Dear Maintainer,

   * What led up to the situation?

Booting into debian-12.11.0-amd64-DVD-1.iso on a 2017 MacBook Pro
(MacBookPro14,1).

   * What exactly did you do (or not do) that was effective (or
     ineffective)?

A workaround was using debian-live-12.11.0-amd64-gnome.iso.

   * What was the outcome of this action?

Trackpad/keyboard are unusable.

   * What outcome did you expect instead?

Trackpad/keyboard usable.
---

I am using a 2017 MacBook Pro (Intel-based), code: `MacBookPro14,1`. I noticed when booting into `debian-12.11.0-amd64-DVD-1.iso` that the trackpad does not work. The keyboard does not seem to work either after selecting "graphical installer".

But the trackpad and keyboard work on `debian-live-12.11.0-amd64-gnome.iso`. So I am suspecting there are missing drivers.

Why might there be missing drivers? And is there a way to include them in the installer just like in the live ISO in the next release?

I am able to install from the live ISO, but it would be nice if I could use the default installer.

I'd like to note that the same issue happens with the RHEL 10 and CentOS Stream 10 installer ISOs. But not Fedora, Ubuntu, or Arch Linux.

Related forum post: https://forums.debian.net/viewtopic.php?p=744557

It seems that the driver is `applespi`, which is included in the kernel since 5.3:

So, they should already be included in the kernel used by Debian 12, I presume. Idk for sure.

The commit message mentions something about the SPI drivers needing to be loaded. So it might be that.

Originally reported in https://forums.debian.net/viewtopic.php?t=163130

The same happens with
https://gemmei.ftp.acc.umu.se/cdimage/daily-builds/sid_d-i/20250809-1/amd64/iso-cd/debian-testing-amd64-netinst.iso
which unfortunately I think means we probably won't see this fixed in
Debian 13 :(

Hi,

Osama Albahrani <osalbahr@gmail.com> (2025-07-28):

[ same issue with 13.0, according to follow-up. ]

In theory, sharing the output of `lsmod` from a Debian Live environment
might be useful (either Debian 12 or Debian 13 would work), but please
do read on.

A full linux-image package takes quite some space and we ship a
selection of modules. The GTK initramfs indeed contains the specified
module (./usr/lib/modules/6.12.38+deb13-amd64/kernel/drivers/input/keyboard/applespi.ko.xz)
but there might be no direct dependencies towards other components that
might be needed for the actual devices to be(come) visible.

Quoting 038b1a05eae6666b731920e46f47d8e2332e07ff:

    In order for this driver to work, the proper SPI drivers need to be
    loaded too; for MB8,1 these are spi_pxa2xx_platform and spi_pxa2xx_pci;
    for all others they are spi_pxa2xx_platform and intel_lpss_pci.

And intel_lpss_pci is indeed one of the things that's been added over
the years (no direct dependencies but essential to get some devices to
show up).

Would you be happy to test a netinst image for either Debian 12 or
Debian 13 that includes the follow extra modules, so that we can confirm
and ask the release team for a proper addition?

 - Debian 12:
     /lib/modules/6.1.0-37-amd64/kernel/drivers/spi/spi-pxa2xx-pci.ko
     /lib/modules/6.1.0-37-amd64/kernel/drivers/spi/spi-pxa2xx-platform.ko
 - Debian 13:
     /usr/lib/modules/6.12.38+deb13-amd64/kernel/drivers/spi/spi-pxa2xx-core.ko.xz
     /usr/lib/modules/6.12.38+deb13-amd64/kernel/drivers/spi/spi-pxa2xx-pci.ko.xz
     /usr/lib/modules/6.12.38+deb13-amd64/kernel/drivers/spi/spi-pxa2xx-platform.ko.xz
   (Modules 2 and 3 list module 1 in their depends field.)


Cheers,

Hi again,

Osama is interested. In passing, please use reply-all instead of sending
individual mails so that others know what's happening.

Cyril Brulebois <kibi@debian.org> (2025-08-10):

A modified Debian 13 image can be found here:
https://people.debian.org/~kibi/bug-1110007/debian-13.0.0-amd64-NETINST+spi4macbook.iso

I've only verified I can successfully load all three modules in a VM,
and cannot test further.


Cheers,

https://people.debian.org/~kibi/bug-1110007/debian-13.0.0-amd64-NETINST+spi4macbook.iso

Thx! I confirm that the trackpad and keyboard work in the linked iso.

The only issue I see now going through the installation is that the font is
really small. But it’s bearable.

Also, sorry for top-posting. Gmail did that.

Ok, it has been stuck on:

For over 10 minutes. Clicking “Cancel” just hangs. I tried multiple times.
I selected United States > Debian (which the installer told me is a good
choice) for the mirror.

The internet tells me this is either a network issue or a corrupted ISO. I
don’t think I have a network issue. And I re-downloaded the ISO and diff’d
the ISOs; they match. If it matters, I burned the ISO with balenaEtcher
which I have not faced issues with.

Osama

Osama Albahrani <osalbahr@gmail.com> (2025-08-10):

Great, thanks for the confirmation!

Kernel team, could you please include those 2 extra modules
(spi-pxa2xx-pci and spi-pxa2xx-platform) in your next uploads to sid,
trixie, and bookworm please? They're needed to make keyboard/touchpad
work on some Macbooks:
https://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/torvalds/linux.git/commit/?id=038b1a05eae6666b731920e46f47d8e2332e07ff

(Although admittedly that's only been confirmed with a Debian 13 image.
If you think we should confirm that's sufficient with Debian 12 too, and
if Osama is fine with it, we could double check that too.)

intel_lpss_pci is also referenced in that upstream commit, and it's been
involved in similar topics a while back. Since then, it's been shipped
within kernel-image, I'm not sure whether that would also make sense for
those SPI modules.

Thanks for your time!


Cheers,

Hi Cyril,

I was actually preparing 6.12.41-1 to be uploaded soon, should I defer
it rather and have the above as well or can it wait for the next
upload?

In case it needs to be now, an yet untested
https://salsa.debian.org/kernel-team/linux/-/merge_requests/1607

Regards,
Salvatore

Hi,

Salvatore Bonaccorso <carnil@debian.org> (2025-08-11):

There's absolutely no rush here!


Cheers,

Hi,

Ok in this case let's take it slower and get it merged in
debian/latest properly, uploaded and then only be taken for the next
trixie and bookworm update.

I expect to see updates as a regular basis as usual while rebasing to
new upstream stable versions.

Regards,
Salvatore

It appears this issue has been resolved in Debian 13.2 as I was able
to install on my 2017 MacBook Pro (MacBookPro14,1).

Thx everyone!

Best,
Osama