Ubuntu LTS on MacBook Pro 2017 (A1707, MBP 14,3)(T1 chip)

ubuntu-on-mbp-a1707.md

Summary

Notes to install Ubuntu 22.04.4LTS (Upgraded to 24.04LTS) up and running on my 2017 MacBook Pro 15 inch (MacBookPro14,3).

Now everything except the TouchID (Fingerprint), Suspend and Hibernation seems to work for me.

About Ubuntu 24.04LTS: I tried to install Ubuntu 24.04 and didn't have success. There was a crash issue during installation. https://bugs.launchpad.net/subiquity/+bug/2065310 But I installed 22.04 and upgraded it to the 24.04LTS later and it working same as 22.04.4.

Useful References (not mentioned in the text)

• [Rob Hills's original Gist] - https://gist.github.com/rob-hills/9134b7352ee7471c4d4f4fbd6454c4b9 - very helpful

Out of the Box

What worked

A lot of online info about running Ubuntu on MBP indicated that you needed to build drivers and install them just to get the basics running. For Ubuntu 22.04LTS and my MBP a1707, this was not the case. Things that worked for me with the standard Ubuntu 22.04LTS Live USB and after initial installation included:

• The basic keyboard (not the Touchbar with Esc and Function keys though);
• The touchpad;
• My SSK USB-C multi-port adapter, provides important infrastructure such as LAN connection, external monitor, and external storage;
• Bluetooth. Connected external Bluetooth keyboard and Apple mouse 2.

What didn't work

• Wifi: It was partly functional, but was not fully usable. Only 2.4Ghz access points shown with poor level and can be connected;
• Touchbar;
• Sound;
• Camera;

What still doesn't work

• Suspend (Can not resume many hardware); 2016 version seems to work with following method: https://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=2492426 But, 2017 version seems doesn't work.
• Hibernation (When I execute systemctl hibernate, it seems shutting down);
• TouchID (It seems diffucult. There might have possibility. Please see this: Dunedan/mbp-2016-linux#71 (comment));

The following notes mostly document what worked to get Wifi, Touchbar, Camera, and Sound working.

Pre-requirement

The Macbook's EFI partition seems to need to be kept. Please see the following comment for more information.

https://gist.github.com/roadrunner2/1289542a748d9a104e7baec6a92f9cd7?permalink_comment_id=4937505#gistcomment-4937505

Resolution

WiFi

Just creating the configuration file /usr/lib/firmware/brcm/brcmfmac43602-pcie.txt was enough for my hardware.

Andy Holst's example configuration file final iteration here was ideal and only required a little tweaking for my system.

WiFi Driver Configuration tweaks

I made the following changes to Andy Holst's /usr/lib/firmware/brcm/brcmfmac43602-pcie.txt

macaddr=00:90:4c:0d:f5:30
ccode=ALL

• macaddr - set to the mac address of my WiFi card (I got it with the command ip addr)
• ccode - I just simply set it to ALL, (ALL (Channel 1-14), US, EU etc.)

Touchbar

Step-by-Step Touchbar

Become the superuser

sudo su

Ubuntu uses initramfs so add our new modules to the list to be loaded

cat <<EOF | tee -a /etc/initramfs-tools/modules
# drivers for keyboard+touchpad
applespi
apple_ib_tb
intel_lpss_pci
spi_pxa2xx_platform
EOF

Build and install drivers from the source code.

apt install dkms
cd {your preferred source download folder}
git clone https://github.com/almas/macbook12-spi-driver
cd macbook12-spi-driver
git checkout touchbar-driver-hid-driver
ln -s `pwd` /usr/src/applespi-0.1
dkms install applespi/0.1 --force

Test the drivers by loading them and their dependencies

modprobe intel_lpss_pci spi_pxa2xx_platform applespi apple_ib_tb

An empty output indicates success

Reboot

At this point of the process, my touchbar was not working. More Googling led me to someone else logging this as [an issue on RoadRunner2's Driver repository[(roadrunner2/macbook12-spi-driver#42] and in the discussion I found a workaround. The following commands:

echo '1-3' | sudo tee /sys/bus/usb/drivers/usb/unbind
echo '1-3' | sudo tee /sys/bus/usb/drivers/usb/bind

caused my touchbar to light up!!

