bcr88
March 3rd, 2007, 07:18 AM
OK, I'm sure I'm not the first one to post with these questions, but here's my story anyway:
I've always been interested in Macs, and I finally got my first Mac (15" MacBook Pro, 2.33GHz) in December, and now I don't care if I touch another Windows computer again, ever.
Anyway, I've also been interested in Linux for a while (I used to have a copy of Mandrake on my old desktop a few years ago, but I didn't do much with it), so last weekend I downloaded Edgy and after much searching for instructions, I managed to get it installed on my MacBook Pro. I then, over the last week, installed it about 3 more times, either to try another setup or because I managed to mess something up that prevented it from booting.
So then I downloaded Feisty Herd 4 (but it later did a distribution upgrade, so does that make it Herd 5 now?) and installed that, and later installed KDE and XFCE to see what they were like. So now I have my computer in 3 partitions. OS X on HFS+, Feisty on ext3, and a FAT32 partition to share files between the two.
I got the ATI drivers installed, and that's working good, but that's about it.
Anyway, I was just wondering if there were some slightly simpler instructions to getting a couple things to work in Ubuntu. I've searched far and wide for instructions, but most of them assume you're already fairly skilled in commands and stuff. I'm new to the whole terminal thing (and not very good at it, I guess), but I'm willing to learn if I can.
-First of all, the Trackpad, I've seen a few instructions on getting it to work with
scrolling, two-finger right-click, etc., (but a ctrl-click would be great) but they were
complicated and either didn't work or were too complicated. The best thing I could do
was install mouseemu (which caused it not to work in Edgy) and get F11 and F12 for
middle- and right-click, my volume buttons also work somehow. But I was hoping to
get the trackpad working a little better.
-Wireless. I also searched for instructions for the wireless, but I guess I'm
not doing something right or they just didn't work.
-Although I did install the video drivers, the translucency effects in KDE and the window
effects or whatever they're called in Gnome don't work. Is there any way to get them
to work?
-Sound. There's a just-noticeable-enough-to-be-annoying crackling/distortion sound
when playing music, and the internal speakers don't work. I've tried things for that,
but to no avail. Is there any way to fix those things?
-Backlight control. Once again, I tried to fox that, but it still doesn't work. this isn't a
major concern, but it would be nice (especially if it could work with the function keys)
-Is there any way to move my home folder to the shared partition like I did for mine in
OS X?
-Those are all the major things that I'd like to work, of course there are others: iSight,
Keyboard Light, Sleep, etc., but those aren't that important, but if you have any
advice for those, I'd gladly take it.
Well, that's about it, or all I can think of for now. I know it's not going to be perfect, but I'd like it to be a functional as possible. I'm not to Linux-savvy now, but I really would like to be someday.
Sorry if I gave you a bit too much background story, but if any of you could help me, I'd greatly appreciate it. Thanks in advance!
Bradley
I've always been interested in Macs, and I finally got my first Mac (15" MacBook Pro, 2.33GHz) in December, and now I don't care if I touch another Windows computer again, ever.
Anyway, I've also been interested in Linux for a while (I used to have a copy of Mandrake on my old desktop a few years ago, but I didn't do much with it), so last weekend I downloaded Edgy and after much searching for instructions, I managed to get it installed on my MacBook Pro. I then, over the last week, installed it about 3 more times, either to try another setup or because I managed to mess something up that prevented it from booting.
So then I downloaded Feisty Herd 4 (but it later did a distribution upgrade, so does that make it Herd 5 now?) and installed that, and later installed KDE and XFCE to see what they were like. So now I have my computer in 3 partitions. OS X on HFS+, Feisty on ext3, and a FAT32 partition to share files between the two.
I got the ATI drivers installed, and that's working good, but that's about it.
Anyway, I was just wondering if there were some slightly simpler instructions to getting a couple things to work in Ubuntu. I've searched far and wide for instructions, but most of them assume you're already fairly skilled in commands and stuff. I'm new to the whole terminal thing (and not very good at it, I guess), but I'm willing to learn if I can.
-First of all, the Trackpad, I've seen a few instructions on getting it to work with
scrolling, two-finger right-click, etc., (but a ctrl-click would be great) but they were
complicated and either didn't work or were too complicated. The best thing I could do
was install mouseemu (which caused it not to work in Edgy) and get F11 and F12 for
middle- and right-click, my volume buttons also work somehow. But I was hoping to
get the trackpad working a little better.
-Wireless. I also searched for instructions for the wireless, but I guess I'm
not doing something right or they just didn't work.
-Although I did install the video drivers, the translucency effects in KDE and the window
effects or whatever they're called in Gnome don't work. Is there any way to get them
to work?
-Sound. There's a just-noticeable-enough-to-be-annoying crackling/distortion sound
when playing music, and the internal speakers don't work. I've tried things for that,
but to no avail. Is there any way to fix those things?
-Backlight control. Once again, I tried to fox that, but it still doesn't work. this isn't a
major concern, but it would be nice (especially if it could work with the function keys)
-Is there any way to move my home folder to the shared partition like I did for mine in
OS X?
-Those are all the major things that I'd like to work, of course there are others: iSight,
Keyboard Light, Sleep, etc., but those aren't that important, but if you have any
advice for those, I'd gladly take it.
Well, that's about it, or all I can think of for now. I know it's not going to be perfect, but I'd like it to be a functional as possible. I'm not to Linux-savvy now, but I really would like to be someday.
Sorry if I gave you a bit too much background story, but if any of you could help me, I'd greatly appreciate it. Thanks in advance!
Bradley