Macbook Pro 8 2 Fedora 31 Install

This page documents my install of Fedora Core 31 on a 2011 15 inch Macbook Pro 8 2. I had done this previously, but needed to do it again after installing an SSD. This time I thought I'd document it. I will revise this in the future for newer versions of Fedora, if necessary.

This assumes some familiarity with GNU/Linux systems, particularly on the command line. Follow these instructions at your ow risk!

Install

I'll be installing onto a 1 TB SSD, and dedicating the whole thing to Fedora (ie, no dual boot with Mac OS/OS X). I'm trying the KDE spin, although a lot here should be applicable to other editions as well.

Install Media

To do this install, I used a 4 GB USB flash drive. First, download the image, which I grabbed here. I then used a different GNU/Linux system to write the image to the drive. To find the drive device name, you can use ls -lah | grep sd. Run this before and after plugging your drive in, and find which device appears after. You want just the device, not a partition. So look for something like sdc and not sdc1.

Next, write the image to the USB stick. Note that this will erase anything on there already, so make sure you have any important data backed up! To write, do something like this, entering your password if prompted:

sudo dd if=Fedora-KDE-Live-x86_64-31-1.9.iso of=/dev/sdc status=progress

The status=progress option to dd gives periodic progress updates, which is nice. Note that the image downloaded is a hybrid ISO, so you could burn it to a DVD too. (I chose to do this so I don't end up with stacks of optical media laying around.)

Booting

Hybrid graphics with this laptop are tricky (more on that later). Right now, we just want the installer/live environment to start. With the USB install drive you created above plugged into the Macbook, turn the laptop on while holding the Command key (with the clover leaf). If prompted, select the Fedora installer. This should take you to a Grub prompt. (In my case it went right to the Grub prompt, I think because I'm using a new, blank SSD for the hard drive.)

What we want to do is boot using the integrated Intel graphics chip, without using the discrete AMD one. At the Grub prompt, select the option like Start Fedora-KDE-Live 31, and hit e to edit it. Add the following kernel options:

i915.lvds_channel_mode=2 i915.modeset=1 i915.lvds_use_ssc=0

The Grub editor should say that you can use Ctrl-x to boot the newly edited option, but this doesn't work. Instead, hit F10 (along with the fn key on the lower left of the keyboard) to boot.