Macbook Air 2013

matsjoyce · 2014-11-07 10:55:42

Kamek wrote:

I'm planning to get a 13" MacBook Air (the 6.2). According to this thread, wifi seems to be unstable.
I plan to ditch OSX and use Arch only.
Would you guys recommend a different laptop ? Or is it worth it ?

WiFi depends on the linux and driver version. It worked fine for me with the latest broadcom-wl-dkms driver and linux 3.16. I'm having problems (having to use a USB WiFi stick) with linux 3.17, but hobarrera has the same versions, and has no problems, so it might be something fishy in my settings (or I haven't found the magic option yet).

Side note: does anyone have working fans, as mine aren't doing anything (permanently at 0). Did I miss a package, or is it broken?

Last edited by matsjoyce (2014-11-07 14:32:24)

Therion87 · 2014-11-07 17:12:43

matsjoyce wrote:

Kamek wrote:
I'm planning to get a 13" MacBook Air (the 6.2). According to this thread, wifi seems to be unstable.
I plan to ditch OSX and use Arch only.
Would you guys recommend a different laptop ? Or is it worth it ?
WiFi depends on the linux and driver version. It worked fine for me with the latest broadcom-wl-dkms driver and linux 3.16. I'm having problems (having to use a USB WiFi stick) with linux 3.17, but hobarrera has the same versions, and has no problems, so it might be something fishy in my settings (or I haven't found the magic option yet).
Side note: does anyone have working fans, as mine aren't doing anything (permanently at 0). Did I miss a package, or is it broken?

Mine work. Did you install TLP and macfanctld?

matsjoyce · 2014-11-07 17:53:29

I've got them, but it remains at 0. Even doing su -c 'echo 6000 > /sys/devices/platform/applesmc.768/fan1_output' does nothing. Looks like 3.17 has wrecked something...

hobarrera · 2014-11-07 22:18:31

Kamek wrote:

I'm planning to get a 13" MacBook Air (the 6.2). According to this thread, wifi seems to be unstable.
I plan to ditch OSX and use Arch only.
Would you guys recommend a different laptop ? Or is it worth it ?

I can't really reproduce the instabilities. Wifi has worked flawlessly for me.

I went for a MacBook Air because it was the cheapest Haswell with open bootloader in the market, but anything equivalent should be pretty much the same thing.

matsjoyce wrote:

Side note: does anyone have working fans, as mine aren't doing anything (permanently at 0). Did I miss a package, or is it broken?

My fans trigger when the CPU is pretty hot, but are idle most of the time. Try to open something that uses plenty of CPU for a while (eg: which heats up the macbook), and see if the machine is hot (you can touch it above the keyboard and you'll notice if it is).

matsjoyce · 2014-11-08 11:12:52

Well, I rendered an image in blender for a few hours, and it just throttles the CPU, which it should do after the fans... It's not really a problem, its just weird (might be connected with the WiFi issue if its kernel or config related). P.S. Is your WiFi BCM4360, or is it slightly different?

Last edited by matsjoyce (2014-11-08 11:14:36)

hobarrera · 2014-11-08 12:55:50

matsjoyce wrote:

P.S. Is your WiFi BCM4360, or is it slightly different?

I think so. It should be. How can I confirm this?

matsjoyce · 2014-11-08 12:57:42

lspci|grep Wireless

Gives me:

03:00.0 Network controller: Broadcom Corporation BCM4360 802.11ac Wireless Network Adapter (rev 03)

hobarrera · 2014-11-08 14:13:21

matsjoyce wrote:

lspci|grep Wireless

Gives me:

03:00.0 Network controller: Broadcom Corporation BCM4360 802.11ac Wireless Network Adapter (rev 03)

$ lspci | grep Wire
03:00.0 Network controller: Broadcom Corporation BCM4360 802.11ac Wireless Network Adapter (rev 03)

matsjoyce · 2014-11-10 09:17:44

OK, on the fan side, looks like its broken, as I ran the apple diagnostics, and it says there's a problem, so I may have to bring it back to the apple store (again, already been there once due to the display). Strange, as I'm not using the fan that much...

jmze · 2014-12-04 09:18:43

Hey all. I drank the Apple kool-aid this year and it was nice for a month or two until I really tried to use my machine, the way I'm used to using Linux in the past. No NTFS support, not used to their non-GNU replacements for some things etc so I would really like to give Arch a try on this.

I've only used Debian/Ubuntu in the past. I have the 2013 MBA 6,2 model. It's my main computer so stability is kind of necessary but I'm willing to get my hands dirty. I haven't gone through all 10 pages of this thread but the last couple seem to suggest to me that Arch runs pretty damn well on the MBA at this point. I had a few questions though.

