Macbook Air 2013

tommytomatoe · 2013-10-03 18:57:54

GSnake wrote:

I bought the MBA at last! Still waiting to make Arch Linux stable though... (Linux 3.12 too..)

Very nice! What sorts of issues are you having right now?

GSnake · 2013-10-03 23:38:54

I'm just sticking to OSX (bleah!).
I'm waiting to have a stable kernel / packages base to install Arch...

PS: Great machine this MBA. I hate Apple "lifestyle" but I have to admit this MBA is quite beautiful.

GSnake · 2013-10-06 12:53:39

I decided to install Arch on my Mac. Can I do a "dd" directly from my Mac to burn the iso on a USB stick? I remember that I CAN'T do that if I have to do an EFI installation... what should I do?

EDIT: Installed! I noticed that the touchpad "tap" is quite laggy... how can I solve this little problem?
EDIT 2: I'd like to have the "special keyboard shortcuts" like brightness dimming being controlled by the Fn+F* press. Now if I press F2 my brightness goes directly up... how can I switch those 2 things?
EDIT 3: I noticed that every time that I shut off the keyboard backlight, it comes back at 50% brightness when I press any button on my keyboard. Last but not least, if I set my screen to be dimmed at 50%, my bluetooth off and my keyboard backlight to 0% (random numbers) at each reboot every setting is lost. They reset each time I reboot my machine. How can I stop this thing?

Last edited by GSnake (2013-10-06 21:58:33)

hobarrera · 2013-10-07 23:26:13

GSnake wrote:

I decided to install Arch on my Mac. Can I do a "dd" directly from my Mac to burn the iso on a USB stick? I remember that I CAN'T do that if I have to do an EFI installation... what should I do?
EDIT: Installed! I noticed that the touchpad "tap" is quite laggy... how can I solve this little problem?
EDIT 2: I'd like to have the "special keyboard shortcuts" like brightness dimming being controlled by the Fn+F* press. Now if I press F2 my brightness goes directly up... how can I switch those 2 things?
EDIT 3: I noticed that every time that I shut off the keyboard backlight, it comes back at 50% brightness when I press any button on my keyboard. Last but not least, if I set my screen to be dimmed at 50%, my bluetooth off and my keyboard backlight to 0% (random numbers) at each reboot every setting is lost. They reset each time I reboot my machine. How can I stop this thing?

1) https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Un … B_from_ISO
2) I haven't had any issues with touchpad lag. Have you set everything up like I did? (see above for details).
3) https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/MacBook#Keyboard
4) Probably some app doing this for you, this isn't the default behaviour. Is this under X? If so, does the same happen OUTSIDE X?

rmbpefi · 2013-10-07 23:43:04

hey all, im a noob so i thought i'd ask for some guidance first.

i would like arch + windows 7 or 8 (direct x games, ugh), is this what i am supposed to do:
- remove osx (with the arch install usb or osx install usb)
- install arch into partition 1
- install refind from extra into the efi partition
- install windows into partition 2
- use refind to pick os (efistub or windows efi)

if i did not use refind or grub would the computer still work, but i just have to hold alt and pick the os (i'd prefer this)? or would i have to use grub if i got rid of refind? if i go the grub route, will windows work using hold alt or do i have to put an entry into grub for it?

thanks

Last edited by rmbpefi (2013-10-07 23:43:12)

hobarrera · 2013-10-07 23:59:06

rmbpefi wrote:

hey all, im a noob so i thought i'd ask for some guidance first.
i would like arch + windows 7 or 8 (direct x games, ugh), is this what i am supposed to do:
- remove osx (with the arch install usb or osx install usb)
- install arch into partition 1
- install refind from extra into the efi partition
- install windows into partition 2
- use refind to pick os (efistub or windows efi)
if i did not use refind or grub would the computer still work, but i just have to hold alt and pick the os (i'd prefer this)? or would i have to use grub if i got rid of refind? if i go the grub route, will windows work using hold alt or do i have to put an entry into grub for it?
thanks

Have you tried wine for win-only games and steam for linux? I've had no issues with most games with that.

That aside; your instructions look fine - so long as windows does not overwrite anything arch-related.

