T1 MacBook Pro speakers: verified CS8409 DKMS workaround on MacBookPro13,2

[Alkarth2010]

The Mac support page currently lists T1 sound as not functioning. On a 2016 13-inch MacBook Pro with Touch Bar (MacBookPro13,2, T1), internal speakers work after installing the existing out-of-tree CS8409 driver via DKMS. A docs PR against manual/44-mac-support.md is paired with this.

Machine

• Model: MacBookPro13,2 (2016 13-inch, four Thunderbolt 3 ports, Touch Bar / T1)
• Omarchy 4.0.4, kernel 7.2.5-3-omarchy
• Codec: Intel Sunrise Point-LP HDA + Cirrus CS8409 (snd_hda_codec_cs8409)
• PipeWire / pipewire-pulse / WirePlumber running
• Default sink: Built-in Audio Analog Stereo, unmuted, volume up, no output

Stock snd_hda_codec_cs8409 loads and exposes an analog sink. It never powers the speaker amps on this board, so the pipeline looks healthy and stays silent.

Fix

davidjo/snd_hda_macbookpro ships a patched snd-hda-codec-cs8409 that does the Apple codec + amp bring-up. Install it with the repo's DKMS path so it rebuilds after kernel updates.

omarchy pkg add wget linux-omarchy-headers base-devel dkms git
git clone https://github.com/davidjo/snd_hda_macbookpro.git
cd snd_hda_macbookpro
sudo ./install.cirrus.driver.sh -i
sudo reboot

Use omarchy pkg add / omarchy update. Do not run pacman -Syu on Omarchy.

The install script downloads matching kernel source from kernel.org (linux-$(uname -r | cut -d- -f1).tar.xz), so it needs network and wget.

If you skip reboot, unload the in-tree module before the DKMS one will attach. modprobe alone is not enough while the stock codec is loaded:

# stop user audio, then as root:
modprobe -r snd_hda_intel
modprobe -r snd_hda_codec_intelhdmi snd_hda_codec_hdmi snd_hda_codec_cs8409
modprobe snd_hda_intel

Unload snd_hda_intel first.

Success checks

dkms status | grep snd_hda_macbookpro
# snd_hda_macbookpro/0.1, 7.2.5-3-omarchy, x86_64: installed (Original modules exist)

modinfo -n snd_hda_codec_cs8409
# /lib/modules/$(uname -r)/updates/dkms/snd-hda-codec-cs8409.ko.zst

lsmod | grep snd_hda_codec_cs8409
# size ~192512 on this kernel (stock was ~49152)

journalctl -k -b | grep -i cs8409
# snd_hda_intel: Primary cs8409
# snd_hda_intel: Primary patch_cs8409 NOT FOUND trying APPLE
# ALSA name becomes CS8409/CS42L83 Analog

speaker-test -c 2 -t wav -l 1 played Front Left / Front Right through the analog sink. During playback, speaker pin-ctls were 0x40: OUT.

Related: #4700 (different Mac audio stack). Same CS8409 + external amps show up on other 2016–2017 Intel Macs; this post only claims MacBookPro13,2.

This is an optional out-of-tree module (kernel taint, kernel.org tarball at build time). Documenting it on the Mac support page is the right first step. Shipping it in the ISO is a separate decision.

Verified 2026-10-18 on Omarchy 4.0.4 / kernel 7.2.5-3-omarchy.

[Alkarth2010]

Docs PR for the Mac support page: #15776