# MacBook

Related articles

- Installation guide
- General recommendations
- MacBook4,2 (late 2008)
- MacBook5,2 (early-mid 2009)
- MacBookPro7,1
- MacBookPro8,1/8,2/8,3 (2011)
- MacBookPro9,2 (Mid-2012)
- MacBookPro10,x
- MacBookPro11,x
- iMac Aluminum
- Apple Fusion Drive

Installing Arch Linux on a MacBook (12"/Air/Pro) or an iMac is quite similar to installing it on any other computer. However, due to the specific hardware configuration of a Mac, there are a few deviations and special considerations which warrant a separate guide. For more background information, please see the Installation guide and UEFI. This guide contains installation-instructions that can be used on any Apple computer whose hardware is supported by the Linux kernel. Please see 'related' pages (on the top right of this page) for model-specific tips and troubleshooting.

## Overview

Specifically, the procedure for installing Arch Linux on a MacBook is:

1. Firmware updates: It always helps to start from a clean, backed up, and up-to-date install of OS X.
2. Partition: Resizing or deleting the OS X partition to create partitions for Arch Linux.
3. Setup bootloader: Making sure that the new partition is bootable.
4. Install Arch Linux: Actually installing Arch Linux.
5. Post-installation: MacBook-specific configuration.

## Firmware updates

Before proceeding with the installation of Arch Linux, it is important to ensure that the latest firmware updates for you MacBook are installed. This procedure requires OS X. In OS X, open the App Store and check for updates. If your mac finds and installs any updates, make sure to reboot your computer, and then check again for updates to make sure that you installed everything.

Note: If you uninstalled OS X or want to reinstall it, Apple has great instructions.

It is advisable to keep OS X installed, because MacBook firmware updates can only be installed using OS X. However, if you plan to remove OS X completely, make backups of these files, which you will need in Linux for adjusting the color profile:

    /Library/ColorSync/Profiles/Displays/*

Continue to #Partitions

## Partitions

Partitioning of the storage drive is no different from any other laptop. However, if you plan on keeping OS X for dual booting, you should consider that, by default, a MacBook's drive is formatted using GPT and contains at least 3 partitions:

- EFI: the ~200 MB EFI System Partition.
- OS X: the main partition containing your OS X installation. It is formatted using HFS+.
- Recovery: A recovery partition present in almost all MacBooks running OS X 10.7 or newer. It is usually hidden from OS X but can be viewed with partitioning tools.

Note: In Macs that use the Apple Fusion Drive, the partition scheme could be different.

How to partition depends on how many operating systems you want install. The following options will be explained:

- Single boot: #Arch Linux only
- Dual boot: #OS X with Arch Linux (recommended so you can still return to OS X when needed)
- Triple boot: #OS X, Windows XP, and Arch Linux triple boot

### Arch Linux only

This situation is the easiest to deal with. Partitioning is the same as any other hardware that Arch Linux can be installed on. Please refer to the standard Installation guide for details.

Note: It is advisable to disable the MacBook startup sound before proceeding with partitioning. Just boot in OS X, mute your system sound and reboot again to the Arch Linux Installation media. Please keep in mind that the volume of the startup sound can only be modified reliably in OS X.

If you want to configure you system in order to have full-disk encryption, please look at the following page for details.

An example for a very basic partitioning, that does not consider a separate `/home` partition nor encryption or LVM, is the following:

    partition  mountpoint  size    type  label
    /dev/sda1  /boot       200MiB  vfat  EFI
    /dev/sda2  /swap       adjust  swap  swap
    /dev/sda3  /           remain  ext4  root

- Done, you can continue to #Installation

### Arch Linux with OS X or other operative systems

You need to partition your hard drive while keeping the partitions used for OS X/Windows. If you wish to keep OS X, the easiest way is to use partitioning tools in OS X and then finish with Arch Linux tools.

Warning: If you OS X partition is encrypted with FileVault 2, you must disable the disk encryption before proceeding. After the OS X partition has been resized, FileVault 2 can be re-enabled.

Procedure:

- In OS X, run Disk Utility.app (located in `/Applications/Utilities`)
- Select the drive to be partitioned in the left-hand column (not the partitions!). Click on the Partition button.
- Add a new partition by pressing the + button and choose how much space you want to leave for OS X, and how much for the new partition. Keep in mind the new partition will be formatted in Arch Linux, so you can choose any partition type you want.
- If the above completed successfully, then you can continue. If not, then you may need to fix your partitions from within OS X first.
- Boot the Arch installation media or LiveUSB by holding down the `Alt` during boot. Proceed with #Installation.

It is possible to resize the newly created partition from within the Arch installation media, or delete it in order to proceed with the creation of other partitions (eg. swap).

Tip: Instead of cluttering your drive with different partition, it is possible to use a swapfile instead of a dedicated partition. Another solution can be setting up LVM in order to use the newly-created partition as a container. Please refer to the linked articles.

#### Option 1: EFI

- Run cgdisk

- Delete the partition you made in Disk Utility.app and create the necessary partitions for Arch Linux. OS X likes to see a 128 MiB gap after partitions, so when you create the first partition after the last OS X-partition, type in +128M when cgdisk asks for the first sector for the partition. More information about Apple's partitioning policy can be read here. A simple example (no LVM, crypto):

Note:

- The swap partition is optional on machines with 4GB of RAM or more. A swap file can be created later.
- The easiest dual-boot option is to install rEFInd from inside OS X, to its root directory (default for `install.sh`). Following that, copy the driver folder from the installation tarball into the new rEFInd location, and uncomment the lines "scan_all_linux_kernels" and "also_scan_dirs" options in `refind.conf`. Configuration of boot options can then be done from a `refind_linux.conf` in Arch's `/boot` directory.
- If you want to be able to boot GRUB from the Apple boot loader, you can create a small hfs+ partition (for convenience, use OS X to format it in Disk Utility.app afterwards). Follow the GRUB EFI install procedure, and mount your `/boot/efi` directory to the hfs+ partition you created. Finally, finish up again in OS X by blessing the partition. This will set GRUB as the default boot option (holding alt at startup goes to the mac boot options screen still. See http://mjg59.dreamwidth.org/7468.html).,
- OS X's EFI partition can be shared with Arch Linux, making the creation of an additional EFI partition dedicated to Arch completely optional.

Note: For more information on partitioning, see Partitioning

    partition  mountpoint  size       type  label
    /dev/sda1  /boot/efi   200MiB     vfat  EFI
    /dev/sda2  -           ?          hfs+  OS X
    /dev/sda3  -           ?          hfs+  Recovery
    /dev/sda4  -           100MiB     hfs+  Boot Arch Linux from the Apple boot loader (optional)
    /dev/sda5  /boot       100MiB     boot  boot
    /dev/sda6  -           ?          swap  swap (optional)
    /dev/sda7  /           10GiB      ext4  root
    /dev/sda8  /home       remaining  ext4  home

- Done, you can continue to #Installation

#### Option 2: BIOS-compatibility

- Run parted as root.

- Delete the empty space partition and partition the space as you would for any other installation. Note that MBR is limited to 4 primary partitions (including the efi partition). That leaves 2 primary partitions for Arch. One strategy is to have a system and home partition, and use a swap file (I have not tried to use logical partitions). Another is to dedicate one partition to a shared partition (see below).

- Next, create new filesystems on those partitions which need them, especially the partition which will contain `/boot`. If you are not sure how to do this using `mkfs.ext2` (or whatever), run `/arch/setup` and work through until you get to Prepare Hard Drive and use the "Manually configure block devices..." option, then exit the installer. This is necessary so that rEFIt will set the right partition type in the MBR in the next step (without an existing filesystem, it seems to ignore the partition type set by parted), without which GRUB will refuse to install to the right partition.

- At this point you should reboot your computer and have rEFIt fix the partition tables on your hard drive. (If you do not do this, you may have to reinstall GRUB later on in order to have your Mac recognize the Linux partition.) When you are into the rEFIt menu, select update partition table, then press `y`. Reboot.

- Done, you can continue with #Installation.

### OS X, Windows XP, and Arch Linux triple boot

This may not work for everyone but it has been successfully tested on a MacBook from late 2009.

The easiest way to partition your hard drive, so that all these operating systems can co-exist, is to use disk utility in OS X, use the formatter on windows XP, install XP and then finish with Arch Linux tools.

Warning: It is highly recommended that this only be attempted after a clean install of OS X. Using these methods on a pre-existing system may have undesired results. At least back your stuff up with timemachine or clonezilla before you begin.

Procedure:

- In OS X, run Disk Utility (located in `/Applications/Utilities`).

- Select the drive to be partitioned in the left-hand column (not the partitions!). Click on the partition tab on the right.

- Select the volume to be resized in the volume scheme.

- Decide how much space you wish to have for your OS X partition, how much for XP, and how much for Arch Linux. Remember that a typical installation of OS X requires around 15-20 GiB, and XP about the same, depending on the number of software applications and files. Something like OS X 200Gb, XP 25Gb, Arch 25Gb should be fine.

