Linux on a 2013 Mac Pro

[iAssimilated]

Greetings -

Now that Monterey is no longer supported, I was wondering if anyone has had any luck installing linux on a 2013 Mac Pro and if so, what are your experiences? A couple of things I am especially curious about:

• Flavor of linux
• Ease of installation
• How does linux handle the dual video cards
• Fan rpm / noise
• Reliability

When I search the topic on the web it is hard not to get responses for Macbook Pros, which I am not interested in.

 

[Bigwaff]

When I search the topic on the web it is hard not to get responses for Macbook Pros, which I am not interested in.

Search YouTube. There are videos.

Now that Monterey is no longer supported, I was wondering if anyone has had any luck installing linux on a 2013 Mac Pro

If you are going to run an unsupported operating system, why not use OCLP to install later versions of macOS? Unless, of course, you are dead set on installing a Linux distro....

 

[iAssimilated]

Thanks for the reply. I've installed linux on a lot of computers over the years, so I am more curious if anyone has done it and their experiences. I asked here because I have found this community to insightful and helpful (when you know how to ignore the discord).

As for Youtube, kind of hard to want to watch a video titled "Installing Linux on Apple's Stupid Trashcan". The 2013 Mac Pro's design was amazing and way ahead of its time. Imagine an M series Mac Studio in that enclosure 🤩

OCLP is one option, yes, but I only need so many macOS based systems in one household.

 

[ralf.kaa]

'm
Greetings -

Now that Monterey is no longer supported, I was wondering if anyone has had any luck installing linux on a 2013 Mac Pro and if so, what are your experiences? A couple of things I am especially curious about:

• Flavor of linux
• Ease of installation
• How does linux handle the dual video cards
• Fan rpm / noise
• Reliability

When I search the topic on the web it is hard not to get responses for Macbook Pros, which I am not interested in.

I'm testing fedora workstation 40 on a trashcan. Mostly working smoothly, but you need to boot from USB using the "troubleshooting" option, then something like "basic graphics" (can't remember wording), otherwise you get a blank screen.
There are some other adjustments to get everything working (lmk if you are interested and I can share what I used, but simple search will give you the instructions for fedora), and I'm still struggling with a pcloud synch, but otherwise I'm pretty satisfied with fedora on this machine.
As for graphics card, one is always working, but there doesn't seem to be any Linux support for both (afaik there wasn't any support for 2 GPUs in the macos ecosystem either).
Hope this helps.

 

[iAssimilated]

I'm testing fedora workstation 40 on a trashcan. Mostly working smoothly, but you need to boot from USB using the "troubleshooting" option, then something like "basic graphics" (can't remember wording), otherwise you get a blank screen.
There are some other adjustments to get everything working (lmk if you are interested and I can share what I used, but simple search will give you the instructions for fedora), and I'm still struggling with a pcloud synch, but otherwise I'm pretty satisfied with fedora on this machine.
As for graphics card, one is always working, but there doesn't seem to be any Linux support for both (afaik there wasn't any support for 2 GPUs in the macos ecosystem either).
Hope this helps.

How does linux handle the fan on the 2013 Pro? Does it seem like it ramps up quicker or runs at a higher RPM longer than it did in macOS?

One of the appeals of the 2013 Pro is how quite it remains most of the time. I currently run the BOINC app on my Pro so making sure it is properly cooled is also important.

 

[ralf.kaa]

How does linux handle the fan on the 2013 Pro? Does it seem like it ramps up quicker or runs at a higher RPM longer than it did in macOS?

One of the appeals of the 2013 Pro is how quite it remains most of the time. I currently run the BOINC app on my Pro so making sure it is properly cooled is also important.

I haven't seen any temperature higher than 20⁰ celsius. I don't do video editing, just some photo editing, vector graphics and CAD (freecad). The fan has been running around 790 RPM; I can feel the warmth but don't hear the fan at all.
I haven't spent any time on macos beyond partitioning the SSD, so can't really provide any feedback there, I'm afraid.

 

[ralf.kaa]

The only outstanding issue is synchronizing my pcloud drive. Pcloud works fine on Intel nuc and some other older/weaker machines I have running fedora 40. It's been a bit erratic on this hardware.
Strangely pcloud's behaving as poorly as it does on my wife's MBP with Apple silicon. I've been told it makes no sense, but that's been my experience.

 

[nethfel]

Greetings -

Now that Monterey is no longer supported, I was wondering if anyone has had any luck installing linux on a 2013 Mac Pro and if so, what are your experiences? A couple of things I am especially curious about:

• Flavor of linux
• Ease of installation
• How does linux handle the dual video cards
• Fan rpm / noise
• Reliability

When I search the topic on the web it is hard not to get responses for Macbook Pros, which I am not interested in.

