Kubuntu on Macbook?

adsl3g

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So I just loaded the Kubuntu live CD in the Macbook and booted into kubuntu on the Macbook (holding down the alt key when switching on) and it works - did'nt link to my wireless network however but detected my USB drive and bluetooth.

Did not know it would work though.
Obviously did not install OS - just wanted to see if it works.
 

bwana

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Most things run on mac hardware :)

You should also be able to load it in a virtual environment (||'s or VMWare) if you wanted to kick the tyres a bit.
 

adsl3g

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Most things run on mac hardware :)

You should also be able to load it in a virtual environment (||'s or VMWare) if you wanted to kick the tyres a bit.

Aah that was my next question ||'s - will gooi it on there quick - should run better than off the CD and possibly pick up the airport network.

Will let you know what happens (not much on TV tonight)
 

bwana

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I loaded ubuntu on ||'s so I'm assuming Kubuntu will run ok.

Best thing about doing it this way is you can easily get rid of it by trashing the disk image (or you could copy the image to a dvd). :)
 

adsl3g

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Yes, no way I'm going to start working with Ubuntu - still needs a lot of development....

*/ runs and hides from Linux gurus.
 

bwana

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Tried that but it seems like its missing the actual 7.10 files?
The DVD or CD? I know that you can get the CD at http://ubuntu.mirror.ac.za/ubuntu-release/kubuntu/gutsy/ but not sure where you can get the DVD.
the mirror seems to be dead but thanks all the same

Thanks - [-]but that seems to be knackered too. :eek:[/-] Seems to be working. :)
 

koffiejunkie

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and it works - did'nt link to my wireless network however

You probably need to grab the firmware first. What wireless do they use these days? My Mini's Airport card, if I remember correctly, is a Broadcom BCM4318. If it's the same, you'll need to pull that from the windows drivers. There's a tool /usr/bin/bcm43xx-fwcutter for that.

EDIT: Coming to think of that, I seem to remember that working out of the box on my HP (which, by coincidence, has exactly the same Broadcom chip), suggesting the firmware is already there. The issue is the bcm43xx driver isn't great - range especially is pretty poor, and I find unless I'm in the same room as my wireless acces point, I cannot connect to it.

The Broadcoms still work better with the ndiswrapper driver. Ndiswrapper, as the name suggest, is just a wrapper, that allows you to use the windows driver. If you plan to use Kubuntu PM me for instructions on how to do that (don't want to pollute the Mac section too much :)
 
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bwana

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Tried loading Kubuntu on ||s but with no success. Have to admit I didnt try that hard.
 

Skeptik

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I really fail to see the point in loading Linux or UNIX on a Mac. OS X is a derivative of freeBSD, with the cost added later. They have taken a UNIX-like OS and honed it and smartened it as far as commercially possible so it's rather like Linux may be in 2020. Why bother struggling with bad fonts, peripherals that don't work, partioning your drive and all the rest??

Now with Leopard coming out it is fully UNIX certified. What more would you want in a UNIX system?
 

koffiejunkie

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I really fail to see the point in loading Linux or UNIX on a Mac. OS X is a derivative of freeBSD, with the cost added later. They have taken a UNIX-like OS and honed it and smartened it as far as commercially possible so it's rather like Linux may be in 2020. Why bother struggling with bad fonts, peripherals that don't work, partioning your drive and all the rest??

Now with Leopard coming out it is fully UNIX certified. What more would you want in a UNIX system?

For some of use using Linux just makes more sense. You mention "bad fonts" - have you ever tried using any of the available console apps for OSX? There are pretty much two that are half decent (please let me know if you know any other) - OSX terminal.app and iTerm. Both of them are slow dogs. If I do something like less mail.log in an ssh session, and then hold down the page-down or down-arrow key for any length of time, severe pain follows. It is horrificly slow - takes forever to redraw the screen. Compare this with Konsole where the speed at which the console app allows me to scroll down is fast enough for me to pull about 2mbytes/s on my ssh connection - you can see the difference.

My work mostly involves working on web/application servers that run mostly Linux/BSD/some other flavour of UNIX, mostly Sun. So the console is my primary productivity tool. The ones available for OSX sucks balls, precisely because of their fonts.
 

adsl3g

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OK, I have managed to load and install Kubuntu 7.10 on a VMWare Fusion virtual machine on the macbook.
Busy getting everything going now - had to manually install the VMWare utilities by gooogling for help - now I must just get the wireless working as I have internet via my home wireless network.
 
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i'm typing this from kubuntu on my macbook pro. i just loaded via the jaunty graphical installer. only difficult part was telling grub where to load (you need to make sure it loads onto your linux root partition (/)) but otherwise it was a packet of chips!

also just be careful not partition manually, rather than letting the installer trash your mac osx partition..

steps:
- within mac osx, install refit
- within mac osx (the app is called disk utility or something like that) resize your mac partition (free approx 30Gigs for Linux)
- put in kubuntu cd
- reboot
- hold down "c" to boot from a cdrom
- install (remember to partition correctly, choose "manual partition" or use available space)
- that's it!

remember that reboot doesn't currently work, so just use shutdown. i'm sure the guys will sort it out.

cheers
 

ponder

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For some of use using Linux just makes more sense. You mention "bad fonts" - have you ever tried using any of the available console apps for OSX?

+1

I even dislike the normal desktop fonts and to manage them is a biatch.
 
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