LinuxBookAir

Fixes and finds while using Kali linux on a 2015 MacBook Air

Fixes

1. Keyboard brightness keys don't change the level (but do show the current brightness level overlay).

   • Observed: Keyboard backlight brightness keys work.
   • Observed: Play/Pause and valume media keys work.
   • Prerequisite: Clicking the battery icon (Power Manager Plugin) in the XFCE4 panel shows the brightness level, and changing it has the desired effect.
   • Prerequisite: cat /sys/class/backlight/acpi_video0/actual_brightness shows the numeric level.
   • Fix: Click the Power Manager Plugin Icon and select 'Settings...'. Under General>Buttons turn on 'Handle display brightness keys'. Set the step count (20-50 is reasonable).

2. Keyboard brightness keys steps are too big/small.

   • Fix: Power Manager Plugin step count is not the size of the step, but the number of steps between min and max.
   • Aka, setting 100 will result in a single press being an increment of 1. (0 to 100 in 100 presses).
   • Aka, setting 2 will result in a single press being an increament of 50. (0 to 100 in two presses).

3. WiFi not working.

   • Observed: lspci | grep -i broadcom shows BCM4360.
   • Observed: https://pkg.kali.org/pkg/broadcom-sta# no longer in the kali-Rolling repo.
   • Fix: download broadcom-sta-dkms_6.30.223.271-23_all.deb and install with sudo dpkg -i <path_to_deb>(might need sudo apt install -f to attempt to fix broken dependencies).
   • Observed: sudo dkms stats shows broadcom-sta/6.30.223.271, 6.6.9-amd64, x86_64: installed

4. WiFi icon not showing correctly.

   • Observed: Icon showing in white, so it shows up well on the panel in dark mode, but is hard to see in light mode.
   • Observed: Changing the icon size in the System Tray Plugin to something other than 22-23 changes the displayed icon.
   • Observed: Setting XFCE4 Panel Dark Mode or Icon Size changes other icon, but not the System Tray Plugin icons.
   • Fix: sorta... adjust the size of the System Tray Plugin to not be 22-23, or set auto size mode (iirc).

5. CPU throttles and overheats

   • Observed: sensors shoes exhaust fan rpm around 1198RPM.
   • fix(maybe): macfanctld

Finds

1. ls /sys/module/hid_apple/parameters shows some options for swapping control/command/fn/option keys.