Install Fedora 26/27/28/29 on MacBook 4,1 White (or Black)

A journey to a 100% functional linux distro on Macbook 4,1 (Early 2008)

4 min readAug 9, 2017

Hello, people.

Do you know that old and dusty (RIP?) macbook 4.1 (white / black, early 2008) you thought you would discard? How about making it last a little longer?
What I propose is a clean install of Fedora 26 (released in June 2017). In my experience, all features (wifi, bluetooth, iSight, keyboard) were 100% functional.

Brief History:

After a few years my Macbook 4.1 White stopped receiving updates from Apple. The latest supported version was Mac OS 10.7.x Lion and it has not received any more updates on applications and security patches. Some browsers no longer support this version of the Operating System that has become virtually obsolete.

The first attempt to resurrect the Macbook 4.1 white was trying to install a newer version of Mac OS X through a forced upgrade to a newer version maintained by communities around the world (not officially supported by Apple). This solution, besides being complicated, did not leave my Macbook White in a 100% functional state. I then proceeded to search for some Linux distribution that would give my obsolete equipment a new beginning.

Tested versions:

Elementary OS: Clean and simple installation, wifi works without problems, but the touchpad presented a “Cursor Dance” bug that I couldn’t figure out how to solve.

Ubuntu: Very similar to Elementary OS, the same bugs apply.

OpenSuse: Same problems of the previous distros. Couldn’t find a solution for others resources, like WiFi and bluetooth.

Fedora 25: 85% funcional. The wifi, bluetooth and keyboard were functional after a lot of work. The Cursor Dance problem was minimized with dconf, after fine tuning the precision and pointer speed. This distro gave me hope for the MacBook White.

Requeriments for this post:

Knowledge in linux, preferably focused on Fedora and Gnome.

1. Install Fedora 26/27/28/29:

The installation of the Fedora is similar for any other computer. Download the latest version on the The Project Fedora site, create a live USB/DVD and start the instalation (Use the Fedora Media Writer to make the process simpler).

There is nothing different about the OS install process. If you are insecure, search for tutorials on dual-booting and other forms of setup. I recommend wiping the entire disk to install Fedora, in order to simplify the boot configuration, without having to go through things like disk partitioning, preserving the Mac OS partition and dual-boot setup.

Update immediately after installation:

$ sudo dnf update -y

2. Wi-fi:

The first problem for Fedora in a Macbook White machine is the WiFi connectivity. It does not load the broadcom module by default in kernel.

The following process must be done with a network cable plugged in the ethernet port.

Install the repository Rpmfusion free and nofree:

$ sudo dnf install -y https://download1.rpmfusion.org/free/fedora/rpmfusion-free-release-26.noarch.rpm$ sudo dnf install -y https://download1.rpmfusion.org/nonfree/fedora/rpmfusion-nonfree-release-26.noarch.rpm

Installation

$ sudo dnf install -y kernel-devel akmod-wl

Load the kernel module:

$ sudo akmods --force && modprobe wl && systemctl restart NetworkManager

Restart the computer if the wifi icon does not appear in the upper right menu or any error appears.

3. Touchpad:

Two problems occurred with the touchpad and mouse in fedora 25:

No smooth scrolling on texts (browsers, text editor etc.)
Cursor Dance Bug (Crazy cursor dancing)

The touchpad has had significant improvements in this version of Fedora. The scrolling of the screen is smoother and the cursor dance practically disappeared.

To enable the “touch to click” option, go to Settings / Mouse and Touchpad, enable the “Tap to click” option.

If you prefer CLI, execute the command below on the terminal:

$ sudo gsettings set org.gnome.desktop.peripherals.touchpad tap-to-click true

4. Keyboard Configuration

The keyboard layout map for Macbook 4.1 is “US International (MAC)”

To modify or include a new keyboard layout, go to Settings / Region and Language / Input sources / Add / English EUA / English (Macintosh).

If you are in a location that uses accents and ‘ç’ (cedilla), use the keyboard English, Mali, US, International — “English (Mali, US, Intl.)”

If you prefer CLI, the execute the commands below on the terminal:

List configurations:

$ localectl status

List keymaps available:

$ localectl list-keymaps

Setting keymap:

$ localectl set-keymap ml-us-intl

5. Bluetooth:

The bluetooth configuration is very simple. Install the package bluez-hid2hci:

$ sudo dnf install -y bluez-hid2hci

Restart the computer if the bluetooth icon does not appear in the upper right menu.

6. i-Sight (Camera)

This step is necessary to install the driver of Mac’s webcam.

You can find the driver file on an existing Mac OSX 10.4 or 10.5 installation at this location:
/System/Library/Extensions/IOUSBFamily.kext/Contents/PlugIns/AppleUSBVideoSupport.kext/Contents/MacOS/AppleUSBVideoSupport or you can download it this link: AUVideoS.zip

Pre-installation:

$ sudo dnf install -y isight-firmware-tools$ unzip AUVideoS.zip

Installation:

$ sudo ift-extract -a AppleUSBVideoSupport

Restart the computer and test the i-Sight camera with native app Cheese.

7. Additionals:

If you’re missing the MacOS X dock, install the extension gnome Simple-dock:

Install first the gnome Tweak Tool:

$ sudo dnf install -y gnome-tweak-tool

Install via source:

$ git clone https://github.com/optimisme/gnome-shell-simple-dock.git
$ cd gnome-shell-simple-dock
$ chmod 744 install.sh 
$ ./install.sh

or via DNF:

$ sudo yum install -y gnome-shell-extension-simple-dock

Restart your session (Log out and Log in), go to tweak-tool / Extensions / Enable Simple Dock / Click in gear for additional configurations.

8. Next steps:

Automation the whole process with Ansible configuration manager.
Basic tools for Developers: Docker, Virtuabox and Vagrant
Install WARSAW for access the Internet Bankings (brazilian banks)
Enable touchpad gestures e.g: https://who-t.blogspot.com.br/2016/12/the-future-of-xinput-xmodmap-setxkbmap.htm https://ask.fedoraproject.org/en/question/96472/enable-touchpad-gestures/l

9. References:

I. https://medium.com/@fh_bash/install-fedora-25-on-macbook-pro-68f069f471a4

II. https://turanct.wordpress.com/2010/06/11/use-your-macs-isight-on-ubuntu/

III. https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Documentation/Bluetooth

Feel free to contribute to this article through suggestions, corrections and new features.