Late 2013 MacBook Pro, after most recent update, kernel 6.1.112-1-MANJARO (64 bit), KDE Plasma 6.1.5, KDE Frameworks 6.6.0, Qt 6.7.2, Manjaro 24.1. If I press any function key, Plasma freezes. I can move the cursor, but can’t do anything except press the power switch for a hard reboot. Not sure how to debug / fix.
Hi @gknauth, and welcome!
Macs and MacBooks are notoriously hard and give some issues because Apple does everything regarding them proprietary and doesn’t want anything other than what they specify and provide to be used on it. Best would be so see if something here addresses your problem:
Late 2013 MacBook Pro is probably a MacBookPro11,1
GT750M GPU would not work with latest nvidia drivers but should work with 470.xx legacy driver
nvidia.com - What’s a legacy driver?
Configure Graphics Cards - Manjaro Wiki
Apple Keyboard Function keys do not work - ArchWiki
If your
F<num>keys do not work, this is probably because the kernel driver for the keyboard has defaulted to using the media keys and requiring you to use theFnkey to get to theF<num>keys
I’ll try the Fn key, but I’m pretty sure everything was fine until I did the latest system update.
Update: If I press Fn while holding one of the function keys, yes, Plasma continues to be responsive. But if I don’t press Fn while pressing a function key, Plasma becomes unresponsive, except it let’s me move the mouse. Otherwise, keystrokes and mouseclicks are ignored.
I’m using 490.xx [CORR 16NOV: I meant 390.xx] for the graphics driver. I know you recommended 470.xx, but the graphics seem to work, I’m wondering what that has to do with keystrokes and mouseclicks, or what other gotchas with 490.xx you might be alluding to.
Meanwhile I’ll do a hard reboot of the MBP and see what that wiki page says. Thanks.
Looks like I have MacBookPro11,3
Manjaro Hardware Detection has 470.xx and 390.xx legacy drivers for older nVidia GPUs
490.xx driver is not supported
I posted a response on reddit about a “late 2013 MacBook Pro” a couple of hours before seeing this topic - Trying to decide if the nvidia drivers are just borked or if I need to do something different
Looks like I have MacBookPro11,3
AFAIK Macbook Pro 11,3 has a 15" display and Macbook Pro 11,1 has 13" display, but both models include nVidia GT750M GPU and probably have the same keyboard
If I press Fn while holding one of the function keys, yes, Plasma continues to be responsive. But if I don’t press Fn while pressing a function key, Plasma becomes unresponsive
Considering previous comment quoted from Archwiki, the keyboard has possibly defaulted to using the F<num> keys for media control
This should allow normal use of F<num> keys without the Fn key
sudo tee /etc/modprobe.d/hid_apple.conf <<< "options hid_apple fnmode=2"
I tried that sudo tee ... command, thought it would work. Didn’t change anything, except now when I boot, after I see
/dev/nvme0n1p2: clean, 809941/117194752 files, ... blocks
I can no longer press alt/option fn F2 to get to a login prompt.
Update: but I can press alt/option F2 to get to a login prompt.
Update 2: function keys no longer freeze Plasma (yay!) but Fn + any function key does (boo)