Thunderbolt Driver For Apple MBP Systems Gets Updated

Experimental Linux kernel code for providing a Thunderbolt driver that works on Apple MacBook Pro systems has been updated and is still hopeful for its eventual mainline kernel inclusion.

Apple hardware requires a special Thunderbolt driver since hot-plugging is handled via the OS X driver rather than the Thunderbolt firmware, as is usually done by other non-Apple hardware. The Apple firmware only initializes cold-plugged devices.

This Apple Thunderbolt support code enables device hot-plugging (sans daisy chaining of Thunderbolt devices) for the Intel "Cactus Ridge" C4 Thunderbolt controller on the MacBook Pro 10,1. With the revised patch, there's now suspend-and-resume support along with other code clean-ups and code refactoring.

More information on this yet to be mainlined Apple Thunderbolt Linux driver developed by an independent developer can be found on the Linux kernel mailing list. I wrote about the original Apple Thunderbolt Linux patch work back in December.