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Ubuntu actually works really well on MacBooks - since Natty I've not had to do anything OOTB to use it on my MacBook Pro, and only minor tweaks for Maverick. W

by schwuk 15y ago

Ubuntu actually works really well on MacBooks - since Natty I've not had to do anything OOTB to use it on my MacBook Pro, and only minor tweaks for Maverick. While you'll never see Apple hardware certified for Ubuntu, I expect we'll see lots of results on our crowdsourced hardware compatibility listings at http://friendly.ubuntu.com http://friendly.ubuntu.com

kylec 15y ago
Obviously I know that I'm working from a sample size of one, but when I bought my MacBookPro7,1 last spring I tried to put the latest Ubuntu on it (must have been 10.4) and it wouldn't even boot to the installer. Could not get it to do anything. Admittedly, it might be fixed now, but I would have expected the installer to be pretty robust and to fall back to generic drivers if there was some new unsupported hardware, and such was apparently not the case.
- schwuk 15y ago
  10.04 LTS was hard to get working, 10.10 less so, but 11.04 was the easiest. You should try again.
samstokes 15y ago
Is this also the case for current-generation MacBooks? On both of the last two occasions I researched this - 2 years ago and 1 year ago - the story was that on older MacBooks it would mostly work, though you might need to tweak to get some hardware (e.g. sound) working, and that on the current or previous generation of MacBooks it would require serious surgery to even boot. TBH, even the tweaking to get sound working is more than I can be bothered with these days. I use Linux rather than OSX because it's better for my use cases and I want the option to tweak, not because I actually enjoy tweaking. Would be great news if the support was better now.
- schwuk 15y ago
  Mine is a mid-2009 15" MacBook Pro. I can't speak for anything newer.
  - moreati 15y ago
    Typing this on a late 2010 MBP running 11.10. I started on 10.10 which needed modules and other bits from the mactel PPA for audio, backlight control, hotkeys etc to work properly. 11.04 was pretty good - just needed a wireless driver from the backports repository I think. 11.10 so far is working with the exception of 3-finger tap to middle-click in Unity. I've switched to KDE which is good enough, after some theming/tweaking. From my sample of 1 I'd say Ubuntu Mac/Macbook support is good about 6-9 months after the first release by Apple. Before then it's hunting around forums, and PPAs.
- starwed 15y ago
  I got Ubuntu 11.04 on an Air -- it was more convoluted than I would have liked, but a lot of that is how Apple set it up. The Air won't boot from an external disc unless you're using the Apple-branded drive, which seems a little silly. The steps were pretty much (a) install refit (b) make a custom USB stick (usbnetbootin doesn't work) (c) create a partition from within OSX (d) install from the usb stick to the partition (e) Do a couple of fixes, such as blessing the correct drive to stop the really slow boot times. https://help.ubuntu.com/community/MactelSupportTeam/AppleIntelInstallation https://help.ubuntu.com/community/MactelSupportTeam/AppleInt...

by schwuk 15y ago

kylec 15y ago

Obviously I know that I'm working from a sample size of one, but when I bought my MacBookPro7,1 last spring I tried to put the latest Ubuntu on it (must have been 10.4) and it wouldn't even boot to the installer. Could not get it to do anything. Admittedly, it might be fixed now, but I would have expected the installer to be pretty robust and to fall back to generic drivers if there was some new unsupported hardware, and such was apparently not the case.

schwuk 15y ago
10.04 LTS was hard to get working, 10.10 less so, but 11.04 was the easiest. You should try again.

samstokes 15y ago

Is this also the case for current-generation MacBooks? On both of the last two occasions I researched this - 2 years ago and 1 year ago - the story was that on older MacBooks it would mostly work, though you might need to tweak to get some hardware (e.g. sound) working, and that on the current or previous generation of MacBooks it would require serious surgery to even boot. TBH, even the tweaking to get sound working is more than I can be bothered with these days. I use Linux rather than OSX because it's better for my use cases and I want the option to tweak, not because I actually enjoy tweaking. Would be great news if the support was better now.

schwuk 15y ago
Mine is a mid-2009 15" MacBook Pro. I can't speak for anything newer.
- moreati 15y ago
  Typing this on a late 2010 MBP running 11.10. I started on 10.10 which needed modules and other bits from the mactel PPA for audio, backlight control, hotkeys etc to work properly. 11.04 was pretty good - just needed a wireless driver from the backports repository I think. 11.10 so far is working with the exception of 3-finger tap to middle-click in Unity. I've switched to KDE which is good enough, after some theming/tweaking. From my sample of 1 I'd say Ubuntu Mac/Macbook support is good about 6-9 months after the first release by Apple. Before then it's hunting around forums, and PPAs.
starwed 15y ago
I got Ubuntu 11.04 on an Air -- it was more convoluted than I would have liked, but a lot of that is how Apple set it up. The Air won't boot from an external disc unless you're using the Apple-branded drive, which seems a little silly. The steps were pretty much (a) install refit (b) make a custom USB stick (usbnetbootin doesn't work) (c) create a partition from within OSX (d) install from the usb stick to the partition (e) Do a couple of fixes, such as blessing the correct drive to stop the really slow boot times. https://help.ubuntu.com/community/MactelSupportTeam/AppleIntelInstallation https://help.ubuntu.com/community/MactelSupportTeam/AppleInt...