Macbook Air 2013

matsjoyce · 2013-12-10 14:01:10

pankid wrote:

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.

You could try

man synaptics

There's plenty of things there, and AFAIK that is one of them.
Strange with the backlight, mine sets itself to zero brightness whenever I boot. Maybe it depends on the last used setting in OSX?

hobarrera · 2013-12-10 20:19:12

I just noticed bluetooth does not seem to work (it's the first time I try to use it). Has anyone had any experience with this?

pankid wrote:

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.

You said you did not have an ethernet adapter, HOW would you have downloaded the package from the ISO if you had not network? I don't think I'm quite understanding your issue.

pankid · 2013-12-14 20:50:48

hobarrera wrote:

I just noticed bluetooth does not seem to work (it's the first time I try to use it). Has anyone had any experience with this?
pankid wrote:
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.
You said you did not have an ethernet adapter, HOW would you have downloaded the package from the ISO if you had not network? I don't think I'm quite understanding your issue.

I tethered my smart phone to get internet for the initial setup. I am just saying it would be nice if there was a way to install the wireless drivers from the aur during installation with the install .iso. This would require a way to download packages from the aur via command line without a helper, which itself needs to be installed from the aur. I guess one could just wget a helper off of github, if you have the url handy.

I also figured out that my keyboard backlight was defaulting to all the way on because of gnome. I run cinnamon and my keyboard only lights back up when I start up cinnamon or gnome.

b0gg · 2014-01-03 23:52:34

Hello,
I just put together a fresh install on my MBA2013 and the sound, although it states in the wiki that it works out of the box, does not work. I unmuted everything for both soundcards in alsamixer and sudo alsamixer, yet I still have no sound. Is the wiki inaccurate?

Also, has anyone had luck with the latest version of pommed from the AUR? It seems to be erroring out on 'systemctl start pommed' and I can't figure out how to get a useful log from journalctl with output from pommed.

hobarrera · 2014-01-04 10:09:44

b0gg wrote:

Hello,
I just put together a fresh install on my MBA2013 and the sound, although it states in the wiki that it works out of the box, does not work. I unmuted everything for both soundcards in alsamixer and sudo alsamixer, yet I still have no sound. Is the wiki inaccurate?
Also, has anyone had luck with the latest version of pommed from the AUR? It seems to be erroring out on 'systemctl start pommed' and I can't figure out how to get a useful log from journalctl with output from pommed.

Odd. It works for me just fine. I'm using pulseaudio, BTW. Do you have everything up-to-date?
I can't exactly narrow down the exact needed packages, because I installed a pretty large amount. But pulseaudio and libpulse, definitely.

b0gg · 2014-01-05 01:52:24

hobarrera wrote:

Odd. It works for me just fine. I'm using pulseaudio, BTW. Do you have everything up-to-date?
I can't exactly narrow down the exact needed packages, because I installed a pretty large amount. But pulseaudio and libpulse, definitely.

Yeah, it's completely up to date as it's a fresh install. I tried installing pulseaudio and pulseaudio-alsa and triple-checking the alsamixer settings, no improvement.

matsjoyce · 2014-01-05 16:26:22

What were you using to test the sound, as flash needed libflashsupport-pulse on mine (as far as I can remember).

frank604 · 2014-01-14 00:56:34

I wanted to say a quick thank you to everyone in this thread offering a ton of valuable information in setting up the macbook as well as circumventing the issues and filing bug reports. Last night I didn't like my refind dual boot macos+arch so I completely scratched it and used Ryan Gehrig's blog as a reference.

I documented my installation as well as summed up as much "setting up" required on the macbook. This was written mostly for myself but hope it helps those who recently picked up a macbook air or for those who are considering buying a macbook air.

http://www.frankshin.com/installing-arc … -air-2013/

patrikjakobsson · 2014-01-19 16:14:01

I have a workaround for the brightness after suspend issue. It's a kernel module which can be found at:
https://github.com/patjak/mba6x_bl

It takes control of the backlight chip directly and disables backlight access for the Intel driver. It's experimental so use at your own risk.

neptuneK · 2014-01-19 17:39:59

patrikjakobsson wrote:

I have a workaround for the brightness after suspend issue. It's a kernel module which can be found at:
https://github.com/patjak/mba6x_bl
It takes control of the backlight chip directly and disables backlight access for the Intel driver. It's experimental so use at your own risk.

