Fedora 9 (64-bit) on Macbook Pro (4,1) - aka Penryn

To install Fedora 9 on your Macbook Pro, there are at least 2 ways to re-partition your disk:

A. Use Bootcamp to re-partition your disk (and avoid re-installing Mac OS X).

or

B. Using the Mac OS X install DVD, you can use the Disk Utility to re-partition the drive, this way you will lose all your data, but if you have Time Machine, you can restore your settings within a couple of hours.

Partitions:

1. On Mac OS X, Download/Install rEFIt, you will need to run the 'enable-always.sh' script on your rEFIt install (via the OS X terminal) -- This will allow you to select what OS you want to boot.

2. Boot the Fedora 9 (64-bit) CD/DVD, rEFIt should give you a boot screen where it will let you pick between booting OS X or the Fedora media.

3. Go through the install, as you would on a PC.

After installed, boot into Linux:

Wifi

4. Out of the box, you will only have access to the ethernet card, wifi isn't going to work. To install the drivers for your Broadcom Corporation BCM4328 802.11a/b/g/n (rev 05) as of these writings you must do the following:

4.1. Install the Livna Repos rpm for fedora 9: rpm -ihv http://rpm.livna.org/livna-release-9.rpm

4.2. Then install ndiswrapper: yum install ndiswrapper, which will allow you to use the Windows drivers under Linux.

4.3. Before grabbing the Windows XP drivers for ndiswrapper, blacklist the ssb module on your system:

echo "blacklist ssb" >> /etc/modprobe.d/blacklist

4.4 Remove the ssb the loaded module from your system:

rmmod ssb

4.5. You will find the broadcom drivers you need on the 'Mac OS X Install DVD.' Insert the disc into your system, and it will be automatically mounted as 'WindowsSupport'.

Grab the file /media/WindowsSupport/boot\ camp/drivers/broadcom/broadcomxpinstaller.exe

Note: Even though my installation was the 64-bit version, I installed the 32-bit version of the XP driver.

4.6. Copy the file as root to /root/drivers (You need to create the drivers directory)

4.7. Extract the contents of the 'broadcomxpinstaller.exe':

unrar e broadcomxpinstaller.exe

Note: If your system can't find the command, install it: yum install unrar (from the livna repo)

4.8. Install the driver via ndiswrapper:

/usr/sbin/ndiswrapper -i bcmwl5.inf

4.9. Make it persistent:

/usr/sbin/ndiswrapper -m
adding "alias wlan0 ndiswrapper" to /etc/modprobe.d/ndiswrapper ...

4.10. Load the driver:

/sbin/modprobe ndiswrapper

Wait a couple of seconds, and your NetworkManager applet should start showing up the available networks.

[Update 08/14/2008] - Sound

5. Getting sound working was the most problematic part of getting Fedora running on my Macbook Pro.

5.1. Remove pulseaudio:

yum remove pulseaudio

I couldn't get it to work any other way.

5.2. Then:

yum install alsa-oss

5.3 If after all this your sound still doesn't work add:

options snd_hda_intel model=mbp3

to your /etc/modprobe.conf

and then reboot.

5.4. Then I ran: gnome-sound-properties, and made sure all the settings are set to OSS - Open Sound System.

5.5. Play around with alsamixer until you can hear your sounds, everything worked for me from VLC, Rhythmbox, and Skype. The only issue I had was with flash, which worked fine after I installed: libflashsupport

If the above doesn't work, try the following:

5.6. Recompile alsa drivers (it's not as bad as it sounds). Follow these instructions.

cd /usr/local/src
rsync -avz --delete rsync://alsa.alsa-project.org/hg/alsa-driver alsa
rsync -avz --delete rsync://alsa.alsa-project.org/hg/alsa-kernel alsa
cd alsa
cd alsa-driver
./hgcompile
make
make install
reboot

Nvidia Drivers:

6. With the livna repo installed, just run:

yum install kmod-nvidia

Mp3 Support & Other decoders

7. yum install gstreamer-plugins-bad gstreamer-plugins-ugly

DVD Support

8. yum install vlc

Screen Brightness/Eject

9. Install pommed. The latest version is the first version I've been able to get it to work with this Macbook Pro. Download Latest Source, read the INSTALL.

9.1 Some of the dependecies:

yum install libconfuse{,-devel}
yum install audiofile-devel
yum install alsa-lib-devel
yum install pciutils-devel libpciaccess-devel

If you end up with some errors related to libpci (pic_alloc), here is what I did:

9.2 Edited pommed/Makefile, on the following lines:

#ifeq ($(LIBPCI_SHARED), true)
# LIBPCI_CFLAGS = $(shell pkg-config libpci --cflags)
# LIBPCI_LIBS = $(shell pkg-config libpci --libs)

# CFLAGS += $(LIBPCI_CFLAGS)
# LDFLAGS += $(LIBPCI_LIBS)
#else
LIBS = /usr/lib64/libpci.a
LDFLAGS += -lz
#endif

Afther commenting out the lines above, and changing /usr/lib to /usr/lib64 the program compiled correctly. Then follow the INSTALL file to finish up the installation.

Once you restart the pommed service (with applesmc module loaded) your brightness adjustment should just work... mine did anyway.

Updates:

* Part II on getting Fedora 9 running on the Macbook Pro (4,1)

* Potential freeze with NetworkManager (work around).

* Getting Macbook Pro's touchpad to work on Fedora 9.

* Latest NetworkManager Update on Fedora 9 works on Macbook Pro.