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How to solve wi-fi problem on Macbook Air mid 2013? (programming.dev)

submitted 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) by muhyb@programming.dev to c/linux@programming.dev

23 comments fedilink hide all child comments

cross-posted from: https://programming.dev/post/38558693

We have a Macbook Air mid 2013 and no matter what distro I tried, making wi-fi work was pain due to Broadcom drivers and not having ethernet port. Basically had to install the drivers via phone tethering.

However, probably because of the drivers, there are certain problems like disconnecting out of blue or really slow connection or cannot reconnect unless reboot the PC.

So I want to ask, if you have this Macbook and have Linux installed, which distro you're using it with? How is it?

Recently I installed Bazzite on a home computer and printers, Xbox controller, iPhone connection, everything the owners need worked out of the box. I'm wondering, would it also work fine with this Macbook too?

Edit: I added these to a blocklist, which I created here >> /etc/modprobe.d/broadcom-wl.conf

This is for BCM4360 adapter.

blacklist b43
blacklist b43legacy
blacklist bcm43xx
blacklist bcma
blacklist brcm80211
blacklist brcmfmac
blacklist brcmsmac
blacklist ssb

For now, it seems fine but need more time to see if the problems are actually gone. At least the reception issue is gone I guess.

Edit 2: Installed LMDE, which wi-fi was working even on live ISO. However, same problems also present here. It has dkms version of the driver but I don't sense any difference. Same connection drops, same random slowness.

Also found this thread. It describes my issues, but sadly no replies.

Edit 3: Currently experimenting with iwd since I found out this thread from Reddit, surprisingly not deleted, yet.

I installed iwd, disabled NetworkManager, enabled iwd.

sudo systemctl stop NetworkManager
sudo systemctl disable NetworkManager
sudo systemctl start iwd
sudo systemctl enable iwd

Put these on /etc/iwd/main.conf.

[Scan]
DisablePeriodicScan=true
[DriverQuirks]
DefaultInterface=wl
[General]
EnableNetworkConfiguration=true
[Rank]
BandModifier5Ghz=9.0

Though I didn't add BandModifier since we don't have 5Ghz anyway.

Then edited /etc/resolv.conf.

nameserver 192.168.1.3 #pi-hole IP

Also installed iwgtk to manage iwd with UI.

Seems fine so far, will edit again if it's good or not.

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[–] LeFantome@programming.dev 3 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (1 children)

I have a 2013 MacBook Air running EndeavourOS. Works perfectly out of the box.

[–] muhyb@programming.dev 1 points 1 week ago

To be fair I haven't tried this even though it's what I use on my PC. I don't want to install a rolling-release because I'm not the person who will use it. Though I'll try live ISO out of curiousity.

[–] Moss_the_TeXie@rheinneckar.social 3 points 1 week ago (1 children)

@muhyb
I have a MacBook Pro 13" late-2013 running Cinnamon (Mint based I think) and I had to install some arcane binary driver package to enable WLAN. Can’t remember now which chipset and which driver but I’ll recherche and get back to you. Please ping me if there’s no answer this week.

Mint Cinnamon still isn’t the OS of choice as it confuses sleep levels on this machine.

[–] muhyb@programming.dev 2 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Thanks for the reply! Currently it seems to be fixed with blacklisting but we'll see if there will be any issues. Someone else mentioned that Mint can install required drivers on its drivers program (by connecting the Macbook via phone tethering).

Could you perhaps check which adapter your Macbook has? The one we have has BCM4360.

[–] Moss_the_TeXie@rheinneckar.social 2 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (1 children)

@muhyb
Same chip/card/module:
—
03:00.0 Network controller: Broadcom Inc. and subsidiaries BCM4360 802.11ac Wireless Network Adapter (rev 03)
—

… and it’s a Debian bookworm/Cinnamon.

[–] muhyb@programming.dev 1 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Do you have connection issues by the way? I installed LMDE today and there is a fluctuation in netspeed. It's fine on boot but might change after that. It drops to 2 mbit/s.

[–] Moss_the_TeXie@rheinneckar.social 2 points 1 week ago (1 children)

@muhyb
Nope. Maybe a problem caused by silently dying hardware? Those tiny Bluetooth/WLAN combi cards do that sometimes …
For replacements, take a look at eBay, for example. IFixit has decend instructions (it’s simple).

[–] muhyb@programming.dev 1 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Possible but I don't think that would be it since it was perfectly fine when running MacOS. I also checked an adapter replacement video and it seems quite easy, just in case if I need it (hopefully not). So thanks for the recommendation.

