AnnoyingTechnology/Apple's SuperDrive tweak for use with Linux.md

Last active July 17, 2026 13:21

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Make Apple's USB SuperDrive work on Linux

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Apple's SuperDrive tweak for use with Linux.md

I was ready to throw it away, I opened it up and didn't find anything wrong with it. After a quick Google Search, turns out Apple fucked up their users (again) and locked this drive to only one laptop : the MacBook Air.

Bellow is the tweak (found online) to make it usable on Linux

# Debian/linux only - Linux SCSI generic driver
sudo apt install sg3-utils -y

# RHEL/Fedora only - Linux SCSI generic driver
sudo dnf install sg3_utils -y

# tell the external DVD player/burner to turn on
sudo sg_raw /dev/sr0 EA 00 00 00 00 00 01

Usurfer commented Apr 1, 2026

'It's much easier to setup a custom udev rule than to manually run the command all the time.

cat <<- EOF | sudo tee /etc/udev/rules.d/90-mac-superdrive.rules > /dev/null

Initialise Apple SuperDrive

ACTION=="add", ATTRS{idProduct}=="1500", ATTRS{idVendor}=="05ac", DRIVERS=="usb", RUN+="/usr/bin/sg_raw %r/sr%n EA 00 00 00 00 00 01"
EOF'

I followed your code Yookoala and it worked! Thanks! :)

AnnoyingTechnology/Apple's SuperDrive tweak for use with Linux.md

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Usurfer commented Apr 1, 2026

Uh oh!