Brand New Linux User Having Hardware Issues on Macbook Pro. Help!

Support & Help Requests Hardware
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#1

I finally made the plunge into Ubuntu MATE and I really don’t know what I am doing. I installed the OS on my Macbook Pro (2015 edition I believe) and am having some issues. I understand Ubuntu MATE isn’t designed explicitly for Macbook’s and expected to have some issues. I figured it’d be a good idea to ask for help here because I really have no clue what I am doing. I need help with the following:

Speaker quality is low, it sounds like a cell phone speaker

It is not recognizing my USB devices, when I plug in my drive (that has most of my old files on it) nothing happens. It powers up the drive but the computer doesn’t seem to recognize it.

When I try to scroll on the trackpad it thinks I want to double-click. Is there a way to make the trackpad functions more like they are on OS X?

Somewhat small but there is an annoying red light coming out of my headphone jack. I honestly didn’t even know there was an LED in there.

Apart from these issues it appears to be working (so far). Are there any unofficial drivers I need to install to get it working? I am very excited to learn Ubuntu MATE!

Thanks!

#2

I run Ubuntu MATE on a MacBook, but mine is a 2008 :wink: Since Apple doens’t help anyone with Linux support, things often take time before they work well. You didn’t say which version you are using, but it’s a new enough laptop that you might benefit from using the latest every-six-months release rather than the LTS version.

[quote=“Aquassassinator, post:1, topic:15648”]
It is not recognizing my USB devices, when I plug in my drive (that has most of my old files on it) nothing happens. It powers up the drive but the computer doesn’t seem to recognize it.[/quote]

Try opening Disks and seeing if it shows up at all as a device. Linux can read many types of disk formats, including the Mac HFS+, but not if it’s encrypted or uses a logical volume group.

Apple’s trackpad code is magical, but I find trackpads work pretty well in Linux too usually, but they are more sensitive and less forgiving of small bumps and errors. As of Ubuntu 17.10, the libinput trackpad driver is used by default, which may work better than the old synaptics driver that was previously used.

Macs, until the most recent versions, have a combined headphone and optical jack. The red light is the optical part, but it should be off unless it detects an optical cable. I don’t know how to fix this for you :cry:, but this explanation may help you search for an answer.

Possibly for things like wi-fi card and graphics. In Control Center, open Additional Drivers. This will show what devices, if any, can use a driver and what options you have.

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#3

Awesome this really helps, thank you so much!