Don Swatzy
This MacBook Pro is one that still allows for easy switching of RAM and disk. Both are not Apple original anymore, I upgraded the RAM in 2013 and the HDD for an SDD in 2017. A beauty of a machine of which I gladly replaced Mac OS for a Free Software OS.
For the test I used Elementary OS 0.4.1 Loki.
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Name | Apple MacBook Pro 9,2 (mid 2012) |
Processor | Intel Core i5, 2,5 GHz, Number of Processors: 1, Total Number of Cores: 2, L2 Cache (per Core): 256 KB, L3 Cache: 3 MB |
Screen | 13 inch, 1280×800 |
RAM | 8 GB, 2 memory slots, Double Data Rate Small Outline Dual Inline Memory Module (DDR3), 67.6mm x 30mm (1.18 inch), 2 GB or 4 GB, 204-pin, PC3-12800 DDR3 1600 MHz |
HDD | 1 TB (SSD) |
Optical Drive | Your Optical Drive |
Graphics | Intel HD Graphics 4000 1536 MB |
Network | Ethernet, Wireless: AirPort Extreme (0x14E4, 0xF5), Broadcom Corporation BCM4331 802.11a/b/g/n [14e4:4331] (rev 02), Bluetooth |
Device | Compatibility | Comments |
---|---|---|
Processor | Works | |
Screen | Works | |
HDD | Works | |
Optical Drive | Not Tested | |
Graphics | Works | |
Sound | Works | |
Ethernet | Not Tested | |
Wireless | Works | Slow to get connection, Needs proprietary firmware |
Bluetooth | Works | |
56K Modem | n/a | |
USB | Works | |
Firewire | Not Tested | |
Card Reader | Not working | |
ExpressCard Slot | n/a | |
Camera | Not Tested |
Broadcom WIFI firmware installation
For more information http://linuxwireless.sipsolutions.net/en/users/Drivers/b43/#firmware
The Broadcom wireless chip needs proprietary software (called “firmware”) that runs on the wireless chip itself to work properly. This firmware is copyrighted by Broadcom and must be extracted from Broadcom's proprietary drivers. To get such firmware on your system, you must download the driver from a legal distribution point, extract it, and install it. This is accomplished different ways by different Linux distributions, so please read the section for yours for the best results. You will need an alternate working internet connection (by Ethernet cable, for example) since the firmware cannot be included with the distro itself.
Fedora
With Fedora 10 and above, you should install wget and the b43-fwcutter tool (which will extract firmware from the Windows driver):
su - yum install b43-fwcutter wget
Next use the instructions here, skipping b43-fwcutter installation part.
openSUSE openSUSE 11.3 and above includes a utility that will automatically download the firmware and install it into its proper location. With working Internet access, run the following commands:
sudo zypper install b43-fwcutter sudo /usr/sbin/install_bcm43xx_firmware
Ubuntu/Debian
In recent versions of Ubuntu and Debian, installing the firmware-b43-installer package will handle everything for you:
sudo apt-get install firmware-b43-installer
You will be asked to automatically fetch and install the firmware into the right location. Again, you will need an internet connection.
Ubuntu Community Documentation Ubuntu also has a page detailing the process of installing Broadcom wireless drivers on their community documentation. If you have internet access on the device that you want to install the b43 driver onto, follow this link: https://help.ubuntu.com/community/WifiDocs/Driver/bcm43xx#b43%20-%20Internet%20access . If you do not have internet access on the device that has a b43 supported broadcom wireless chipset and would like to use b43, follow this link instead: https://help.ubuntu.com/community/WifiDocs/Driver/bcm43xx#b43%20-%20No%20Internet%20access.
Note that you can only follow one of the two guides, not both.
Gentoo
Gentoo systems supply a pre-compiled binary for b43-fwcutter. You need to:
emerge b43-fwcutter
and then follow the instructions below to download the Broadcom driver. The line that invokes b43-fwcutter will need to be changed to execute the program emerged above.