To save having to run these commands each time I start the computer, I needed to create a "macbook-quirks.service" and have it start up with the computer:

sudo su
cat <<EOF | tee /etc/systemd/system/macbook-quirks.service
[Unit]
Description=Re-enable MacBook 14,3 TouchBar
Before=display-manager.service

[Service]
Type=oneshot
ExecStartPre=/bin/sleep 2
ExecStart=/bin/sh -c "echo '1-3' > /sys/bus/usb/drivers/usb/unbind"
ExecStart=/bin/sh -c "echo '1-3' > /sys/bus/usb/drivers/usb/bind"
RemainAfterExit=yes
TimeoutSec=0

[Install]
WantedBy=multi-user.target
EOF

Now enable with systemctl enable macbook-quirks.service and reboot to check.

My MBP now boots up with the Touchbar working!

From the discussion in the link above, it appears this may be due to a bug in Linux and the usbmuxd system so hopefully will be able to remove the workaround in the future, so keep an eye on the relevant issue discussion.

Touchbar Tweaking (Optional)

Personally, I don't like this. But, if you want the Function keys to appear by default (instead of the brightness and sound keys), then you need to pass some parameters to the apple_ib_tb module. 'modinfo apple_ib_tb' lists the parameters and what they do.

sudo su
cat <<EOF | tee /etc/modprobe.d/apple_ib_tb.conf
options apple_ib_tb fnmode=2           # Default to Function Keys, Fn key toggles to "special"
options apple_ib_tb idle_timeout=60    # Turn off the Touchbar after 60 seconds.
EOF

After reloading the module with the following command, the Function keys will be shown by default.

sudo modprobe -r apple_ib_tb
sudo modprobe apple_ib_tb

Sound

I found the resolution from the Rade0nFighter's answer from the following QA: https://askubuntu.com/questions/1475091/sound-macbook-pro-ubuntu-22-04

sudo su

apt install wget make gcc linux-headers-generic
git clone https://github.com/davidjo/snd_hda_macbookpro.git
cd snd_hda_macbookpro/
bash install.cirrus.driver.sh

# It will give you instructions to install package linux-source-XXXXX. Install it.
apt install linux-source-XXXXX

# Then re-run install script.
bash install.cirrus.driver.sh

bash dkms.sh

reboot

Now the sound should work.

Camera

Execute the following command and reboot.

echo "options uvcvideo quirks=0x100" > /etc/modprobe.d/uvcvideo.conf

Now the camera should work too.

References

• https://gist.github.com/rob-hills/9134b7352ee7471c4d4f4fbd6454c4b9
• https://gist.github.com/roadrunner2/1289542a748d9a104e7baec6a92f9cd7
• https://github.com/Dunedan/mbp-2016-linux

Getting this error on A1707 MBP:
#dkms install applespi/0.1

Kernel preparation unnecessary for this kernel. Skipping...

Building module:
cleaning build area...
make -j8 KERNELRELEASE=6.5.0-41-generic...(bad exit status: 2)
ERROR (dkms apport): binary package for applespi: 0.1 not found
Error! Bad return status for module build on kernel: 6.5.0-41-generic (x86_64)
Consult /var/lib/dkms/applespi/0.1/build/make.log for more information.

@samrostaq

It is still working for me. You might did something wrong.

was the crash issue installing 24.04 due to swap? I had the issue and manually did gparted first so it properly recognizes swap during installation. Otherwise it fails at formatting the swap partition.

Thanks @almas for organizing and sharing your journey.

