Arch Linux

slowz3r

Member

From: Montana, USA

Registered: 2014-12-28

Posts: 9

Macbook Pro 9,2 (Mid 2012)

Going to ask a couple questions regarding getting some stuff configured correctly on aforementioned hardware.  I'll try and be as specific as possible

1.Screen brightness/brightness keys/screen dim and poweroff
I am obviously able to adjust screen brightness manually by editing the value in the appropriate file found in

/sys/class/backlight/intel_backlight

but I cant seem to get the ambient light sensor to work let alone brightness keys.  I have consulted wiki entries for those and cant really seem to get anywhere in regards to that. I'm not looking for a hand me out answer but any shove in the right direction would be greatly appreciated.

Lastly how about getting screen dimming to work after non-use.

2. Trackpad
I have xf86-trackpad-synaptics installed and the trackpad works, but it is really buggy and all over the place.  Recognizes 2 fingers when there is only one.  2 finger click is problematic and not really consistent.  I have tried editing config files in regards to the trackpad in an attempt to make it more user friendly but nothing I have done seems to make it any better. 

3. Last thing..for now is Battery life
It really seems like it is lacking with laptop-mode-tools installed w/ hdparm powertop shows battery discharge of 12.2W with chrome and a terminal window open under openbox.  It doesnt seem like a lot of output when compared to other posts I have read but sitting here for maybe 2 hours and am at %55 seems off especially when compared to use under OSX sitting at 8 or 9 hours with a full charge.

Like I said I am looking for any sort of valuable input.  Thanks in advance to anyone who may have something to offer or have experienced this before.

AbsoluteZero

Member

Registered: 2014-03-08

Posts: 8

Website

Re: Macbook Pro 9,2 (Mid 2012)

I'm still working on getting running well on my MBP11.

I haven't started trying to play with the light sensor, but the wiki recommends two different options. Have you tried them? Did neither work? https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Ma … ght_sensor

As for trackpad issues, I also started out with the Synaptic driver and found it unbearable. I switched to using the mtrack driver, as described here: https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/MacBook#Touchpad

I had similar battery life issues, and found that I was able to greatly extend my battery life with Powerdown, as recommended on the MBP wiki page. Here's the link: https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Powerdown

slowz3r

Member

From: Montana, USA

Registered: 2014-12-28

Posts: 9

Re: Macbook Pro 9,2 (Mid 2012)

Ill skim through them again and try em..and see where I am at  Thanks for that.

\hbar

Member

Registered: 2014-03-15

Posts: 165

Re: Macbook Pro 9,2 (Mid 2012)

You may want to read up on power saving to improve battery life ( https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Po … nd_scripts )

respiranto

Member

Registered: 2015-05-15

Posts: 479

Website

Re: Macbook Pro 9,2 (Mid 2012)

I don't know, if it is the right way to ask some new questions in an older thread, but since it is about the same hardware, I think it makes sense for further readers of this thread to get all information in one.

However, I am facing several problems with my MacBook Pro:

1. Suspend does not work (anymore - I think some time ago, it did.).
When I type 'systemctl suspend' the screen goes black for about 2 seconds and then is redrawn.
In a very old debian-wikientry I found that the kernel parameter acpi=force might help to solve the second problem, but it didn't, though I left it enabled.
Again after some time, I mentioned that for some reason suspending by closing the lid is working, which it didn't before. Actually it does not work always but most of the times.
On this wiki-page I found, that echoing XHC1 to /proc/acpi/wakeup might help. I did so, but probably since XHC1 (according to lspci a USB-controller) seems to be enabled by default, this didn't help either.
More or less randomly I figured out, that disabling LID0 solves the problem - but subsequently disables suspend by lid-closing. This does still work, when X is running (and also randomly without), there is probably something else that handles suspending, but then resuming fails, if suspending already took more than about 2 seconds (resuming by power button works).
I now removed the kernel paramter 'acpi=force' for testing and then suspend via systemctl worked but via lid-closing not, just like LID0 would be disabled, althogh it isn't.
It seems like it sometimes does work, but usually takes about 30 seconds, very rarely it works immediately or after about 3 seconds, but sometimes it simply does not work (I waited more than a minute). The behaviour seems random and is different during one session.

So I suppose that for some reason when lid-closing is working, the resume is not triggered by lid-opening but instead by lid-being-open.
Could this be a bug, or do you know any way to solve this issue?

By the way, suspending does still work in Ubuntu which does not use systemd.

2. The battery status sometimes (about 50% of times) is simply not available.
In these cases /sys/class/power_supply/BAT0/ simply doesn't exist, while a directory for the cable-connection (ADP1/) does.
As said above I tried to solve it via acpi=force without success.

