Ubuntu 7.04 on a MacBook
When I got my MacBook almost a year ago, I instantly fell in love in OS X - it’s Unix, it’s compatible and it’s pretty, but the love wasn’t truly returned. Sure, OS X has some cool stuff bundled, and sure, it’s easy to install and remove stuff in OS X, but well, I just didn’t feel free to do whatever I wanted, so I decided that it was time to replace OS X with something better.
Now I’ve tried installing Ubuntu on my Mac before, actually just around the time I purchased my MacBook, but many features were on an experimental level back then if they even existed, but I figured that with this new Ubuntu-release, MacBook-support should’ve matured.
Notice that this is not a thorough review of Ubuntu nor GNOME, but merely a review of installing and configuring Ubuntu on a MacBook and the issues and documentation involved.
About Ubuntu
Ubuntu is a rather new distribution. It was created in October 2004 as a fork of Debian, but meant to have releases in sync with the major GNOME releases, occurring every six month. Ubuntu has newer packages in their official stable tree, than Debian, and it comes with many new utilities. The distribution is fully open-source and thus, per default no non-free packages (as in, with no source-code available) come bundled with the distribution.
Initially, a South African named Mark Shuttleworth, posted $10 million into the project. Due to this, as well as a continuous donations and a strong company supporting the distribution, copies of Ubuntu on CD’s are given away and shipped freely to anywhere in the world.
Of course Ubuntu is also available for download via torrents or direct download, having plenty of mirrors all over the world.
If you’d like, you can read more about Ubuntu, it’s history and it’s philosophy, on Wikipedia and Ubuntu’s official site.
Getting started
Now, MacBooks are not just your regular PC-laptops, even though MacBooks are now using Intel-processors, so I figured I’d rather read up whatever I could, instead of jumping right in. Finding documentation using Google was pretty hard. Well, it’s not that there was no documentation, but most of it was outdated and much of which was before an issue, has now been fixed - I wanted documentation for Ubuntu 7.04! Anyway, I figured documentation was most likely to be available in the Ubuntu Community Docs, and I was right. There was a page dedicated to Ubuntu on MacBooks and it has been updated very recently - horray!
Installing
Now I decided to go for a clean install, which means no multiboot environment/deleting OS X.
Going for pure Ubuntu was pretty undocumented. It seems that everybody else wants to have OS X along with Linux. Anyway, I figured I’d just try boot the Ubuntu live-CD, use the installer to delete all partitions and install Ubuntu in the then free space - it worked with a little help.
The only special note on installing, which I got from the Ubuntu help, was that I had to add a parameter to the installer, in order to avoid a possible kernel-panic (total freeze, basically the same as Blue Screen of Death).
I had no trouble following the Ubuntu docs, but I’m not sure everybody else would feel this way too. The documentation covered all the issues I ran into and all the fixes, but no thorough descriptions on how to fix them (like first click here, then there, hit that key…) was available. Instead it presumed basic knowledge of how everything worked. Not good for beginners. Actually, special notes shouldn’t be necessary, it should just work, but still…
Besides that, the only issue in the installer was keyboard type. Now, I have a danish keyboard, and danish keyboards has a special key, the Alt Gr-key. Mac’s don’t have this button. I hoped I could pick the Macintosh-keyboard layout and I would have somehow magically have fixed this, by making some other key the Alt Gr-key, but I was wrong, so symbols such as \, @ and $ was not possible to enter, unless I picked American or British layout. Doing that though, I’d lack my other special characters such as Æ, Ø and Ã…. I ignored this and completed the installation, hoping to figure this out later.
First boot
The system booted nicely. I logged in, and to my joy I could hear sound-effects and the wireless-lan manager had properly found all the nearby wireless access-points (including my own). The only apparent problem was the resolution, which was 1024×768, but my MacBook is built for 1280×800.
The documentation for Ubuntu on MacBook (as mentioned before) was aware of this, and thus a solution was presented. Once again, additional information but the commands to be typed, was missing, and instead of recommending the user-friendly and existing graphical way of fixing the resolution issue, only a command line way was presented. 
Anyway, the steps needed to be taken was simply installing a package called 915resolution and restarting the xserver (by hitting ctrl + alt + backspace) and it worked.
Ubuntu then wanted to update the system. I recommend that as soon as you have installed any Linux-distribution, you upgrade all packages, before setting anything up, as if you do get a lot set up, it is likely that an upgrade might cause some of your changes to revert (although in 99% upgrades are straight). Ubuntu had already chosen the official danish Ubuntu-mirror server and upgrade went flawlessly. Afterwards it requested a reboot and I accepted, still problem-free.
