Macbook Pro mid 2012 drivers

[je55eah]

Tips, tricks, and drivers for this laptop are welcome.

Thanks in advance.

[step]

This solution consists of an sfs that packs all the enhancements and fixes I use for my MacBook Pro mid 2012 running Fatdog64.

INITIALLY

• This sfs only works as described for model name "MacBookPro9,2" (mid 2012) running Fatdog64-812 with kernel 5.4.152 or Fatdog64-813 with kernel 5.19.14.

• To verify your macbook model run cat /sys/class/dmi/id/product_name; output should be MacBookPro9,2. Boot your macbook without X (boot menu label "Fatdog64 without graphical desktop") and run this command.

• Only use this sfs to boot model "MacBookPro9,2" - no other Mac models nor PCs.

INSTALL

To load this sfs at boot time, append boot options extrasfs=VALUE to some or all boot entries of your boot menu, where the exact VALUE depends on your specific boot drive (as in disk) choices. See section "extrasfs" in https://distro.ibiblio.org/fatdog/web/f ... tions.html.

If you need to be able to type a savefile decryption password, then also append boot option coldplug.

DESCRIPTION

What does this sfs do?

• enable Broadcom-wl wifi driver

• enable facetimehd webcam driver

• enable coretemp and applesmc platform drivers

• disable spurious GPE interrupts

• start macbook fan daemon

• make all keyboard keys work

• swap bottom row keys as explained below

• improve touchpad support

• lower screen brightness

• make the above changes permanent - as long as this sfs is loaded, as explained above

The fan daemon improves automatic fan control. My understanding is that the hardware fans spin even without the daemon running. It's just that their spin cycle is sub-optimal.

The default settings of the bottom row keys, the touchpad and the screen brightness reflect my own ergonomics. Hopefully they will work for you as well.

The screen starts out at full brightness, then brightness is decreased to a default value when X is fully up. You can change the default brightness value in /etc/brightness.conf, save then restart X.

Touchpad improvements consist of faster pointer travel speed, and more sensitive two- and three-finger taps, for right and middle key button emulation, respectively.

Keyboard keys in the left bottom corner are swapped to reflect the standard layout of the Ctrl, Fn, Windows and Alt keys of a standard US notebook keyboard.

swap_keys_xcf.png (91.8 KiB) Viewed 1542 times

To change the default layout edit /etc/modprobe.d/hid_apple.conf as documented in this page https://github.com/free5lot/hid-apple-patched. Before I started using this patch, my muscle memory was constantly fighting against the apple keyboard layout of those four keys.

Keyboard tip: some special keys, luckily not too many, that are commonly found in PC keyboards can be awkward to type on the macbook. When you can't find a key it's likely to need the Fn modifier. Google for "apple keyboard" + key name to find out the key combination you need. Two common combinations: Del = Fn + Back; Ins = Fn + Enter.

FINALLY

See section INITIALLY.

DOWNLOAD

google drive

md5sum: 2b849e80bdd764ab5c505334bc200ffd extrasfs_macbook_813-2022.10.06-x86_64-2.sfs

NOTES

This sfs is a collection of the changes made by /etc/rc.d/rc.platform during the very first run session on your macbook, plus some drivers, daemons, settings and tweaks of my own. The reason I packaged these changes as an sfs is to allow using the same savefile also on non-macbook hardware ("portable" savefile).

REVISIONS

- added "coldplug" to section INSTALL.
- added note about "rc.platform" and "portable savefile".

[je55eah]

This is really cool and I appreciate all the work you did. When I went to try it today I was shocked to discover that wifi had begun to work without these modifications. I'm baffled. Did I simply need to reboot after the last round of updates? I don't know, but that discovery prompted me to check of the camera is working. It does. I also noticed that mbpfan is loaded during boot. Consequently, I'm happy to report that fatfog works on this macbook out of the box.

Almost, the keyboard works in grub and in the loaded system, but it doesn't work when prompted for a password to decrypt the savefile during boot.