Again, no issue on Ubuntu.

3. dhcpcd@both_of_my_nw_cards.service usually fail (dhcpcd.service does not).
It seems like the device for wired networking (enp1s0f0) works more often when the cable is plugged in during boot and acpi=force is not set. But this might also be only by chance.

Output of 'systemctl -l status dhcpcd@enp1s0f0' (wired):

● dhcpcd@enp1s0f0.service - dhcpcd on enp1s0f0
   Loaded: loaded (/usr/lib/systemd/system/dhcpcd@.service; enabled; vendor preset: disabled)
   Active: failed (Result: resources) since Fri 2015-05-15 17:27:41 CEST; 11min ago
  Process: 972 ExecStart=/usr/bin/dhcpcd -q -w %I (code=exited, status=0/SUCCESS)

May 15 17:27:41 rmac systemd[1]: Starting dhcpcd on enp1s0f0...
May 15 17:27:41 rmac systemd[1]: PID file /run/dhcpcd-enp1s0f0.pid not readable (yet?) after start.

Output of 'systemctl -l status dhcpcd@wlp2s0b1' (wifi):

● dhcpcd@wlp2s0b1.service - dhcpcd on wlp2s0b1
   Loaded: loaded (/usr/lib/systemd/system/dhcpcd@.service; enabled; vendor preset: disabled)
   Active: failed (Result: exit-code) since Fri 2015-05-15 17:28:11 CEST; 12min ago
  Process: 349 ExecStart=/usr/bin/dhcpcd -q -w %I (code=exited, status=1/FAILURE)

May 15 17:27:41 rmac dhcpcd[349]: wlp2s0b1: carrier acquired
May 15 17:27:42 rmac dhcpcd[349]: DUID 00:01:00:01:1c:3e:86:e6:10:dd:b1:a7:c9:91
May 15 17:27:42 rmac dhcpcd[349]: wlp2s0b1: IAID 79:e7:05:76
May 15 17:27:42 rmac dhcpcd[349]: wlp2s0b1: carrier lost
May 15 17:27:42 rmac dhcpcd[349]: wlp2s0b1: deleting address fe80::bfcb:86d9:1790:b5f8
May 15 17:28:11 rmac dhcpcd[349]: timed out
May 15 17:28:11 rmac systemd[1]: dhcpcd@wlp2s0b1.service: control process exited, code=exited status=1
May 15 17:28:11 rmac systemd[1]: Failed to start dhcpcd on wlp2s0b1.
May 15 17:28:11 rmac systemd[1]: Unit dhcpcd@wlp2s0b1.service entered failed state.
May 15 17:28:11 rmac systemd[1]: dhcpcd@wlp2s0b1.service failed.

Anyway, starting the services if failed, is impossible:

Job for dhcpcd@<device>.service failed. See "systemctl status dhcpcd@<device>.service" and "journalctl -xe" for details.

the relevant part of journalctl -xe (looks the same for the other device):

-- Subject: Unit dhcpcd@wlp2s0b1.service has begun start-up
-- Defined-By: systemd
-- Support: http://lists.freedesktop.org/mailman/listinfo/systemd-devel
-- 
-- Unit dhcpcd@wlp2s0b1.service has begun starting up.
May 15 17:45:18 rmac dhcpcd[2450]: sending commands to master dhcpcd process
May 15 17:45:18 rmac dhcpcd[973]: control command: /usr/bin/dhcpcd -q -w wlp2s0b1
May 15 17:45:18 rmac systemd[1]: PID file /run/dhcpcd-wlp2s0b1.pid not readable (yet?) after start.
May 15 17:45:18 rmac systemd[1]: Failed to start dhcpcd on wlp2s0b1.
-- Subject: Unit dhcpcd@wlp2s0b1.service has failed
-- Defined-By: systemd
-- Support: http://lists.freedesktop.org/mailman/listinfo/systemd-devel
-- 
-- Unit dhcpcd@wlp2s0b1.service has failed.
-- 
-- The result is failed.

---

I am not using Arch for a long time, but I use it nearly exlusively and would obviously like to keep using it.
Which I will also do, if these problems should not be solvable.
Since I think that some or maybe even all of this problems did not exist earlier, do you think a reinstall should be an option?
I don't think I have changed too many system-files and I also tried a backup from 2015-02-03 running kernel 3.18 which did have the same problems except for the dhcpcd issue. Which could be again by chance (I tried 3 times).

So I'm really tired of rebooting now and looking forward to your helpful answers
respiranto

Last edited by respiranto (2015-05-16 12:17:12)