The keyboard and touchpad
As I mentioned earlier, the keyboard I have is danish, so I need keys such as the Alt GR-key, which is a modifier like Shift. Getting this to work was, once again, documented in the Ubunto for MacBooks page. All that had to be done, was entering a few commands in the console and one of the Command-keys (the key with an Apple-symbol) had now been changed to have the Alt GR-functionality.
Other keys had the wrong symbols on them and so on, but fixing it all, was documented.
The touchpad on a MacBook is a bit special compared to most other laptop-touchpads, as it features support for multiple fingers in a multitude of ways. For instance, I used to have it set up, so when I tap with two fingers at the same time, it simulates a right-click (Mac’s don’t have right-buttons on their mice or touchpads). For enabling this amongst other special touchpad features, a utility called qsynaptics was recommended. Running this tool gives lots of possibilities for customizing the touchpad. My most beloved feature does not seem to be supported though, which is holding down two fingers on the touchpad and moving up or down, which should simulate a scroll. Oh well, it’s probably just a matter of time before it’s implemented too.
3D-effects
To my surprise, this new Ubuntu comes with 3D-desktop features, although when trying to enable them, you are warned that these new effects are experimental. Effects like 3D-cube, alt-tabbing with live previews of applications, truly semi-transparent windows and so on, all worked right out of the box. Another surprise, I also didn’t have to install any new 3D-accelerated drivers - the ones in the kernel were good enough to handle the effects smoothly.
I also tried installing Warcraft 3 through Wine, but it ran very poorly (like 1-2 frames per second in the main menu of the game), although that game ran fairly well in OS X PenguinRacer, which is a native 3D linux-game, ran okay though at about 30-40 fps.
Audio
There was a little, undocumented problem with the audio. When turning down or disabling audio, audio still plays, while when boosting the volume to max, the sound becomes slightly louder. I found fixing this by setting the mixer to default to turning up and down the PCM-channel instead of the Master-channel.
Standby (suspend)
One of the features I’ve become most accustomed to when scouring the grounds of the university on which I attend, is standby. When closing the lid of my laptop, I expect my computer to go into standby automatically (called suspend in Ubuntu), which means it shuts down all other hardware but the RAM. When reopening the lid, the computer is therefore ready for use almost instantly.
Per default, when closing the lid in Ubuntu, the computer does nothing, but the kernel has properly configured everything, so all I had to do to make suspend active on lid-closure work, was opening the Power Management-preferences and tell it to go into suspend when closing the lid - and it instantly worked, although I noticed a peculiar little bug: When closing the lid, it only goes into suspend if the power management-icon is set to always be shown in the system tray (can be configured in the Power Management-tool too).
Backlight
Well, short story shorter: It works right out of the box, so changing brightness works exactly as in OS X, even the same keys per default.
Remote control
This also works right of the box, which I really didn’t think it would. Although it only does basic stuff like turning up and down the volume, I’m sure there’s some tool out there to reprogram the buttons to do something more interesting.
Conclusion
Installing Ubuntu on my MacBook was not problem-free, but the documentation-wiki had solutions for almost all the problems I ran into and it warned me of some too, before running into them. The remaining problems I fixed myself. The documentation was not very well written though. I could easily follow it, but someone new to Linux and Debian/Ubuntu and the ways things are done, would most likely not be able to follow the documentation in the wiki, as many obvious steps (for experienced users) are undocumented.
If you want to try installing Ubuntu on your Mac, I would recommend you to try and read the documentation wiki from Ubuntu on MacBook-installation first. If you believe you can follow the steps, then it’s all cool, but else just get someone with a little more Linux-experience to aid you, because if not, then you will most likely end in serious issues you can’t fix without help anyway.
If you’re uncertain, then you could also just wait a little. The distribution is so very close to working out-of-the-box on MacBooks, that I’m betting the next major Ubuntu-release will need no fixes; it’ll just work.
The final system ran nicely and I didn’t have any unsolved issues.
June 4th, 2007 at 1:47 am
Excellent article!
I have been considering a MacBook or MacBook Pro and will be using a dual boot (never played around with OSX so I have to at least give it a shot for a while!) with Ubuntu or LinuxMint (based on Ubuntu code). While I have read over much of the documentation you reference in your article it’s great to hear about your experience.
Keep up the great work with your site,
Cole
June 4th, 2007 at 4:07 am
Excellent article. BTW, have you decided to use your laptop with only Ubuntu on it, or will you go back to OS X. Just curious to how better is Ubuntu than OS X.
June 4th, 2007 at 10:30 am
#2, Sid
Well, by forcing only one OS onto my laptop, I can’t be lazy and just boot into OS X when I’m missing something - instead I’ll have to find a way to work around it.
