Linux Is Still A Lemon On The 2013 MacBook Air

[M1kkko]

Now, seriously, what could go wrong so badly?

I understand this is not the most standard laptop and could include some weird hardware (apple's trackpad, bluetooth, thunderbolt, backlit keyboard). But GPU hangs? That's an Intel GPU which should, according to earlier information, have wonderful open source drivers, better than what OS X itself has.

I was even considering this device, because according to specs, I see no reason why it should not work with Linux.

So can anyone explain what's going on?

[who_me]

Please redirect that question to the intel engineer(s) writing the drivers that hang the GPU.

[Pallidus]

"Other earlier purchasers of the 2013 MacBook Air" = dem'appletards.


if you are buying macs to run linux you deserve anything you get

[beidl]

If anybody, it's Apples fault. Read this blog post of GregKH about how they f*cked up the implementation of their own Thunderbolt spec...

http://www.kroah.com/log/blog/2013/06/20/hardware/

[stefantalpalaru]

Linux Is Still A Lemon On The 2013 MacBook Air

That's like saying that OS X is still a lemon on Lenovo's ThinkPad T530. I understand the need to justify purchasing Apple's hardware, but a website dedicated to Linux benchmarks is not the appropriate venue.

[Uriel32]

Working fine so far ...

I can't really reproduce any of your Problems.
Like you I've bought a 2013 Macbook Air 6.2 (but I have 13", Intel i5)
Like you I found the Linux support to be messy at the beginning, but now it works just fine for me.

I'm haven't noticed any Problems with GPU Hangs, but sometimes (about every third boot) the boot takes about 1,5 minutes and starting X takes another 20 seconds. But more often than not it boots just fine. (I'm using refind which starts GRUB)

Once started it works for the most part.

• I'm currently running 3.11.0-rc3 but the default arch kernel (3.10.3-1) works as well
• WLan doesn't work out of the box, but installing the new broadcom driver (package in Archlinux: broadcom-wl-dkms 6.30) fixes this. (I haven't tested neither speed nor ac connectivity)
• Suspend works
• Touchpad works (2 finger scroll but not infinitely variable -> scrolling in small steps)
• Keyboard layout works (with a bit of xmodmap magic)
• Sound works (also pulseaudio) only when using headphones - can't get speakers to work - somebody can help ?
• The only thing that really bothers me beside the not working sound is that changing screen brightness works fine at first, but once I close the laptop lid (->sleep) it only toggles between full brightness and minimum brightness. (/sys/class/backlight/intel_backlight/brightness can be set from 0 to 2777. When using anything below ~2400 display drops black and everything above is obviously (close to) full brightness)

I'm already using my Macbook Air as an Production Machine and it runs quite well (apart from the brightness and sound issues, but hey I'm an arch user)
(Xonotic runs quite well but causes the fans to ramp up heavily in contrast to something CPU intensive like compiling a kernel)

For anyone with a macbook air i recommend looking here and here.

[Sonadow]

Now, seriously, what could go wrong so badly?

I understand this is not the most standard laptop and could include some weird hardware (apple's trackpad, bluetooth, thunderbolt, backlit keyboard). But GPU hangs? That's an Intel GPU which should, according to earlier information, have wonderful open source drivers, better than what OS X itself has.

I was even considering this device, because according to specs, I see no reason why it should not work with Linux.

So can anyone explain what's going on?

It's not a GPU issue...

[TheBlackCat]

Now, seriously, what could go wrong so badly?

Amongst other things, a bios that intentionally breaks spec so it will only work properly with Os X or Apple-developed drivers or workarounds. Apple has the habit of doing this, taking an existing spec and breaking it just enough that no one else can interact with it properly.

[Rambo Tribble]

Who's the Lemon Here?

C'mon now, lemons are hardware. It would seem that hardware that won't accommodate the world's most popular OS kernel is the sour piece of fruit, here.

[jrch2k8]

Amongst other things, a bios that intentionally breaks spec so it will only work properly with Os X or Apple-developed drivers or workarounds. Apple has the habit of doing this, taking an existing spec and breaking it just enough that no one else can interact with it properly.

well to be honest microsoft do this too but at bios level, many bios since long ago sends faulty ACPI tables depending the identification string, in fact if you remove the massive amount of hacks in the kernel ACPI code and leave only a perfect ACPI implementation it won't even boot in most machines