Notes on setting up T2 Linux on my 2019 Intel Macbook Pro 16”

Installation Notes

Ubuntu

I don’t normally run Ubuntu as a desktop, but it’s what I’m most familiar (vs Fedora & Arch) out of the options with T2 builds .

Initial Setup

• Install OS Ubuntu documentation
• Drivers offline script get-apple-firmware get_from_macos worked - no issues with BT/WiFi
• Fan runs at 100% until sudo apt install t2fanrd && systemctl enable --now t2fanrd
• Video Install non-free packages & codecs once online: sudo apt install ubuntu-restricted-extras vlc ffmpeg
• Audio the 16” MBP can use this experimental profile - greatly improved audio quality!
• Touch Bar - works out of the box, install tiny-dfr to customize
• Samba Sharing followed docs
• Fix Sleep? sudo bash;echo "s2idle" > /sys/power/mem_sleep
• Disable gnome-tracker indexing this is thrashing my CPU and causing a lot of problems, hard to disable tho so: sudo chmod -x /usr/libexec/tracker-*

Unresolved Issues

• Wiki switching to iGPU instructions didn’t work - it’s defaulting to AMD. There’s a github issue for this.

[!SEE ALSO…] Linux Desktop Setup