
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Nvidia seems to be too loved in Linux today. I had a hell of a time finding an equivilant to Wattman/MSI Afterburner on my gaming system. I finally found a tool that accomplishes that but it seemed most places I looked, it prioritized Nvidia all too well. Tons of open-source tools to control NVidia GPUs but hardly any for AMD GPUs.

I find it quite odd that overall, NVidia GPUs and Intel CPUs seem to now be the #1 leader in gaming. That contrasts my long-held knowledge that Intel (especially their crappy integrated Intel HD graphics) has NEVER been a leader in gaming. More expense for less performance. I have a lot of Intel systems shelved for not cutting the mustard, including at least one i7 unit. Well, the i7 is now a server and NAS. It sucked for anything intensive mostly for having integrated HD graphics that became a slideshow once you enable 2x AA. Or certain games outright crashing for missing shaders support (Farming Simulator '17). I have no idea why or when the opinion changed from Intel being the joke of the gaming community to the star it is today, to where Linux devs seem to prioritize drivers and software for both Intel as well as NVidia GPUs.
 
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You really don't get it.

Intel is one of the top gaming hardware companies not because they are good at it but because their hardware is ubiquitous.

Something like >75% of all computers are notebooks. For the Windows side of things, that means Intel has the majority of users. Until recently, if you wanted peak PC performance you'd pick Intel regardless whether it was for desktop or notebook use.

Still today, AMD is catching up to Intel on the notebook side of things. That doesn't eliminate the hundreds of millions of installed Intel computers.

They aren't all playing MS Flight Simulator 2020, Cyberpunk 2077, Crysis Remastered, et cetera ad nauseum.

Intel can take the gaming crown with a bunch of people playing Minecraft on four-year-old notebooks. Okay, so League of Legends and Fortnite don't tax GPUs/CPUs like Metro Exodus or Overwatch.

Your mindset is way too narrow.

Stand back and try to look at the Big Picture.

Good technologists (there are precious few of them) can do this. Bad technologists (there are TONS of them) cannot.

Reference: CmdrTaco's (of Slashdot) crushingly obtuse and visionless response to Apple's iPod announcement.
 
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nickdalzell1 said:
Nvidia seems to be too loved in Linux today. I had a hell of a time finding an equivilant to Wattman/MSI Afterburner on my gaming system. I finally found a tool that accomplishes that but it seemed most places I looked, it prioritized Nvidia all too well. Tons of open-source tools to control NVidia GPUs but hardly any for AMD GPUs.

I find it quite odd that overall, NVidia GPUs and Intel CPUs seem to now be the #1 leader in gaming. That contrasts my long-held knowledge that Intel (especially their crappy integrated Intel HD graphics) has NEVER been a leader in gaming. More expense for less performance. I have a lot of Intel systems shelved for not cutting the mustard, including at least one i7 unit. Well, the i7 is now a server and NAS. It sucked for anything intensive mostly for having integrated HD graphics that became a slideshow once you enable 2x AA. Or certain games outright crashing for missing shaders support (Farming Simulator '17). I have no idea why or when the opinion changed from Intel being the joke of the gaming community to the star it is today, to where Linux devs seem to prioritize drivers and software for both Intel as well as NVidia GPUs.
Click to expand...

I have a Linux gaming rig with Vega 56. I prefer AMD in Linux because the drivers usually 'just work', though performance does not quite equal that of Nvidia. I've used two tools specifically for AMD overclocking (overpowering in my case; I've got >300w going through my Vega.) One is radeon-profile, and the other is WattmanGTK. Radeon-profile has more features, but WattmanGTK seems to be more stable. WattmanGTK does have a peculiar implementation though; you choose some settings in the UI and it generates a script. You can then use the script as a one-off, or add it to you login profile or system init.
 
In my experience, with the same graphics settings (or on ultra in many cases) I get more performance with Linux (mainly due to so much stuff running in Windows 10 vs. Linux). I don't think drivers had much to do with it overall, but I am running Ubuntu GamePack, so a lot of good things are built in.

the app that does the Wattman-style control is called Core Ctrl. You have to compile source code and pass certain options to the grub config in order to get full control over the GPU but darn if it ain't worth it! Just took some time to find it, as the only AMD GPU control app (radeon-profile) everyone liked is no longer available since the repo is dead.

Every game runs flawlessly via Steam-Play (including Fallout 4 w/ mods). The only game that seems a wee bit unoptimized (makes the GPU fans go into jet engine mode and performance is variable) was Everybody's Gone to the Rapture ironically!

Running Elementary OS on my Mac via Parallels. You don't get the performance you would expect but lately all I've been using my Mac for is following this forum and Reddit. I never succeeded in getting Linux to give me keyboard support in a native configuration. It would boot successfully but can't login or interact with the live installer. Video worked fine though.
 
The GRUB2 kernel options are unfortunately necessary for any tool that OC's an AMD GPU. Not sure about radeon-profile for Ubuntu, but I found a reasonably current Fedora repo here:

domrim/radeon-profile Copr

copr.fedorainfracloud.org copr.fedorainfracloud.org

I have used that in the past, but am currently using WattmanGTK despite its funky implementation. radeon-profile just seemed too unstable though, maybe because active development has cooled off. I'll have to check out Core Ctrl sometime soon, but the script that WattmanGTK produced is working fine so far. And I'm not really overclocking, since technically I'm still under the 1645 MHz that the BIOS is limited to. But man that extra power gets performance up to GTX 1080 levels. I've even got Cyberpunk 2077 running fairly well, though the graphics are...well, glitchy isn't the word, but visually it looks very different from the way it looks in Windows. Darker and more impressionistic...
 