1) Did you back up OSX at all? I would like to have a way to restore to OS X in case I want to sell this thing or have the need to revert back to OS X(like sending it in for repairs etc).
2) I'm fine with the webcam not working, but are there any major hangups I should be worried about?

I'd really like to ditch OS X and this locked-down ecosystem.

hobarrera · 2014-12-04 10:45:20

jmze wrote:

1) Did you back up OSX at all? I would like to have a way to restore to OS X in case I want to sell this thing or have the need to revert back to OS X(like sending it in for repairs etc).

You can reinstall OS X through firmware by booting with super+r held down. No need to backup anything. It'll get the image from the internet.

jmze wrote:

2) I'm fine with the webcam not working, but are there any major hangups I should be worried about?

Nope, no hangups or stability issues.

matsjoyce · 2014-12-04 21:15:56

hobarrera wrote:

jmze wrote:
2) I'm fine with the webcam not working, but are there any major hangups I should be worried about?
Nope, no hangups or stability issues.

Yup, the WiFi seems to be working with me now, and the fan issue has been fixed (sent in for repairs, and it turns out the fan hadn't been plugged in from the last repair).

Pitmairen · 2014-12-31 08:57:47

I have just installed arch on my macbook air 2013, everything is working great except for the speakers. They are working, but the sound is really bad. It sound like the speakers are put inside a box or something. I have tried with just alsa and also with pulseaudio and various equalizer settings, but is not any better. The sound in osx was much better. Anyone else having this problem?

brainwave · 2015-01-02 19:58:10

Pitmairen wrote:

I have just installed arch on my macbook air 2013, everything is working great except for the speakers. They are working, but the sound is really bad. It sound like the speakers are put inside a box or something. I have tried with just alsa and also with pulseaudio and various equalizer settings, but is not any better. The sound in osx was much better. Anyone else having this problem?

Definitely OS X sound is much better than sound in Arch. For sound, I use alsa drivers (no pulseaudio).

I wouldn't go as saying the sound is 'really' bad, it is just OK for voice etc. For music it isn't any good, it just sounds so flat.

Pitmairen · 2015-01-07 20:27:02

I have created a simple application that can recognize touchpad gestures to get gestures like on osx.
You can find it here https://github.com/Pitmairen/tpswipe
I'm trying to learn go so it is written in go.

I'm aware of touchegg, but it didn't work the way i wanted.

selzer · 2015-01-10 23:58:46

I have one or two problems with Linux 3.17 on my MacBook Air.

Firstly, every time my macbook wakes up there's this message in the kernel log: `usb usb2-port3: Cannot enable. Maybe the USB cable is bad?`.

Not sure, but it might be connected to wakeups from suspend while the macbook should be sleeping, but I couldn't accurately verify this.
The Backlight (and therefore the Apple on the back) flashes on and off while the computer is supposed to sleep, which is the real problem.

Does anyone else have this problem, know the source of it or have a solution?
It is described more accurately in this github issue: https://github.com/patjak/mba6x_bl/issu … t-68677008

pankid · 2015-01-16 22:01:07

After upgrading to the latest kernel and reinstall the wireless drivers, I am getting a kernel panic a few seconds after booting up. Anyone else seeing this issue? I took a picture of the panic, as I cant take a screenshot once it's dead.

https://imgur.com/HrdExvg

l4than-d3vers · 2015-01-16 22:12:48

yep, see this topic

hobarrera · 2015-01-17 00:12:11

pankid wrote:

After upgrading to the latest kernel and reinstall the wireless drivers, I am getting a kernel panic a few seconds after booting up. Anyone else seeing this issue? I took a picture of the panic, as I cant take a screenshot once it's dead.
https://imgur.com/HrdExvg

This has been reported plenty of times in the different variety of packages for that driver. There's also the forum topic mentioned above. I advise you to keep track of unsupported (aur) packages you have installed, since this has been going on for quite a while now.

pankid · 2015-01-17 13:59:13

Thanks guys. I should of done a better job googling.

step-2 · 2015-01-20 08:55:05

H again ,

am having a strange problem & any help in appreciated ,

am from saudi arabia & my macbook air came with an Arabic + english keyboard , and the mac arabic layout is different than the regular arabic qwerty layout ,

in mac osx the layout is matched to the keyboard , but in linux & windows it is not matched ( some keys are in the wrong position )

so am wondering if there is an Arabic macintosh layout same as english ( there is an english macintosh layout but not for arabic )

or my last solution if i could remap the keyboard in gnome or x .

again any help is appreciated .

