Bluetooth and spi driver on macbook pro 14,3 touchbar

SecureshellV2

I have a Macbook Pro 14,3 with touchbar. I have had some luck getting bluetooth and the SPI modules running on other Linux Distro's, but I wanted to get back to using Solus. I have compiled the kernel modules for the SPI and tried to load them, but for some reason I do not seem to be able to get the touchpad, touchbar or keyboard working. I also cannot get Bluetooth to show up either. Sound and wifi has pretty much not worked at all so far, so that is not aworry for me, but these other things are pretty important. Thanks in advance for the help.

Scotty-Trees

SecureshellV2 I don't have a macbook with a touchbar to test anything myself, but this Reddit post from last year may shed some light on your question:
Reddit - What Linux distro works with 2017 MacBook touchbar?

One of the top comments came from user: ThatOneGuy4321

The new MBPs (and MacBooks) use SPI (Serial peripheral interface) for the keyboard/trackpad/touchbar, which is a deviation from the interface that pretty much all other laptops use (including older MBPs). This mostly means Linux is completely incompatible with the new MBPs. As far as I know, no distros work properly on them.

You’ll need to get drivers from this link, which also comes with an explanation of the issue. They’ll get the keyboard and trackpad working, but I haven’t been able to get the touchbar (even F keys) or the WiFi adapter to work.

As to how you download the drivers without access to the keyboard and trackpad, I’ve got no clue. My Linux system is a live USB, so I used someone else’s laptop to install the drivers.

Unfortunately, if you want to use Linux on one of the new MacBooks or MBPs, you’ll need a USB network adapter and you won’t have access to the Touchbar at all.

Keep in mind this is from about a year ago, it's possible things have improved, but hope this helps and good luck getting your macbook working under Linux!

SecureshellV2

Thanks for the link. I have the code and a usb keyboard and mouse most of the time is in use. The issue is that the instructions are for using DKMS, which I cannot seem to find for Solus. I downloaded the code, built and did a make install. The modules seem to be good to go, but I cannot seem to get them to be used. I am not sure what I am doing wrong, I sudo modprobe the modules, but the keyboard and all that still is not working. Manjaro had this as a DKMS module in the AUR, not sure if there is something similar that I could do with Solus. Good news is that a lot of this seems to be coming in kernel 5.3. So, soon maybe?

DataDrake

SecureshellV2 Solus does not support DKMS. I will try to remember to enable the driver when we upgrade to 5.3. That was supposed to be this week, but I had to roll back to 5.2 on account of regressions for Nvidia users.

SecureshellV2

While waiting for 5.3 to drop, I did some further messing around. I found that I missed that there are 2 other modules that need to be loaded: spi_pxa2xx_platform and intel_lpss_pci. The first one does not exist, but the second one does and when I load it and these modules: applespi apple_ibridge apple_ib_tb apple_ib_als, I am able to get the touchbar working. So there is that at least. My guess, and I am really not in the know on this here, is that I need that missing module. This machine is a pain in the neck, and not my first choice to run on, but I am hoping that this all gets worked out with 5.3. That being said, if anyone has some breadcrumbs that I can follow to get the rest of the bits working, that would be awesome.

Thanks!

SecureshellV2

@DataDrake I saw that 5.3 dropped, so I installed it. Thanks for getting that out there, however, it does not seem to be helping at all. Module looks to be loaded, but maybe I am missing something?

DataDrake

Remember how I said I'd try to remember? 😅

DataDrake

https://dev.getsol.us/T8468

SecureshellV2

DataDrake Ah, I see. Human aren't we all. No problem, thanks for looking into it. Looking forward to testing it out, this machine has been such a pain and this should really help.

SecureshellV2

The keyboard and the touchpad both work out of the box now, which is pretty sweet. I guess the touchbar hasn't been added to the kernel yet, so that is a bummer, but I think I can compile that one manually. I still cannot seem to get the Bluetooth or the WiFi working, WiFi is not a huge surprise, but Bluetooth should be working and I am not sure why it is not.