Just thought you might like to know, I've had some success with Linux Mint, but it really isn't my style (I prefer Gnome), but I will say I'm testing out Pop_OS! 24.04 right now (Cosmic) - it's still in alpha, but so far it's working really well - has not been the pain other distros have been to install - only challenge was the WiFi chipset (pretty standard), but if you can get onto a LAN (or bridged through another computers WiFi) for a bit, you can download the tools for the proprietary drivers (that portion isn't built into Cosmic just yet) and install the WiFi drivers.

So far so good for me and was a lot easier to get going than a lot of other current distros (ie: Ubuntu 24.04 installs but has issues with the GPU after installation; Fedora 40 worked well, but Fedora 41 didn't; Pop_OS! 22.04 was just a nightmare)

 

[th0masp]

I think fan control would be important to get right with this machine due to the GPU design. Else you may run into hardware trouble down the line since its running quite warm out of the box. I even run fan control in macOS to ramp up earlier.

What's available and easy to configure? I found some info regarding fancontrol and lm-sensors on Ubuntu-type systems - does exclude certain hardware though and therefore I wonder if the MP might be supported.

 

[iAssimilated]

I successfully installed openSUSE Tumbleweed on my 2013 Pro (it took two tries, the first run with online repos enabled seg faulted at about 65% and froze, but the second run without online repos worked). The installation was fairly easy minus the before mentioned hiccup. I don't use the wireless card on my Pro, so this isn't something I tested.

As for the video card, I haven't fully tested all the capabilities, but I am running KDE Plasma 6.2 utilizing Wayland with no visual oddities. Info Center labels my Graphics Processor as TAHITI (apparently its code name), while neofetch correctly labels them as AMD ATI FirePro D500 (and shows two). Running sensors in konsole shows a radeon-pci-0200 and a radeon-pci-0600 with temps around 61.0°C .

Currently the fan is running at it's default speed (790 rpm) and is audibly the same as with macOS. I have not yet looked into changing the speed of the fan. I am running BOINC utilizing 6 CPU cores with the temps in the 57.0°C - 66.0°C range. At the moment I am okay with those temps, since it is in the same range as macOS (doing the same work load).

So far I have not had any reliability issues, but the system has only been running for a little under two days.

 

[MacMike365]

While today these Mac's are 12+ years old, they still hold some power for basic use and they are fairly cheap these days. In my case, I spend an additional $30 for the Xeon E5-2697v2 and 30 minutes later, I had turned the Quad Core 3.7GHz into a Twelve Core 2.7GHz beast. Upgrading the CPU depends on your use case and does not always make sense. I will use this Mac as a "Build Server", so the extra cores come in handy.... In addition, Amazon/Sintech sells an adapter for ~$10 to use regular NVMe's in your Mac in case you are running low on Disk space. Here is the link: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07FYY3H5F/ . I also read somewhere, that you have to be at least on Catalina to use these adapters as Catalina installs a Firmware upgrade on your Mac. True or not, I don't know. I installed Monterey before I upgraded my drive to 2TB and had no issues at all....Just something to keep in mind if you are facing problems.

1. Installing Ubuntu 24.04 LTS

Installing Ubuntu on these Mac's is a little more complicated than installing it on a regular PC. Once you have the USB stick created, you can boot the Mac and then immediately press the "option" key to get the Boot Menu.

IMPORTANT: Install Ubuntu on your Mac with the option "Ubuntu (safe graphics)". If you choose "Try or Install Ubuntu" the installer will keep crashing. Also make sure that you have a wired Ethernet connection during install - WiFi will not work yet and the installer might need an update. Go through the install process now but DO NOT install any 3rd party or proprietary drivers during the initial install process - we will do all that later.

Once the install completes, perform a reboot.

As the Mac boots, press the "esc" key as soon as you hear the chime. It will bring up the GRUB bootloader options. Press "e" to edit the boot arguments. Scroll down to the following line:

LINUX /boot/vmlinuz-x.x.x-xx-generic root=UUID=xxxxxxxx-xxxx-xxxx-xxxx-xxxxxxxxxxxx ro quiet splash $vt_handoff

Add the "nomodeset" before $vt-handoff. It should now read:

LINUX /boot/vmlinuz-x.x.x-xx-generic root=UUID=xxxxxxxx-xxxx-xxxx-xxxx-xxxxxxxxxxxx ro quiet splash nomodeset $vt_handoff

Now hit Fn+F10 or just F10 (depending on your keyboard) to boot Ubuntu 24.04 LTS for the first time.