- Put your decisions into action by pressing the + button and adding the new partitions, Label them as you like and make sure that your XP partition is the last one on the disk and is formatted for FAT32. It is probably best to have Arch formatted in HFS format as to not confuse you later, it will be reformatted anyway.

So in linux terms your partitions will be something like:

  - sda (disk)
  - sda1 (Mac boot partition - you cannot see this one in OS X)
  - sda2 (OS X install in HFS+)
  - sda3 (Arch install temporarly in HFS)
  - sda4 (XP install in FAT32)

- Finally, click apply. This will create a new partition out of the empty space.

Note: Using this method you may not be able to have a shared partition between OS X and Arch Linux, this is because the mac will only allow for 4 active partitions. You will however be able to mount a HFS partition in Arch for one workaround. There are other workarounds possible also.

- If the above completed successfully, you can continue. If not, then you may need to fix your partitions from within OS X first.

- You will not be needing boot camp this way, the program rEFIt is much more flexible (though not as flexible as GRUB). Download and install rEFIt [1]

- Go into a terminal in OS X and perform the following, this will enable the rEFIt boot manager.

    cd /efi/refit
    ./enable.sh

- Reboot to check the rEFIt is working, it should appear on boot. When it comes up go to the rEFIt partition manager and agree to the changes.

- Put your XP install CD and boot it with rEFIt - You may have to reboot a few times until it is recognized by the boot loader. Install XP and once it is installed use the OS X installation CD to get your drivers running nicely in XP.
  - Note: when installing XP make sure you select your XP partition and format it again inside the XP installer. If you do not reformat it will not work.

- Boot the Arch install CD, log in as root and run `# /arch/setup`.

- Follow the install as normal but note that you will have to tell that arch installer to mount sda3 as the root partition and format it as ext3, there will not be a /boot or swap partition so ignore those warnings.

- At this point, if you are dual booting, you should reboot your computer and have rEFIt fix the partition tables on your hard drive. (If you do not do this, you may have to reinstall GRUB later on in order to have your Mac recognize the Linux partition.) When you are into the rEFIt menu, select update partition table, then press Y.

    # reboot

- Done! You can continue to #Installation but make sure you read #Booting directly from GRUB[broken link: invalid section] for the stage "* (for booting with EFI) After the install boot loader stage, exit the installer and install GRUB."

## Setup bootloader

### Using the native Apple bootloader with systemd-boot (Recommended)

Apple's native EFI bootloader reads `.efi` files located inside the EFI System Partition at `/EFI/BOOT/BOOTX64.EFI`. Luckly, this is also the default install location the systemd-boot binary. This means that booting linux using systemd-boot is very simple.

- First, make sure you mounted the EFI System Partition at `/boot`
- Proceed with #Installation normally
- Once inside the chrooted enviroment, type the following command to install systemd-boot:

    # bootctl --path=/boot install

The above command will copy the systemd-boot binary to `/boot/EFI/Boot/BOOTX64.EFI` and add systemd-boot itself as the default EFI application (default boot entry) loaded by the EFI Boot Manager.

- Proceed to systemd-boot#Configuration in order to correctly set up the bootloader

At the next reboot, the Apple Boot Manager, shown when holding down the option key when booting the MacBook, should display Arch Linux (it will be displayed as `EFI Boot` as a possible boot option.

Tip: If you installed Arch Linux alongside OS X, you will be able to change the default boot location from system Settings inside OS X. If Arch Linux does not show up as a possible boot option, you will have to mount the EFI System Partition inside OS X before selecting your boot option:

    $ diskutil mount disk0s1

### Using the native Apple bootloader with GRUB

Despite using UEFI, the MacBook's native EFI bootloader does not use the EFI partition for booting. Instead, it looks for .efi files inside all the partitions in internal and external drives and shows them as possible boot options if certain conditions are satisfied. For example, MacBooks can detect an existing OSX installation after checking that:

- there is a partition formatted as HFS+
- the partition contains the partition id `af00`
- in the root of that partition, there is a file called `mach_kernel`
- inside that partition, there a `boot.efi` file inside `/System/Library/CoreServices`

This means that configuring an Arch installation to be automatically recognized by the MacBook bootloader is possible. Moreover, it simply requires a properly-formatted HFS+ `/boot` partition and does not require meddling with the EFI system partition. The advantage of this method is that it can coexist with OS X nicely and allows to avoid other bootloaders such as rEFInd. However, this requires manual configuration. The following steps will illustrate how to perform this configuration using GRUB.

- First, while configuring a new Arch installation, create a separate `/boot` partition. Many tools are available in the Arch ISO, for example cgdisk.
- Make sure the partition is at least ~250 MB in size, since it will be used to store the kernel as well as any custom kernel you will install in the future. Moreover, make sure the partition type is set as Apple HFS/HFS+ (it will appear as `Apple HFS/HFS+` in fdisk/cgdisk or `af00` in gdisk)
- Since the Arch installation ISO does not include the package hfsprogs, we need to install it in the installation environment before proceeding with formatting the new partition as HFS+

     # pacman -Sy hfsprogs
     # modprobe hfsplus
     # mkfs.hfsplus /dev/sdX -v "Arch Linux"

Note: replace /dev/sdX with the correct device as appropriate

- Done, proceed with #Installation

Warning:

Once inside the chrooted enviroment, don’t forget to install hfsprogs on the newly installed system as well. After the installation of the package, regenerate the initramfs while chrooted

     # mkinitcpio -p linux

- Once inside the chrooted enviroment, install the grub and efibootmgr packages. The following steps install the GRUB UEFI application to `/boot/EFI/arch/System/Library/CoreServices/boot.efi` and install its modules to `/boot/grub/x86_64-efi`.

     # grub-install --target=x86_64-efi --efi-directory=/boot

After that, remember to create a standard configuration file:

     # grub-mkconfig -o /boot/grub/grub.cfg

As you can see, the directory structure of the `boot.efi` is not correct, as the `/System/Library/CoreServices` directory is not supposed to be a subdirectory of the `/boot/EFI/` folder. For this reason, we need to relocate the `boot.efi` stub in a location the MacBook bootloader is able to recognize:

     # mv /boot/EFI/arch/System/ /boot/
     # rm -r /boot/EFI/

Also, create a dummy `mach_kernel` file

     # touch /boot/mach_kernel

After that, you need to create the following file

    # nano /boot/System/Library/CoreServices/SystemVersion.plist

    <?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
     <plist version="1.0">
     <dict>
            <key>ProductBuildVersion</key>
            <string></string>
            <key>ProductName</key>
            <string>Linux</string>
            <key>ProductVersion</key>
            <string>Arch Linux</string>
     </dict>
     </plist>

At the next reboot, the Apple Boot Manager, shown when holding down the option key when booting the MacBook, should display Arch Linux as a possible boot option. Selecting that option will boot GRUB.

Done! GRUB can now be selected on the standard MacBook bootloader and you can boot into your newly installed Arch Linux.

Tip: After the installation, it is optionally possible to set a custom icon that will be displayed in the MacBook boot loader. In order to do that, you need to install the wget, librsvg and libicnsAUR packages. After that, just follow the following commands:

     $ wget -O /tmp/archlinux.svg https://www.archlinux.org/logos/archlinux-icon-crystal-64.svg
     $ rsvg-convert -w 128 -h 128 -o /tmp/archlogo.png /tmp/archlinux.svg
     $ sudo png2icns /boot/.VolumeIcon.icns /tmp/archlogo.png
     $ rm /tmp/archlogo.png
     $ rm /tmp/archlinux.svg

Obviously, you can replace the Arch logo with any other icon you like.

### Other methods

This article or section is out of date.

Reason: Section that describes bootloader setup for other setups should be revised and re-structured into more readable way (Discuss in Talk:MacBook#)
Tip: rEFIt is a popular bootloader for EFI-firmware computers (including Macs). It can be installed at any time during the installation. For instructions, please see #rEFIt.

If you are going for an Arch Linux-only setup, installing the bootloader is no different than on any other machine: Install systemd-boot, rEFInd or other bootloader of your choice.

If, on the other hand, you are dual/triple booting, then read on.

### Installing GRUB to EFI partition directly

- If you would like to use GRUB as your main bootloader and use the "boot while holding the Alt/Option key" method to go back to OS X rather than using alternatives such as rEFIt (http://refit.sourceforge.net/, mentioned previously in #BIOS-compatibility[broken link: invalid section] and #OS X, Windows XP, and Arch Linux triple boot) then you must install grub to your Mac's already-existing EFI partition (see below).

Note: These instructions are known to work on a MacBook Pro (Early 2011). Please read the procedure carefully as well as the details following it.
Note: With a new MacBook Pro (Mid 2014), this procedure worked only after installing the efibootmgr package.

