This guide outlines special information on installing and configuring Arch on the more recent Macbook 9,x (Mid-2012) hardware alongside a pre-existing OSX operating system. This requires adequate free disk space, install media (such as a USB or CD), and a wired connection for the initial steps of the install procedure.
- Macbook Pro Wifi Hardware Download Windows 7
- Macbook Pro Wifi Driver Download
- Macbook Pro Wifi Settings
- Macbook Pro Wifi Hardware Download Windows 10
This article is written with a dual-boot setup in mind, and does not cover how to replace OSX with Arch.
For general help on the install preocedure see the Installation guide
- 1Preparation
- 2Installation
- 2.2Running the Arch installation
- 3Post Installation
- 3.4Inverting FN keys
- 4Bells & Whistles
- 4.1Emulating OSX Touchpad Gestures
WiFi is must if you are working on iMac or MacBook; at times, your Mac doesn’t respond to Wi-Fi signals or maybe there is an internal glitch and WiFi fails to work. In this situation, you can see a message appears on the screen: “Wi-Fi: No Hardware Installed”. There is an easy solution to this problem. My iPhone is stably connected to UnitedWifi.com, from which I am typing this. On my MacBook Pro, I only occasionally see UnitedWi-Fi in the list of preferred networks. This is not the first time I see the MacBook Pro not connecting to WiFi while I iPhone or iPad has no problem. Four weeks ago, I experienced the same at York University, Canada. Install Wi-Fi device drivers for Apple MacBook Pro (17' Late 2011) laptop for Windows 7 x64, or download DriverPack Solution software for automatic driver installation and update. WiFi is must if you are working on iMac or MacBook; at times, your Mac doesn’t respond to Wi-Fi signals or maybe there is an internal glitch and WiFi fails to work. In this situation, you can see a message appears on the screen: “Wi-Fi: No Hardware Installed”. There is an easy solution to this problem.
Preparation
Recording UIDs
If you want to access your OSX user directories from Linux, write down the UID and GID for the users.
Install Boot Manager
Optional. The easiest way to begin is by installing rEFInd on Mac OSX before moving on to Arch. This will place a boot menu on startup. The config will be in your OSX partition - if this is not desirable it is possible to install it later in Arch. For more information consult UEFI.
Shrinking Macintosh HD
Although nowadays Boot Camp requires a Windows installation disc before altering partitions, it is possible to do this using Mac OSX's disk utility. Create a new partition, calculate the amount of free space required for all new partitions and shrink Macintosh HD to accommodate for this amount. Leave the new partition as free space for now.
Installation
Preparing installation media
Download Arch and burn it to a USB, CD or DVD, and boot into the Arch install.
Running the Arch installation
Proceed from the Installation section in Installation guide#Installation. Note that you'll need a wired connection to continue for now.
The following differences will apply to MacBooks:
Sample partition layout
For sharing files between OSX and Linux, a number of filesystem options exist. FAT32 is natively supported on all systems - however, it lacks support for filesystems larger than 2TB or files larger than 4GB. Journaled HFS+ partitions, such as the Macintosh HD partition, will only mount read-only in Linux. Full read-write support is available for unjournaled HFS+ filesystems. ExFAT support can be made available by installing exfat-utils.
Install boot loader
Follow the relevant page for the chosen boot loader listed in Arch boot process#Boot loader.
Post Installation
Continue with General recommendations, noting the following modifications:
SD Card Reader
The sdcard reader does not work properly with the highest speeds currently and may never work properly. To get it working you will have to sacrifice the ultra fast modes and use a quirk in your boot parameters.
Users
If you wrote down your OSX uid's and gid's eariler, new users can be created by running:
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In order to be able to access a OSX user's directory, only the uid and gid need to match. (usernames can differ)
Wireless
Macbook Pro Wifi Driver Download
Macbooks 8,1 to 9,2 (and possibly newer) use BCM4331 for Wifi. See Broadcom wireless for details.The Mac Mini 5.1 Also uses the Broadcom BCM4331 Wi-Fi Chip.
Inverting FN keys
To make the FN keys function as normal FN keys, follow Apple Keyboard#Function keys do not work.
Wireless Flakiness
The only connection manager combination with BCM4331 that doesn't result in flakiness seems to be connman + disabled background scanning.
Keyboard Backlight
A 'just works' solution is the acpibacklightAUR[broken link: package not found] package. It provides the just work case when controlling it with the keyboard shortcuts.
Xorg
Main Page: Xorg
Install xf86-video-intel and setup Xorg as you normally would.
The built-in keyboard and most usb input devices will work out-of-the-box, but xf86-input-synaptics is needed in order to use the built-in touchpad.
Bells & Whistles
Emulating OSX Touchpad Gestures
With a little bit of work it's possible to tweak the multitouch options on the trackpad. This can be achieved with a combination of X11 driver settings and open source software.
Using synclient
synclient is included with the xf86-input-synaptics driver. It is useful for experimenting with settings as they take effect immediately and expire at the end of an X session. Many OSX options can be emulated without any additional software.
Run synclient -l to have a look at all the available options. Here are some suggestions which resemble the options found in OSX's System Preferences:
- By default synaptics is configured to use a double-tap drag gesture found on older touchpads - one may argue that this is not necessary on a clickpad.
synclient TapAndDragGesture=0will turn this off. - TapButtonX and ClickFingerX sets the mouse button triggered by tapping or clicking with X fingers. set
TapButton2=3andClickFinger2=3to assign two-finger click to the right mouse button. - Setting the bottom-right corner click to right mouse button can be done by subtracting about 500 from
RightEdgeandBottomEdgeand plugging the new values intoRightButtonAreaLeftandRightButtonAreaTop. If the last two options are not visible, setClickpad=1.
To make settings permanent, just modify /etc/X11/xorg.conf.d/10-synaptics.conf.
/usr/local/bin/synarea.sh with the required synclient commands, and add the script to the X startup sequence.