IMPORTANT: If you don't change the boot option to include "nomodeset" your Mac will hang at first boot.

2. Getting WIFI to work:

Open a terminal and type:
$ sudo apt update
$ sudo update-pciids
$ lspci -nn | grep 0280

The output you should see is something like this:
"Broadcom Corporation BCM4360 802.11ac Wireless Network Adapter [14e4:43a0] (rev 03)"

Make note of what you see in the square brackets and the revision number behind it

If your device is not 14e4:43a0 - DONT PANIC! There is a great write up from Luis Alvarado on "https://askubuntu.com/questions/55868/installing-broadcom-wireless-drivers/38700#38700" on how to get most Wireless Cards working!

While Luis Alvarado mentions in his write up that the "14e4:43a0 rev 03" is a so called "Special Case #3", and you should create/edit your rc.local, I had no need for that. WiFi worked as expected by just installing the bcmwl-kernel-source.

Install the WiFi driver by issuing the following command in the terminal:

$ sudo apt install bcmwl-kernel-source

Once you do a reboot, WiFi should be working as expected..... But, before we reboot, and while we have the active Ethernet connection, we will also install the AMD GPU drivers.

3. AMD FirePro D500 driver install (should work for the D300 and D700 as well)

Lets find out what we have by issuing the following command in the Terminal:

$ lspci | grep ' VGA ' | cut -d" " -f 1 | xargs -i lspci -v -s {}

The output I am getting is like this:

02:00.0 VGA compatible controller: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD/ATI] Tahiti LE [Radeon HD 7870 XT] (prog-if 00 [VGA controller])
Subsystem: Apple Inc. FirePro D500
Physical Slot: 3-3

06:00.0 VGA compatible controller: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD/ATI] Tahiti LE [Radeon HD 7870 XT] (prog-if 00 [VGA controller])
Subsystem: Apple Inc. FirePro D500
Physical Slot: 5-3

What is interesting to note here is that the D500's are recognized as "Radeon HD 7870 XT". It looks like these cards have been re-branded by Apple. In any case, these are so called GCN1/Southern Island (si) cards (D500 and D700) under the Code Name "Tahiti LE GL". The D300 runs under a different Code Name (Pitcairn XT GL)

AMD has proprietary drivers for Linux/Ubuntu. Look for the "Radeon™ Pro Software for Enterprise on Ubuntu 24.04.1 Installer" on the AMD website -->
https://www.amd.com/en/support/download/linux-drivers.html or go to:http://repo.radeon.com/amdgpu-install/latest/ubuntu/noble/ and download the latest driver

For those of you, who are interested and want to install customized options, the complete installation instructions can be found here: https://amdgpu-install.readthedocs.io/en/latest/

Lets install the driver by issuing the following commands:

$ sudo apt-get update
$ sudo apt-get dist-upgrade
$ cd ~/Downloads
$ sudo apt-get install ./amdgpu-install_6.3.60301-1_all.deb
$ amdgpu-install -y --accept-eula --usecase=workstation –no-32

Since the AMD Driver has been installed, we need to make some changes to GRUB:

$ sudo vi /etc/default/grub

Scroll to the end of the following line
GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT="quiet splash" and and press "i"
Add "radeon.si_support=0 amdgpu.si_support=1 amdgpu.dc=1" to the end so it reads:
GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT="quiet splash radeon.si_support=0 amdgpu.si_support=1 amdgpu.dc=1"
Press "esc" then ":wq"

and finally we make the GRUB changes permanent by:

$ sudo update-grub
$ reboot

You should be all set

Additional information: As mentioned before, these D500's/Radeon HD 7870 XT are GCN1/Southern Island (.si_) cards. You are disabling the Ubuntu stock drivers by adding "radeon.si_support=0" and enabling the AMD proprietary drivers by adding "amdgpu.si_support=1". I had to add "amdgpu.dc=1" to the GRUB parameters also, to avoid a blank screen/system hang during boot. This needs a little further testing/investigation.....

Here is some more information about the AMDGPU settings: https://docs.kernel.org/gpu/amdgpu/module-parameters.html

Screenshot of what to expect to see once you completed the install:

I have not done a lot of testing yet but the system seems to be stable. No fan issues, both D500's seem to be working as expected, Wifi (with the exception of connecting to WPA3 protected networks) is working as well - even connecting to hidden SSID's, and so does Bluetooth.

