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State of Linux on the MacBook Pro 2016

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State of Linux on the MacBook Pro 2016

The following document provides an overview about Linux support for the Apple MacBook Pro 2016 line.

The MacBook Pro 2016 shares surprisingly many components with the Retina MacBook (e.g. keyboard and touchpad controller, Wi-Fi and bluetooth chipsets, ...), so figuring out how things work on one device should benefit both device families.

The checks if hardware works below were done with multiple Linux distributions. To state the obvious: The newer the kernel the better. If in doubt which kernel to use, the latest significant improvements are part of Linux 4.11.

If you don't know what the model identifier for your MacBook Pro is (as that identifier is on several occasions below), check https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT201300

Contribution

If you want to contribute to get Linux running smoothly on the MacBook Pro 2016, report all findings how to get devices working as pull requests! All help is appreciated.

Current status

Device Status
Audio input & output ❌ not working
Battery ✔️ working
Bluetooth ❌ not working
FaceTime HD camera ✔️ working
Graphics card (Intel) ✔️ working
Graphics card (AMD) ✔️ working
Keyboard & Touchpad ✔️ working with out-of-tree driver
NVMe (internal SSD) ✔️ working
Screen ✔️ working
Suspend & Hibernation ❌ not working
System Management Controller ❌ working partially
Thunderbolt untested, patch available
Touch Bar ✔️ basic functionality with out-of-tree driver
Touch ID ❌ not working
USB ✔️ working
Wi-Fi ✔️ working for MacBookPro13,1
❌ not working for MacBookPro13,2 & MacBookPro13,3

Booting

To boot Linux properly, it's necessary to set intremap=nosid as kernel boot parameter.

Audio input & output

Not working, neither the internal speakers/microphone nor the headphone jack.

See also:

Battery

Working fine, including the interface to get current capacity, temperature, etc.

Bluetooth

Not working.

Uses the same ACPI ID BCM2E7C as the Retina MacBooks, so certainly it's also a BCM43241.

See also:

FaceTime HD camera

In the MacBookPro13,1 (without Touch Bar) the FaceTime HD camera is connected via PCIe, like in previous MacBook Pros. It's proper function is untested, but it's likely that the bcwc_pcie driver will work.

The models with Touch Bar have the FaceTime HD camera connected through the iBridge device via USB. They are exposed as regular USB video devices and work after applying the following quirk using the uvcvideo driver:

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

Graphics card

Intel

Graphical output using the Intel GPU is working out of the box on the MacBookPro 13,1 and 13,2, without dedicated AMD GPU. For the MacBookPro 13,3 with dedicated AMD GPU, only the AMD is enabled when booting a OS which isn't macOS, so you have to follow the instructions in the following link to enable the integrated Intel GPU, if you want to use it: Dunedan#6 (comment)

Connecting external displays via USB-C-to-DisplayPort cables works fine, including connections with daisy-chaining/MST. An actual tested and working setup includes concurrent output on the internal display and two external displays daisy-chained together with Full HD each.

AMD

Working since Linux 4.9.

See also:

Keyboard & Touchpad

Basic keyboard and touchpad functionality is working with the out-of-tree driver developed for the Retina Macbook (https://github.com/cb22/macbook12-spi-driver). As described on the Github page the DSDT has to be patched to get it working. Also ensure you have the PXA2XX SPI driver available:

CONFIG_SPI_PXA2XX=m
CONFIG_SPI_PXA2XX_PCI=m

After loading the driver the Touchpad isn't working from time to time. Reloading the driver multiple times seems to fix it.

The Esc and function keys are part of the Touch Bar, so follow the instructions for the Touch Bar to get it working.

The Caps Lock LED isn't working.

Beside the actual keyboard the power button and the lid close event work out of the box.

See also:

NVMe

MacBookPro 13,1 and MacBookPro 13,2:

modprobe nvme
echo 106b 2003 > /sys/bus/pci/drivers/nvme/new_id

As the MacBookPro13,3 uses a different chipset for NVMe it works there out of the box.

See also:

Screen

Works out of the box.

Adjustable screen brightness only works out of the box for the models without additional AMD Radeon GPU (MacBookPro13,1 and MacBookPro13,2). For the MacBookPro13,3 with additional AMD Radeon GPU the following patch is necessary: https://bugzilla.kernel.org/show_bug.cgi?id=105051#c32

The only oddity noticed so far, is that the EDID data for the 13" model describes two modes: 2560x1600 and 2880x1800. Xorg probes and sets the correct resolution of 2560x1600. For a detailed look into the EDID data, check out macbook13,2/card0-eDP-1.edid.

Suspend & Hibernation

Putting the MacBook Pro into suspend mode works, but it doesn't wake up again.

System Management Controller

The System Management Controller is responsible for interactions with sensors, fans and keyboard backlight.

Fans, temperature and voltage sensors work out of the box using the applesmc kernel module, while accelerometer, ambient light sensors and keyboard backlight don't work yet. For these non-working parts, the SMC keys applesmc expects aren't available.

Thunderbolt

Untested, but probably working with the following patch: https://gist.github.com/l1k/3ffbd63ac337fa85530f6db3e9ee77e9

See also:

Touch Bar

Not working out of the box, but thanks to @roadrunner2 basic functionality is working using the driver you can find at: https://github.com/roadrunner2/macbook12-spi-driver/blob/touchbar-driver-hid-driver/appletb.c

Missing is as of now just automatic dimming and the advanced functionality with custom graphics Apple offers in macOS.

Touch ID

Not working.

USB

Works out of the box.

