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I bought a 16-in MacBook Pro about a month and a half ago.

For the first time ever I can't boot into USB no matter what I do. I followed the recovery instructions that told me to disable all secure boot related things, but every single live Linux USB fails with kernel panic immediately.

The only thing I can add is that after following online instructions — such as Apple’s official instructions — I can boot some flavors of Linux, but the keyboard and mouse freeze instantly upon boot. The clock is moving and power button is recognized.

Is there any way to cleanly get Linux on this machine? It would be extremely preferable considering it's my primary machine.

Giacomo1968
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SidedTech
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  • So I edited your question to add more details. My only question is you are talking about a MacBook Pro, but you say “keyboard and mouse” when MacBooks have keyboards and trackpads. I assume that is what you mean, otherwise if somehow you are using external peripherals maybe just use the built in stuff before adding the external stuff. – Giacomo1968 Mar 01 '20 at 02:02
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    What distros did you try exactly? You need kernel >= 5.3 (for example Ubuntu [19.10](https://wiki.ubuntu.com/EoanErmine/ReleaseNotes)) but may need additional drivers for touchpad/keyboard. Have a look at [State of Linux on the MacBook Pro 2016 & 2017](https://github.com/Dunedan/mbp-2016-linux/) which was updated yesterday to show what is working (and not) on *MacBookPro16.1* (your model). – lx07 Mar 01 '20 at 17:48
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    If you have gotten past the boot loader in to the kernel then you have already gone past the TP2 chip and secure boot. So your question does not match the situation you are describing. The problem sounds more like you can't find a distro that has drivers for your hardware. This has always been a problem with Linux that persists on all computers I have run Linux on. There is always a piece of hardware that doesn't work. Sometimes it's a critical piece. – HackSlash Mar 03 '20 at 16:45
  • Installing Linux using virtualisation software such as VirtualBox or Parallels Desktop would be a better solution that would fully work. – harrymc Mar 05 '20 at 21:29
  • No it's not the distribution not having the proper drivers as far as I know. I've tried 14 different distributions so far. I've also used these distributions on exactly similar hardware that is not the new MacBook Pro, but the earlier 15" from 2019. Only the MacBook Pro with the t2 chip in it seems to have the issue of having no trackpad or keyboard support as if they're actually trying to prevent you from using it. I didn't come here immediately I tried a lot of things before I realized that there was something security related blocking my situation. – SidedTech Mar 06 '20 at 11:40

1 Answers1

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According to the article State of Linux on the MacBook Pro 2016 & 2017, which was updated just a few days ago, shows that some functions do not work, such as Audio input & output, Touch ID and Wi-Fi.

Nevertheless, the article Arch Linux - Mac contains solutions for all these problems, but also has this warning:

Warning: This does not apply to more recent macbooks. These are very poorly supported. See here for more information.

The "here" link points to the above State of Linux article.

My conclusion is that there is no Linux distribution that promises full hardware support for the MacBook Pro, except for some older models.

The only solution for a fully functional Linux on the MacBook Pro is to install it using virtualisation software such as VirtualBox or Parallels Desktop. This would be a solution that would fully work, because Linux fully supports the virtual hardware exposed by these products.

harrymc
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