Good Luck

 

[dev_builder]

While today these Mac's are 12+ years old, they still hold some power for basic use and they are fairly cheap these days. In my case, I spend an additional $30 for the Xeon E5-2697v2 and 30 minutes later, I had turned the Quad Core 3.7GHz into a Twelve Core 2.7GHz beast. Upgrading the CPU depends on your use case and does not always make sense. I will use this Mac as a "Build Server", so the extra cores come in handy.... In addition, Amazon/Sintech sells an adapter for ~$10 to use regular NVMe's in your Mac in case you are running low on Disk space. Here is the link: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07FYY3H5F/ . I also read somewhere, that you have to be at least on Catalina to use these adapters as Catalina installs a Firmware upgrade on your Mac. True or not, I don't know. I installed Monterey before I upgraded my drive to 2TB and had no issues at all....Just something to keep in mind if you are facing problems.

1. Installing Ubuntu 24.04 LTS

Installing Ubuntu on these Mac's is a little more complicated than installing it on a regular PC. Once you have the USB stick created, you can boot the Mac and then immediately press the "option" key to get the Boot Menu.

IMPORTANT: Install Ubuntu on your Mac with the option "Ubuntu (safe graphics)". If you choose "Try or Install Ubuntu" the installer will keep crashing. Also make sure that you have a wired Ethernet connection during install - WiFi will not work yet and the installer might need an update. Go through the install process now but DO NOT install any 3rd party or proprietary drivers during the initial install process - we will do all that later.

Once the install completes, perform a reboot.

As the Mac boots, press the "esc" key as soon as you hear the chime. It will bring up the GRUB bootloader options. Press "e" to edit the boot arguments. Scroll down to the following line:

LINUX /boot/vmlinuz-x.x.x-xx-generic root=UUID=xxxxxxxx-xxxx-xxxx-xxxx-xxxxxxxxxxxx ro quiet splash $vt_handoff

Add the "nomodeset" before $vt-handoff. It should now read:

LINUX /boot/vmlinuz-x.x.x-xx-generic root=UUID=xxxxxxxx-xxxx-xxxx-xxxx-xxxxxxxxxxxx ro quiet splash nomodeset $vt_handoff

Now hit Fn+F10 or just F10 (depending on your keyboard) to boot Ubuntu 24.04 LTS for the first time.

IMPORTANT: If you don't change the boot option to include "nomodeset" your Mac will hang at first boot.

2. Getting WIFI to work:

Open a terminal and type:
$ sudo apt update
$ sudo update-pciids
$ lspci -nn | grep 0280

The output you should see is something like this:
"Broadcom Corporation BCM4360 802.11ac Wireless Network Adapter [14e4:43a0] (rev 03)"

Make note of what you see in the square brackets and the revision number behind it

If your device is not 14e4:43a0 - DONT PANIC! There is a great write up from Luis Alvarado on "https://askubuntu.com/questions/55868/installing-broadcom-wireless-drivers/38700#38700" on how to get most Wireless Cards working!

While Luis Alvarado mentions in his write up that the "14e4:43a0 rev 03" is a so called "Special Case #3", and you should create/edit your rc.local, I had no need for that. WiFi worked as expected by just installing the bcmwl-kernel-source.

Install the WiFi driver by issuing the following command in the terminal:

$ sudo apt install bcmwl-kernel-source

Once you do a reboot, WiFi should be working as expected..... But, before we reboot, and while we have the active Ethernet connection, we will also install the AMD GPU drivers.

3. AMD FirePro D500 driver install (should work for the D300 and D700 as well)

Lets find out what we have by issuing the following command in the Terminal:

$ lspci | grep ' VGA ' | cut -d" " -f 1 | xargs -i lspci -v -s {}

The output I am getting is like this:

02:00.0 VGA compatible controller: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD/ATI] Tahiti LE [Radeon HD 7870 XT] (prog-if 00 [VGA controller])
Subsystem: Apple Inc. FirePro D500
Physical Slot: 3-3

06:00.0 VGA compatible controller: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD/ATI] Tahiti LE [Radeon HD 7870 XT] (prog-if 00 [VGA controller])
Subsystem: Apple Inc. FirePro D500
Physical Slot: 5-3

What is interesting to note here is that the D500's are recognized as "Radeon HD 7870 XT". It looks like these cards have been re-branded by Apple. In any case, these are so called GCN1/Southern Island (si) cards (D500 and D700) under the Code Name "Tahiti LE GL". The D300 runs under a different Code Name (Pitcairn XT GL)

AMD has proprietary drivers for Linux/Ubuntu. Look for the "Radeon™ Pro Software for Enterprise on Ubuntu 24.04.1 Installer" on the AMD website -->
https://www.amd.com/en/support/download/linux-drivers.html or go to:http://repo.radeon.com/amdgpu-install/latest/ubuntu/noble/ and download the latest driver

For those of you, who are interested and want to install customized options, the complete installation instructions can be found here: https://amdgpu-install.readthedocs.io/en/latest/