You need to have either efi or grub (or, ugh, both). Without any of these, there's no-one to pass the kernel it's boot parameters. No idea about windows on that side. I think rEFInd auto-detects windows, so you shouldn't need to do anything.

GSnake · 2013-10-08 09:31:30

hobarrera wrote:

GSnake wrote:
I decided to install Arch on my Mac. Can I do a "dd" directly from my Mac to burn the iso on a USB stick? I remember that I CAN'T do that if I have to do an EFI installation... what should I do?
EDIT: Installed! I noticed that the touchpad "tap" is quite laggy... how can I solve this little problem?
EDIT 2: I'd like to have the "special keyboard shortcuts" like brightness dimming being controlled by the Fn+F* press. Now if I press F2 my brightness goes directly up... how can I switch those 2 things?
EDIT 3: I noticed that every time that I shut off the keyboard backlight, it comes back at 50% brightness when I press any button on my keyboard. Last but not least, if I set my screen to be dimmed at 50%, my bluetooth off and my keyboard backlight to 0% (random numbers) at each reboot every setting is lost. They reset each time I reboot my machine. How can I stop this thing?
1) https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Un … B_from_ISO
2) I haven't had any issues with touchpad lag. Have you set everything up like I did? (see above for details).
3) https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/MacBook#Keyboard
4) Probably some app doing this for you, this isn't the default behaviour. Is this under X? If so, does the same happen OUTSIDE X?

1) Solved using Refind.
2) I'll see for a solution later, now I've just enabled the "click" without tapping.
3) Solved by adding to /etc/modprobe.d/hid_apple.conf the option fn = 2
4) It changes from DE to DE. I noticed that KDE kinda saves the settings (but not the last used!) by choosing a default behaviour. So each time you login it sets brightness and keyboard backlight. Gnome DOESN'T do that AND it doesn't recognize the keyboard backlight. I mean, I can change it using the keyboard shortcuts but it won't save / recognize the brightness level by default.
I would like to save the "power management" settings at each shutdown (which happens in OSX).
5) I'm having serious Wi-Fi problems using the broadcom-wl (same with broadcome-wl-dkms) package. Sometimes it works, sometimes not. I've to rebuild it each time hoping it'll work again...
6) Linux 3.12-RC4 is out! Is it going to improve something?
7) The SCREEN brightness in Gnome 3 isn't well calibrated. If you press "Brightness +/-" sometimes it goes up by 5% and sometimes by 20%....
8) Still having the brightness problem after suspend. News about it?

What can I do to improve the touchpad? In Gnome 3 it works great... in other DE not that good yet...

Last edited by GSnake (2013-10-08 12:34:03)

hobarrera · 2013-10-08 15:26:03

GSnake wrote:

1) Solved using Refind.
2) I'll see for a solution later, now I've just enabled the "click" without tapping.
3) Solved by adding to /etc/modprobe.d/hid_apple.conf the option fn = 2
4) It changes from DE to DE. I noticed that KDE kinda saves the settings (but not the last used!) by choosing a default behaviour. So each time you login it sets brightness and keyboard backlight. Gnome DOESN'T do that AND it doesn't recognize the keyboard backlight. I mean, I can change it using the keyboard shortcuts but it won't save / recognize the brightness level by default. I would like to save the "power management" settings at each shutdown (which happens in OSX).

I don't use any DE. I think the firmware remembers the backlight levels itself, since I've clearly no app running that manages that (AND the backlight is consistent from rEFInd to my desktop, and mantained across reboots).
Plugging in the power adapter will set the screen brightness (but not keyboard) to 100%.

GSnake wrote:

5) I'm having serious Wi-Fi problems using the broadcom-wl (same with broadcome-wl-dkms) package. Sometimes it works, sometimes not. I've to rebuild it each time hoping it'll work again...

I had no issues with NetworkManager, but had disconnections and could not connect to some networks using wicd.

GSnake wrote:

6) Linux 3.12-RC4 is out! Is it going to improve something?
7) The SCREEN brightness in Gnome 3 isn't well calibrated. If you press "Brightness +/-" sometimes it goes up by 5% and sometimes by 20%....
8) Still having the brightness problem after suspend. News about it?

