Fedora 16 = best linux EVER for Mac

PompeyBlue · #1 11th December 2011, 06:36 PM

Ok, this is just my findings on my Macbook Air (2011 edition)

Fedora 14 = barely started up
Fedora 15 = started up, keyboard & right click all recognised, usable
Fedora 16 = EVERYTHING WORKS! Whoosh drive burns, wifi is full speed, it's COMPLETELY brilliant!

mattatron · #2 18th December 2011, 09:21 PM

Considering the amount of fiddling people are having to do with this across at the Ubuntu forums, I'm really surprised everything Just Works [TM] on Fedora.

Was it really that easy or did you have to tweak anything? I'm particularly curious about how useful that wonderful glass touchpad is Linux.

PompeyBlue · #3 19th December 2011, 09:58 PM

Pretty much just worked. I wrote a how to here: http://forums.fedoraforum.org/showth...74#post1536274

Main "fiddles"

1. When booting had to add "nomodeset" to boot command line (tab then type in)
2. Once installed had to "yum install kmod-wl kmod-nvidia" to get wireless & gfx working
3. Had to Follow step 10 of here for the sound: http://www.mind-download.com/2011/01...cbook-air.html

Slightly irksome but get Fedora working is a piece of p*ss

mattatron · #4 20th December 2011, 07:48 AM

Thanks for the reply.

I'm holding off a purchase until the 2012 models are out, but this is excellent news to hear.

PompeyBlue · #5 22nd December 2011, 03:27 PM

I think I'll upgrade to a 2012 model too. Unfortunately if Apple revs hardware then that can mean the fully working Fedora thing of beauty may go back to being broken again.

Sagitter · #6 24th December 2011, 06:15 PM

Quote:

Fedora 16 = best linux EVER for Mac

Goodbye free software !

symbolix · #7 26th December 2011, 03:03 AM

Well, you must be really lucky cause it is a pain for me... and still no result?!

Here is my post: "Fedora16 on a mac."

PompeyBlue · #8 27th December 2011, 08:54 AM

Did you follow my triple boot how to? I am not sure it's possible to triple boot winxp? If memory serves winxp had to be on the first partition to boot correctly?

chrismurphy · #9 30th December 2011, 05:47 PM

The problem could be disk size. I think Windows XP sees only 800GB of disk space or something like that?

PompeyBlue · #10 7th January 2012, 01:10 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by mattatron

Considering the amount of fiddling people are having to do with this across at the Ubuntu forums, I'm really surprised everything Just Works [TM] on Fedora.

Was it really that easy or did you have to tweak anything? I'm particularly curious about how useful that wonderful glass touchpad is Linux.

I've just upgraded my Macbook Air and noticed that they've revised the hardware. They've replaced the nVidia card with the intel graphics HD 3000 which is on board the Intel i7 chip.

They've also revised the trackpad.

I've now got the same issues as those guys on the Ubuntu forums.

Latest Macbook air's are not very compatible with Fedora, or indeed Linux, (yet)!

chrismurphy · #11 7th January 2012, 05:46 PM

I'll guess that this new MacBookAir has a similar trackpad to that of the MacBookPro 8,x series, and that you're finding the mousearrow freezes whenever you click, such that you can't click drag? I find the computer to be useless because of this, in either CSM-BIOS or EFI boot modes. Could be this bug:
https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=746124

I'm pretty sure that Intel graphics support is built into the kernel for some time now. But the problem on some Apple laptops, I think, is that the kernel isn't negotiating between two graphics adapters when the laptop has two as is the case with the MBP 8,2 and 8,3 which have AMD Radeon and Intel graphics. In EFI mode they're both enabled. In CSM-BIOS mode the Radeon is enabled. At least that's my understanding.

PompeyBlue · #12 7th January 2012, 09:31 PM

I've found that the trackpad works fine apart from two finger scroll and double click. There are some modified packages for Ubuntu which edit the bcm5974 driver to get touchpad working again.

The folks over on the Ubuntu forums are talking about the Intel issue. It appears whilst the Intel driver is built into the kernel, and should work with Fedora, when we boot with nomodeset the incorrect driver is being loaded. We need to fix the nomodeset boot issue so that we can load the correct graphic drivers. Hence why we are falling back to 1024x768 which is the fbdev default driver.

PompeyBlue · #13 29th January 2012, 02:24 PM

See my other posts in these forums. Updated to kernel 3.2.2 and EVERYTHING has burst into life. Trackpad, display all works.

Needed to remove nomodeset from the boot params.