I don’t see why I would install OS X again though as, besides Warcraft 3, all the software I need is in Linux and obviously works, and as all my hardware is properly supported, there’s not really any big annoyances left.
By the way, one of the things I’ve come to love most about Ubuntu instead of OS X on my laptop, is that my computer is now much more responsive, probably because there’s not all those effects to be rendered all the time and whatnot.
June 4th, 2007 at 10:49 am
What Wi-fi manager are you using on that last picture?
Nice article btw :)
June 4th, 2007 at 2:06 pm
#4, thanks (:
The network manager is the one bundled with Ubuntu nowadays, which is the official network manager from the GNOME-project:
http://www.gnome.org/projects/NetworkManager/
June 5th, 2007 at 3:02 am
Any improvement on support for 1920×1200 monitors through xorg on the intel gpu? So far, I’ve kept OS X on my macbook because I haven’t seen a way to get my external monitor working at full resolution.
June 5th, 2007 at 5:23 am
The touchpad scrolling works, but not with two fingers. (You can probably set it to use two-finger scrolling). For touchpad scrolling, drag one finger down the right edge of the touchpad.
June 7th, 2007 at 4:38 am
I’m glad to hear that some people are getting this to work, because it gives me hope. I picked up one of the newest MacBooks about a week ago, and I can’t get suspend or hibernate to work properly. I’ve tried pretty much everything out there, and to no avail.
I still love the MacBook, though. It’s such a wonderful piece of engineering.
June 8th, 2007 at 6:46 am
Thanks for the information! I found it very useful. I just got my macbook last week and decided to install Ubuntu on it since I liked it on my desktop so much.
However, I’m keeping OS X on it. I haven’t used Wine much - will it run pretty much anything that Windows runs, or just some things? I’m wondering if I should put Windows on my macbook too, for compatibility with a lot of software I will be using.
Again, thank you very much for the information! It certainly helped me a lot.
June 8th, 2007 at 7:25 am
#6 Alan,
The largest external monitor I have can go 1280×1024 and that worked okay, although I had to make a new xorg-conf, as the refresh-rates wasn’t compatible. I lost the link, but it should be pretty easy to google a usable configuration.
#9 Kurt,
Wine has come a very long way, but as all Windows DLL’s has to be rewritten for legal reasons, much doesn’t work. Anyway, big applications like Office 2003, Internet Explorer 6/7, World of Warcraft, Half-life 2, Photoshop 7 (CS didn’t work last I checked) are all working pretty well. You can check out others experiences on appdb.winehq.org by searching for your most beloved applications.
There are also specialized versions of Wine, optimized for certain tasks. There’s Cedega for games (http://friendlylinux.org/2007/01/28/windows-games-in-linux/) and CrossOver Office for applications you use in the office in general, although the official Wine now runs pretty much the same stuff and just as well, as the specialized versions, with the main difference being you need to do slighly more manual hacking to get games and applications working in the official Wine than the specialized editions.
I recommend, until you’ve comed accustomed to the alternatives in Linux, to use an emulator like the free InnoTek VirtualBox. With that you can install Windows XP or whatever OS you’d like, in a window, so you don’t have to multiboot. For desktop-tasks it’s pretty much the same speed as if you installed Windows directly, but games will run with very poor performance, so for games you need either Wine (if the game is supported) or a ‘real’ installation.
Innotek VirtuaBox can be installed through Automatix (www.getautomatix.com) very easily.
Here’s a screenshot I just took of VirtuaBox running XP on my laptop:
http://friendlylinux.org/wp-content/photos2/ubuntu704mac/virtuabox.jpg
June 8th, 2007 at 7:38 pm
Just a tip for wine: (nice review though)
1) You must have 3d acceleration enabled
2) Don’t use the wine in the Ubuntu repos. Go here instead: http://www.winehq.org/site/download-deb
3) When you run wine (ex: wine /media/cdrom/install.exe), you must add the –enable-opengl at the end of the command. So, the command would be: wine /media/cdrom/install.exe –enable-opengl
June 9th, 2007 at 2:04 am
Thanks for a nice article!
I too am considering the switch to Ubuntu from OS X on my first generation Macbook Pro. I run Feisty Fawn under Parallels today, and I use it for most of my work since emacs (23) — in which I work 90% of the time — is so much better and faster in Linux.
Do you think it will be possible to do the same succesfull installation on a Macbook Pro with its different graphics driver and screen, and is there something I should pay special attention to?
