Linux Is A Lemon On The Retina MacBook Pro

[lazylurker]

Article is incorrect

In the article it states "With Apple OS X and Microsoft Windows drivers, the system can dynamically switch between the Intel and NVIDIA GPUs". This is not correct. Only in OS X can the system switch between GPUs. On Windows you are forced to use the dedicated GPU at all times and no switching is possible.

[droidhacker]

Why would someone spend that much money on a Mac and then use Linux on it?

Sure beats running apple on it.....
Just sayin'.

[genstorm]

We also buy Windows hardware and put Linux on it, with varying success depending on the internals.

[dsmithhfx]

In other news, a lemon is a lemon on the fruit stand.

[madbiologist]

looks like michael does an articol about same apple crap every week or every few days. cut if off ppl got the idea.

LOL. I was surprised he didn't string this article out for a couple of more pages to get more advertising revenue.

[Syke]

When those smaller companies offer equivalent features, such as the high-res screen, aluminium chassis, backlit keyboard, battery life.

While those are nice features, there are many other features that ZaReason beats the Mac on, like more RAM, faster processors, room for dual SSDs and/or HDs, removable battery, included optical drive, and best of all a much lower price. Oh, and out of the box support for just about any Linux distro.

[madbiologist]

Yep, even the open-source Intel Linux graphics aren't working right with the Retina MacBook Pro hardware. If rebooting the system and using nomodeset in addition to noapic, at least the display will properly light up and we can proceed to the Linux desktop... However, that's without Intel kernel mode-setting and thus no 3D acceleration support.

This looks like it might be fixed in kernel 3.6-rc2. From the changelog:

Merge branch 'drm-intel-fixes' of git://people.freedesktop.org/~danvet/drm-intel into drm-fixes

Daniel Vetter writes:

"A few important fixers:
<SNIP>
- make the retina mbp work (ignore bogus edp bpc value in vbt)
<SNIP>
"

and:

author Daniel Vetter
Fri, 10 Aug 2012 09:10:20 +0000 (11:10 +0200)
committer Daniel Vetter
Sat, 11 Aug 2012 19:42:52 +0000 (21:42 +0200)
commit 4344b813f105a19f793f1fd93ad775b784648b95
tree f134624a5e29ba31044ae0a9997f274426774531
parent 770c12312ad617172b1a65b911d3e6564fc5aca8

drm/i915: ignore eDP bpc settings from vbt

This has originally been introduced to not oversubscribe the dp links
in

commit 885a5fb5b120a5c7e0b3baad7b0feb5a89f76c18
Author: Zhenyu Wang
Date: Tue Jan 12 05:38:31 2010 +0800

drm/i915: fix pixel color depth setting on eDP

Since then we've fixed up the dp link bandwidth calculation code and
should now automatically fall back to 6bpc dithering. So this is
unnecessary.

Furthermore it seems to break the new MacbookPro with retina display,
hence let's just rip this out.

Reported-by: Benoit Gschwind
Cc: Benoit Gschwind
Cc: Francois Rigaut
Cc: Greg KH
Cc: [email protected]
Tested-by: Benoit Gschwind
Tested-by: Bernhard Froemel
Signed-off-by: Daniel Vetter

--

Testing feedback highgly welcome, and thanks for Benoit for finding
out that the bpc computations are busted.
-Daniel

And best of all, this has been cc'd to stable, so it will almost certainly turn up in the 3.5 kernel series soon.

[genstorm]

While those are nice features, there are many other features that ZaReason beats the Mac on, like more RAM, faster processors, room for dual SSDs and/or HDs, removable battery, included optical drive, and best of all a much lower price. Oh, and out of the box support for just about any Linux distro.

Please stop making bogus comparisons. What you are describing is a desktop replacement. No one in the market for a proper laptop wants to carry such weight every day.

[Syke]

Please stop making bogus comparisons. What you are describing is a desktop replacement. No one in the market for a proper laptop wants to carry such weight every day.

Check out the Strata. http://zareason.com/shop/Strata-7330.html It's very much a proper laptop. Or check out the thin UltraLap. http://zareason.com/shop/UltraLap-430.html

[houkouonchi]

Meh. Running linux on the macbook pro retina is fine for those who are Advanced/Expert linux users. I had a few issues getting stuff working initially but now everything I need works perfectly.

FYI noapic is only needed on some kernels for some distro's.

Using the NVIDIA binary driver will work for the GeForce GT 650M on the Retina MacBook Pro, but switching to the discrete NVIDIA GPU requires booting OS X and using a utility for manually switching that GPU to drive the display.

I have never had to boot into OS X and enabled the discrete graphics card to get the gt 650m working for me.

I used an external monitor via thunderbolt -> dual link DVI adapter (2560x1440) with no problems.

Thunderbolt ethernet support problem is only no hotplug but otherwise performance is great.

My only real bitches are wifi performance is not that great and the backlight but otherwise its a very workable system.

Also I am not 100% sure the intel/nvidia switching stuff is working properly on windows either but I haven't tested with a meter to be sure.

Why would you recommend a VM just to run at lower resolution? Just run the thing at 1440x900 then LOL. Honestly I like as much desktop real-estate as I can get and some people actually have good eyes.

I have no problems with 2880x1800 on this display with X set at 75 DPI which is smaller than most people already use on 100 ppi screens.