Lets install the driver by issuing the following commands:

$ sudo apt-get update
$ sudo apt-get dist-upgrade
$ cd ~/Downloads
$ sudo apt-get install ./amdgpu-install_6.3.60301-1_all.deb
$ amdgpu-install -y --accept-eula --usecase=workstation –no-32

Since the AMD Driver has been installed, we need to make some changes to GRUB:

$ sudo vi /etc/default/grub

Scroll to the end of the following line
GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT="quiet splash" and and press "i"
Add "radeon.si_support=0 amdgpu.si_support=1 amdgpu.dc=1" to the end so it reads:
GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT="quiet splash radeon.si_support=0 amdgpu.si_support=1 amdgpu.dc=1"
Press "esc" then ":wq"

and finally we make the GRUB changes permanent by:

$ sudo update-grub
$ reboot

You should be all set

Additional information: As mentioned before, these D500's/Radeon HD 7870 XT are GCN1/Southern Island (.si_) cards. You are disabling the Ubuntu stock drivers by adding "radeon.si_support=0" and enabling the AMD proprietary drivers by adding "amdgpu.si_support=1". I had to add "amdgpu.dc=1" to the GRUB parameters also, to avoid a blank screen/system hang during boot. This needs a little further testing/investigation.....

Here is some more information about the AMDGPU settings: https://docs.kernel.org/gpu/amdgpu/module-parameters.html

Screenshot of what to expect to see once you completed the install:
View attachment 2480023

I have not done a lot of testing yet but the system seems to be stable. No fan issues, both D500's seem to be working as expected, Wifi (with the exception of connecting to WPA3 protected networks) is working as well - even connecting to hidden SSID's, and so does Bluetooth.

Good Luck

I just got a mac pro and the first thing I did was to install ubuntu 24.04 . I've tried your method on my 2013 mac pro with AMD firepro d300 gpu. I couldn't get the hardware acceleration working. I can only see the login screen when i use "nomodeset" and if i use anything instead of that, it gives me a black screen. I'm currently on linux kernel 6.11. I did use kernel 6.8 but still the same result. when i want to check which kernel driver is in use, its not even showing the option. Is there any way you can help me out as I need it for my work??

 

[pivo]

While today these Mac's are 12+ years old, they still hold some power for basic use and they are fairly cheap these days. In my case, I spend an additional $30 for the Xeon E5-2697v2 and 30 minutes later, I had turned the Quad Core 3.7GHz into a Twelve Core 2.7GHz beast. Upgrading the CPU depends on your use case and does not always make sense. I will use this Mac as a "Build Server", so the extra cores come in handy.... In addition, Amazon/Sintech sells an adapter for ~$10 to use regular NVMe's in your Mac in case you are running low on Disk space. Here is the link: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07FYY3H5F/ . I also read somewhere, that you have to be at least on Catalina to use these adapters as Catalina installs a Firmware upgrade on your Mac. True or not, I don't know. I installed Monterey before I upgraded my drive to 2TB and had no issues at all....Just something to keep in mind if you are facing problems.

1. Installing Ubuntu 24.04 LTS

Installing Ubuntu on these Mac's is a little more complicated than installing it on a regular PC. Once you have the USB stick created, you can boot the Mac and then immediately press the "option" key to get the Boot Menu.

IMPORTANT: Install Ubuntu on your Mac with the option "Ubuntu (safe graphics)". If you choose "Try or Install Ubuntu" the installer will keep crashing. Also make sure that you have a wired Ethernet connection during install - WiFi will not work yet and the installer might need an update. Go through the install process now but DO NOT install any 3rd party or proprietary drivers during the initial install process - we will do all that later.

Once the install completes, perform a reboot.

As the Mac boots, press the "esc" key as soon as you hear the chime. It will bring up the GRUB bootloader options. Press "e" to edit the boot arguments. Scroll down to the following line:

LINUX /boot/vmlinuz-x.x.x-xx-generic root=UUID=xxxxxxxx-xxxx-xxxx-xxxx-xxxxxxxxxxxx ro quiet splash $vt_handoff

Add the "nomodeset" before $vt-handoff. It should now read:

LINUX /boot/vmlinuz-x.x.x-xx-generic root=UUID=xxxxxxxx-xxxx-xxxx-xxxx-xxxxxxxxxxxx ro quiet splash nomodeset $vt_handoff

Now hit Fn+F10 or just F10 (depending on your keyboard) to boot Ubuntu 24.04 LTS for the first time.

IMPORTANT: If you don't change the boot option to include "nomodeset" your Mac will hang at first boot.