Works like a charm. Thank you Patrik!

frank604 · 2014-01-19 18:20:13

Wow I'll give this a go later today. Mind if I share the news?

matsjoyce · 2014-01-19 18:57:58

neptuneK wrote:

Works like a charm. Thank you Patrik!

Same, nice find! The brightness bug was rather annoying, as staring at a 100% brightness screen began to give me a headache after a while.

patrikjakobsson · 2014-01-19 20:02:55

frank604 wrote:

Wow I'll give this a go later today. Mind if I share the news?

Share away. If you find any bugs/issues, please report on github.

frank604 · 2014-01-20 02:54:06

I'm not sure what I'm doing wrong... any help appreciated.

So I followed the instructions:

git clone git://github.com/patjak/mba6x_bl
cd mba6x_bl
make
sudo make install
sudo depmod -a

Then I added a 20-intel.conf in /etc/X11/xorg.conf.d

Section "Device"
Identifier "Intel Graphics"
Driver "intel"
Option "Backlight" "mba6x_backlight"
EndSection

I reboot and there is an error in Xorg.0.log

(EE) intel(0): failed to open /sys/class/backlight/mba6x_backlight/max_brightness for backlight control: No such file or directory

So I ls /sys/class/backlight

intel_backlight

I do not see a mba6x_backlight. I know it would work as everyone except me has flawlessly installed. What did I do wrong? What am I missing?

Last edited by frank604 (2014-01-20 02:54:22)

matsjoyce · 2014-01-20 15:31:39

I had to add a file containing

mba6x_bl

to /etc/modules-load.d/.
My xorg.conf was

Section "Device"
Identifier "Intel Graphics"
Driver "intel"
Option "Backlight" "mba6x_bl"  <-- this line is different
EndSection

You can check if the module has been loaded by

grep mba6x_bl /proc/modules

Last edited by matsjoyce (2014-01-20 15:32:33)

frank604 · 2014-01-20 16:53:18

Thanks. to Patjak and Matsjoyce. In my haste I forgot to load the module!! oh my god...
I just have /etc/modules-load.d/mba6x_bl.conf saying mba6x_bl
Great work!

Last edited by frank604 (2014-01-20 17:18:40)

codemac · 2014-01-24 07:01:21

Awesome! The mba6x_bl module fixed my suspend issue, but now I can't set my brightness at all

Thoughts? I've been using xbacklight -inc/-dec

frank604 · 2014-01-24 07:59:32

That is what I'm using. Double check you have xorg-xbacklight from extra repo installed? If yes, manually use the command xbacklight -dec 10 and see if it works. Then if yes, test keybinding. If using xbindkeys:

"xbacklight -dec 5"
m:0x0 + c:232

"xbacklight -inc 5"
m:0x0 + c:233

codemac · 2014-01-26 22:18:26

Yea, that's what I was saying doesn't work.

It seems that mba6x_bl manages to disable the intel driver's controls, but it seems only to being able to write out a value of 0 on shutdown (maybe the intel driver is doing this after the removal of the mba6x_bl driver on shutdown?), thus on reboot it loads up brightness at 0.

I looked through the source on github, and I don't see where my MBA model would be different.. but I do have the awful marvell ssd controller, who knows

frank604 · 2014-01-26 22:44:14

As a sanity check, does lsmod show mba6x_bl loaded? Does /sys/class/backlight/mba6x_backlight exist on your system? How are you loading the module (through a conf in /etc/modules-load.d?)

Edit: What happens when you manually try to echo in a brightness value?
Also Model #: MD760LL/A is me
Have you tried the other backlight controllers https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Backlight
Another thing I added in was "acpi_osi=Linux" and "acpi_backlight=vendor" <-- not sure if this will help but that is in my /etc/default/grub (remake grub config after)
Sorry for the shotgun approach, just trying to think of what I did and what could be different between you and me.