Not AFAIK.

GSnake wrote:

What can I do to improve the touchpad? In Gnome 3 it works great... in other DE not that good yet...

Touchpad has been covered in this same thread before. I you've gnome3 specific issues, you should seek help on a new thread; it's doesn't sound hardware related.

GSnake · 2013-10-15 21:29:23

So no one is having touchpad lag with tapping?

BTW, I submitted 2 bugs both regarding the screen. Let's wait.

dougphy · 2013-10-18 21:36:13

Can someone give a very clear, basic set of instructions on how to partition the hard drive, mount the partitions correctly, and how to install the bootloader for an Arch only install. I'm seeing conflicting statements in wikis/this thread and I'm not having any luck getting a properly working installation.

Last edited by dougphy (2013-10-18 21:37:17)

tommytomatoe · 2013-10-22 02:46:49

dougphy wrote:

Can someone give a very clear, basic set of instructions on how to partition the hard drive, mount the partitions correctly, and how to install the bootloader for an Arch only install. I'm seeing conflicting statements in wikis/this thread and I'm not having any luck getting a properly working installation.

Hi. There are several ways to have Arch-only install. I'll describe the two I've used.

Option A.
Partitions:

/dev/sda1 100MB /boot/efi hfsplus
/dev/sda2 10GB / ext4
/dev/sda3 30GB /home ext4
free space

Bootloader: grub2-efi
Inside /boot/efi, I have the following:

[tommy@arch ~]$ tree /boot/efi/
/boot/efi/
├── boot
│   └── grub
│       └── locale
│           └── en.mo
├── EFI
│   ├── grub
│   │   ├── grub_x64.efi
│   │   ├── grub_x64.efi.old (for backup purposes)
│   │   └── locale
│   │       └── en.mo
│   └── Mac
│       └── boot.efi
├── mach_kernel (empty text file)
└── System
    └── Library
        └── CoreServices
            ├── boot.efi (hard-link to grub_x64.efi)
            └── SystemVersion.plist

10 directories, 8 files

I bless the /System/Library/CoreServices/boot.efi so the Mac boots using this file, which is grub2.

Option B - much less complicated
Partitions:

/dev/sda1 200MB /boot 
/dev/sda2 10GB /
/dev/sda3 30GB /home
free space

Bootloader: rEFInd

Install rEFInd into /boot. Bless the refind.efi file. It will automatically detect the linux kernel and you can boot directly from it. That's about all there is to it. Just read up on threads and wiki for proper kernel flags for stability and keyboard layout.

As for how to partition, just follow the beginner's guide: https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Beginners'_Guide#Example

Last edited by tommytomatoe (2013-10-22 02:49:07)

iaculch · 2013-11-05 04:14:27

Hi Guys,

I'm a brand new arch user so I apologise if have missed something.

I've searched all over and can't seem to find anything specific on back-light solutions for the 2013 macbook air.

Using xbacklight the screen brightness will either be at 100% for values > 93 or 0% for anything else.

Does anyone have a working backlight solution?

EDIT:

I have passed kernel paramaters "acpi_osi=Linux acpi_backlight=vendor " which has fixed that issue

Last edited by iaculch (2013-11-05 04:53:19)

streamer45 · 2013-11-05 15:15:02

tried running kernel 3.12 but speakers still do not work.

afiestas · 2013-11-05 15:24:03

Any idea of where the webcam is plugged in? not usb not pci...

hobarrera · 2013-11-05 15:36:16

iaculch wrote:

Hi Guys,
I'm a brand new arch user so I apologise if have missed something.
I've searched all over and can't seem to find anything specific on back-light solutions for the 2013 macbook air.
Using xbacklight the screen brightness will either be at 100% for values > 93 or 0% for anything else.
Does anyone have a working backlight solution?
EDIT:
I have passed kernel paramaters "acpi_osi=Linux acpi_backlight=vendor " which has fixed that issue

This only happens to me after/before suspension (so I don't suspend; I hibernate). Otherwise, brightness control works fine.

streamer45 wrote:

tried running kernel 3.12 but speakers still do not work.