2. Getting WIFI to work:

Open a terminal and type:
$ sudo apt update
$ sudo update-pciids
$ lspci -nn | grep 0280

The output you should see is something like this:
"Broadcom Corporation BCM4360 802.11ac Wireless Network Adapter [14e4:43a0] (rev 03)"

Make note of what you see in the square brackets and the revision number behind it

If your device is not 14e4:43a0 - DONT PANIC! There is a great write up from Luis Alvarado on "https://askubuntu.com/questions/55868/installing-broadcom-wireless-drivers/38700#38700" on how to get most Wireless Cards working!

While Luis Alvarado mentions in his write up that the "14e4:43a0 rev 03" is a so called "Special Case #3", and you should create/edit your rc.local, I had no need for that. WiFi worked as expected by just installing the bcmwl-kernel-source.

Install the WiFi driver by issuing the following command in the terminal:

$ sudo apt install bcmwl-kernel-source

Once you do a reboot, WiFi should be working as expected..... But, before we reboot, and while we have the active Ethernet connection, we will also install the AMD GPU drivers.

3. AMD FirePro D500 driver install (should work for the D300 and D700 as well)

Lets find out what we have by issuing the following command in the Terminal:

$ lspci | grep ' VGA ' | cut -d" " -f 1 | xargs -i lspci -v -s {}

The output I am getting is like this:

02:00.0 VGA compatible controller: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD/ATI] Tahiti LE [Radeon HD 7870 XT] (prog-if 00 [VGA controller])
Subsystem: Apple Inc. FirePro D500
Physical Slot: 3-3

06:00.0 VGA compatible controller: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD/ATI] Tahiti LE [Radeon HD 7870 XT] (prog-if 00 [VGA controller])
Subsystem: Apple Inc. FirePro D500
Physical Slot: 5-3

What is interesting to note here is that the D500's are recognized as "Radeon HD 7870 XT". It looks like these cards have been re-branded by Apple. In any case, these are so called GCN1/Southern Island (si) cards (D500 and D700) under the Code Name "Tahiti LE GL". The D300 runs under a different Code Name (Pitcairn XT GL)

AMD has proprietary drivers for Linux/Ubuntu. Look for the "Radeon™ Pro Software for Enterprise on Ubuntu 24.04.1 Installer" on the AMD website -->
https://www.amd.com/en/support/download/linux-drivers.html or go to:http://repo.radeon.com/amdgpu-install/latest/ubuntu/noble/ and download the latest driver

For those of you, who are interested and want to install customized options, the complete installation instructions can be found here: https://amdgpu-install.readthedocs.io/en/latest/

Lets install the driver by issuing the following commands:

$ sudo apt-get update
$ sudo apt-get dist-upgrade
$ cd ~/Downloads
$ sudo apt-get install ./amdgpu-install_6.3.60301-1_all.deb
$ amdgpu-install -y --accept-eula --usecase=workstation –no-32

Since the AMD Driver has been installed, we need to make some changes to GRUB:

$ sudo vi /etc/default/grub

Scroll to the end of the following line
GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT="quiet splash" and and press "i"
Add "radeon.si_support=0 amdgpu.si_support=1 amdgpu.dc=1" to the end so it reads:
GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT="quiet splash radeon.si_support=0 amdgpu.si_support=1 amdgpu.dc=1"
Press "esc" then ":wq"

and finally we make the GRUB changes permanent by:

$ sudo update-grub
$ reboot

You should be all set

Additional information: As mentioned before, these D500's/Radeon HD 7870 XT are GCN1/Southern Island (.si_) cards. You are disabling the Ubuntu stock drivers by adding "radeon.si_support=0" and enabling the AMD proprietary drivers by adding "amdgpu.si_support=1". I had to add "amdgpu.dc=1" to the GRUB parameters also, to avoid a blank screen/system hang during boot. This needs a little further testing/investigation.....

Here is some more information about the AMDGPU settings: https://docs.kernel.org/gpu/amdgpu/module-parameters.html

Screenshot of what to expect to see once you completed the install:
View attachment 2480023

I have not done a lot of testing yet but the system seems to be stable. No fan issues, both D500's seem to be working as expected, Wifi (with the exception of connecting to WPA3 protected networks) is working as well - even connecting to hidden SSID's, and so does Bluetooth.

Good Luck

Thank you MacMike! Your instructions are the only ones that worked for me. I wish Ubuntu would have added installer support for the MacPro6,1 but thankfully we have these instrucitons.

 

[dev_builder]

Thank you MacMike! Your instructions are the only ones that worked for me. I wish Ubuntu would have added installer support for the MacPro6,1 but thankfully we have these instrucitons.

