Manjaro Linux MacBook Pro 14,1

Leaving steps to re provision a MacBook Pro 14,1 in the future for me :P

Download Manjaro Linux

https://manjaro.org/download/
I am using Gnome version x86

Burn iso image to usb drive

There are various tools to help with this. I won't go into details that is a blog in it self.

Boot Mac via drive

• Insert drive
• Reboot machine
• Hold option key to get boot menu
• Select drive
• Manjaro boot screen will load, chose the default option to boot with open source drivers

Getting WiFi working

Open a terminal and execute this command, wlp2s0 and 31 might differ per machine. Likely a smaller number will have a greater success.

iw dev wlp2s0 set txpower fixed 31

Then connect to WiFi

Install

Choose to install, and follow steps for installation. Once complete reboot.

Post Install

auto fix WiFi

I created a simple systemd unit file and saved it to /etc/systemd/system/wifi-txpower.service

[Unit]
Description=Set WiFi txpower on boot

[Service]
Type=oneshot
ExecStart=/usr/bin/iw dev wlp2s0 set txpower fixed 31
Restart=on-failure
RestartSec=5s

[Install]
WantedBy=multi-user.target

Test the service
sudo chmod 644 /etc/systemd/system/wifi-txpower.service

• systemctl daemon-reload
• systemctl start wifi-txpower
• journalctl -exfu wifi-txpower

If everything is good go ahead enable the service and reboot and verify that WiFi works on reboot

systemd enable wifi-txtpower
reboot

• Most of the time it works just fine, if not toggle wifi on and off and you should be good.

fix sound

I followed this repo here https://github.com/davidjo/snd_hda_macbookpro because my sound card was the same.

cat /proc/asound/card0/codec* | grep Codec
Codec: Cirrus Logic CS8409/CS42L83
Codec: Intel Kabylake HDMI

pacman -S gcc linux-headers make patch wget
yay -Syu snd-hda-macbookpro-dkms-git

Then reboot

Set keyboard backlighting

• Install brighnessctl

sudo pacman -Syu brightnessctl

• List devices

brightnessctl --list
Device 'spi::kbd_backlight' of class 'leds':
    Current brightness: 255 (100%)
    Max brightness: 255

• Set desired brightness

brightnessctl --device='spi::kbd_backlight' s 100%

I didn't dive into getting the touchbar working, it seems that I need to do much more work than this. I am fine without it as I map CAPS to ESC anyway.

Happy Hacking!

Comments

[Cason Adams]

Would love some guide on handling suspend