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How many people here have installed any linux distro on a macbook pro after wiping OSX? how was the experience like? I would really like to know. And how much d

How many people here have installed any linux distro on a macbook pro after wiping OSX? how was the experience like? I would really like to know. And how much does the OS cost contribute to the overall price of a macbook pro? would buying one and wiping it clean make economic sense?

gte910h 15y ago
The X86 ones aren't bad. You may want to use something like reEFIt or the like as a bootloader (Mac's don't use BIOS). The only gotcha is that many of the nice "boot to other OS" features Use this page: https://wiki.ubuntu.com/MactelSupportTeam/CommunityHelpPages https://wiki.ubuntu.com/MactelSupportTeam/CommunityHelpPages I decided after awhile, I liked the linux install in a VM instead of a dual boot (Mac OS X is a unix, and the VM on a SSD didn't hurt at all) and wiped it back out. Historically, Apple charges about 30-70 USD for the OS, so less than the windows OEM license you are paying for on non-Apple hardware I have no idea if Linux distros work with a completely blank drive, have only dual booted.
jayferd 15y ago
I tried installing Ubuntu on a MBP my office bought for me. It was a while ago, but the killer for me was that the fans didn't work properly. It would overheat within 5 minutes of use. I highly recommend a Strata from ZaReason (zareason.com). Unless you're going to be doing a lot of graphics-intensive stuff, definitely go for one with an Intel graphics card, b/c nvidia is a pain on Linux.
- Zancarius 15y ago
  > I highly recommend a Strata from ZaReason (zareason.com). Unless you're going to be doing a lot of graphics-intensive stuff, definitely go for one with an Intel graphics card, b/c nvidia is a pain on Linux. I'm assuming you meant to qualify that as NVIDIA's mobile chipsets. Though, I can't say I've had much trouble with them. I've certainly never had much trouble with their desktop products under Linux--I currently dual boot my home desktop between Linux and Windows with an NVIDIA card, and it runs just as well under either (ironically, Minecraft plays more smoothly under Linux...). Certainly there are some general complaints related to NVIDIA's Linux drivers, but to be completely honest, I've run many NVIDIA cards--including mobile--under a variety of Linux flavors over the years and had few troubles. I even tried installing Arch on an ancient Dell laptop of mine for fun which is equipped with one of the early GeForce Go chipsets, and it still works quite well (KDE4 not so much, but LXDE is perfect); however, it requires installing an older driver. I'd like to know where you got your information from, because I've run Ubuntu, Gentoo, and Arch all on top of fairly recent NVIDIA hardware. The only relatively minor difficulties I've had have all involved minor tweaks to xorg.conf but even those have greatly diminished in necessity.
  - jayferd 15y ago
    Good points all. I can only speak from personal experience. With my laptop, I'm usually plugging in to various monitors of different sizes and in different positions. In order to configure the monitors, you have to use NVIDIA's proprietary configuration tool, which "works", but fails consistently in weird patterns. For instance, when I first try to configure a new monitor, it consistently freezes up for about 30 seconds, reverts to the old display, and then magically works when I try it again. And heaven forbid I want to align my monitors along the bottom edge (or "absolutely positioned"). There's a bug somewhere between the card, the configuration software, X, and Gnome that leaves half of one of my monitors black and inaccessible. As long as I leave my monitor setup as is and don't stir up too much dust, though, it works great.
whichdan 15y ago
As far as I know, the multitouch trackpad doesn't have fully-functioning drivers for Windows/Linux. On a 2011 15", I can run Ubuntu fullscreen seamlessly (literally swipe left and right between Mac and Ubuntu, with no cursor capturing or anything). I think it's the best way to get full usage out of your Mac while still using Linux - and you can setup shared folders between Mac and your VM, or SSH from one to the other. I don't see OSX as being an additional cost like Windows - all Macs come with OSX, and it doesn't have to license it from a separate company, like the Dell and Microsoft relationship. The only cost would be $30 every other year for upgrades, but even those are optional. A refurb definitely wouldn't be a bad option, I have a refurbed iMac and if it didn't come in a brown box saying "Refurbished" I'd have never known. The only thing I will say is that adding a few hundred bucks to your budget for the 3 year warranty is 100% worth it - something breaks, you just schedule an appointment at the Apple store, and they'll take care of it.