Procedure:

- Install grub

- Make a directory named `efi` in `/boot`

- Mount the already-existing EFI partition on your Mac to this `/boot/efi` directory

- Install GRUB to this directory

- Make a directory named `locale` in `/boot/grub`

- Copy `grub.mo` from `/usr/share/locale/en\@quot/LC_MESSAGES/` to `/boot/grub/locale`

- Generate a configuration for GRUB

- Done! GRUB will now start on reboot and you can boot into your newly installed Arch Linux.

- Remember to hold ALT/Option key while starting your computer if you want to boot back into OS X.

Details (quoted from GRUB EFI Examples#M5A97):

Finish the standard Arch install procedures, making sure that you install grub and partition your boot hard disk as GPT.

From GRUB#Install_to_UEFI_system_partition[broken link: invalid section]:

The UEFI system partition will need to be mounted at `/boot/efi/` for the GRUB install script to detect it:

    # mkdir -p /boot/efi
    # mount -t vfat /dev/sdXY /boot/efi

Where X is your boot hard disk and Y is the efi partition you created earlier.

Install GRUB UEFI application to and its modules to `/boot/grub/x86_64-efi` using:

    # modprobe dm-mod
    # grub-install --target=x86_64-efi --efi-directory=/boot/efi --bootloader-id=arch_grub --recheck --debug
    # mkdir -p /boot/grub/locale
    # cp /usr/share/locale/en\@quot/LC_MESSAGES/grub.mo /boot/grub/locale/en.mo

Generate a configuration for GRUB

    # grub-mkconfig -o /boot/grub/grub.cfg

### Using blessing

It is possible to boot directly from GRUB in EFI mode without using rEFIt through what is known as "blessing" after placing GRUB on a separate partition. These instructions are known to work on a MacBook7,1. It is advisable to host GRUB on either a FAT32 or HFS+ partition, but ext2 or ext3 may also work. GRUB's appleloader command does not currently work with the 7,1, but support can be added with the patch available here.

After the GRUB install is in the desired location, the firmware needs to be instructed to boot from that location. This can be done from either an existing OS X install or an OS X install disk. The following command assumes that the GRUB install is in `/efi/grub` on an existing OS X partition:

     # bless --folder /efi/grub --file /efi/grub/grub.efi

### Compilation

Some models may need EFI_ARCH set to i386.

     bzr branch --revision -2 bzr://bzr.savannah.gnu.org/grub/trunk/grub grub
     cd grub
     ./autogen.sh
     patch -p1 < appleloader_macbook_7_1.patch
     export EFI_ARCH=x86_64
     ./configure --with-platform=efi --target=${EFI_ARCH} --program-prefix=""
     make
     cd grub-core
     ../grub-mkimage -O ${EFI_ARCH}-efi -d . -o grub.efi -p "" part_gpt part_msdos ntfs ntfscomp hfsplus fat ext2 normal chain boot configfile linux multiboot
     cp grub.efi *.mod *.lst yourinstalllocation

## Installation

Note: This section is only required if you want to have OS X installed along with Arch Linux. If not, follow the steps in the official install guide, then skip to #Post-installation.

- Boot from the Arch Linux install CD, from the latest Archboot iso (unofficial), or from a manually created bootable USB drive.

Note:

- On a MacBookPro7,1, I had an error booting the installation media Version 2012.12.01: "unable to handle kernel NULL pointer dereference at 0000000000000010" during pacpi_set_dmamode. To fix this problem, boot with the option: acpi=off. After chrooting, add MODULES="ata_generic" into /etc/mkinitcpio.conf and execute mkinitcpio -p linux, see: Installation Guide, 9 Configure the system.
- Some MacBook users report strange keyboard output such as long delays and character doubling. To fix this problem, boot with the following options: arch noapic irqpoll acpi=force

- Proceed through the installation as described in the Installation guide except in the following areas:
  - Skip the partition the disks stage, do only the partition formatting and mounting steps, taking care to assign the correct partitions. Partitions have already been created if you followed #Partitions
  - (for booting with EFI) After the install boot loader stage, exit the installer and install GRUB.
  - (for booting with BIOS-compatibility) In the install boot loader stage, edit the menu.lst file and add reboot=pci to the end of the kernel lines, for example:

        kernel /vmlinuz26 root=/dev/sda5 ro reboot=pci

    This will allow your MacBook to reboot correctly from Arch.
  - (for booting with BIOS-compatibility) Also in the install boot loader[broken link: invalid section] stage, install GRUB on whatever partition that `/boot` is on.
    Warning: Do not install GRUB onto /dev/sda !!! Doing so is likely to lead to an unstable post-environment.
  - In the configure system stage, edit /etc/mkinitcpio.conf and ensure the keyboard hook is in the HOOKS line somewhere after the autodetect hook. This will load the drivers for your keyboard in case you need to use it before Arch boots (e.g. entering a LUKS password or using the troubleshooting shell).

- When the install process is complete, reboot your computer.

- If using optical media, hold down the eject key as your MacBook starts, this should eject the Arch Linux install disk.

- If dual-booting OS X and Arch Linux, hold down the alt (option) key while the system boots to use the Mac bootloader to select which OS to boot.

## Post-installation

This article or section needs language, wiki syntax or style improvements.

Reason: Duplicated information, does not comply with Help:Style. (Discuss in Talk:MacBook#)

See General recommendations for system management directions and post-installation tutorials like setting up a graphical user interface, sound or a touchpad.

#### Video

Different MacBook models have different graphic cards. To see which graphics card you have type:

    $ lspci | grep VGA

- If it returns a string containing intel, read Intel graphics.

- If it returns nVidia, read NVIDIA.

- Otherwise if it returns ATI or AMD, read ATI.

##### NVIDIA note

Tip: If you have installed OS in EFI mode and NVIDIA binary drivers are working only in BIOS mode (e.g. you get black screen on EFI boot), try this approach: http://askubuntu.com/a/613573/492886

For MacBooks with NVIDIA graphics, for the backlight to work properly you may need the nvidia-blAUR package.

Tip:

- If backlight control does not work after installing nvidia-bl, you should blacklist apple_bl kernel module.
- If backlight control does not work even this way, try setting module parameters, e.g. `options nvidiabl screen_type=3 min=0 max=44000` in `/etc/modprobe.conf` in case of MacBook Air 3.2
- Alternatively, you can choose to use the pommed-lightAUR package. If you do so, you may wish to change the step settings in `/etc/pommed.conf.mactel` to something around 5000-10000 depending on how many levels of brightness you desire. The max brightness is around 80000, so take that into account.

##### MacBookPro5,5, NVIDIA and secondary display

As of January 1 2011, the latest NVIDIA drivers (290.10) might not work properly when a secondary display is used (tested with TwinView), NVIDIA's current long-live supported 275xx drivers seem to work fine. Install nvidia-275xxAUR[broken link: archived in aur-mirror] and nvidia-utils-275xxAUR[broken link: archived in aur-mirror], and possibly lib32-nvidia-utils-275xxAUR[broken link: archived in aur-mirror] if you are on x86_64 system and want 32-bits support.

MacBookPro5,5 has an NVIDIA 9400m graphics card. This problem might apply to other devices as well.

#### Touchpad

The touchpad should have basic functionality by default. A true multitouch driver which behaves very similarly to native OS X is included in the xf86-input-multitouch-gitAUR[broken link: archived in aur-mirror] package. It supports 1, 2 and 3 finger gestures, including differentiation between horizontal and vertical 3 finger swipe. Additional details are available at the driver's project page.

xf86-input-multitouch-git does not support any sort of configuration without editing the driver's source. Some users are also experiencing issues with false clicks from palm touches. There is now a much more configurable fork available as xf86-input-mtrack-gitAUR. Configuration options are documented in the readme.

The following mtrack options work well on a MacBook7,1:

     Option "Thumbsize" "50"
     Option "ScrollDistance" "100"

Probably you need also to add:

     MatchDevicePath "/dev/input/event10"

To disable tap-to-click (that is, to press down to click) by default, add the following to your mtrack configuration section

       Option          "TapButton1" "0"
       Option          "TapButton2" "0"
       Option          "TapButton3" "0"

Natural scrolling: To configure natural two finger scrolling similar to OS X, refer to Touchpad Synaptics#Natural scrolling. If you are using GNOME, it will override these settings - in this case refer to GNOME#Natural_scrolling_touchpad[broken link: invalid section].

If you are using xf86-input-mtrack-gitAUR, you can simply swap the scroll up and scroll down buttons (along with the scroll left and scroll right):

    /etc/X11/xorg.conf.d/10-mtrack.conf

      ...
      Option "ScrollUpButton" "5"
      Option "ScrollDownButton" "4"
      Option "ScrollLeftButton" "7"
      Option "ScrollRightButton" "6"
      ...

Special Note About Older Macbook Models (confirmed on MacBook2,1): On older Macbook models (pre-multitouch), the touchpad will not function properly until you install the xf86-input-synaptics package. Please see Touchpad Synaptics for more information on installing and configuring this package.

