Arch Linux

niv

Member

Registered: 2011-02-21

Posts: 3

Trackpad on Unibody Macbook

Hi, I've recently installed Arch on my Unibody Macbook Pro 5-5. After some tinkering I got everything but the multitouch trackpad to work. I've looked into a few guides on the Arch wiki as well as those on the Gentoo and Debian wiki's with no luck. From what I understand I need to have the bcm5974 and usbhid modules running, but even when I've had them loaded from either /etc/rc.conf or modprobe the functionality remains the same.

Any suggestions?

Allan

Pacman

From: Brisbane, AU

Registered: 2007-06-09

Posts: 11,393

Website

Re: Trackpad on Unibody Macbook

What do you mean "the functionality remains the same"?   Does it partially work for you?

I use a patched bcm5974 module that allows click-and-drag:
http://allanmcrae.com/packages/bcm5974- … src.tar.gz
It should be a minor adjustment for the current kernel.

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niv

Member

Registered: 2011-02-21

Posts: 3

Re: Trackpad on Unibody Macbook

What I mean by "the functionality remains the same" is that the touchpad will not have the multitouch capabilities, so it only partially works for me.

I tried installing the patched bcm5974 module and adding it to /etc/rc.conf, but it doesn't work. I had to remove the dependency line from the PKGBUILD file for it to install properly, would this have anything to do with the problem?

kalinatek

Member

From: Boston

Registered: 2007-01-07

Posts: 20

Re: Trackpad on Unibody Macbook

I'm having the same issue. It seems like the module you patched for 2.6.36 isn't addressing the multitouch issue any more under 2.6.37. Or OP and I are both missing something important.

stopstop

Member

From: Belgium

Registered: 2011-02-22

Posts: 13

Website

Re: Trackpad on Unibody Macbook

use the packagebuild from http://allanmcrae.com/packages/bcm5974- … src.tar.gz ,
change the kernelversion in the PKGBUILD to 2.6.37,
don`t install with pacman (won`t work)
gzip the new module (pkgbuilddir/src/bcm5974.ko to bcm5974.ko.gz) and
put it manual in the right place (/lib/modules/2.6.37-ARCH/kernel/drivers/input/mouse/bcm5974.ko.gz) , of course you had to make a backup
reload the module (rmmod bcm5974 ; modprobe bcm5974)

That worked for me ...

Last edited by stopstop (2011-02-25 22:13:38)

niv

Member

Registered: 2011-02-21

Posts: 3

Re: Trackpad on Unibody Macbook

use the packagebuild from http://allanmcrae.com/packages/bcm5974- … src.tar.gz ,
change the kernelversion in the PKGBUILD to 2.6.37,
don`t install with pacman (won`t work)
gzip the new module (pkgbuilddir/src/bcm5974.ko to bcm5974.ko.gz) and
put it manual in the right place (/lib/modules/2.6.37-ARCH/kernel/drivers/input/mouse/bcm5974.ko.gz) , of course you had to make a backup
reload the module (rmmod bcm5974 ; modprobe bcm5974)

That worked for me ...

Ah that worked for me. I would like to note that one would want to disable "two finger scrolling" under mouse preferences if one has not already done so. I'll have to figure out how to get that to work.