---

macbook12-spi-driver (fork, MBP14,3 compatible)

Input driver for the SPI keyboard / trackpad found on 12" MacBooks (2015 and later) and newer MacBook Pros (late 2016 through mid-2018), as well as a simple Touch Bar and ambient-light-sensor driver for late 2016 MacBook Pros and later.

The keyboard / trackpad driver here is now included in the kernel as of v5.3.

---

About this fork

I own a MacBookPro14,3 (15" 2017 with Touch Bar) and created this fork to update the iBridge / Touch Bar drivers for Linux 6.15+ compatibility.

Recent kernels introduced official upstream drivers for the Touch Bar (keyboard vs display modes, DRM, HID splits). Unfortunately, this broke the original out-of-tree modules: the keyboard worked but the Touch Bar display/touch did not.

This fork:

• Adds a Touch Bar mode coordinator (tb_mode=auto|keyboard|display) so one driver owns both configs.
• Provides a minimal multi-touch shim for Touch Bar input on 6.15–6.16 (upstream HID covers this in 6.17+).
• Preserves all existing features (FN-mode toggling, idle/dim timeouts, ALS).
• Stays compatible with older kernels (<6.15) using legacy config logic.
• Avoids conflicts with upstream hid-appletb-kbd, hid-appletb-bl, and appletbdrm.

---

NOTE

The touchbar driver was refactored in late 2018; if you're upgrading from the appletb driver, please see the Upgrading section. If you're running a kernel before 4.16 then please check out the legacy branch instead.

---

Using it

On MacBook / MacBook Pros (except MacBook8,1 2015):

• Kernels <4.11: boot with intremap=nosid (do not use noapic).
• MacBook8,1 (2015): recompile with CONFIG_X86_INTEL_LPSS=n if <4.14.
• Ensure SPI + LPSS modules are present (spi_pxa2xx_platform, spi_pxa2xx_pci or intel_lpss_pci depending on model).

Initramfs tip: put applespi, spi_pxa2xx_platform, and intel_lpss_pci in your initramfs so the keyboard works at disk password prompt.

---

Touch Bar / ALS / iBridge

Three modules are provided:

• apple_ibridge — iBridge MFD coordinator.
• apple_ib_tb — Touch Bar driver.
• apple_ib_als — Ambient light sensor.

Touch Bar features

• Basic mode switching (escape, fn keys, special keys).

• Idle/dim/off based on timeouts (idle_timeout, dim_timeout params).

• New in this fork:

  • tb_mode param: auto|keyboard|display (default auto).
  • Multi-touch reporting in display mode on 6.15–6.16.
  • prefer_apple_ib param to let this fork override upstream drivers.

ALS

Exposes the ambient light sensor; works automatically with iio-sensor-proxy.

---

Installation with DKMS

sudo pacman -S dkms linux-headers   # Arch
# or: sudo apt install dkms build-essential linux-headers-$(uname -r)

git clone https://github.com/F13-Kr1pt0n/macbook-pro-touchbar-driver.git
cd macbook12-spi-driver
sudo mkdir -p /usr/src/appleibridge-0.1
sudo cp -r . /usr/src/appleibridge-0.1

sudo dkms add -m appleibridge -v 0.1
sudo dkms build -m appleibridge -v 0.1
sudo dkms install -m appleibridge -v 0.1

Rebuild initramfs if not done automatically:

sudo mkinitcpio -P     # Arch
# or
sudo dracut -f         # Fedora/others

Load:

sudo modprobe apple-ibridge
sudo modprobe apple-ib-tb
sudo modprobe apple-ib-als

Enable the Touch Bar reset service:

sudo cp touchbar-reset.service /etc/systemd/system/
sudo systemctl enable --now touchbar-reset.service

---

What doesn’t work

• ISO layout autodetection.
• Resume quirks on MacBook8,1 (unchanged).

---

Upgrading

Older appletb driver has been split into apple_ibridge, apple_ib_tb, apple_ib_als. Remove any appletb.ko before installing this fork.

---

Debugging

Trace Touch Bar events:

echo 1 | sudo tee /sys/kernel/debug/tracing/events/applespi/applespi_keyboard_data/enable

ALS / Touchpad logging available under /sys/kernel/debug/applespi/.

---

Authors & Contributors

This project has been maintained and extended by several people over the years:

cb22 — started the original macbook12-spi-driver project to support Apple SPI keyboard and trackpad on early MacBooks.

roadrunner2 (Ronald Tschalär) — significantly expanded the driver, refactored Touch Bar/ALS support into proper iBridge subdrivers, and upstreamed the SPI keyboard driver (merged in Linux 5.3).

marc-git — maintained the repo afterwards, provided DKMS packaging, and kept the driver usable for later kernels.

F13-Kr1pt0n — forked the project as an MBP14,3 owner, updating the iBridge and Touch Bar stack for Linux 6.15+ compatibility (mode coordinator, HID MT shim, blacklist handling) while preserving backward compatibility with older kernels.

---

License

This project is licensed under the GPL-2.0 license.

This fork (MBP14,3 compatibility updates) was created and is maintained by David Rodriguez, specifically to restore Touch Bar and keyboard functionality on modern Linux kernels.

See the file headers (// SPDX-License-Identifier: GPL-2.0) for details.

---