Ubuntu Gutsy Gives Me a Hard Disk
by Sean on Nov.03, 2007, under rantz, videoz
After having great success installing Ubuntu Gutsy on my Dell Latitude D830, I decided to try installing Ubuntu on my Macbook. As far as I can tell, everything is working flawlessly, even the volume and brightness buttons. I didn’t bother searching around for a right-click applet because…
I’m fed up with Apple. The fact that they are still only building one mouse button into their Macbook and Macbook Pro laptops is stubborn and stupid. Yes, some things are just plain stupid like smoking cigarettes. Also, with the release of Mac OS X Leopard, OS X Tiger users are no longer licensed to run Bootcamp for dual-booting with Microsoft Windows. For me, this was the last straw. Thank you Apple for using your customers as beta-testers and then requiring they spend more money on an Operating System upgrade to legally continue using Bootcamp! If I were to keep my Macbook, I’d just get rid of OS X and run Ubuntu. Instead, I’m selling it. Full Macbook review to follow.
As a side-note, it is funny and ironic that while I was recording the clips for the video at a small local coffee shop I was surrounded by Mac laptops. First, a girl walked in and sat at the table in front of me with her Powerbook. A little bit later, a guy with an older Powerbook sat down at the table behind me. While continuing to work on the video, I overheard from behind me another fellow ask, “So, is this the year you’re going to get your Macbook?” He must’ve been friends with the guy behind me and was probably impressed with how cool my Macbook desktop looked with all of the effects running. If only he knew it was running Ubuntu! 
Popularity: 17% [?]
November 7th, 2007 on 12:26 am
where did u get ur desktop background
November 7th, 2007 on 1:23 am
Darned youtube and it’s link filtering
i found the wallpaper here: Linux Wallpaper
November 8th, 2007 on 9:06 pm
Hi!!!! I saw your youtube vid… very nice. and great site you have here.
I just installed 7.10 on my core 2 duo MacBook, and would like to be able to do the tricks you did in the video… and use the theme you are using in the video as well..
Could you please help me???
Thanks!!!
November 8th, 2007 on 9:20 pm
Hi Jared. I’d browse around Gnome Look to find a theme. Here are some of the ones I like:
Desktop:
Moomex
Divinorum
Icons:
Dropline Neu
nuoveXT 2
To unlock all the features for desktop effects, first enable Visual effects:
System>Appearance>Visual Effects
Click Extra.
Then install compizconfig settings manager
sudo apt-get install compizconfig-settings-manager
You can then access the advanced settings in:
System>Preferences>Advance Desktop Effects Settings
November 8th, 2007 on 9:44 pm
I get:
Reading package lists… Done
Building dependency tree
Reading state information… Done
E: Couldn’t find package compizconfig-settings-manager
???
thanks for helping me
November 8th, 2007 on 9:48 pm
do you have the additional repositories activated in synaptics package manager?
(universe)
(restricted)
(multiverse)
November 8th, 2007 on 9:50 pm
No… I do not… I’m a total noob.
How do I do that??
November 8th, 2007 on 10:09 pm
System>Administration>Synaptics Package Manager
Then:
Settings>Repositories
Enable the repositories listed above. I’d also enable the first option under Third-Party Software while you are at it.
Close and then hit Reload. You can actually install in synaptic now by searching for “compizconfig-settings-manager”
Two ways to install
November 9th, 2007 on 6:59 am
Thank you!! it seems I have a lot of learning to do.
Thanks again!
November 13th, 2007 on 3:49 pm
I have a macbook pro running leopard. Did you use bootcamp to install linux, or some sort of hacker witchcraft? If it was bootcamp, I can probably manage that.
November 13th, 2007 on 3:53 pm
Yeah. I used the partition that was previously occupied by Windows XP when I ran bootcamp. Should be very straightforward with bootcamp.
December 13th, 2007 on 1:25 pm
What utility did you use to do the video screen captures? I’ve been trying to create a similar demo vid on my MBP using xvidcap, recordmydesktop and istanbul, but they haven’t been come out anywhere near as smooth as your captures. Thanks!