Mandriva
See the instructions at http://wiki.mandriva.com/en/Installing_wireless_network_cards_using_the_b43_driver
Other distributions not mentioned above Note: You need to have a compiler and headers for libc installed, since you will have to build fwcutter from source
Install b43-fwcutter Use version 018 of b43-fwcutter. Download, extract the b43-fwcutter tarball and build it:
wget http://bues.ch/b43/fwcutter/b43-fwcutter-018.tar.bz2 http://bues.ch/b43/fwcutter/b43-fwcutter-018.tar.bz2.asc gpg --verify b43-fwcutter-018.tar.bz2.asc tar xjf b43-fwcutter-018.tar.bz2 cd b43-fwcutter-018 make sudo make install cd ..
If verification of the GPG signature fails due to an unknown key, you need to import the following key:
Key ID = 4203454C Key fingerprint = 757F AB7C ED18 14AE 15B4 836E 5FB0 2747 4203 454C If you are using the b43 driver from 3.2 kernel or newer: After installing b43-fwcutter, download version 5.100.138 of Broadcom's proprietary driver and extract the firmware from it:
export FIRMWARE_INSTALL_DIR="/lib/firmware" wget http://www.lwfinger.com/b43-firmware/broadcom-wl-5.100.138.tar.bz2 tar xjf broadcom-wl-5.100.138.tar.bz2 sudo b43-fwcutter -w "$FIRMWARE_INSTALL_DIR" broadcom-wl-5.100.138/linux/wl_apsta.o
If you are using the b43 driver from older kernel: After installing b43-fwcutter, download version 5.10.56.27.3 of Broadcom's proprietary driver and extract the firmware from it:
export FIRMWARE_INSTALL_DIR="/lib/firmware" wget http://mirror2.openwrt.org/sources/broadcom-wl-5.10.56.27.3_mipsel.tar.bz2 tar xjf broadcom-wl-5.10.56.27.3_mipsel.tar.bz2 sudo b43-fwcutter -w "$FIRMWARE_INSTALL_DIR" broadcom-wl-5.10.56.27.3/driver/wl_apsta/wl_prebuilt.o
Note that you must adjust the FIRMWARE_INSTALL_DIR path to your distribution. The standard place where firmware is installed to is /lib/firmware. However some distributions put firmware in a different place.
If you are using the b43legacy driver: After installing b43-fwcutter, download version 3.130.20.0 of Broadcom's proprietary driver and extract the firmware from it:
export FIRMWARE_INSTALL_DIR="/lib/firmware" wget http://downloads.openwrt.org/sources/wl_apsta-3.130.20.0.o sudo b43-fwcutter -w "$FIRMWARE_INSTALL_DIR" wl_apsta-3.130.20.0.o
Note that you must adjust the FIRMWARE_INSTALL_DIR path to your distribution. The standard place where firmware is installed to is /lib/firmware. However some distributions put firmware in a different place.
The AppCenter of Elementary OS is rather limited. You can install more software by for example installing Synaptic:
> sudo apt-get update > sudo apt-get upgrade > sudo apt-get install synaptic > sudo synaptic
Because of the different Windomws system Dropbox is not nicely integrated in the icon bar. You can fix that by installing Dropbox as follows:
> sudo apt-get install git > sudo apt-get remove dropbox* > git clone https://github.com/zant95/elementary-dropbox /tmp/elementary-dropbox bash /tmp/elementary-dropbox/install.sh
Note: You need to reboot once to make dropbox available from the command prompt.
By default the shortcuts in Elementary OS are a bit 'weird' (different from other distros like Ubuntu). You can easily fix that: go to System Settings ⇒ Keyboard, tab Shortcuts.
For example, go to Applications and set CTRL-ALT-T for Terminal instead of Super-T.
When searching for devices it can seem that Bluetooth is not working, because none are found. However, the panel that contains the devices is too small to show anything. Solution: maximize the window and see the found devices.
Some notes on reducing power usage with Elementary OS and controlling temperature:
If you noticed, the red LED inside of the audio jack port stays on always. This is fixable:
To restore the setting after reboot:
> sudo alsactl restore
To automatically restore after reboot:
> sudo apt-get install gedit > sudo gedit /etc/rc.local
Then add the line 'alsactl restore' (without the quotes) before the line 'exit 0. Save and exit.
The Apple MacBook Pro 9,2 is a great machine to run Linux on. Using Elementary OS pretty much everything works 'out of the box'. Some minor glitches do occur and some tweaking is necessary to get the most from it.