Mange hilsner
June 11th, 2007 at 1:18 pm
#12 Alex Speed Kjeldsen
The Pro has some other hardware, amongst a more powerful GPU and some extra features like a lamp to light up the keyboard, but I don’t think any of it should be a show stopper.
Using a utility called rEFIt (think it’s mentioned in the ubuntu-wiki) and boot camp from Apple, you should be able to shrink your OS X partition and install Ubuntu alongside OS X. I tried it once and the only issue I had, was that, due to partitioning, I had to defragment my harddrive before I could partition with boot camp (this is done by booting with your OS X-install CD and then choose to repair your harddrive).
Using this method, although slightly more complex, you’ll always be able to switch back to OS X by just rebooting, at least until a fix for Linux has been made/found.
June 18th, 2007 at 3:52 pm
Great article, Nice to hear things are running so well, I used to run Gentoo on the iBook, and yeah, I’m always amazed at how much faster and more responsive Linux is over OSX on the same hardware. I’ll like go with a MacBook with just straight Linux (unless one of the Lenovos’ can tempt me, but I think I just love the appl hardware too much).
I have an aging 800Mhz iBook that I run Ubuntu 7.04 on, and it’s great, save for the only issue in PPC Linux; no Flash. Unfortuately it’s a dealbreaker, as it makes the laptop far less useful as so much of the web is flash these days. Still, I love it and played with a MacBook Pro that a friend of mine has, what a step up. So with the Flash-ability of the x86 environment, I can see Apple+Linux being a dream come true. Now I just need my wallet to have the Apple ability again!
June 28th, 2007 at 8:05 am
Give little space for OS X is recommended not because one likes it but but because one needs os X for firmware upgrade kind of crap.
Anyways thanx for great article
July 4th, 2007 at 12:27 am
i got ubuntu live cd and ibook g4 laptop mac
as a relative it illiterate
i need some help to boot it
any one willing
thanks
arno
July 8th, 2007 at 11:29 am
I would suggest that you try elive. I see that they are making a version just for macbooks and it looks like a great OS to try. It supposedly runs with every thing that a macbook has so may be worth you trying it.
July 25th, 2007 at 1:09 pm
Congratulation!!!!!!!!
This article is brilliant.
I have been using Ubuntu since april 2007 and I just bought a Macbook.
Os X looks nice but I find Ubuntu much better.
Initially I was worried about the compatibility of Macbook on Ubuntu but now that I have read your article I think I will install Ubuntu again as it is much more effective for every day’s tasks.
Thanks again for the article,
Alan
August 1st, 2007 at 5:51 am
Howdy, thanks for sharing your experience. I documented my Ubuntu to Macbook installation, although I’m dual booting using Bootcamp. I LOVE the Linux side of my Mac, but can’t quite give up OS X (or Windows XP for that matter since I can run it using VMware fusion on the Mac side).
I am surprised at how much more responsive my Mac is under UbuntuLinux Feisty Fawn, and it’s great!
Two blog entries where I document my progress (I’ve TinyURL’d them to keep ‘em short):
Setup Steps for Ubuntu on Mac:
http://tinyurl.com/2rgcjq
Changing/Remapping the Apple key to a Control key (a must have mod!):
http://tinyurl.com/2l9tsd
Take care,
Miguel Guhlin
Around the Corner-mGuhlin.net
http://mguhlin.net
August 21st, 2007 at 3:25 pm
Hello,
I’ve been using Ubuntu FF for about five months now but I find while it has massive potential, it is still too rough around the edges for my use. The question is, how can I uninstall Ubuntu from my macbook and then delete the paritions without harming my OSX install? I can’t find anything on the net so far…
September 18th, 2007 at 11:52 am
Thanks for this pieces of information.
September 23rd, 2007 at 10:02 am
I information is very helpful. I enjoy reading this article, thanks for sharing.
October 4th, 2007 at 12:55 pm
From where can i get the source code for Ubuntu 7.04 version(Linux -2.6.20-15-generic).
October 4th, 2007 at 1:43 pm
#23, Uh, the source code? What exactly do you need and if I may ask, why? But anyways, packages.ubuntu.com you can download source-code for each package in the distro, including all custom patches applied in Ubuntu.
December 31st, 2007 at 10:18 pm
I honestly think you should avoid Ubby on a mac. Macs are masters at HCI and ergonomics on the desktop. Why do you want to spoil that ? Why buy a mac in the first place?
January 1st, 2008 at 4:38 pm
Well, there are many reasons, but I don’t really think this is the place to discuss if it should be done. It can be done and it works fairly well, that’s all I wanted to show in this article.
March 15th, 2008 at 9:55 am
March 15th, 2008 at 4:23 pm