Note on MacBookPro5,5: I found it is much simpler to use the xf86-input-synaptics in Extra. Although it does not have much function as 3 finger swipe, this driver provides faster response. gpointing-device-settings also provides a simple GUI config. Below is a Xorg config file /etc/X11/xorg.conf.d/60-synaptics.conf for reference only.

     Section "InputClass"
           Identifier "touchpad catchall"
           Driver "synaptics"
           MatchIsTouchpad "on"
           MatchDevicePath "/dev/input/event*"
           Option "SHMConfig" "on"
           Option "TapButton1" "1"
           Option "TapButton2" "3"
           Option "TapButton3" "2"
           Option "PalmDetect" "on"
           Option "VertEdgeScroll" "off"
           Option "HorizEdgeScroll" "off"
           Option "CornerCoasting" "off"
           Option "EdgeMotionUseAlways" "off"
           Option "AreaLeftEdge" "10"
           Option "AreaRightEdge" "1270"
     EndSection

For some users, the two-finger right-click may not work correctly and trackpad may also become less responsive after these settings. For me, removing the 'AreaLeftEdge' and 'AreaRightEdge', solved that problem. OS X like MultiTouch Gestures currently broken due to newer synaptic drivers! For users looking to add more of OS X's multitouch gestures to Arch, xSwipe is a highly customisable, light weight perl script, which does just that. Once installed and configured (see xSwipe wiki on Github) I would recommend adding xSwipe as a start up item.

#### Keyboard

MacBook keyboards work by default. For swaping fn keys with Fx keys see Apple Keyboard.

To enable it you can map with right application like xbindkeys or through DE preferences; but another very good way, that we recommend, is to install the pommedAUR[broken link: archived in aur-mirror] package.

Edit the `/etc/pommed.conf` according to your hardware on MacBook, building it from `/etc/pommed.conf.mac` or `/etc/pommed.conf.ppc` example files.

Note that you can also run it without a configuration file, the defaults may work for you. Then enable and start `pommed.service`.

Tip: if you are using Gnome or KDE you can easily configure 3rd level functionality, multimedia key, etc. in Keyboard Preferences.
Note: See the Xorg input hotplugging page for other configuration information.

##### Keyboard Backlight

The keyboard backlight is controlled by `/sys/class/leds/smc::kbd_backlight`. Write the desired value to `brightness` in that directory.

You may also use kbdlightAUR to control keyboard backlight though scripts or by running it via sxhkd. It has the advantage of allowing keyboard light-level changes without being root.

###### NVIDIA note

If the brightness does not function correctly through pommed, make sure you have installed the nvidia-blAUR package and insert

    find . -name "*" -exec sed -i 's/mbp_backlight/nvidia_backlight/' '{}' \;

into the second line of the pommed PKGBUILD build() function and remake the package. From this forum post.

Another possible solution is to modify the pommed PKGBUILD build():

    find . -name "*" -exec sed -i 's/nvidia_backlight/apple_backlight/' '{}' \;

If the previous does not work try the following,

run nvidia-settings, edit the file '/etc/X11/xorg.conf' and add this line into the Device section:

    Option "RegistryDwords" "EnableBrightnessControl=1"

Save and reboot and check backlight buttons work. More information available at Ubuntu MacBookPro5,5

### Wi-Fi

Different MacBook models have different wireless cards.

You can easily check what card do your MacBook have by:

    # lspci | grep Network

- If you have an Atheros card, all should work out-of-the-box.

- If you have a Broadcom card, follow the Broadcom BCM4312 page.

- 5.0 and 6.0 generation MacBooks may have a BCM43xx, follow the instructions for the broadcom-wl driver on the Broadcom wireless page. The interfaces can swap during reboot so its best to define them in a udev rule (instructions on the Broadcom wireless page).

- 8.1 generation MacBooks have BCM4331, for which support is not present in either Linux (3.0 and 3.1) or the proprietary drivers by Broadcom. There is however preliminary support for it in Linux 3.2. To run the drivers on earlier kernels, you will need to use compat-drivers

Note: If your connection frequently drops, you may have to turn off Wi-Fi power management. If you are running pm-utils, you may override wireless power management by creating an executable file `/etc/pm/wireless` with the lines:

    #!/bin/sh
    iwconfig wlp2s0 power off

### Power management

Powerdown is a very simple to set up set of scripts what will maximize your battery duration. A MacBook Air 2013 with powerdown provides about 11 hours of light usage with just powerdown installed. All the usual power management recomendations apply as well.

Adding 'acpi_osi=' to kernel parameters reportedly (as well as for me) brings the battery life of a Mac book Air 2013 from 5 hours to 11-12 hours. See this forum post for more information.

#### Suspend and Hibernate

Suspending (suspend to ram) and hibernating (suspend to disk) work fine out of the box:

       systemctl suspend

Issues were reported where the machine would "suspend immediately after resume" in certain conditions when suspending by closing the lid. This was solved by de-selecting the option "event_when_closed_battery" in gconf-editor → gnome-power-manager → actions).

See Suspend and hibernate for details on how to configure hibernation. Noticably, you'll need a swap partition or file (see the mentioned article for further instructions).

If after suspend laptop is woken up after few seconds, may help to disable all stuff in /proc/acpi/wakeup, exclude LID0:

    # echo XHC1 > /proc/acpi/wakeup
    $ cat /proc/acpi/wakeup
    Device	S-state	  Status   Sysfs node
    P0P2	  S3	*disabled
    EC	  S3	*disabled
    HDEF	  S3	*disabled  pci:0000:00:1b.0
    RP01	  S3	*disabled  pci:0000:00:1c.0
    RP02	  S3	*disabled  pci:0000:00:1c.1
    RP03	  S3	*disabled  pci:0000:00:1c.2
    ARPT	  S4	*disabled  pci:0000:03:00.0
    RP05	  S3	*disabled  pci:0000:00:1c.4
    RP06	  S3	*disabled  pci:0000:00:1c.5
    SPIT	  S3	*disabled
    XHC1	  S3	*disabled  pci:0000:00:14.0
    ADP1	  S3	*disabled
    LID0	  S3	*enabled

And for permanent disabling:

    $ cat /etc/udev/rules.d/90-xhc_sleep.rules

    # disable wake from S3 on XHC1
    SUBSYSTEM=="pci", KERNEL=="0000:00:14.0", ATTR{power/wakeup}="disabled"

If this does not work, check that ARPT is disabled, and add a corresponding rule to udev, like this:

    SUBSYSTEM=="pci", KERNEL=="0000:03:00.0", ATTR{power/wakeup}="disabled"

If this still does not work, try disabling LID0. This way suspending via lid-closing should be made impossible, so you might want to follow the instructions in this forum post to make suspending via both lid-closing and systemd possible, by using systemd services.

### Light sensor

The values can be read from:

     /sys/devices/platform/applesmc.768/light

A "cat" on this path returns two-tuples like (4,0). The below referenced lighter script ignores the second value - which always seems to be 0 - and uses the first number as measured environment lighting brightness value.

If you want to use the built in light sensor to automatically adjust screen and keyboard backlight brightness check out Lighter [2] (simple perl script, easy to fine-tune) and Lightum [3] (Requires Gnome or KDE but is older and more complete than Lighter).

### Sound

Tip: If using ALSA, the internal speaker might not be disabled when using the headphone jack. To solve this, enable "Auto-mute" using `alsamixer`

First of all follow ALSA wiki page, then if something does not work correctly, continue reading this part.

Edit your `/etc/modprobe.d/50-sound.conf` or `/etc/modprobe.d/modprobe.conf` appending this line:

    options snd_hda_intel model=intel-mac-auto

This should automatically specify the codec in your MacBook. If you have a MacBookPro12,1, you might need

     options snd-hda-intel index=1,0

instead. Alternatively, for MacBookPro5,X, you can use:

    options snd_hda_intel model=mb5

(note that the jack output is controlled with "HP").

If you have an iMac8,1, you should instead use

    options snd-hda-intel model=mbp3 position_fix=2

You can try to specify other options, that depend on your hardware. All other possible settings are listed in Kernel Documentation, avaible online:

- ALSA-Configuration.txt
- HD-Audio.txt
- HD-Audio-Models.txt.}}

Then, reboot.

### Bluetooth

Bluetooth should work out-of-the box. See the article on Bluetooth to install and configure all software needed.

### Webcam

#### iSight

Note: Linux kernel from 2.6.26 includes the Linux UVC driver natively. MBP 6,2+ (Kernel ~2.6.37+) iSight works out of the box without the need to use firmware from OS X. Only use `isight-firmware-tools` if it doesn't work normally.

iSight webcams on MacBooks or pre 6,2 MacBook Pros (6,2 came out around 2010) require the Apple's proprietary firmware that cannot be redistributed. It must be extracted from OS X and loaded onto Arch.