Wi-Fi

The MacBookPro13,1 comes with a Broadcom Limited BCM4350 802.11ac Wireless Network Adapter which works fine out of the box using the brcmfmac driver (ensure you got the matching firmware package installed).

The MacBookPro13,2 and MacBookPro13,3 come with a Broadcom Limited BCM43602 802.11ac Wireless LAN SoC (rev 02) which is also supported by brcmfmac, but has several issues, which could simply be firmware related:

  • Only 2.4Ghz APs are shown
  • Connecting to an AP barely works or fails directly

See also:

Misc

History of improvements per kernel version

4.9

  • Working AMD graphics of the MacBookPro13,3 (which is the only model with both Intel and AMD graphics).

4.11

  • The NVMe controller in the MacBookPro13,1 and MacBookPro13,2 is now working out of the box (the one in the MacBookPreo13,3 was already working before).
  • When booting with kernel modesetting (KMS) the screen isn't scrambled during boot anymore.

iBridge

The models with Touch Bar feature an additional USB device, called iBridge (Bus 001 Device 002: ID 05ac:8600 Apple, Inc.). It's probably the interface to the chip running iOS and providing access to the FaceTime HD camera (that's why uvcvideo detects it), the Touch Bar (that's why it's shown as an additonal input device in the Xorg log) and the Touch ID button.

usb-devices shows that iBridge exposes four interfaces:

T:  Bus=01 Lev=01 Prnt=01 Port=02 Cnt=01 Dev#=  4 Spd=480 MxCh= 0
D:  Ver= 2.00 Cls=ef(misc ) Sub=02 Prot=01 MxPS=64 #Cfgs=  3
P:  Vendor=05ac ProdID=8600 Rev=01.01
S:  Manufacturer=Apple Inc.
S:  Product=iBridge
S:  SerialNumber=nomac?123456
C:  #Ifs= 4 Cfg#= 1 Atr=e0 MxPwr=0mA
I:  If#= 0 Alt= 0 #EPs= 0 Cls=0e(video) Sub=01 Prot=00 Driver=(none)
I:  If#= 1 Alt= 0 #EPs= 1 Cls=0e(video) Sub=02 Prot=00 Driver=(none)
I:  If#= 2 Alt= 0 #EPs= 1 Cls=03(HID  ) Sub=01 Prot=01 Driver=usbhid
I:  If#= 3 Alt= 0 #EPs= 1 Cls=03(HID  ) Sub=00 Prot=01 Driver=usbhid

The two video interfaces could be the FaceTime HD camera and the Touch Bar, while the two HID interfaces could be the Touch Bar and the Touch ID button.

Booting macOS as a VM interestingly leads to the following changed output of usb-devices:

T:  Bus=01 Lev=01 Prnt=01 Port=02 Cnt=01 Dev#=  2 Spd=480 MxCh= 0
D:  Ver= 2.00 Cls=ef(misc ) Sub=02 Prot=01 MxPS=64 #Cfgs=  3
P:  Vendor=05ac ProdID=8600 Rev=01.01
S:  Manufacturer=Apple Inc.
S:  Product=iBridge
S:  SerialNumber=nomac?123456
C:  #Ifs= 8 Cfg#= 2 Atr=e0 MxPwr=0mA
I:  If#= 0 Alt= 0 #EPs= 0 Cls=0e(video) Sub=01 Prot=00 Driver=uvcvideo
I:  If#= 1 Alt= 0 #EPs= 1 Cls=0e(video) Sub=02 Prot=00 Driver=(none)
I:  If#= 2 Alt= 0 #EPs= 1 Cls=03(HID  ) Sub=00 Prot=01 Driver=usbhid
I:  If#= 3 Alt= 0 #EPs= 2 Cls=10() Sub=00 Prot=00 Driver=(none)
I:  If#= 4 Alt= 0 #EPs= 0 Cls=02(commc) Sub=0d Prot=00 Driver=(none)
I:  If#= 5 Alt= 0 #EPs= 0 Cls=0a(data ) Sub=00 Prot=01 Driver=(none)
I:  If#= 6 Alt= 0 #EPs= 1 Cls=03(HID  ) Sub=00 Prot=01 Driver=usbhid
I:  If#= 7 Alt= 0 #EPs= 2 Cls=ff(vend.) Sub=f9 Prot=11 Driver=(none)

Seems like macOS somehow initalizes some additional capabilities of the iBridge.

Disable auto-boot

Apple introduced an "auto-boot" feature with the MacBook Pro 2016 causing the notebook to be switched on, whenever the screen lid is opened. By modifying a NVRAM variable this can be (luckily) disabled again.

How to do that from macOS as well as enabling the startup chime again is documented e.g. at http://www.idownloadblog.com/2016/10/31/how-to-stop-the-new-macbook-pro-from-automatically-turning-on-when-the-lid-is-open/

To disable auto boot from within Linux, ensure that efivarfs is mounted and run:

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

If you get "No space left on device" errors, it's probably because of dump-type0-*-variables written by the Linux kernel taking up all space. Removing them solves the problem:

for i in $(find /sys/firmware/efi/efivars/ -name 'dump-type0*'); do chattr -i $i; rm $i; done

With disabled auto boot the MacBook Pro will show the battery percentage for a brief second as an image on the screen whenever you open the lid or plug in the power cord while the lid is open.

To reenable auto boot again run:

chattr -i /sys/firmware/efi/efivars/AutoBoot-7c436110-ab2a-4bbb-a880-fe41995c9f82
rm /sys/firmware/efi/efivars/AutoBoot-7c436110-ab2a-4bbb-a880-fe41995c9f82

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State of Linux on the MacBook Pro 2016

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