Linux Might Finally See Mainline Support For The Current Apple MacBook Keyboard/Touchpad

[phoronix]

Phoronix: Linux Might Finally See Mainline Support For The Current Apple MacBook Keyboard/Touchpad

The Apple MacBook / MacBook Pro laptops of the past few years have been notoriously bad on Linux at least as far as the mainline / out-of-the-box support is concerned. The current MacBook's keyboard and touchpad don't even work out-of-the-box on Linux. There has been an out-of-tree driver available for changing that while coming soon it might finally be merged to the mainline kernel...

http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=Linux-Finally-MBP-Key-Touchpad

[AJenbo]

Typo: Appie -> Apple

[Guest]

To be fair, MBP of the last couple of years has been notoriously bad on macOS, too. It's just a very big step backwards hardware-wise compared to the pre-2016 generation.

[tildearrow]

Typo:

The Apple SPI driver will be toggled

[rene]

Pro tip: just don't buy this proprietary Apple stuff anymore, ..! Been there, mostly done that for 15 years, the new shit is awful, and even in the previous generation just changing the battery is an hour long adhesive removal process: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z8uqZQw9yFc

[rene]

To be fair, MBP of the last couple of years has been notoriously bad on macOS, too. It's just a very big step backwards hardware-wise compared to the pre-2016 generation.

yes, fully agree, and even in that generation they were already actively hiding the iGPU on hybrid GPU machines from other OSs: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OLIVqCFLv5Y

[kgonzales]

To be fair, MBP of the last couple of years has been notoriously bad on macOS, too. It's just a very big step backwards hardware-wise compared to the pre-2016 generation.

They have had quality issues with the keyboard, which they need to continue to address. But otherwise, how is the internals, the screen, etc. taking a step backwards?

[kgonzales]

Pro tip: just don't buy this proprietary Apple stuff anymore, ..! Been there, mostly done that for 15 years, the new shit is awful, and even in the previous generation just changing the battery is an hour long adhesive removal process: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z8uqZQw9yFc

Your opinion of awful is not shared by everyone. I personally don't care about the ability to self-repair my laptop, replace the battery, upgrade, what have you. I was on that train and now I am off of it. I just want stuff to get done, and I want to migrate to a new piece of hardware with the least issues possible when I want to upgrade.

And since we are sharing opinions as facts... Pro Tip: If your main focus is productivity, you still want MacOS. There is nothing available on Linux which matches the functionality of the basic productivity tools on MacOS. Especially if you use CalDAV or CardDAV. Sad but true. Not a single PDF tool on Linux has the functionality of Preview. And Mail is demonstrably better than every other mail client on Linux. If quantity of free solutions is your game, sure, Linux. But quality? MacOS.

The added irony is that if you use a Google account, you have BETTER support for calendar and contact integration overall than if you use CalDAV and CardDAV with Linux. Same is true for Android vs iOS. CalDAV and CardDAV are not supported out of the box on Android. Works amazingly well on iOS. I wish Linux and Android supported more open standards...

There, fresh bait. Let the clicks begin.

[kgonzales]

This is interesting work, but to be honest, if you want to run Linux on a laptop, don't use a Macbook Pro. You will fix one issue, only to encounter another one. System76 and Dell are making solutions that work out of the box. They deserve to be rewarded your dollars if Linux is your daily driver.

[Sonadow]

Even if this driver does add support for the keyboard and trackpad, it does not change the fact that the current Macbooks and Macbook Pros with the T2 security chip blocks access to the SSD if the OS is not macOS or Windows.

It has already been proven that a Linux installation ISO cannot see the onboard SSDs at all, even with 'No Security' selected on the Secure Boot configuration.