You will need to install isight-firmware-toolsAUR to extract the firmware. This package also includes a udev rule and ELF binary that are necessary, even once you have extracted the firmware file into `/lib/firmware/isight.fw`, for the file to be loaded every time you boot your computer (namely `/etc/udev/rules.d/isight.rules` which uses `/usr/lib/udev/ift-load`).

Instructions:

First you need to get the firmware out of a particular file located on your OS X install. It is located in `/System/Library/Extensions/IOUSBFamily.kext/Contents/PlugIns/AppleUSBVideoSupport.kext/Contents/MacOS/AppleUSBVideoSupport`.

Tip: The `AppleUSBVideoSupport` file from a OS X 10.6 (Snow Leopard) installation may not work properly. If possible, use the file from OS X 10.5 or earlier.

To mount the OS X drive if multi-booting:

    # sudo mkdir /media/OSX
    # sudo mount -t hfsplus /dev/sda2 /media/OSX

Then, install the isight-firmware-toolsAUR package.

Locate the `AppleUSBVideoSupport` file in the OS X directory listed above. Either copy it over to your Arch system (Any OS X installation should do, such as an iMac, not just one specific to your system) or, if multi-booting, mount the OS X drive and navigate to the directory. (On 10.7 (Lion) the directory is `/System/Library/Extensions/IOUSBFamily.kext/Contents/PlugIns/AppleUSBVideoSupport.kext/Contents/MacOS`.) In that directory you can go ahead and extract the driver:

    # ift-extract --apple-driver AppleUSBVideoSupport

When it's done, check that the firmware has been found:

    # ls /lib/firmware/isight.fw

Once successful, completely SHUTDOWN your Mac and start it back up again (to clear the hardware state of the webcam). Do not reboot.

It should be automatically loaded at boot; if it isn't you can load the uvcvideo module manually or load it at boot.

You can use many applications to test the webcam:

- MPlayer

    # mplayer tv:// -tv driver=v4l2:width=320:height=240:device=/dev/video0 -fps 30

- Cheese
- Skype
- Ekiga

A simple solution to take snapshots is:

    # mplayer tv:// -vf screenshot

and the pressing the s key to take a snapshot. Files are of the format `shot\d\d\d\d.png` and are reported in the standard output.

#### Facetime HD

According to Apple, all recent MacBook models contain a Facetime HD camera instead of the iSight. The following list is an example:

- iMac (21,5" mid 2011)
- iMac (27" mid 2011)
- MacBook Air (mid 2011)
- MacBook Pro (15" early 2011)
- MacBook Pro (17" early 2011)
- MacBook Pro (13" early 2011)

If your MacBook is more recent than the models listed above, it is likely equipped with the Facetime HD camera as well.

In order to make the camera work, you need to install the bcwc-pcie-dkmsAUR and bcwc-pcie-firmwareAUR packages. This will enable camera video support through the `facetimehd` kernel module.

In order to verify if the Facetime camera is working after the installation of both packages, you'll need to reboot your system.

Note: Keep in mind that, although working, this is a reverse-engineered driver. PC suspension is not supported if a program that is keeping the camera active is running.

### Temperature Sensors

For reading temperature just install lm_sensors. See the lm_sensors page for more information.

### Color Profile

We can use color profiles from OS X.

First, install the xcalibAUR package.

Second copy pre-saved color profiles placed in `/Library/ColorSync/Profiles/Displays/` on OS X partition to `~/colorprofiles/` for example.

There are color profile files agree with in MacBook models; select the right one:

- Color LCD-4271800.icc for MacBook Pro with CoreDuo CPU
- Color LCD-4271880.icc for MacBook with Core2Duo
- Color LCD-4271780.icc for MacBook (non-Pro) based on CoreDuo or Core2Duo.

Tip: Also OS X allows to save current color profile from Displays > Color section of the Mac OS System Preferences, in this case file is saved to `/Users/<username>/Library/ColorSync/Profiles`.

Finally you can activate it by running

    # xcalib ~/colorprofile.icc

Note: Previous command set the color profile only for the current session; this mean that you must run it every time you login in your system. For automating it you can execute the command by Autostart Application, concording with your DE (or add the command to your login manager's initialization script, e.g. /etc/gdm/Init/Default).
Warning: GNOME will revert the profile set by xcalib. It's preferable to set the profile using Color in settings.

### Apple Remote

First, to correctly install and configure the lirc software that control IR see LIRC wiki.

Then make LIRC use `/dev/usb/hiddev0` (or `/dev/hiddev0`) by editing `/etc/conf.d/lircd`. Here is how mine look:

    #
    # Parameters for lirc daemon
    #
    LIRC_DEVICE="/dev/usb/hiddev0"
    LIRC_DRIVER="macmini"
    LIRC_EXTRAOPTS=""
    LIRC_CONFIGFILE="/etc/lirc/lircd.conf"

Use irrecord (available when installing lirc) to create a configuration file matching your remote control signals (alternatively, you can try to use the `lircd.conf` below):

    # irrecord -d /dev/usb/hiddev0 -H macmini output_conf_file

Start lircd and use irw to check if it works.

Example of an `/etc/lirc/lircd.conf`:

    begin remote

      name  lircd.conf.macbook
      bits            8
      eps            30
      aeps          100

      one             0     0
      zero            0     0
      pre_data_bits   24
      pre_data       0x87EEFD
      gap          211994
      toggle_bit_mask 0x87EEFD01

          begin codes
              Repeat                   0x01
              Menu                     0x03
              Play                     0x05
              Prev                     0x09
              Next                     0x06
              Up                       0x0A
              Down                     0x0C
          end codes

    end remote

### HFS partition sharing

First, install the hfsprogs package.

we have to list our partitions. Use

    fdisk -l /dev/sda

example output:

    # fdisk -l /dev/sda
        Device  Boot     Start         End      Blocks   Id  Type
     /dev/sda1               1          26      204819   ee  GPT
     /dev/sda2              26       13602   109051903+  af  Unknown
     /dev/sda3   *       13602       14478     7031250   83  Linux
     /dev/sda4           14478       14594      932832+  82  Linux swap / Solaris

As we see, the "Unknown" partition is our OS X partition, which is located in `/dev/sda2`.

Create a "mac" folder in /media:

    # mkdir /media/mac

Add at the end of /etc/fstab this line:

    /dev/sda2    /media/mac     hfsplus auto,user,rw,exec   0 0

Mount it :

    mount /media/mac

and check it:

    ls /media/mac

### HFS+ Partitions

#### Journaling

HFS+ partitions, now the default in OS X, are not fully supported by Linux and are mounted as read-only by default. In order to write to an HFS+ partition, the safe way is to disable journaling. This can be accomplished using the OS X Disk Utility. Refer to this Apple support page for more information or try to do it from the command line:

Find your partition:

    $ diskutil list
    /dev/disk0
       #:                       TYPE NAME                    SIZE       IDENTIFIER
       0:      GUID_partition_scheme                        *750.2 GB   disk0
       1:                        EFI EFI                     209.7 MB   disk0s1
       2:                  Apple_HFS OSX                     149.5 GB   disk0s2
       3:                  Apple_HFS Macintosh HD            599.2 GB   disk0s3
       4:                 Apple_Boot Recovery HD             650.0 MB   disk0s4

In this example we will use disk0s3 partition named as Macintosh HD. To know if journaling is activate or not you could execute:

    $ diskutil info /dev/disk0s3 | grep -i journal
       File System Personality:  Journaled HFS+
       Name (User Visible):      Mac OS Extended (Journaled)
       Journal:                  Journal size 49152 KB at offset 0x1176000

As you can read the journaling is active. To turn off the journaling you could execute:

    $ sudo diskutil disableJournal disk0s3
    Password:
    Journaling has been disabled for volume Macintosh HD on disk0s3

To verify it is done execute the info command again:

    $diskutil info /dev/disk0s3 | grep -i journal
    $

If you get noting as output, then journaling is disabled.

However, if you fail to disable journaling. You can change "auto,user,rw,exec" in "/etc/fstab" to "auto,user,force,rw,exec" and mount it.

#### Yosemite and later

Since Yosemite, HFS+ partitions are now wrapped a CoreStorage volume. Verify that you have an CoreStorage volume.

    # fdisk -l /dev/sdX
     Disk /dev/sdX: 298.1 GiB, 320072933376 bytes, 625142448 sectors
     Units: sectors of 1* 512 = 512 bytes
     Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 4096 bytes
     I/O size (minimum/optimal): 4096 bytes / 4096 bytes
     Disklabel type: gpt
     Device      Start      End         Sectors    Size     Type
     /dev/sdX1   40         409639      409600     200M     EFI System
     /dev/sdX2   409640     623872871   623463232  297.3G   Apple Core storage
     /dev/sdX3   623872872  625142407   1269536    916.0M   Apple boot

HFS+ uses two volume headers, one 1024 bytes into the device and one 1024 from the end of the device. With the HFS+ partition wrapped in the CoreStorage volume the end of the partition is not actually 1024 bytes from the end of the `/dev/sdX2` partition. To fix this you need to specify `sizelimit=X` when mounting.

