MacBook running with Ubuntu 18.04.3 LTS

2-minute read

MacBook running with Ubuntu 18.04.3 LTS

Last weekend I spend some time to install Ubuntu 18.04.3 LTS on my Mid 2019 MacBook Pro. Unfortunately I already tested it with a USB live version and found out that everything seemed to work except wirless lan. So I just added a few more investigations to find out if it would be possible to get it working. What did I do: . I checked in about this mac which wlan Module is used and searched via google if there is a driver. . I found out that there is a driver and just tried it via USB live version of Ubuntu what directly worked.

Here are my main sources I used to set everything up:

Wireless Lan Driver

  1. https://wireless.wiki.kernel.org/en/users/drivers/b43

  2. https://help.ubuntu.com/community/WifiDocs/Driver/bcm43xx

  3. https://askubuntu.com/questions/55868/installing-broadcom-wireless-drivers

  4. https://packages.ubuntu.com/bionic/bcmwl-kernel-source

Keyboard Layout

  1. https://askubuntu.com/questions/235533/how-to-set-keyboard-layout-for-a-macbook-pro

  2. https://askubuntu.com/questions/131900/how-do-i-switch-the-command-key-and-control-key-on-a-macbook-pro

    I did the following changes in /usr/share/X11/xkb/symbols/pc to switch the command and control key:

    

    

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    key <LCTL> {    [ Super_L       ]   };
key <LWIN> {    [ Control_L     ]   };

...

key <RCTL> {    [ Super_R       ]   };
key <RWIN> {    [ Control_R     ]   };

    Afterwards run sudo rm -rf /var/lib/xkb/*

  3. https://askubuntu.com/questions/78769/how-can-i-set-up-a-keyboard-shortcut-so-that-ctrlbackspace-del/144568

  4. http://www.ubuntu-forum.de/artikel/37562/ubuntu-tastatur-problem-macbook-eckige-geschweifte-klamern-und-die-tilde.html

Theming

  1. https://www.omgubuntu.co.uk/2017/03/make-ubuntu-look-like-mac-5-steps

  2. https://github.com/keeferrourke/la-capitaine-icon-theme/releases

Multitouch Gestures

  1. https://github.com/iberianpig/fusuma/blob/master/README.md

  2. https://github.com/iberianpig/fusuma-plugin-wmctrl

Update: 20.03.2020

I had some issues the last month with freezes. But today I found something which could be the issue: https://askubuntu.com/questions/1185491/ubuntu-19-10-freezes-and-lags-reguarly I already ingreased my swap now and played around with swapiness. Right now I switched back to vm.swapiness=60. Let's see if it's getting better.

Update: 22.03.2020

That wasn't enough. But it seems I found it now: The problem was the video driver. I now switched to the nvidia driver:





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sudo apt-get purge nvidia*
sudo apt install nvidia-331

I now have sometimes some little flickering but not that much. Maybe I'll find out why this happens. Right now I don't have any freezes anymore.

Update: 03.05.2020

I switched now to Ubuntu 20.04 LTS everything works fine.

Update: 03.05.2020 (2)

For VSCode I found a Keymap to get Mac Shortcuts on Linux: https://marketplace.visualstudio.com/items?itemName=fredhappyface.mackeybindings