So I decided to download the isos for three 64 bit isos via BitTorrent. I'm then going to leave it running. I may be able to help the Ubuntu community by uploading for as long as possible.
Here's the link to the Ubuntu site with the torrent links.
-P
Thursday, 29 April 2010
Friday, 23 April 2010
Upgrading to Snow Leopard and Ubuntu Lucid Linx?
I've been updating our office Macs to Snow Leopard and since I'm the only one that's running Linux via Bootcamp I am the guinea pig for the upgrade to Snow Leopard.
What did I discover? When you initially prep a "Windows" partition using Bootcamp, it leaves a little bit of space between your OS X and your new partition. It turns out that this space is needed to run the OS X Installer/Upgrader. I however didn't know that at the time and so I wiped that space and used the whole empty space to create two partition (/ and swap). When I tried to upgrade it failed and therefore I had to spend about 3-4 hours of my day resizing my Linux partition to allow for the upgrader to run.
By the way, I booted into a Linux Live CD (Ubuntu 9.10) that I had handy and ran gparted which worked like magic. However, I also ran into the issue where Grub wasn't able to boot and instead only got to "Grub". I managed to fix that too with the Live CD and everything is great. I can boot into Snow Leopard if I have to and use Ubuntu on my daily basis.
Now comes Lucid Linx. How smoothly will that upgrade go! I don't know, but I can't wait to try it out.
-P
What did I discover? When you initially prep a "Windows" partition using Bootcamp, it leaves a little bit of space between your OS X and your new partition. It turns out that this space is needed to run the OS X Installer/Upgrader. I however didn't know that at the time and so I wiped that space and used the whole empty space to create two partition (/ and swap). When I tried to upgrade it failed and therefore I had to spend about 3-4 hours of my day resizing my Linux partition to allow for the upgrader to run.
By the way, I booted into a Linux Live CD (Ubuntu 9.10) that I had handy and ran gparted which worked like magic. However, I also ran into the issue where Grub wasn't able to boot and instead only got to "Grub". I managed to fix that too with the Live CD and everything is great. I can boot into Snow Leopard if I have to and use Ubuntu on my daily basis.
Now comes Lucid Linx. How smoothly will that upgrade go! I don't know, but I can't wait to try it out.
-P
Friday, 22 January 2010
A short FAQ
So you've decided you're going to install Linux and want to know a few things.
Q. Will Ubuntu run on my MacBook (MacBook Pro)?
A. Yes, you can run it without making any major changes. You just install it with and the drivers you need and it works great.
Q. What about my iPhone/iPod? Can I sync those?
A. No. Unfortunately there doesn't seem to be a way to do that right now. Apple uses a hash database for the videos and music and this hash isn't known at this time (Jan 22/2009.) There are work arounds though. You can sync mail, calendars and contacts using Google Apps. You can boot into OS X every time you want to use iTunes - it's worth keeping the OS X partition around, even if you make it really small, so that you can apply Apple firmware upgrade to the MacBook and iPhone.
Q. How do I resize the Mac OS X partition so I can install Linux?
A. You use an application called Boot Camp Assistant which is free and installed with Leopard and Snow Leopard. It is located in /Applications/Utilities/ (Or use Cmd-Shift-U.) When you run it, it'll ask you how you want the partition split for Windows. You can resize it however you want, but I recommend leaving some growing space for OS X (at least 10Gigs.) Once you have this, it'll resize the partition and ask you to reboot to do some checks or for you to install Windows. You can then install Linux and partition the remaining free space into a swap partition and your linux parition(s).
Q. Does everything work?
A. As far as I can tell, yes. I use Bluetooth for a keyboard and mouse, wifi, I've used firewire to connect hard drives as well as usb. The built in iSight works too. So far I can't seem to find anything that doesn't work.
Q. Are there any repositories I should add in addition to the standard ones?
A. I've installed the mactel-support one: http://ppa.launchpad.net/mactel-support/ubuntu.
I hope this helps and when I find more questions I'll post them here.
Note: These questions were asked while I was in the #Ubuntu-uk IRC Channel (by "kjs") and decided to answer them there. However, I decided that these questions would be worthy of an FAQ.
-P
Q. Will Ubuntu run on my MacBook (MacBook Pro)?
A. Yes, you can run it without making any major changes. You just install it with and the drivers you need and it works great.