Oh, I've already done all that and got full control I'm just saying I had a hard time actually discovering Core-Ctrl. It's a great app. It just took some time filtering all the posts suggesting 'radeon-profile' which is a dead repo and pointing it to where they want me to shows 'not found' when attempting to get it.

Synaptic has it listed (likely when I added one of the two repos) but it just errors out attempting to install. But it doesn't matter I got an app that does great! Core-Ctrl actually has an identical UI to Wattman, including the sliders for all the various p-states and fan control and GPU/RAM OC as well as under/over volting. I discovered my GPU performs a lot cooler by undervolting a bit.

The last two p-states I set to 1350 MHz (which is 100 MHz over for my GPU) and the voltage at 1050 mv (from 1250 default).

CoreCtrl-AMD-Radeon-Settings-For-Linux-1200x675-cropped.jpg
 
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Cool, I'm glad you found something that works for you. Apparently installing Core Ctrl under Fedora is as simple as:
Code: 
sudo dnf install corectrl

I'll have to give it a try later this evening. The description gives me some small hope it might be useful for OC'ing my Ryzen 7.
 
Yeah on Ubuntu you just get

Code: 
$sudo apt-get install corectrl
Getting package details...100% complete
package not found: corectrl
$_

Found it via github as source though, with all instructions on what you need to compile. My system is just a starter, mainly just for Fallout 4 and Farming Simulator '19. It's just a Ryzen 3 with Radeon RX 750 and 8GB RAM. Plenty of expansion though. CoreCtrl is just for GPU, not Ryzen CPU. I use some command line stuff to modify the governors and performance states. I can get mine as high as 3.9GHz (from the normal max of 3.5 GHz) from both messing around in the BIOS and using terminal commands. I got it set to go from 2.5GHz at idle to 3.9GHz during gaming. Most of my games are more GPU heavy.
 
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Just got a chance to try CoreCtrl out. Good news is that it works great, and in real time unlike WattmanGTK. While it doesn't support proper CPU overclocking, it does let you change the power governor for the processor. That's a nice touch, so thanks for the tip.

1608963281293.png
 
Yeah it's just for GPU control. I forget the utility that I installed to control the CPU speed (you edit the config file for the individual governors to get more fine-level control).

But you're welcome!
 
Did you get Linux working on the Macbook Pro? This thread kind of died without reaching a conclusion. I get the impression that you can boot it from external drive but Linux is only “mostly working” but not 100% functional.
 
I did get Linux working with internal storage, keyboard and trackpad, as well as usb-c connectivity (Apple USB to Ethernet adapter) with Fedora and this project:

github.com

GitHub - mikeeq/mbp-fedora

Contribute to mikeeq/mbp-fedora development by creating an account on GitHub.
github.com github.com

However I never could get wifi or audio working properly, and stopped trying months ago.
 
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Without wifi it's pretty useless. I guess I was a bit miffed that Apple's own ebook for the MacBook Pro touts running Windows and any other OS via Bootcamp but either they broke it later on or they didn't make it clear that a T2-equipped Mac isn't able to do any of that.

Bootcamp wouldn't even bloody install, and rEFInd worked but since I can't boot any other OS properly with it, it's just another extra step when I boot my Mac from a complete shutdown.

I suppose wifi can be used with a USB-C to Type-A dongle but then I can't plug the device in while I'm connected (and the thing eats battery if gaming or watching video). I only have one type-C port.
 
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nickdalzell1 said:
Without wifi it's pretty useless. I guess I was a bit miffed that Apple's own ebook for the MacBook Pro touts running Windows and any other OS via Bootcamp but either they broke it later on or they didn't make it clear that a T2-equipped Mac isn't able to do any of that.

Bootcamp wouldn't even bloody install, and rEFInd worked but since I can't boot any other OS properly with it, it's just another extra step when I boot my Mac from a complete shutdown.

I suppose wifi can be used with a USB-C to Type-A dongle but then I can't plug the device in while I'm connected (and the thing eats battery if gaming or watching video). I only have one type-C port.
Click to expand...
Thanks. I’ll shelve my project to run Linux natively on a Mac with a T2 chip. I was looking to repurpose my 2020 Mac Mini as everything it used to do for me has been moved to a Linux PC.
 
My best solution was to use Parallels to run Linux within a VM, but the only issue I have with that is that it's extremely slow (and I mean, like running Windows 98SE on an i486SX/33 level of slow!)

The reason behind Linux was because I can't theme Big Sur the way I like (even with system protection off in recovery) I wanted to make it skeuomorphic (the earlier betas were, but due to feedback from flat design lovers, it got seriously flat in the final release!) and I had already replaced most system apps with third-party skeuo replacements from the app store. The only issue was I wanted also to get the glossy traffic lights back, change the icons for Finder, System Preferences, and remove any unneeded apps such as Mail and Reminders, or Safari, and replace them with versions from Mavericks.

Since that's not possible (gee, thanks a lot, Apple! Pay $2k for the thing and I get to do even less with it than with a $299 Windows 10 laptop!) I figured Linux, which allows total customization, would work as a replacement--provided I got it to run natively. Sadly, that's not possible at this time.

I have not yet tried my last idea--to get a copy of Mavericks, wipe the entire HDD, and install that instead of Mojave, which was the original OS. It's an Intel 64-bit Mac, so it should be technically possible unless the T2 chip prevents that as well...
 
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