Did you get the GPU working again?? I've tried the same process but couldn't get the GPU working. If I install the drivers, its giving me a black screen. I can only get it working with nomodeset used as parameter in grub and if its working, when I check the kernel driver in use in terminal, Its not even showing that field. It says just kernel modules available - {radeon, amdgpu} . Am i missing something during the setup?? Any suggestions

 

[MacMike365]

I just got a mac pro and the first thing I did was to install ubuntu 24.04 . I've tried your method on my 2013 mac pro with AMD firepro d300 gpu. I couldn't get the hardware acceleration working. I can only see the login screen when i use "nomodeset" and if i use anything instead of that, it gives me a black screen. I'm currently on linux kernel 6.11. I did use kernel 6.8 but still the same result. when i want to check which kernel driver is in use, its not even showing the option. Is there any way you can help me out as I need it for my work??

Hi dev_builder,

Please share the output of:
$ lspci | grep ' VGA ' | cut -d" " -f 1 | xargs -i lspci -v -s {}

so I can help troubleshoot the issue.

 

[MacMike365]

Thank you MacMike! Your instructions are the only ones that worked for me. I wish Ubuntu would have added installer support for the MacPro6,1 but thankfully we have these instrucitons.

You are most welcome

 

[MacMike365]

Did you get the GPU working again?? I've tried the same process but couldn't get the GPU working. If I install the drivers, its giving me a black screen. I can only get it working with nomodeset used as parameter in grub and if its working, when I check the kernel driver in use in terminal, Its not even showing that field. It says just kernel modules available - {radeon, amdgpu} . Am i missing something during the setup?? Any suggestions

try adding the following to the GRUB parameters:

GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT="quiet splash radeon.si_support=0 radeon.cik_support=0 amdgpu.si_support=1 amdgpu.cik_support=1 amdgpu.dc=1"

AND make sure you run

$ sudo update-grub
$ reboot

afterwards!

Not sure this helps but worth a try.... The ".cik_support" is normally for Sea Island cards (GCN2)....

In addition, Kernel 6.11 does not work with the AMD drivers. Here is the post: https://community.amd.com/t5/pc-dri...the-dkms-and-system/m-p/746469/highlight/true

While they discuss a potential fix here: https://askubuntu.com/questions/1541325/ubuntu-24-dkms-autoinstall-for-kernel-6-11-0-17-generic-fail, I have not tried it, so no idea if this works.....

 

[Calaveras]

Thanks for the reply. I've installed linux on a lot of computers over the years, so I am more curious if anyone has done it and their experiences. I asked here because I have found this community to insightful and helpful (when you know how to ignore the discord).

As for Youtube, kind of hard to want to watch a video titled "Installing Linux on Apple's Stupid Trashcan". The 2013 Mac Pro's design was amazing and way ahead of its time. Imagine an M series Mac Studio in that enclosure 🤩

OCLP is one option, yes, but I only need so many macOS based systems in one household.

Yeah I found that video recently as well. Guy made 2 different videos where he calls it that. Like he has a personal vendetta against the computer that stole his girl and ran over his dog. The funny part is that when he is upgrading the Mac Pro ram and storage he remarks on how it's such an elegant design. So I suppose it's just neckbeard gamer BS where you pick a side and have to hate Pepsi, Apple, or Chevy. Whatever the 'other' brand is.

 

[dev_builder]

try adding the following to the GRUB parameters:

GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT="quiet splash radeon.si_support=0 radeon.cik_support=0 amdgpu.si_support=1 amdgpu.cik_support=1 amdgpu.dc=1"

AND make sure you run

$ sudo update-grub
$ reboot

afterwards!

Not sure this helps but worth a try.... The ".cik_support" is normally for Sea Island cards (GCN2)....

In addition, Kernel 6.11 does not work with the AMD drivers. Here is the post: https://community.amd.com/t5/pc-dri...the-dkms-and-system/m-p/746469/highlight/true

While they discuss a potential fix here: https://askubuntu.com/questions/1541325/ubuntu-24-dkms-autoinstall-for-kernel-6-11-0-17-generic-fail, I have not tried it, so no idea if this works.....

BTW i forgot to tell but I got it working, the problem was with the amd driver. The latest amd driver which is in the link you have given doesn't work with kernel 6.11 or even kernel 6.8 ( because I've tried on both the kernels and same result) but I thought why don't I try to install the amdgpu driver with the same exact version which you used for your setup. then I downloaded the exact driver version which you used (not the latest one but the one before ) and installed it and voila It worked!! but only while using kernel 6.8 , it doesn't work with kernel 6.11. So changed some grub to boot only into kernel 6.8 and It's working great!.