Q. What about my iPhone/iPod? Can I sync those?
A. No. Unfortunately there doesn't seem to be a way to do that right now. Apple uses a hash database for the videos and music and this hash isn't known at this time (Jan 22/2009.) There are work arounds though. You can sync mail, calendars and contacts using Google Apps. You can boot into OS X every time you want to use iTunes - it's worth keeping the OS X partition around, even if you make it really small, so that you can apply Apple firmware upgrade to the MacBook and iPhone.
Q. How do I resize the Mac OS X partition so I can install Linux?
A. You use an application called Boot Camp Assistant which is free and installed with Leopard and Snow Leopard. It is located in /Applications/Utilities/ (Or use Cmd-Shift-U.) When you run it, it'll ask you how you want the partition split for Windows. You can resize it however you want, but I recommend leaving some growing space for OS X (at least 10Gigs.) Once you have this, it'll resize the partition and ask you to reboot to do some checks or for you to install Windows. You can then install Linux and partition the remaining free space into a swap partition and your linux parition(s).
Q. Does everything work?
A. As far as I can tell, yes. I use Bluetooth for a keyboard and mouse, wifi, I've used firewire to connect hard drives as well as usb. The built in iSight works too. So far I can't seem to find anything that doesn't work.
Q. Are there any repositories I should add in addition to the standard ones?
A. I've installed the mactel-support one: http://ppa.launchpad.net/mactel-support/ubuntu.
I hope this helps and when I find more questions I'll post them here.
Note: These questions were asked while I was in the #Ubuntu-uk IRC Channel (by "kjs") and decided to answer them there. However, I decided that these questions would be worthy of an FAQ.
-P
Monday, 14 December 2009
Which distro?
Many people will wonder which distribution (or distro) they should install on any computer. This is particularly true of installing it on a Mac as there are several drivers and such that tend to be included in one distribution but not another.
I've installed Ubuntu because it's the one that seemed to have the better overall support for the Linux on Mac community. This doesn't mean that you can't run Fedora, Suse, Debian or anything else. It only means that if the driver you require for the video card (for example) isn't available directly in the repository, you'll have to manually download and install it.
One of the limiting factors may be how old or new your Mac is. If it's still using a PPC chip, then you'll have to stick to one of the distributions that provides that architecture. If however you're on a new machine, you may find that not all the hardware is fully supported "out-of-the-box" and will need a lot of tweaking.
You use to have to enable a BIOS emulation (using Bootcamp) to prepare the partition where you were going to install the OS.
Now it seems you can boot off the CD and install directly.
I've preferred leaving my OS X partition after resizing, in part because Apple releases firmware updates and such that are only installable through OS X. (That I know of.)
I must admit I boot into OS X only once every month or two, having gone for 3 months without booting into Leopard.
So in the end which distribution should you use? Well that's really up to you. Every distro has it's good things and bad. It's mainly personal taste. Which distros have you installed? Have you tried more than one and what were your results? I'd like to hear from others about this.
-P
I've installed Ubuntu because it's the one that seemed to have the better overall support for the Linux on Mac community. This doesn't mean that you can't run Fedora, Suse, Debian or anything else. It only means that if the driver you require for the video card (for example) isn't available directly in the repository, you'll have to manually download and install it.
One of the limiting factors may be how old or new your Mac is. If it's still using a PPC chip, then you'll have to stick to one of the distributions that provides that architecture. If however you're on a new machine, you may find that not all the hardware is fully supported "out-of-the-box" and will need a lot of tweaking.
You use to have to enable a BIOS emulation (using Bootcamp) to prepare the partition where you were going to install the OS.
Now it seems you can boot off the CD and install directly.
I've preferred leaving my OS X partition after resizing, in part because Apple releases firmware updates and such that are only installable through OS X. (That I know of.)
I must admit I boot into OS X only once every month or two, having gone for 3 months without booting into Leopard.
So in the end which distribution should you use? Well that's really up to you. Every distro has it's good things and bad. It's mainly personal taste. Which distros have you installed? Have you tried more than one and what were your results? I'd like to hear from others about this.
-P
Sunday, 13 December 2009
Why put Linux on your Mac?
