Support for the MacBook
 

So far the only distro that has successfully installed and ran on my MacBook has been Slackware, so I will be re-installing later today. My question is, I am not a complete beginner with linux I can use the shell without much issue; but I do still need to use the Desktop at times.

I have heard that there is zero support for Broadcom based wifi cards, so I will be purchasing a usb wifi adapter for that. I was doing some research and it seems a few people were able to get the Apple Trackpad working in linux, the only functionality I really want from it is the ability to tap-to-click and the right click functionality. Are there any drivers or packages to enable this support?

Also, another issue I have been having with every distro I have installed is the reboot function does not ever get the system to actually reboot, I believe this has something to do with me using rEFIt as my boot manager. Is there any fix for this?

"startx" doesn't give you kde?

Sorry I don't know anything about the rest of your problems; hopefully someone else will pick it up...

I have no problem getting KDE up and running, I just need to get some hardware support going in KDE for the trackpad

Oh, clearly I misunderstood the question. Good luck anyway! :)

slack on macbook
 

Hey there, I am actually running Slackware on my Macbook. I struggled with the touchpad, it was really jumpy and unusable. Now I have it working pretty well. I am using the synaptics touchpad driver for X.

In /etc/X11/xorg.conf, I have:

# This loads the font modules
Load "type1"
Load "freetype"
#Load "speedo"
Load "synaptics"

Then in the InputDevice section:


Section "InputDevice"

# Identifier and driver

Identifier "Mouse1"
Driver "synaptics"

# On platforms where PnP mouse detection is supported the following
# protocol setting can be used when using a newer PnP mouse:
Option "SHMConfig" "on"
Option "Protocol" "auto-dev"
Option "AccelFactor" "5e-06"
Option "BottomEdge" "310"
Option "FingerHigh" "30"
Option "FingerLow" "20"
Option "HorizScrollDelta" "0"
Option "LeftEdge" "100"
Option "MaxDoubleTapTime" "180"
Option "MaxSpeed" "0.88"
Option "MaxTapMove" "220"
Option "MaxTapTime" "0"
Option "MinSpeed" "0.5"
Option "RightEdge" "1120"
Option "SendCoreEvents" "true"
Option "TapButton2" "0"
Option "TapButton3" "0"
Option "TopEdge" "50"
Option "VertScrollDelta" "0"
Option "VertTwoFingerScroll" "false"
Option "RTCornerButton" "0"
Option "RBCornerButton" "0"
Option "ZAxisMapping" "4 5"

And also:
# The mouse device. The device is normally set to /dev/mouse,
# which is usually a symbolic link to the real device.

# Option "Device" "/dev/mouse"
Option "Device" "/dev/psaux"

That gives me pretty usable setup. If you like, my whole xorg.conf is available at http://marmot.dudeabides.net/slackmac.xorg.conf.

I believe that I installed synclient from a slack pack I found via google. I also installed a madwifi slack pack, and I am able to use the built-in wireless that way.

Hope this helps,
1H8Reg

more again slack mac
 

Oh yeah, you can do tap-click if you want, but you won't like it. You may be able to get it to behave by tweaking synclient enough. However I found that it was almost impossible to keep accidental input from happening, so I don't use tap-click.

In order to middle- and right-click, I use xmodmap.

foo:~$ more .xmodmap
keycode 108 = Pointer_EnableKeys
keycode 95 = Pointer_Button2
keycode 96 = Pointer_Button3

This allows me to use F11 as middle- and F12 as right-click. Same as I used on my clamshell iBook :)

Good luck!

Thanks for the help as soon as I get the partition problem I'm having sorted out I will try this, which internal wireless card does your macBook have the Airport, or the Airport Extreme. I was told the Extreme has a Broadcom based card and therefore wouldn't work with linux

You have heard wrong then. I have a BCM4306 running perfectly without any problems.

A lot of the Broadcom problems have been resolved as of Slackware 12.2 and the new kernel.

Check this article on how to get it all working.

http://www.linuxwireless.org/en/users/Drivers/b43

Most Broadcom chips have full support now.

That is excellent to hear, I will be trying to get things going tonight after potentially wiping the drive clean

Hmm madwifi may not be what you need:

foo:~$ /sbin/lspci
02:00.0 Network controller: Atheros Communications Inc. AR5418 802.11abgn Wireless PCI Express Adapter (rev 01)

Me have atheros, me use madwifi. Maybe you have atheros, maybe you use madwifi?

Here is an old thread I hijacked when I had my MBP 2,2.

http://www.linuxquestions.org/questi...-a-mac-496688/

Most of it might not apply anymore but pommed and some of the extra tweaks might.