By the way, I checked from kernel-org and it says BCM4360 is not supported.

When I check the which module is loaded dmesg | grep -i wlan says it's BCM43a0.

However, lspci -nn | grep -i network says it's BCM4360. Is this the problem? I also checked this on live ISO EndeavourOS and got the same result.

[–] Moss_the_TeXie@rheinneckar.social 2 points 1 week ago (1 children)

@muhyb
As I wrote: I had to install some arcane closed source driver … I’ll look if I find still substantial information on that.

[–] muhyb@programming.dev 1 points 1 week ago

I see. It seems I might need that information since current closed source one runs quite problematic. That'd be great if you can look.

[–] oshu@lemmy.world 3 points 1 week ago (2 children)

I have a 2013 i7 Macbook Air and everything "just works" with the latest Linux Mint Debian Edition, including wifi and both usb ethernet and thunderbolt ethernet.

[–] muhyb@programming.dev 2 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Is your wi-fi adapter also BCM4360? That's the one this Macbook has and no distro recognized it including Mint. Though this Macbook has i5, maybe they're kinda different?

[–] oshu@lemmy.world 3 points 1 week ago (1 children)

lspci says I have a BCM4360 (rev 03). I can tell its loading a 3rd party driver because I see a warning about it tainting the kernel in my dmesg output.

Note that I'm not running regular Linux Mint, but LMDE which is Linux Mint based on plain Debian instead of Ubuntu. Both are available on the Linux Mint site.

[–] muhyb@programming.dev 2 points 1 week ago (2 children)

Hmm, same adapter then. Haven't tried LMDE to be fair, but would it really be different from regular Mint regarding drivers?

[–] LeFantome@programming.dev 4 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (1 children)

Linux Mint is based on Ubuntu LTS. LMDE is based on Debian Stable. Different kernels. So yes, drivers may be different.

[–] muhyb@programming.dev 1 points 1 week ago

That makes sense. Still, if LMDE works out of the box where regular Mint doesn't, I'll be surprised.

[–] oshu@lemmy.world 3 points 1 week ago (1 children)

They are based on different kernels and what I can tell you is that I tried a few distros and either or both the trackpad and wifi were not working.

LMDE was the first distro I tried that just worked. I didn't try the mainline Mint first because I like debian. I'm running enlightenment as my desktop and terminology as my terminal.

[–] muhyb@programming.dev 1 points 1 week ago

That's interesting. I'll try this. It's also good on the long run because it's a slow update system like Debian, I can think this as an alternative to what I initially planned with an immutable distro.

[–] muhyb@programming.dev 1 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Do you have netspeed fluctuation for wi-fi? I installed LMDE by the way. The driver came pre-installed, which is great. However there is still a problem it seems. It's fine when i first boot it, after some time the speed drops to below 2 mbit/s. I disabled the powersave for the driver but it only helped with the connection drops.

[–] oshu@lemmy.world 2 points 1 week ago (1 children)

I haven't experienced any connection drops on wifi and I haven't noticed any slowdowns. To be fair, I haven't done any load testing. I'm traveling now but I can do some testing when I'm back next week.

[–] muhyb@programming.dev 1 points 1 week ago

I see. That would be great if you can. Today we tried it on a Zoom conference and it was a disaster, connection drops, low speed etc.

By the way, I did some digging. lspci -nn | grep -i network says this Macbook has BCM4360. However, dmesg | grep -i wlan says BCM43a0 module is loaded. Also found out that BCM4360 is not supported by Linux kernel. >> https://wireless.docs.kernel.org/en/latest/en/users/drivers/b43.html#list-of-hardware

It seems wl is proprietary Broadcom driver. This was installed on previous distro.

[–] reseller_pledge609@lemmy.dbzer0.com 1 points 1 week ago (1 children)

I want to preface this by saying I've never owned or used a Macbook.

But most of what I've read online regarding Linux on Macbooks ends up with Linux Mint. And most of the time, peoeple specifically mention it because of Wi-Fi issues being resolved.

I'm not sure if there's any additional steps or anything, but I hope this can somehow be useful to you.

[–] muhyb@programming.dev 2 points 1 week ago

Yeah, I noticed that too. Though the reason I haven't installed it was that I already installed specifically a immutable distro because of the person who will use it. However I also tried Mint as a live ISO to see if that has the driver pre-installed, it didn't. Later I thought, if this is the same proprietary driver, distro choice won't matter. Then I found about blacklisting.