Since you put this package together I did install it, but I don't think I did it correctly. Is there a command to list the loaded sfs layers? I tried lsmod | grep facetimehd but it didn't return anything. Maybe that isn't a good check because lsmod | grep mbpfan also returns nothing. In any case, I added

extrasfs=ram:usb: extrasfs_macbook.sfs

Nothing bad happened.I actually think it did work since the ctrl key seems to be remapped as you described.

Fatdog is shaping up and the community is incredible.
Thank you.

On a side note, I was trying some other distros on this device and Fedora is a nightmare. Installing the wifi driver was easy since I had a wired port and the broadcom driver is in their repo, but I failed to get facetimehd working and fedora was throwing random errors with regularity. It was actually Nobara, but I saw enough to say that Fatdog is doing better than they are.

[je55eah]

The keyboard issue can be resolved with the coldplug boot option.

https://distro.ibiblio.org/fatdog/web/f ... tions.html

[dr__Dan]

Hi je55eah, I don't have any particulars to offer you on a MacBook, but a couple of points:

In any case, I added

extrasfs=ram:usb: extrasfs_macbook.sfs

Nothing bad happened.

In your actual code is there a space between the colon and extrasfs? I think there should not be.

Yes, the community is very helpful, and there is a lot of information in the current and former forums, covering many situations, besides the detailed help files. The locked previous forum is at https://oldforum.puppylinux.com/index.php, and Fatdog64-specific content can be found at https://oldforum.puppylinux.com/viewforum.php?f=34&sid=519aa133f84776ef073ea89812aef48a. There are many topics mentioned, and most of the information for older releases is at least generally applicable to current versions. The release notes point out the significant changes from version to version. They are interspersed with many other topics, and it can take some searching to find information, but there is a lot there.

Dan

[step]

[...] When I went to try it today I was shocked to discover that wifi had begun to work without these modifications. I'm baffled. Did I simply need to reboot after the last round of updates?

Did you boot with or without a savefile? If with, it may simply be that in a previous update you had installed and activated the Broadcom wl driver, which is now in your savefile. You didn't say, are you testing 812 or 813? I know you started your evaluation on 812 but what's your target now?

[...] Consequently, I'm happy to report that fatfog works on this macbook out of the box.

Good for you! Did you verify if your macbook model is "MacBook9,2"? If another model, which one?

[...] Is there a command to list the loaded sfs layers?

load_sfs.sh --loaded

[...] In any case, I added

extrasfs=ram:usb: extrasfs_macbook.sfs

Nothing bad happened.I actually think it did work since the ctrl key seems to be remapped as you described.

@dr__Dan already asked you about the extra space...

Fatdog is shaping up and the community is incredible. Thank you.

Thank you.

[...]Almost, the keyboard works in grub and in the loaded system, but it doesn't work when prompted for a password to decrypt the savefile during boot.

The keyboard issue can be resolved with the coldplug boot option.

https://distro.ibiblio.org/fatdog/web/f ... tions.html

Thanks for reporting.

____
I just tested my macbook: keyboard and arrow keys work when it boots in rEFInd and then in the grub menu. Maybe it has something to do with rEFInd, grub and Apple firmware versions. Mine are:

rEFInd version 0.11.4
EFI revision 1.10
Secure boot and system integrity protection disabled
Apple firmware 1.10
Grub 2.03

[je55eah]

@dr__Dan

Yes, the space is a typo introduced by typing on my phone.

Thanks for the links.

@step

I don't understand how it went from not working to working. I did another install to test some things and I can confirm that it wasn't due to anything I installed. It works and I must have been confused somehow when I thought that it didn't.

Yes, I have 9,2.

Thank you for the load_sfs.sh reference That is what I was looking for. I booted it again and your sfs was printed in response.

Thank you for your help.

I started another thread about a strange issue with the left and right arrow keys sending numbers when shifted. Perhaps it should have stayed here, but I wasn't sure if it was a general issue or a MacBook issue.

[step]

OK, thank you for letting us know. Please, if you can add "macbook" to the title of the arrow keys post. You can change the title by editing the first post of a thread and editing the Subject entry field.