 

[MacMike365]

BTW i forgot to tell but I got it working, the problem was with the amd driver. The latest amd driver which is in the link you have given doesn't work with kernel 6.11 or even kernel 6.8 ( because I've tried on both the kernels and same result) but I thought why don't I try to install the amdgpu driver with the same exact version which you used for your setup. then I downloaded the exact driver version which you used (not the latest one but the one before ) and installed it and voila It worked!! but only while using kernel 6.8 , it doesn't work with kernel 6.11. So changed some grub to boot only into kernel 6.8 and It's working great!.

Glad it worked for you. Again, Kernel 6.11 has issues with the AMD drivers even until a few days ago....

 

[MacMike365]

Yeah I found that video recently as well. Guy made 2 different videos where he calls it that. Like he has a personal vendetta against the computer that stole his girl and ran over his dog. The funny part is that when he is upgrading the Mac Pro ram and storage he remarks on how it's such an elegant design. So I suppose it's just neckbeard gamer BS where you pick a side and have to hate Pepsi, Apple, or Chevy. Whatever the 'other' brand is.

For a computer made in 2013, it had a very cool design and in my humble opinion, showcased that a computer DOES NOT need to look like a box. The downside is, that it does resemble a trashcan you'll find in bathrooms or small offices. This reminds me of the old so called "Cheese Grater" (<=2012 Mac Pro's). Apple went back to that design in 2019 😂

OCLP (OpenCore Legacy Patcher):
Err on the side of caution! While OCLP on its own may be legal software, you may be in violation of the Apple Software License Agreement for macOS. I know OCLP is a bootloader, but it also seems to do some "patching" of the OS as there is a post install "configuration" step. The literally Million Dollar question becomes, what is it altering and is it something you are allowed to alter/patch according to the License Agreement.....

 

[Blackjack75]

Just thought you might like to know, I've had some success with Linux Mint, but it really isn't my style (I prefer Gnome), but I will say I'm testing out Pop_OS! 24.04 right now (Cosmic) - it's still in alpha, but so far it's working really well - has not been the pain other distros have been to install - only challenge was the WiFi chipset (pretty standard), but if you can get onto a LAN (or bridged through another computers WiFi) for a bit, you can download the tools for the proprietary drivers (that portion isn't built into Cosmic just yet) and install the WiFi drivers.

So far so good for me and was a lot easier to get going than a lot of other current distros (ie: Ubuntu 24.04 installs but has issues with the GPU after installation; Fedora 40 worked well, but Fedora 41 didn't; Pop_OS! 22.04 was just a nightmare)

Does that mean GPU acceleration works out of the box ? I’ll be getting back my Trashcan soon and I am considering Cosmic.

 

[twobikes]

While today these Mac's are 12+ years old, they still hold some power for basic use [...]

1. Installing Ubuntu 24.04 LTS

[...]

Good Luck

Signed up just so I could post a huge thanks + kudos to MacMike365 for these excellent instructions!

Just finishing up the install on my trashcan -- don't even need it, just wanted to do it for fun.

Latest AMDgpu driver is amdgpu-install_7.0.2.70002-1_all.deb and still works.
My system info is:MacPro 6,1 -- 32GB -- Intel Xeon ES-1650 V2 x 12 -- AMD Radeon HD 7800 Series
Ubuntu 24.04.3 LTS, Kernel Linux 6.14.0-33-generic

 

[gideonsimpson]

Hi, I tried installing LMDE 7, which at first appears to have worked out of the box (graphics, wifi, all fine). The one thing that is still is that when I boot up, I see the error message:

dmar drhd handling fault status reg 702

The system also seems a bit sluggish. Searching a bit, there was a suggestion that I need to disable iommu, but I've had trouble making progress on this.


I did make it a point to install the latest AMD GPU driver, but received the error:

Err:8 https://repo.radeon.com/amdgpu/7.0.2/ubuntu noble InRelease              
  Sub-process /usr/bin/sqv returned an error code (1), error message is: Missing key CA8BB4727A47B4D09B4EE8969386B48A1A693C5C, which is needed to verify signature.

Reading package lists... Done                                  
W: OpenPGP signature verification failed: https://repo.radeon.com/amdgpu/7.0.2/ubuntu noble InRelease: Sub-process /usr/bin/sqv returned an error code (1), error message is: Missing key CA8BB4727A47B4D09B4EE8969386B48A1A693C5C, which is needed to verify signature.
E: The repository 'https://repo.radeon.com/amdgpu/7.0.2/ubuntu noble InRelease' is not signed.
N: Updating from such a repository can't be done securely, and is therefore disabled by default.
N: See apt-secure(8) manpage for repository creation and user configuration details.