December 13th, 2007 on 3:01 pm
I also used recordmydesktop. One thing to try is setting the resolution lower while recording. It will appear blurry on the LCD but will make performance better since less pixels are being recorded and will also look crystal clear on playback since the recording is digital. Another important thing, during conversion to final video use h.264 encoding for best quality.
December 13th, 2007 on 7:24 pm
Thanks! I tracked the issue I am running into to Xorg going nuts with the CPU when I run the capture, causing EVERYTHING on the system to slow down. I’ll definitely try out the h.264 encoding once I get to that step.
Oh yah, great demo, btw.
January 25th, 2008 on 9:32 pm
Sean… U R MY hero!!! no one says about the additional repositories! thanku!!! u just made my day!
January 25th, 2008 on 9:42 pm
BTW, I just installed Ubuntu 64-bit on both of my laptops. Runs great and I’m getting even better performance than when I was running the 32-bit version (especially with virtualization). I’ve only run into one small incompatibility so far, for installing flash. But that was easily fixed with a patch supplied in the Ubuntu forums. 64-bit is here!…(well, kind of. there aren’t that many programs yet that take full advantage of the 64-bit architecture.)
January 26th, 2008 on 8:40 am
Hi. I tried installing it with bootcamp on my MBP. I put the livecd in and it seemed to be working fine and even started installing, but then something went horribly wrong and it didn’t finish installing. It said the disc was full, even though I made the partition 15GB. Then there were these partitions on my hard drive I couldn’t get rid of. I had to call applecare and re-format the whole thing. Luckily I had everything backed up with time machine (awesome, awesome utility). Do you think this has something to do with the formatting of the partition created by bootcamp, or maybe something I set wrong in the partition section of the installation? Was the boot camp partition too small? Should I try installing windows first, and then overwriting it with linux like you did? I’d try it again but I don’t want to go through that whole partition fiasco again. I’ve tried dozens of things that linux people say is the easiest thing in the world, and literally nothing has worked for me. Maybe I’m just cursed.
January 26th, 2008 on 9:24 am
First off, did you run the check media option on the live CD before installing? Sometimes the download gets corrupted or something gets screwed up while burning to CD. Usually this isn’t a problem, but I was lazy on the last installation I did because I’ve never had a problem with a corrupt download or bad burn before. Caused me some wasted when trying to install 64-bit Ubuntu because the download actually had gotten corrupted. I would get around 50% through the installation and it would stop.
Then, if you already setup the partition with Bootcamp, you want to select “Guided – use the largest continuous free space” option during the Prepare disk space. It will look something like this:
http://apcmag.com/system/files/images/vista_ubuntu_09.article-width.jpg
January 26th, 2008 on 10:49 am
I don’t think I did the check media option. That may have been part of the problem. Also, I think I selected “use entire disc” instead of “largest continuous free space.” Thanks for the tips.
January 26th, 2008 on 2:17 pm
you do realise you dont need to use bootcamp to do this???
hope it works out
there is a wiki page on how to install multiple operating systems using rEFIt and very simple mac terminal commands for formating…
that what im using anyway but yea
March 30th, 2008 on 11:36 am
I was wondering whether or not i could totally delete what i currently have on my macbook and not have a dual boot just a single boot of ubuntu?
March 31st, 2008 on 12:41 am
That would be the easiest option – to just use the entire hard-drive for Ubuntu. By the way, Ubuntu 8.04 Hardy Heron is going to be released in about 3 weeks. I’ve tested the beta and it looks really good. Lot’s of cool new features.
March 31st, 2008 on 3:49 am
I did just that and came into an error I cannot get the wireless card to work…I am using Gusty…
March 31st, 2008 on 9:14 am
Was the wireless card working with the live cd?
March 31st, 2008 on 4:07 pm
no it was not…
March 31st, 2008 on 4:08 pm
u have a macbook core 2 duo and ive seen that this is a problem in many of the ubuntu forums i just dont know how to do it lol and there are no clear cut answers to yes it can work and no it cant…
March 31st, 2008 on 11:46 pm
i’d wait until April 24th and try out ubuntu 8.04
November 6th, 2008 on 2:54 am
Great Wallpaper. LOL
also the super + tab does not work on my ubuntu installation. is this a seperate package?