It does not work out-of-the-box. You need to run a command for it to run, and it'll run until your next poweroff/suspension. It's further up this thread.

afiestas wrote:

Any idea of where the webcam is plugged in? not usb not pci...

It's PCI-E, since nor USB nor PCI have the bandwidth for the video quality the webcam offers. It's not supported by Linux, and I don't know of any future plans that might change this.

afiestas · 2013-11-05 15:41:26

The webcam is 14e4:1570 in case somebody cares (seen it http://mactaris.blogspot.co.uk/2013/07/ … pport.html)

Last edited by afiestas (2013-11-05 15:53:02)

streamer45 · 2013-11-05 15:54:37

hobarrera wrote:

It does not work out-of-the-box. You need to run a command for it to run, and it'll run until your next poweroff/suspension. It's further up this thread.

Much appreciated, works now!

iaculch · 2013-11-06 09:56:08

I have followed the wiki article on suspend and hibernate:

https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Su … _Hibernate

However I still can't manage to get hibernate working, I am getting the following message on boot:

"Error: resume no device specified for hibernation"

I have added 'resume=/dev/sda8' to the 'GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT' line in the 'etc/default/grub' file and also run 'grub-mkconfig -o /boot/grub/grub.cfg'

I have added the resume hook as follows in the '/etc/mkinitcpio.conf' file:

HOOKS="base udev autodetect keyboard modconf block resume filesystems keyboard fsck"

I've made sure that I've run 'mkinitcpio -p linux' after this.

What am I not doing correctly?

karihre · 2013-11-06 17:22:43

With the recent 3.12 kernel (found in testing at the moment) I got sound from the speakers without any configuration (beyond the normal alsa / pulseaudio stuff).

The suspend brightness issue still sucks a bit though. I think that's the only thing bothering me by now.

matsjoyce · 2013-11-08 16:59:12

The speaker issue was probably sorted out by this bug: https://bugzilla.kernel.org/show_bug.cgi?id=60811. The patch was only added in 3.12, so anyone on the main repo will still be stuck with no sound.

hobarrera · 2013-11-08 21:28:27

iaculch wrote:

I have added 'resume=/dev/sda8' to the 'GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT' line in the 'etc/default/grub' file and also run 'grub-mkconfig -o /boot/grub/grub.cfg'

Have you tried adding it to GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX, as that same wiki article says?

Legogris · 2013-11-17 23:56:09

Since last kernel update I can't boot anymore, just getting a black screen after fsck

EDIT: Nevermind, update cleared the brightness kernel parameters mentioned higher up in this thread.

I can confirm that speakers now work under 3.12.0-1.

Last edited by Legogris (2013-11-18 00:15:19)

pankid · 2013-12-09 23:54:47

I recently purchased a macbook air 2013 and am happily dual booting osx and arch on it. I used rEFInd without grub and everything boots up fine after uncommenting "also_scan_dirs" and "scan_all_linux_kernels" in the "refind_linux.conf" file. I set up rEFInd under osx.

I have had issues with my touchpad right click. I have to use dual finger tap in order to get a right click and I have not found a fix for setting right click to the bottom right of the touchpad. The function keys all seem to work fine, but are defaulted to their functions instead of F1 through F12, which is somewhat annoying. There may be a fix out there for this already but I have not found one yet. My keyboard backlight defaults to all the way on, so I have to manually turn it down with the function keys every time I reboot. Again, there might be a fix out there for this, but I have yet to find one.

The wireless driver was by far the hardest part of the installation. I ended up tethering my phone for an internet connection during installation because I was too cheap to buy an ethernet adapter. I ended up transferring over the wireless driver aur package with a flash drive in order to install it. I am not sure if there is a good command line alternative to downloading packages from the aur which does not require already having a helper from the aur installed, but that would of been much easier than moving the package over from another machine.

edit: spelling and grammar.

Last edited by pankid (2013-12-10 02:17:41)

hobarrera · 2013-12-10 01:35:22

pankid wrote:

I recently purchased a macbook air 2013 and am happily dual booting osx and arch on it. I used rEFInd without grub and everything boots up fine after uncommenting "also_scan_dirs" and "scan_all_linux_kernels" in the "refind_linux.conf" file. I set up rEFInd under osx.

