mbp-fedora VS mbp-ubuntu-kernel

There is an Fedora iso with the kernel already patched with drivers here. https://github.com/mikeeq/mbp-fedora If you go here https://wiki.t2linux.org you’ll find instructions for other distros as well. There’s an Ubuntu kernel (which works in PopOS), Endeavour, Manjaro, also apple keyboard, touchbar, WiFi, audio drivers for whichever distro but you have to do them individually and go through some steps to copy the drivers from your Mac to the EFI, then from there to your Linux install. They made scripts to make it less of a pain. By far the easiest for me was the pre made ISO of Fedora.

This worked on my 2020 Macbook Pro: https://github.com/mikeeq/mbp-fedora

I personally run https://github.com/mikeeq/mbp-fedora on my macbook pro 2019 I still dual boot because as stated in the notes you still need macos around to do certain updates and if the system fails you need it to recover the system. But it works surprisingly well, and Fedora is a solid distro.

You need kernel patches to run linux well on those macs. You’ll probably need to use https://github.com/mikeeq/mbp-fedora/releases/tag/v5.13.12-f34-mbp15

I used this MacBook-ready Fedora version.

Download the .deb files from here (try the “alt” ones first) https://github.com/marcosfad/mbp-ubuntu-kernel/releases/tag/v5.7.19 and use sudo apt install FILENAMEHERE.deb.

You can use the mbp-ubuntu kernel, although it has not yet been updated with newer patches that are in mbp-arch, but you can build a kernel with those parches as described here. That keyboard/trackpad driver, apple-bce, is not in the main kernel yet. There are instructions for installing it as a dkms module here. In general, the t2linux wiki and the t2 linux discord server (linked to in the wiki a lot) are where the most up to date info on running linux on t2 macs is.

You’ll need to install an efi bootloader, i.e. grub, on a fat32 partition. If there’s an efi system partition on your external drive, then use that You probably will also want this patched kernel and keyboard trackpad audio and touchbar drivers, as described here.

If I remember correctly on my 2019 13” everything was working quite well except for the audio which would only output to the speakers and the wifi/Bluetooth not working. Battery was fine for me I can’t remember having to charge it more often than usual. Ubuntu on Touchbar Mac