To determine `sizelimit` do the following:

1. Run `testdisk /dev/sdX` and select your drive
2. Select `EFI GPT`
3. Select `Analyse` and then `Quick Search`

Sample output:

     TestDisk 7.0, Data Recovery Utility, April 2015
     Christophe GRENIER <grenier@cgsecurity.org>
     http://www.cgsecurity.org

     Disk /dev/sdX  - 320 GB / 298 GiB - CHS 38913 255 63
         Partition     Start      End        Size in sectors
     P  EFI System     40         409639     409600  [EFI]
     P  Mac HFS        409640     623147815  622738176
     P  Mac HFS        623872872  625142407  1269536

What you see now is the output of the HFS partition itself without the CoreStorage volume. Take the size in sectors (622738176 in this example) and multiply by the number of bytes in your logical sector size (512 in this example).

622738176 * 512 = 318841946112

Finally, mount your disk with the `sizelimit=X` option.

     mount /dev/sdX -t hfsplus -o ro,sizelimit=318841946112

### Home Sharing

UID Synchronization

#### In OS X

Note: It is strongly recommended that UID/GID manipulation be done immediately after a new user account is created, in OS X as well as in Arch Linux. If you installed OS X from scratch, then this operation is guaranteed to work after logging into your account for the first time.

##### Step 1: change UID and GID(s)

Pre-Leopard

1. Open NetInfo Manager located in the /Applications/Utilities folder.
2. If not done for you already, enable access to user account transactions by clicking on the closed lock at the bottom of the window, and entering your account password, or root password if you have created a root account.
3. Navigate to /users/<new user name> where <new user name> is the name of the account that will have read/write access to the folder that will be shared with the primary user in Arch.
4. Change the UID value to 1000 (the value used by default for first user created in Arch).
5. Also change the GID value to 1000 (the value used by default for user account creation in Arch).
6. Navigate to `/groups/<new user name>`, automatically saving the changes you have made so far.

Note: If you get an error message that the transaction is not allowed, log out and log back in.

Leopard

In Leopard, the NetInfo Manager application is not present. A different set of steps is required for UID synchronization:

1. Open System Preferences.
2. Click on Users & Groups.
3. Unlock the pane if not already done so.
4. Right-click on the desired user and select Advanced Options.
5. Write down the value of the User ID field, you will need it later on. Change both the UID and GID to match the UID and GID of the account wished to be shared with in Arch (1000 by default for the first user created in Arch).

##### Step 2: change "Home" permissions

1. Open up Terminal in the `/Applications/Utilities` folder.

1. Enter the following command to reclaim the permission settings of your home folder, replacing <your user name>, <your user group> and <your old UID> with the user name whose UID and GID values you just changed, the group name whose GID value you just changed and the old UID number, respectively.

    # find /User/<your user name> -user <your old UID> -exec chown <your user name>:<your user group> {} \;

#### In Arch

To synchronize your UID in Arch Linux, you are advised to perform this operation while creating a new user account. It is therefore recommended that you do this as soon as you install Arch Linux.

Now you must substitute Arch's home with OS X's home, by modify entries of `/etc/fstab`.

### Avoid long EFI wait before booting

If your MacBook spends 30 seconds with "white screen" before booting you need to tell the firmware where is the booting partition.

Boot OS X, if do not have it installed, you can use the install DVD (select language, then click Utilities->Terminal), or another MacBook with OS X (connect the two computers via firewire or thunderbolt, start the other MacBook keeping pressed T, boot your MacBook keeping pressed Options).

Either way, once you got a OS X terminal running on your MacBook you need to execute, as root, a different command if the boot partition is EFI or it is not:

    # bless --device /dev/disk0s1 --setBoot            # if the booting partition is EFI

or

    # bless --device /dev/disk0s1 --setBoot --legacy   # if the booting partition is not EFI

(given that if your GRUB or EFI is on sda1, /dev/disk1s2 if it is on sdb2, etc). See also https://bbs.archlinux.org/viewtopic.php?pid=833215 and https://support.apple.com/kb/HT1533 .

### Mute startup chime

The startup chime volume is controlled by the EFI variable SystemAudioVolume-7c436110-ab2a-4bbb-a880-fe41995c9f82. So it can be muted with

    # printf "\x07\x00\x00\x00\x00" > /sys/firmware/efi/efivars/SystemAudioVolume-7c436110-ab2a-4bbb-a880-fe41995c9f82

Alternatively, you can use a OS X install disk to mute the chime. Boot from it, select language, then click Utilities > Terminal, and enter

    # /usr/sbin/nvram SystemAudioVolume=%01

(or whatever volume you want).

### kworker using high CPU

Sometime with the addition of Yosemite, some users found that kworker CPU usage will spike, as disccused here. This is sometimes the result of runaway ACPI interrupts.

To check and see, you can count the number of recent ACPI interrupts and see if any of them are out of control.

       grep . -r /sys/firmware/acpi/interrupts/

If you see that one particular interrupt is out of control (possibly GPE66), i.e., registering hundreds of thousands of lines, you can try disabling it (replace XX with the runaway interrupt):

       echo "disable" > /sys/firmware/acpi/interrupts/gpeXX

Disabling random ACPI interrupts could cause all kinds of problems, so do this at your own risk. If this fixes the problem, there is discussion about how to make a systemd service that automatically disables an interrupt at every boot here.

## rEFIt

Note:

- You probably want to have a look at rEFInd, which is some type of successor of rEFIt.
- This is not a requirement. It only gives you a menu to choose between OS X and Arch Linux upon every boot.

For more see, rEFIt myths.

In OS X, download the ".dmg" from rEFIt Homepage and install it.

Note: If you have already partitioned your hard disk in preparation for the Arch installation, rEFIt may not be enabled by default. You will have to run the "enable.sh" script installed in /efi/refit/.

Open up Terminal and enter:

    cd /efi/refit;
    ./enable.sh

### Problems with rEFIt

If you experience problems after the install of Arch or rEFIt, especially is the right OS is not showing up to boot to or if it dumps you at a GRUB prompt stuck like the following:

    GRUB>_

Then have a look at this link:

http://mac.linux.be/content/problems-refit-and-grub-after-installation

It can give you a basic idea on how to boot off the Arch live cd, mount the problem Arch install, chroot, use gptsync, and reinstall GRUB. This is probably for more advanced users who can translate the commands from a debian system to an Arch system and also apply it to the partitions on their machine. Be careful not to install GRUB in the wrong spot.

If you need a copy of gptsync you can wget it from here: http://packages.debian.org/sid/gptsync or try these, for 64 bit:

wget http://ftp.us.debian.org/debian/pool/main/r/refit/gptsync_0.14-2_amd64.deb

and for i386:

    wget http://ftp.us.debian.org/debian/pool/main/r/refit/gptsync_0.14-2_i386.deb

since they are .deb packages you will need the program deb2targzAUR.

#### Mavericks upgrade breaks Arch boot option

For some multi-boot users who utilize a separate Linux boot partition, the OS X Mavericks upgrade may overwrite the boot partition with Apple's own recovery boot filesystem. This breaks the Arch Linux boot option in rEFIt/rEFInd. The best way to proceed in this situation is to abandon a separate boot partition and use the EFI system partition (ESP) to install the bootloader of your choice. It is also recommended that you use rEFInd instead of rEFIt as development on the latter has halted.

Assuming grub2 as the bootloader:

Use the Arch LiveCD to boot to a shell and chroot to your broken Arch Linux environment.

Mount the ESP on /boot.

Edit the fstab and remove the old boot partition and make ESP the new boot partition. Now mount the ESP as the new /boot parition.

    # mount -a

Reinstall linux.

Create a new initramfs and vmlinuz in /boot.

    # mkinitcpio -p linux

Install grub.

    # grub-install --target=x86_64-efi --efi-directory=/boot --bootloader-id=grub --recheck --debug

Create a new grub.cfg file.

    # grub-mkconfig -o /boot/EFI/grub/grub.cfg

Make sure that grub.cfg is in the same directory as grubx64.efi.

Generate a new refind_linux.conf file in /boot simply by running mkrlconf.sh which comes with rEFInd.

Exit the chroot environment.

Reboot. You should see a new entry for Arch Linux in rEFInd and it should boot to your Arch Linux installation.

## Model-specific information

### MacBook

#### April 2016 12" - Version 9,1

- Booting from USB via EFI works fine, when giving the `noapic` kernel option. (On Ubuntu, also `noacpi nomodeset` seem to be necessary.) Remember to hold the Alt key on booting.

- The wireless card works out of the box with `brcmfmac`.

- Suspend-to-RAM works out of the box.