Last edited by frank604 (2014-01-26 22:58:41)

joshtau · 2014-01-28 11:15:20

Hi All,

Just want to thank everyone for the wonderful tips and tricks listed on the forum, I was dualbooting Mac/Xubuntu beforehand where Xubuntu was running super buggily even with the latest kernel.

However with Arch + the tips on this page I have the MBA 2013 running absolutely perfectly with just Arch. A couple of font issues need to be resolved, however everything is running quite smooth with battery life comparable to Mavericks.

Really impressed with Arch, after running it a couple of years ago on laptop it is once again my favourite thing to run.

Last edited by joshtau (2014-01-28 11:15:47)

frank604 · 2014-01-28 16:02:43

@joshtau
Welcome to Arch and also to the forums. I am not a font guy myself and have found Bohoomil's font bundle to work excellently out of the box (even better with some user added configurations) https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/In … le%2Bfonts

Also take a look at powerdown by taylorchu. https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Powerdown

That should get you going good

Last edited by frank604 (2014-01-28 16:03:06)

hobarrera · 2014-02-03 00:44:56

Has anyone installed mba6x_bl through DKMS? Would you mind creating an AUR package? This is so we don't need to manually reinstall after kernel updates.

frank604 · 2014-02-03 12:34:19

https://aur.archlinux.org/packages/mba6x_bl-dkms

This is my first PKGBUILD and AUR upload. Please verify that it is working. I have gone over it with namcap and testing. Feedback welcome and props to patjak for making all of this possible.

What is tested:
compiles and installs via DKMS.
module loading

What is not tested:
DKMS auto compiling on new kernel

Edit: If it works, let me know and give a friendly AUR Vote up!
I'll move the files off my web to a git later.

Last edited by frank604 (2014-02-03 13:21:10)

joshtau · 2014-02-04 14:26:44

Has anyone noticed that when typing that they sometimes press the power button instead of delete?

Is it possible to remap the power button to be something like FN+Powerbutton or ALT+Powerbutton?

edit:

Got it to work, I added "HandlePowerKey=ignore" to /etc/systemd/logind.conf and added a hotkey into xfce4 to bind alt+poweroff to run xfce4-session-logout --halt

Last edited by joshtau (2014-02-04 14:37:20)

Arch Linux

#101 2013-12-10 14:01:10

Re: Macbook Air 2013

#102 2013-12-10 20:19:12

Re: Macbook Air 2013

#103 2013-12-14 20:50:48

Re: Macbook Air 2013

#104 2014-01-03 23:52:34

Re: Macbook Air 2013

#105 2014-01-04 10:09:44

Re: Macbook Air 2013

#106 2014-01-05 01:52:24

Re: Macbook Air 2013

#107 2014-01-05 16:26:22

Re: Macbook Air 2013

#108 2014-01-14 00:56:34

Re: Macbook Air 2013

#109 2014-01-19 16:14:01

Re: Macbook Air 2013

#110 2014-01-19 17:39:59

Re: Macbook Air 2013

#111 2014-01-19 18:20:13

Re: Macbook Air 2013

#112 2014-01-19 18:57:58

Re: Macbook Air 2013

#113 2014-01-19 20:02:55

Re: Macbook Air 2013

#114 2014-01-20 02:54:06

Re: Macbook Air 2013

#115 2014-01-20 15:31:39

Re: Macbook Air 2013

#116 2014-01-20 16:53:18

Re: Macbook Air 2013

#117 2014-01-24 07:01:21

Re: Macbook Air 2013

#118 2014-01-24 07:59:32

Re: Macbook Air 2013

#119 2014-01-26 22:18:26

Re: Macbook Air 2013

#120 2014-01-26 22:44:14

Re: Macbook Air 2013

#121 2014-01-28 11:15:20

Re: Macbook Air 2013

#122 2014-01-28 16:02:43

Re: Macbook Air 2013

#123 2014-02-03 00:44:56

Re: Macbook Air 2013

#124 2014-02-03 12:34:19

Re: Macbook Air 2013

#125 2014-02-04 14:26:44

Re: Macbook Air 2013

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