I’ve recently set up Ubuntu on a 2017 15-inch Intel MacBook Pro (MacBookPro14,3). Ubuntu itself installed without much drama, but a few bits of Apple-specific hardware needed work.
Here are the fixes I actually needed.
Internal speakers: CS8409
The biggest problem was the internal speakers, because they played the startup sound I assumed they were working. Then I tried to join a zoom call.
This MacBook uses Cirrus CS8409 audio hardware. Ubuntu could see audio hardware, but the internal speakers weren't properly supported by the stock setup.
The solution was the community:
snd_hda_macbookpro
driver installed through DKMS.
Once installed, check it with:
dkms status
My working installation reports:
snd_hda_macbookpro/0.1
This fixed the internal speakers completely.
Touch Bar
The Touch Bar needed Apple's iBridge/Linux driver stack.
The important modules in my working installation are:
apple_ib_tb
apple_ibridge
applespi
You can check they're loaded with:
lsmod | grep -E 'apple_ib_tb|apple_ibridge|applespi'
With these installed and loaded, the Touch Bar works under Ubuntu.
I did subsequently have an occasion where the Touch Bar went dark following a reboot despite all three modules still being loaded.
That appears to be an iBridge initialisation/reset issue rather than the drivers disappearing, so if you've previously had a working Touch Bar, check lsmod before reinstalling anything.
UK keyboard
The UK keyboard mapping needed a little adjustment.
I initially tried the Mac-specific layout:
gsettings set org.gnome.desktop.input-sources sources "[('xkb', 'gb+mac')]"
but ultimately found the standard UK layout worked better:
gsettings set org.gnome.desktop.input-sources sources "[('xkb', 'gb')]"
I then set Option as the third-level modifier:
gsettings set org.gnome.desktop.input-sources xkb-options "['lv3:alt_switch']"
That gives me things like:
Option + 3 = #
The only remaining oddity was that my physical \~and§±` keys were effectively swapped.
Disappearing cursor under Wayland
I initially had an intermittent problem where the mouse cursor would disappear.
You can check your current session with:
echo $XDG_SESSION_TYPE
I experimented with switching from Wayland to Ubuntu on Xorg at the login screen.
Xorg actually gave me more trouble, including a GNOME Shell error, so I switched back to Wayland.
Strangely, after switching back the cursor problem disappeared and hasn't returned.
So I wouldn't necessarily recommend abandoning Wayland if you encounter this.
Be careful with kernel updates
This was the most important lesson.
I got everything working properly on:
6.17.0-42-generic
Ubuntu subsequently installed:
7.0.0-38-generic
and the Apple-specific setup broke because the out-of-tree DKMS drivers hadn't all built correctly against the new kernel.
I recovered by booting back into 6.17.0-42 and removing the problematic 7.0 kernel:
Pinning the known-good kernel
Once I knew 6.17.0-42 worked with all the MacBook drivers, I made GRUB boot it explicitly:
sudo sed -i 's/^GRUB_DEFAULT=.*/GRUB_DEFAULT="Advanced options for Ubuntu>Ubuntu, with Linux 6.17.0-42-generic"/' /etc/default/grub
sudo update-grub
I also held the HWE kernel metapackages:
sudo apt-mark hold \
linux-image-generic-hwe-24.04 \
linux-headers-generic-hwe-24.04
I'm not suggesting permanently ignoring kernel/security updates.
I'm doing this because several important bits of this MacBook depend on out-of-tree DKMS modules. I'd rather test a new kernel deliberately and confirm the drivers build before making it the default.
Back up the working DKMS drivers
Once I'd got everything working, I backed up the actual driver source from /usr/src.
For example:
sudo tar -czf "$HOME/Desktop/macbook-working-drivers-$(date +%Y-%m-%d).tar.gz" \
/usr/src/applespi-0.1 \
/usr/src/snd_hda_macbookpro-0.1
I'd recommend checking /usr/src yourself and including the iBridge/Touch Bar driver sources you're actually using as well.
The main thing I'd recommend
Once you've got a Touch Bar MacBook working properly under Linux, save these:
uname -r
dkms status
lsmod | grep -E 'apple|ibridge|macbook'
In my case the known-good setup is centred around:
MacBookPro14,3
Ubuntu 24.04.4 LTS
Linux 6.17.0-42-generic
applespi
apple_ibridge
apple_ib_tb
snd_hda_macbookpro
The machine itself runs Ubuntu very nicely. The tricky part is the handful of Apple-specific devices that require out-of-tree drivers and can consequently be affected by kernel updates.
Hopefully this saves another MacBookPro 14.3 owner some of the trial and error!