- The built-in flash drive does not work with kernel 4.5.4-1-ARCH, but it does work with kernel 4.6.0-mainline (install linux-mainlineAUR). As long as a rather trivial patch is not merged into the kernel, either this patch must be applied locally or one puts `modprobe nvme; echo 106b 2003 > /sys/bus/pci/drivers/nvme/new_id` into a mkinitcpio hook (to be started after the udev hook). The reason is that the NVMe controller of the flash drive doesn't advertise itself with the correct PCI device class. Note that with the patch, a short sleep still seems to be necessary.

- Audio recording works out of the box. Audio playback doesn't work (still looking for a solution).

- The keyboard and the touchpad do not work (still looking for a solution).
  - There's a WIP driver here that sort of works with a DSDT hack. Comes with a big battery drain penalty, however.

#### Mid 2007 13" - Version 2,1

Note: I used the 201212 ISO image.

Since older Macbooks have a 32bit EFI running, the usual installation image is not recognized. You need to either remove the UEFI support from the disc (Unified_Extensible_Firmware_Interface#Remove_UEFI_boot_support_from_ISO) or build a 32bit EFI version of the disc. The paragraphs below will take the first path to success, booting into BIOS mode and its pitfalls. For a try the other way round, read Unified_Extensible_Firmware_Interface#Create_UEFI_bootable_USB_from_ISO first.

First prepare your harddisc according to your wishes. In this scenario it was a "Linux only" approach with

    /dev/sda1 HFS+ AF00 200M -> EFI boot system on Apple HFS+ partition
    /dev/sda2 ext4 8300 147G -> arch system
    /dev/sda3 swap 8200 1G   -> swap

The hfsprogsAUR package contains the tools to handle HFS/HFS+ filesystems. The rEFInd bootloader recognizes it on its own. Usually the partition for the EFI bootloader is a FAT32 (vfat) partition. In this case I tried rEFIt first, which apparently needs the HFS+ filesystem to work, and kept it at that.

The mount points are:

    /dev/sda2 -> /
    /dev/sda1 -> /boot

The bootloader in use was rEFInd instead of rEFIt. To install it, the rEFInd homepage provides a good guide. Usually it is simply done by copying rEFInd:

    mkdir /boot/EFI
    cp -vr /usr/share/refind/drivers_ia32 /boot/EFI/refind/
    cp -vr /usr/share/refind/tools_ia32 /boot/EFI/refind/
    cp -vr /usr/share/refind/fonts /boot/EFI/refind/
    cp -vr /usr/share/refind/icons /boot/EFI/refind/
    cp -v /usr/share/refind/refind_ia32.efi /boot/EFI/refind/
    cp -v /usr/share/refind/refind.conf-sample /boot/EFI/refind/refind.conf
    cp -v /usr/share/refind/refind_linux.conf-sample /boot/refind_linux.conf

Note: I'm using the 32bit version of Arch and refind, since the EFI of the old MacBooks is 32bit. I'm not sure about 32bit rEFInd booting a 64bit Arch...

The pitfall here is, that the system bootet in BIOS compatibility mode and not in EFI mode. You cannot therefore use `efibootmgr`, because the EFI variables (even with 'modprobe efivars') are not available. While installing the system get mactel-bootAUR. The `hfs-bless` utility comes in handy, when blessing the EFI bootloader. This is done by calling:

    hfs-bless /boot/EFI/refind/refind_ia32.efi

Since the Linux kernel does come with EFI stub enabled, it seems a good idea to run it through a bootloader first. Especially if it runs not out of the box. But using rEFInd makes GRUB (or any other bootloader) obsolete, because of that.

Note: In the refind_linux.conf you add any kernel option you may want as long as you use the EFI stub of your kernel. In refind.conf you adjust your needs for the bootloader itself, like menu entries. If you use them (menu entries), rEFInd should not look for these EFI stub kernels itself, so blacklist the directories used in here, like `/boot/`.

Not running out of the box is unfortunately the initial stage for the kernel. Since we installed it in BIOS mode, two modules are missing to grant access to the root partition while booting. Hence the 'initfsram-linux.img' can not be found/loaded. Adding the following modules to your 'MODULES' line in `/etc/mkinitcpio.conf` solved this (original post).

    /etc/mkinitcpio.conf

    MODULES="ahci sd_mod"

Rebuild your kernel image:

    mkinitcpio -p linux

The bootloader rEFInd can scan kernels even out of the '/boot/...' directory and assumes an efi kernel even without the extension '.efi'. If you do not want to try out special kernels, this should work without the hassle to copy each kernel after building to some spot special.

If you happen to get multiple entries for one boot image, it often results of a previous installation of a bootloader within the MBR. To remove that, try the following - taken from the original post. This is valid for GPT partitioned discs, so please check your environment and save your MBR first.

    # dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/sda bs=440 count=1

### MacBook Pro with Retina display

#### Early 2015 13"/15" - Version 12,x/11,4+

##### Wireless

The `brcmfmac` driver is working as of 2015-11-20, with newer firmware necessary for working 5GHz support (see here.)

##### Bluetooth

Bluetooth is fully supported starting from kernel-4.4.0.

##### Suspend & Power Off (11,4+)

The 11,4 and 11,5 MacBook Pros do not shutdown or suspend correctly with the default kernel. This issue is being addressed in Bug 103211 and a temporary patch is currently available in linux-macbookAUR.

##### Keyboard & Trackpad

Haptic feedback works out of the box due to the trackpad's built-in firmware.

There are several drivers available that provide multitouch support. The following have been confirmed working with the MacBookPro12,1.

For xf86-input-libinput the following configuration emulates some features from the OS X functionality. For more options see libinput(4).

    /etc/X11/xorg.conf.d/90-libinput.conf

    Section "InputClass"
        Identifier "libinput touchpad catchall"
        MatchIsTouchpad "on"
        MatchDevicePath "/dev/input/event*"
        Driver "libinput"
        Option "NaturalScrolling" "true"
    EndSection

For xf86-input-synaptics the following configuration is necessary to make the touchpad work fully.

    /etc/X11/xorg.conf.d/60-magictrackpad.conf

    Section "InputClass"
        Identifier "Trackpad"
        Driver "synaptics"
        MatchIsTouchpad "on"
        MatchDevicePath "/dev/input/event*"
    EndSection

Further, some US/ANSI keyboards suffer from an issue where the tilde key (~, the key vertically between Esc and Tab) registers as < and >. The following config file fixes this issue.

    /etc/modprobe.d/hid_apple.conf

    options hid_apple iso_layout=0

See this kernel bugzilla for more details and the relevant patches for earlier kernels.

##### Graphics

For Intel-only graphics, install xf86-video-intel. For more information or OpenGL/3D support, follow instructions at Intel graphics.

For Dual Graphics see this section on the 11,3.

Note: The kernel parameters acpi_backlight, i915.lvds_downclock, i915.enable_ips, and intel_iommu are no longer necessary as of kernel 4.2.

#### 2012 - 2014 models

- MacBookPro11,x (Late 2013—Mid 2014)
- MacBookPro10,x (Mid 2012—Early 2013)

### MacBook Air

#### Early 2014 11" - Version 6,1

This is almost the same as the 2013 version, where the only known difference is a slightly faster processor. The version numbers have not been changed since the 2013 version.

It works excellently after following the instructions for the MBA 2013 13" here and in the forum thread. Bluetooth, which has been reported not working for some people with the 2013 version, works without trouble for the 2014 version, although it should be excactly the same.

Note: Unless you have a local repository on a USB disk, you need a USB to ethernet adaptor or a USB wireless adaptor supported natively by the kernel to easily install Arch Linux, since you have to install the broadcom-wl-dkmsAUR package to make the internal wireless adaptor work.

Unresolved issues:

     - There is no driver for the webcam yet.
     - rEFInd uses 30 seconds to start booting. Using the bless trick stops rEFInd from loading, and it has to be re-installed.

#### Mid 2013 13" - Version 6,2

Dedicated forum thread

##### Installing and booting

Booting from a normal 2013.6 USB key works fine, but I could not seem to get either GRUB or Syslinux working.

I was able to boot by first installing Arch Linux following the MacBook guide at the wiki (having a separate FAT32 /boot partition). Skip the bootloader installation.

Installing rEFInd from OS X (important!) and installing the EFI stub loader made me able to boot fine.

Dedicated thread.

Note: Installing rEFInd from Linux (or from OS X, but to the esp) also works fine

##### Arch Only Installation

This method works without rEFInd and uses grub to boot EFI. Partition as follows:

     /dev/sda1 200M Microsoft basic data
     /dev/sda2 256M Linux filesystem
     /dev/sda3 4G Linux swap
     /dev/sda4 108.6G Linux filesystem

sda1 can also be a HFS+ partition for EFI. This example chooses to use FAT32 (vfat). Although swap is optional, it is required for hibernation. Instead of sda4 for root and home, an alternative partition scheme would be to make sda4 as root and sda5 as home.

