Hi, I read that although one could disable T2 security, keyboard and trackpad will stop working. Somebody mentioned that with Linux Kernel 5.4, these drivers are provided. With the new kernel, anybody succeed in installing linux natively on a Mac with T2?
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Linux Kernel 5.4 is out. Any success in installing Linux natively on T2 equipped Mac?
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https://github.com/Dunedan/mbp-2016-linux
If we use a usb wifi dongle and don't care about suspend as rebooting is so fast with SSD, will it work?
If we use a usb wifi dongle and don't care about suspend as rebooting is so fast with SSD, will it work?
It's my understanding based on what I was looking into about a year ago, that with the T2 security chip on newer Mac's, one cannot install anything at all unless Apple allows it to be installed.
The T2 chip, when disabled cuts off access to the internal drive which prohibits Linux installers from seeing the drive to install itself to. The only way to get Linux to run on them is to install them to an external drive and run it that way. There is no native installing on the newer Mac's.
Unless something has changed over the course of 2019 that I am not aware of, no new Linux kernel is going to bypass this T2 chip. I would be most happy to learn if this limitation has been overcome.
This video is 11 months old...
The T2 chip, when disabled cuts off access to the internal drive which prohibits Linux installers from seeing the drive to install itself to. The only way to get Linux to run on them is to install them to an external drive and run it that way. There is no native installing on the newer Mac's.
Unless something has changed over the course of 2019 that I am not aware of, no new Linux kernel is going to bypass this T2 chip. I would be most happy to learn if this limitation has been overcome.
This video is 11 months old...
Somebody seems to be making some progress on this recently. Perhaps there will be a way in a year?
https://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=MacBook-Finally-Linux-SSD-RW
https://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=MacBook-Finally-Linux-SSD-RW
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I just got the newest Manjaro (rolling release) working with kernel 5.4.x an hour ago. I have a 2019 T2 Macbook Air. Distros with earlier kernels never booted for me. Manjaro (and another I tried with 5.5) both recognized my internal 256gb SSD just fine. Trackpad, keyboard and wifi were recognized but didn't have the correct drivers. I plugged in an external USB mouse which worked great, but keyboard and wifi would have required more fiddling than I was willing to give it (or connecting to the internet with ethernet to download the drivers, yada yada).
The next Ubuntu is supposed to ship with kernel 5.4 (or 5.5?). Historically, Ubuntu's had the best out-the-box support for the broadcom wifi on my macbook airs and pros. I think I'll just wait for ubuntu 20.04 and hope they clear up the remaining 3 issues out of the box (wifi, mouse, trackpad) though I've read on the above 2016 macbook pro thread and here that you can get them with download, etc. Either way - it is starting to look promising!
TLDR: Linux on my new MBA2019 never booted for me before, with 5.4 it's booting and everything is working except wifi, keyboard, trackpad, but that may just be a Manjaro issue and from my understanding is no longer a T2 issue. I didn't install it, but think that's possible as the SSD was recognized fine. Promising!
The next Ubuntu is supposed to ship with kernel 5.4 (or 5.5?). Historically, Ubuntu's had the best out-the-box support for the broadcom wifi on my macbook airs and pros. I think I'll just wait for ubuntu 20.04 and hope they clear up the remaining 3 issues out of the box (wifi, mouse, trackpad) though I've read on the above 2016 macbook pro thread and here that you can get them with download, etc. Either way - it is starting to look promising!
TLDR: Linux on my new MBA2019 never booted for me before, with 5.4 it's booting and everything is working except wifi, keyboard, trackpad, but that may just be a Manjaro issue and from my understanding is no longer a T2 issue. I didn't install it, but think that's possible as the SSD was recognized fine. Promising!
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Good to hear that. If you use external USB keyboard and mouse + wifi dongle that is linux compatible, will it work?
The problem was due to the fact Apple broke from the NVMe spec in their implementation in order to support some of their security features. It's less "apple is preventing xyz" and more "apple took a shortcut and decided others can figure out how to make it work"
Thanks to the work done in https://github.com/Dunedan/mbp-2016-linux/issues/71 any distro using kernel 5.4+ should now work just fine.