Last edited by step-2 (2015-01-20 08:56:05)

hobarrera · 2015-01-20 15:07:02

step-2 wrote:

H again ,
am having a strange problem & any help in appreciated ,
am from saudi arabia & my macbook air came with an Arabic + english keyboard , and the mac arabic layout is different than the regular arabic qwerty layout ,
in mac osx the layout is matched to the keyboard , but in linux & windows it is not matched ( some keys are in the wrong position )
so am wondering if there is an Arabic macintosh layout same as english ( there is an english macintosh layout but not for arabic )
or my last solution if i could remap the keyboard in gnome or x .
again any help is appreciated .

Have you tried the variants when setting the layout, eg:

setxkbmap -layout ara -variant basic

.

I'm not sure if there are any, but it might be worth looking into. IIRC, I had to use a variant on one of my spanish laptops.

Otherwise, you might have better luck with a new thread, since the proper topic might catch more eyes.

step-2 · 2015-01-24 02:33:47

hobarrera wrote:

step-2 wrote:
H again ,
am having a strange problem & any help in appreciated ,
am from saudi arabia & my macbook air came with an Arabic + english keyboard , and the mac arabic layout is different than the regular arabic qwerty layout ,
in mac osx the layout is matched to the keyboard , but in linux & windows it is not matched ( some keys are in the wrong position )
so am wondering if there is an Arabic macintosh layout same as english ( there is an english macintosh layout but not for arabic )
or my last solution if i could remap the keyboard in gnome or x .
again any help is appreciated .
Have you tried the variants when setting the layout, eg:
setxkbmap -layout ara -variant basic
.
I'm not sure if there are any, but it might be worth looking into. IIRC, I had to use a variant on one of my spanish laptops.
Otherwise, you might have better luck with a new thread, since the proper topic might catch more eyes.

thanks for the response ,

but the command didn't help ,

it still point me to the Arabic qwerty & not the Arabic mac ,

you can see the difference here :

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arabic_key … c_Keyboard

the last row is totally different ,

i filed a bug to the gnome bugzilla , and they pionted me to : https://bugs.freedesktop.org/

i filed the bug , let us see what happens .

frank604 · 2015-01-24 03:20:43

Hey guys, I wrote a new blog post about cpu freq/temp control/battery saving for our mba. http://frankshin.com/macbook-air-2013-6 … ix-it-wip/
Thought I'd share it here with you. It is still a WIP but I think I'm getting somewhere. If you guys got something that I've missed please do share and I'll add it to the list. Thanks guys.

step-2 · 2015-01-29 19:05:38

for everyone having the high cpu issue ,

just update to os x 10.10.2 , it has with the update a new firmware that fixes the issue for linux & windows ,

hope it help someone .

Arch Linux

#226 2014-11-07 10:55:42

Re: Macbook Air 2013

#227 2014-11-07 17:12:43

Re: Macbook Air 2013

#228 2014-11-07 17:53:29

Re: Macbook Air 2013

#229 2014-11-07 22:18:31

Re: Macbook Air 2013

#230 2014-11-08 11:12:52

Re: Macbook Air 2013

#231 2014-11-08 12:55:50

Re: Macbook Air 2013

#232 2014-11-08 12:57:42

Re: Macbook Air 2013

#233 2014-11-08 14:13:21

Re: Macbook Air 2013

#234 2014-11-10 09:17:44

Re: Macbook Air 2013

#235 2014-12-04 09:18:43

Re: Macbook Air 2013

#236 2014-12-04 10:45:20

Re: Macbook Air 2013

#237 2014-12-04 21:15:56

Re: Macbook Air 2013

#238 2014-12-31 08:57:47

Re: Macbook Air 2013

#239 2015-01-02 19:58:10

Re: Macbook Air 2013

#240 2015-01-07 20:27:02

Re: Macbook Air 2013

#241 2015-01-10 23:58:46

Re: Macbook Air 2013

#242 2015-01-16 22:01:07

Re: Macbook Air 2013

#243 2015-01-16 22:12:48

Re: Macbook Air 2013

#244 2015-01-17 00:12:11

Re: Macbook Air 2013

#245 2015-01-17 13:59:13

Re: Macbook Air 2013

#246 2015-01-20 08:55:05

Re: Macbook Air 2013

#247 2015-01-20 15:07:02

Re: Macbook Air 2013

#248 2015-01-24 02:33:47

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#249 2015-01-24 03:20:43

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#250 2015-01-29 19:05:38

Re: Macbook Air 2013

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