Cool! ^_^

pankid wrote:

I have had issues with my touchpad right click. I have to use dual finder tap in order to get a right click and I have not found a fix for setting right click to the bottom right of the touchpad.

Never heard of it, but there might be something out there.

pankid wrote:

The function keys all seem to work fine, but are defaulted to their functions instead of F1 through F12, which is somewhat annoying. There may be a fix out there for this already but I have not found one yet. My keyboard backlight defaults to all the way on, so I have to manually turn it down the with function keys every time I reboot. Again, there might be a fix out there for this, but I have yet to find one.

https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Ap … o_not_work

No idea about the brightness, it's been kept for me from day zero. Does your brightness get turned up as soon as your laptop turns on, or when arch loads? (that might be an indicator that it's either the firmware or arch doing it).

pankid wrote:

The wireless driver was by far the hardest part of the installation. I ended up teathering my phone for an internet connection during installation because I was too cheap to buy an ethernet adapter. I ended up transfering over the wireless driver aur package with a flash drive in order to install it. I am not sure if there is a good command line alternative to downloading packages from the aur which does not require already having a helper from the aur installed, but that would of been much easier than moving the package over from another machine.

Download the tarball from AUR, and MAKEPKG.
aur.sh is nice on a clean system too.

pankid · 2013-12-10 02:14:59

pankid wrote:

The wireless driver was by far the hardest part of the installation. I ended up teathering my phone for an internet connection during installation because I was too cheap to buy an ethernet adapter. I ended up transfering over the wireless driver aur package with a flash drive in order to install it. I am not sure if there is a good command line alternative to downloading packages from the aur which does not require already having a helper from the aur installed, but that would of been much easier than moving the package over from another machine.

hobarrera wrote:

Download the tarball from AUR, and MAKEPKG.
aur.sh is nice on a clean system too.

I know how to build a package from the AUR, I was just wondering if there is a way to download packages from the AUR with the arch install iso. It worked out fine for me because I had access to another computer to download the package, but it would have been less of a hassle if I could have done a wget or something to download the wireless driver package.

Last edited by pankid (2013-12-10 02:15:38)

Arch Linux

#76 2013-10-03 18:57:54

Re: Macbook Air 2013

#77 2013-10-03 23:38:54

Re: Macbook Air 2013

#78 2013-10-06 12:53:39

Re: Macbook Air 2013

#79 2013-10-07 23:26:13

Re: Macbook Air 2013

#80 2013-10-07 23:43:04

Re: Macbook Air 2013

#81 2013-10-07 23:59:06

Re: Macbook Air 2013

#82 2013-10-08 09:31:30

Re: Macbook Air 2013

#83 2013-10-08 15:26:03

Re: Macbook Air 2013

#84 2013-10-15 21:29:23

Re: Macbook Air 2013

#85 2013-10-18 21:36:13

Re: Macbook Air 2013

#86 2013-10-22 02:46:49

Re: Macbook Air 2013

#87 2013-11-05 04:14:27

Re: Macbook Air 2013

#88 2013-11-05 15:15:02

Re: Macbook Air 2013

#89 2013-11-05 15:24:03

Re: Macbook Air 2013

#90 2013-11-05 15:36:16

Re: Macbook Air 2013

#91 2013-11-05 15:41:26

Re: Macbook Air 2013

#92 2013-11-05 15:54:37

Re: Macbook Air 2013

#93 2013-11-06 09:56:08

Re: Macbook Air 2013

#94 2013-11-06 17:22:43

Re: Macbook Air 2013

#95 2013-11-08 16:59:12

Re: Macbook Air 2013

#96 2013-11-08 21:28:27

Re: Macbook Air 2013

#97 2013-11-17 23:56:09

Re: Macbook Air 2013

#98 2013-12-09 23:54:47

Re: Macbook Air 2013

#99 2013-12-10 01:35:22

Re: Macbook Air 2013

#100 2013-12-10 02:14:59

Re: Macbook Air 2013

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