gte910h 15y ago

The X86 ones aren't bad. You may want to use something like reEFIt or the like as a bootloader (Mac's don't use BIOS). The only gotcha is that many of the nice "boot to other OS" features Use this page: https://wiki.ubuntu.com/MactelSupportTeam/CommunityHelpPages https://wiki.ubuntu.com/MactelSupportTeam/CommunityHelpPages I decided after awhile, I liked the linux install in a VM instead of a dual boot (Mac OS X is a unix, and the VM on a SSD didn't hurt at all) and wiped it back out. Historically, Apple charges about 30-70 USD for the OS, so less than the windows OEM license you are paying for on non-Apple hardware I have no idea if Linux distros work with a completely blank drive, have only dual booted.

jayferd 15y ago

I tried installing Ubuntu on a MBP my office bought for me. It was a while ago, but the killer for me was that the fans didn't work properly. It would overheat within 5 minutes of use. I highly recommend a Strata from ZaReason (zareason.com). Unless you're going to be doing a lot of graphics-intensive stuff, definitely go for one with an Intel graphics card, b/c nvidia is a pain on Linux.

Zancarius 15y ago
> I highly recommend a Strata from ZaReason (zareason.com). Unless you're going to be doing a lot of graphics-intensive stuff, definitely go for one with an Intel graphics card, b/c nvidia is a pain on Linux. I'm assuming you meant to qualify that as NVIDIA's mobile chipsets. Though, I can't say I've had much trouble with them. I've certainly never had much trouble with their desktop products under Linux--I currently dual boot my home desktop between Linux and Windows with an NVIDIA card, and it runs just as well under either (ironically, Minecraft plays more smoothly under Linux...). Certainly there are some general complaints related to NVIDIA's Linux drivers, but to be completely honest, I've run many NVIDIA cards--including mobile--under a variety of Linux flavors over the years and had few troubles. I even tried installing Arch on an ancient Dell laptop of mine for fun which is equipped with one of the early GeForce Go chipsets, and it still works quite well (KDE4 not so much, but LXDE is perfect); however, it requires installing an older driver. I'd like to know where you got your information from, because I've run Ubuntu, Gentoo, and Arch all on top of fairly recent NVIDIA hardware. The only relatively minor difficulties I've had have all involved minor tweaks to xorg.conf but even those have greatly diminished in necessity.
- jayferd 15y ago
  Good points all. I can only speak from personal experience. With my laptop, I'm usually plugging in to various monitors of different sizes and in different positions. In order to configure the monitors, you have to use NVIDIA's proprietary configuration tool, which "works", but fails consistently in weird patterns. For instance, when I first try to configure a new monitor, it consistently freezes up for about 30 seconds, reverts to the old display, and then magically works when I try it again. And heaven forbid I want to align my monitors along the bottom edge (or "absolutely positioned"). There's a bug somewhere between the card, the configuration software, X, and Gnome that leaves half of one of my monitors black and inaccessible. As long as I leave my monitor setup as is and don't stir up too much dust, though, it works great.

whichdan 15y ago

As far as I know, the multitouch trackpad doesn't have fully-functioning drivers for Windows/Linux. On a 2011 15", I can run Ubuntu fullscreen seamlessly (literally swipe left and right between Mac and Ubuntu, with no cursor capturing or anything). I think it's the best way to get full usage out of your Mac while still using Linux - and you can setup shared folders between Mac and your VM, or SSH from one to the other. I don't see OSX as being an additional cost like Windows - all Macs come with OSX, and it doesn't have to license it from a separate company, like the Dell and Microsoft relationship. The only cost would be $30 every other year for upgrades, but even those are optional. A refurb definitely wouldn't be a bad option, I have a refurbed iMac and if it didn't come in a brown box saying "Refurbished" I'd have never known. The only thing I will say is that adding a few hundred bucks to your budget for the 3 year warranty is 100% worth it - something breaks, you just schedule an appointment at the Apple store, and they'll take care of it.