MacBook/Intel mac development in Gutsy?

[thully]

In my use - or attempts to use - Feisty on my MacBook, I must say that I've had a lot of trouble when running natively (i.e. not in Parallels or VMware Fusion). For one thing, the trackpad functions atrociously poorly - even with using Gsynaptics/Qsynaptics/using all the suggested optimizations, I'm stuck with a sluggish cursor, erratic two-finger scrolling, and no simple way to right-click (no, F12 doesn't count). Also, I have to patch the kernel to get suspend-to-RAM to work at all - and even then there are weird glitches with that. That is not to mention the issue with the system running hot under Ubuntu - I'm almost afraid that my recent logic board failure (which caused me to be without the MacBook for 3 weeks) was caused by this.

Anyway, for the moment I've shied from running natively and I'm running on VMware Fusion. Overall, things are working much better, and it gives me a lot of flexibility and the ability to switch back and forth between OSX and Ubuntu without a reboot. However, I'd still like to see MacBooks - and Mac Intel machines in general - working better in the next version of Ubuntu running natively. What can be done here for Gutsy? I'd like to help, and I'd really like to get in contact with the kernel maintainers - primarily the Ubuntu kernel maintainers, but possibly upstream as well - about getting these issues fixed.

I dunno if I'm going to permanently switch to Ubuntu running natively on my MacBook at any point - I still like OS X, and the ability to switch quickly between OSes with little slowdown using VMware is quite nice. However, I'd like Ubuntu to work better in this regard...

[kzm.]

i kind of agree.. i have ubuntu native and i am thinking of switching to osx and vmware.. the keyboard, mouse, heat, wifi troubles are making me crazy. in general i love ubuntu way more, but also software starts faster on osx. i dont mind fiddeling around a bit to set up my system, but after spending 4 days i would like to simply work with the computer and forget about the os. :)

[ivesjd]

Its not just macbooks and intel macs that are like this. Actually, Macbooks and the like, have an easier time for the most part getting things working because they are almost all the same. Try taking another laptop and getting it to where my first gen macbook is, it would probably take weeks for someone unexperienced. I think that some people think that switching to Ubuntu is the all time fix for everything, that when they switch they wont have any problems with there computer ever again. That is not really the case, I don't believe you can achieve that with any OS. But from my experience, OS X would probably be the closest to that. If your just an average user, you shouldn't have any problems with OS X. My girlfriend has an iBook g4 running 10.4.9 and she hasn't had any problems for a year. I like Ubuntu because it isnt perfect, and I can change it so that I like it, and eventually help out. Its not just Mactels that suffer under Ubuntu, and really, you can't expect Ubuntu to really compare with OS X / XP or Vista, think about the price you pay for them, your paying for a product. That has made it past testing. For Ubuntu, we are kinda like the testers.

[kzm.]

true. and i didnt wanted to start this kind of discussion. sorry when i created the impression.
i am not bitching around. i am well aware of the pro and cons. i just found other machines easier.. and a stable system is the goal of every os installment.

[thonuz]

I've had my doubts about the intel macbook and Linux, but must have everything working well other than sound quality, which i don't care about too much. Even Isite and right click work great.
I sometimes have to reboot to get madwifi to work or my router will come up for passphrase for some reason.
I am on 64bit
Right click works great: try 3 finger tap on touchpad. In fact for me this is better than in osx.
Heat: its hotter than in osx, but only harmful on your lap. Battery life still needs improvement. I am not doing away with osx partition yet though.