I have a separate blog that I use to keep information that I either collect while surfing, working or otherwise think that others will find interesting and informative.
While Not Just Linux is meant to be about many things, and not just about Linux, I've found that I am getting a lot of traffic from people that are interested on my posts about running Linux on the Mac.
They seem to be a quiet crowd as they so far haven't really asked any questions, but I'm sure that many of them would love to hear about the issues that I've had running Linux (in my case Ubuntu) on my MacbookPro.
I have several friends that have Macs and they tend to ask me "Why did you put Linux on your Mac?"
So I'm going to try answer this question with several points.
OS X (Tiger, Leopard and now Snow Leopard) is very stable and very nice to look at. It has come neat features including being able to have multiple desktops, running them with different backgrounds and even sticking your applications to those desktops so that you can easily split them into categories. (Say "Web", "Email", "Dev Tools" or something similar.)
The operating system itself will detect any new hardware you plug into it and configure it immediately with almost no need for drivers. Plugging in a display makes it come up and voila, your desktop is extended.
You can install BSD Ports, either MacPorts or Darwin Ports which can give you all the tools you really need from Linux by just running a simple command or using a graphical interface that uses the CLI in the background. (sudo ports install application)
The applications that are native for the Mac take advantage of the OS so that they can create PDFs by just saving the file in PDF format.
So... Why Linux?
Because I can. Because I learn from it*. Because not everything works out just out of the box*. Because I am a geek at heart and I've been using Linux for over ten years. Because I am trying to find out just how far Linux has come for the desktop**. Because it makes life just a little more insteresting. And now... Because I think I can help people who are ALSO interested in running Linux on their Mac.
So you tell me: Why are you trying to run Linux on your Mac? What are the problems you are encountering that you need help with? How can I and the Linux community help you out?
Lastly: Welcome to my blog. I hope to have entertain you, educate you and help you get things done.
--
Patrick
* Learn: I've had to read forum after forum, test things that aren't mentioned in the forums but seem to make sense in relation to what I'm doing, all in to get my machine working like I want it.
** It's come far! It's on that thing line where depending on the hardware you are running and what you are going to use your machine for you can definitely use it as a replacement and not as an "extension" you only use once in a while.
While Not Just Linux is meant to be about many things, and not just about Linux, I've found that I am getting a lot of traffic from people that are interested on my posts about running Linux on the Mac.
They seem to be a quiet crowd as they so far haven't really asked any questions, but I'm sure that many of them would love to hear about the issues that I've had running Linux (in my case Ubuntu) on my MacbookPro.
I have several friends that have Macs and they tend to ask me "Why did you put Linux on your Mac?"
So I'm going to try answer this question with several points.
OS X (Tiger, Leopard and now Snow Leopard) is very stable and very nice to look at. It has come neat features including being able to have multiple desktops, running them with different backgrounds and even sticking your applications to those desktops so that you can easily split them into categories. (Say "Web", "Email", "Dev Tools" or something similar.)
The operating system itself will detect any new hardware you plug into it and configure it immediately with almost no need for drivers. Plugging in a display makes it come up and voila, your desktop is extended.
You can install BSD Ports, either MacPorts or Darwin Ports which can give you all the tools you really need from Linux by just running a simple command or using a graphical interface that uses the CLI in the background. (sudo ports install application)
The applications that are native for the Mac take advantage of the OS so that they can create PDFs by just saving the file in PDF format.
So... Why Linux?
Because I can. Because I learn from it*. Because not everything works out just out of the box*. Because I am a geek at heart and I've been using Linux for over ten years. Because I am trying to find out just how far Linux has come for the desktop**. Because it makes life just a little more insteresting. And now... Because I think I can help people who are ALSO interested in running Linux on their Mac.
So you tell me: Why are you trying to run Linux on your Mac? What are the problems you are encountering that you need help with? How can I and the Linux community help you out?
Lastly: Welcome to my blog. I hope to have entertain you, educate you and help you get things done.
--
Patrick
* Learn: I've had to read forum after forum, test things that aren't mentioned in the forums but seem to make sense in relation to what I'm doing, all in to get my machine working like I want it.
** It's come far! It's on that thing line where depending on the hardware you are running and what you are going to use your machine for you can definitely use it as a replacement and not as an "extension" you only use once in a while.
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