My contributions to all (what worked for me) installing Ubuntu 22.04.5 LTS on a MacBookPro14,2:

• Touchbar (could not get it working until following these steps):

1. update all (sudo update);
2. upgrade all (sudo upgrade);
3. edit the /etc/initramfs-tools/modules file, including all modules listed by @almas:

sudo nano /etc/initramfs-tools/modules
# List of modules that you want to include in your initramfs.
# They will be loaded at boot time in the order below.
#
# Syntax:  module_name [args ...]
#
# You must run update-initramfs(8) to effect this change.
#
# Examples:
#
# raid1
# sd_mod
# drivers for keyboard+touchpad
applespi
apple-ib-tb
intel_lpss_pci
spi_pxa2xx_platform

4. Save changes (crtl+O) and exit (crtl+X);
5. Build and install modules:

sudo git clone https://github.com/almas/macbook12-spi-driver /usr/src/applespi-0.1
sudo dkms install applespi/0.1

# reference: https://wiki.gentoo.org/wiki/Apple_MacBook_Pro_15-inch_(2016,_Intel,_Four_Thunderbolt_3_Ports)#Building_modules

6. Test modules:

modprobe intel_lpss_pci spi_pxa2xx_platform applespi apple-ib-tb
# no outputs expected, meaning all 4 modules are loaded.

7. create the macbook-quirks.service file:

sudo nano /etc/systemd/system/macbook-quirks.service

[Unit]
Description=Re-enable MacBook 14,3 TouchBar
Before=display-manager.service

[Service]
Type=oneshot
ExecStartPre=/bin/sleep 2
ExecStart=/bin/sh -c "echo '1-3' > /sys/bus/usb/drivers/usb/unbind"
ExecStart=/bin/sh -c "echo '1-3' > /sys/bus/usb/drivers/usb/bind"
RemainAfterExit=yes
TimeoutSec=0

[Install]
WantedBy=multi-user.target

8. Save changes (crtl+O) and exit (crtl+X);
9. Enable service:

sudo systemctl enable macbook-quirks.service

10.Reboot

After reboot, still didn`t work. Investigating the /etc/initramfs-tools/modules file i read this comment:

# You must run update-initramfs(8) to effect this change.

11. So i did:

sudo update-initramfs -u

# https://manpages.debian.org/testing/initramfs-tools/update-initramfs.8.en.html

12. Reboot

And finally got the touchbar working.

I could not get it working on Ubuntu 24 LTS. Got an error installing the apple-ib-tb module. Waiting for the news in advance to new LTS.

@danilovcorrea

I could not get it working on Ubuntu 24 LTS. Got an error installing the apple-ib-tb module. Waiting for the news in advance to new LTS.

It might need to customize it for newer kernels.

Everytime sound change is reset when kernel update. So, I manually set older kernel as default and using.
I had problem with 24.04 and I downgraded.
I forgot what was the problem 😅
I will try upgrade again soon.

Update: I just successfully upgraded to Ubuntu 24.04 with kernel 6.8.0-45-generic again.
For this, I updated the driver in https://github.com/almas/macbook12-spi-driver.
You might need to re-clone or pull it and install it with --force argument or uninstall and reinstall.
Also, I added the dkms install command to the sound driver installation for auto kernel update.

I just installed ubuntu 24.04 on my MBP 13" 2017 14,1 and Bluetooth+wireless worked without issues, camera and sound does not. Camera and sound seem to be the only real issue I am facing on this model. Just thought I would share

Hello, @almas, thank you for this tutorial / instructions! This worked great for me! I have only two suggestions/corrections to the instructions: there are two instances of "apple-ib-tb" -- when you're listing the modules to be built into the initramfs, and then again when you're loading the modules with modprobe -- where I believe the hyphens (-) should be replaced by underscores (_). So, the module should be called "apple_ib_tb" instead. It appears this way (correct) in the section where you tweak the Touchbar to make the Function keys appear by default (instead of the controls for volume and screen light intensity). @MurdermittensAD @danilovcorrea Otherwise, fantastic! Thanks again!

@djbarroso
Thank you for the correction. I just fixed it :)