Format and mount:

     mkfs.vfat -F 32 /dev/sda1
     mkfs.ext2 /dev/sda2
     mkswap /dev/sda3
     swapon /dev/sda3
     mkfs.ext4 /dev/sda4

     mount /dev/sda4 /mnt
     mkdir /mnt/boot
     mount/dev/sda2 /mnt/boot
     mkdir /mnt/boot/efi
     mount /dev/sda1 /mnt/boot/efi

Finish the installation according to the Installation guide and skip anything after the bootloader. After you have generated your initramfs and set root passwd follow below to setup grub:

     pacman -S grub efibootmgr
     mount -t efivarfs efivarfs /sys/firmware/efi/efivars
     grub-install --target=x86_64-efi --efi-directory=/boot/efi --bootloader-id=grub --recheck --debug
     grub-mkconfig -o /boot/efi/EFI/grub/grub.cfg
     cp /boot/efi/EFI/grub/grub.cfg /boot/grub/grub.cfg
     cp /boot/efi/EFI/grub/grubx64.efi /boot/efi/EFI/boot/bootx64.efi}}

Now you can exit/unmount/reboot:

     exit
     umount -R /mnt
     reboot

##### Stability problems

Note: Passing `libata.force=1:noncq` to the kernel parameters solves the problem.

This is the big worry for me. Every now and then my system hangs for a brief moment and everything involving net or disk access just hangs there for a while and then it seems to work. So far it only seems to happen when I run something disk- or CPU-intensive. Also had an occassion when I could not start X and just got this repeating all over my screen:

    ata1.00: failed command: WRITE FPDMA QUEUED
    ata1.00: cmd 61/08:f0:10:8c:c2/00:00:0b:00:00/40 tag 30 ncq 4096 out
    res 40/00:00:00:00:00/00:00:00:00:00/00 Emask 0x4 (timeout)
    ata1.00: status: { DRDY }

On the next attempt it worked fine. I did SMART short and long tests on my disk and they returned fine:

smartctl -a

There are some messages in my boot that indicate this could be disk and/or ACPI related.

These are with 2013-06 ISO, 3.9.7-1 2013 x86_64 kernel.

journalctl -b Seems to only work with the headphone jack, not with the speakers.

dmesg

##### Marvell ATA suspend bugs

If you have 2013 MacBook Air with a Marvell 128 or 256 GB drive, you might get the following ata errors instead after pm-suspend/resumes:

    ata1: exception Emask 0x10 SAct 0x0 SErr 0x10000 action 0xe frozen
    ata1: irq_stat 0x00400000, PHY RDY changed
    ata1: SError: { PHYRdyChg }
    ata1: hard resetting link
    ata1: SATA link up 1.5 Gbps (SStatus 113 SControl 310)
    ata1.00: unexpected _GTF length (8)
    ata1.00: unexpected _GTF length (8)
    ata1.00: configured for UDMA/33
    ata1: EH complete

Try what Patrick and Tejun figured out on the linux bug. I followed what Patrick describes with sata_alpm, and I haven't seen the issue since.

There are more steps on how to resolve this issue in this thread on the Arch forum

##### Suspend/Resume

Brightness is either 0% or 100% after resuming from suspend. Until the kernel is fixed, use patjak's fix by installing mba6x_bl-dkmsAUR. Patjak's github is at [4].

##### WiFi

WiFi does not work out of the box. Install broadcom-wl-dkmsAUR to connect to a network.

##### Touchpad

Since 3.10.3 kernel touchpad works perfectly with xf86-input-synaptics.

##### Audio

As of Linux 3.12, sound works out of the box. If you do not get sound with only alsa-utils, you may need to create a /etc/asound.conf with below entries:

     defaults.pcm.card 1
     defaults.pcm.device 0
     defaults.ctl.card 1

#### Mid 2012 13" — version 5,2

Kernel panics using default boot media under arch kernel 3.5. Adding `intremap=off` fixes this. Additionally, there are problems loading the `applesmc` module (meaning the temperature sensors, fan, and keyboard backlight do not work). These problems are fixed in the linux 3.6-rc4 mainline kernel (I have tested).

#### Mid 2012 11.5" — Version 5,1

If you have issues with waking from sleep while in X11 such as a black screen or showing the console with a frozen mouse cursor then remove xf86-input-synaptics and install xf86-input-mtrack-gitAUR. This fixed errors such as

     (EE) [dix] bcm5974: unable to find touch point 0

and backtraces that causes X11 to crash. This might apply to Version 5,2 assuming they use the same trackpad.

##### Installing using the Archboot 2012.06 image

Several people have reported problems installing Arch Linux on the MBA version 5,2 (See problems booting Arch Linux on a MacBook Air Mid 2012). A common problem is that the screen is not detected and therefore goes black when the installer boots. To fix this problem one has to select the normal install (Not the LTS) during boot and press tab to edit the boot flags. Then add noapic flag to the boot line. This should fix the screen going black. Install the system as you normally would. It may help later in the configuration process if the support packages are installed already at this stage.

When the install has finished again add the noapic flag to the GRUB boot line (if you use GRUB) and also add i915.diescreaming=1 (or perhaps i915.die). This should keep the screen from going black when booting the new system. After you enter the system the wireless driver should be loaded. If you installed the support packages during installation you should have the wifi-menu command. Run it and select the network you want to use. One could also use wpa_supplicant but wifi-menu is quite fast to use at this stage. Now you are ready to upgrade the system. As of writing there have been a lot of changes to Arch Linux since the 2012.06 image of Archboot was released (filesystem and glibc). Therefore the upgrade process can be a bit difficult. The current solution has sucessfully upgraded a standart archboot version to a up-to-date version as of October 2012 and this step should be obsolete in future releases of archboot.

First ignore the new "big" changes to Arch Linux,

     pacman -Suy --ignore glibc,libarchive,curl,filesystem

If this only upgrades pacman then run the command again. Remember to make sure that pacman is ignoring the packages you do not want upgraded now. Otherwise you may break the system and have to reinstall! Now upgrade to the new filesystem,

    pacman -S filesystem --force

As described in Glibc upgrade guide there may be conflicts with installed packages that require the /lib directory. Follow the guide and remove any packages that use /lib. The stock 3.4.2 kernel from Archboot should be on this list so first upgrade this,

    pacman -S linux

This may give some errors saying that the system may not boot because of missing modules. Ignore this warning for now. The stock install may also contain gcc in the /lib directory so also remove this if needed and any other packages that have conflicts. Now Glibc should be the only package in /lib so run the system upgrade and accept all changes,

    pacman -Su

Finally reinstall the kernel so that it can find the correct modules.

Now this command should not give any errors like last time. You can also reinstall gcc at this point. After a rebooted the system should startup and the new kernel should have fixed the problem with the screen going black. If want to boot Xorg then you may need to remove the i915.diescreaming=1 line from GRUB. If not then attach a external screen and try to fix the problem that way. Some people have reported commands that may help on the forum.

#### Mid 2011 — version 4,x

Works out-of-the-box since kernel 3.2. It is recommended to use Archboot, install GRUB and use EFI.

#### Early 2008 — version 1,1

Everything works out of the box though you will need b43-fwcutter (or simply b43-firmwareAUR) for the wireless adapter to work.

Since this model has only one USB port, you may find it easiest to install Arch with a powered USB hub. Plug a USB network adapter (wireless or ethernet adapter to plug into a USB port) and your Arch installation media into the USB hub.

If you can't get any result by scanning wireless network after boot, unload modules `b43` and `ssb` and load them again:

       rmmod ssb
       rmmod b43
       modprobe b43

There is a good chance you will find what's wrong with DMA from the dmesg log.

Even if you can scan wireless networks after reloading the modules, it's still possible that you will only be able to connect to some networks, but not all of them. According to a more detailed discussion here: http://crunchbang.org/forums/viewtopic.php?id=17368, adding `pio=1,qos=0` options to the b43 module can solve this problem.

I tested this for a 13' MacBookAir1,1 with a BCM4321 chipset, and it works.

## See also

- MacBook Air
  - Macbook Air Early 2014 — dabase.com
  - Installing Archlinux on Macbook Air 2013 — Frank Shin
  - Arch Linux Installation with OS X on Macbook Air (Dual Boot) — Pankaj Kumar
  - Arch Linux – MacBook Air 2013 — Ryan Gehrig
  - Installing Linux on a Macbook Air (4,2) — Nico Schottelius
  - Arch linux single, pure efi boot on the macbook air3,1/3,2 — DIMENSION9
- MacBook Pro
  - http://www.netsoc.tcd.ie/~theorie/interblag/2010/01/30/installing-arch-linux-on-a-mac-pro/
  - http://allanmcrae.com/2010/04/installing-arch-on-a-macbook-pro-5-5/
  - http://allanmcrae.com/2012/04/installing-arch-on-a-macbook-pro-8-1/
  - http://linux-junky.blogspot.com/2011/08/triple-boot-archlinux-windows-7-and-mac.html

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