need help installing on macbook air

[twoodcc]

hi. i have a macbook air, and would like to dual boot leopard and ubuntu. now, i made a bootcamp partition, burned the 8.10 alternate cd last night, and booted the cd.

i then erased the bootcamp partition and made a new partition on "/".

it then seemed to install fine, but i can't boot to it. if i hold down 'alt', on startup, it does not show the partition, only the leopard partition.

please, can someone tell me what i did wrong? i tried to go along the instructions i found by searching, but still can't get it to boot.

thanks

[cyberdork33]

Install rEFIt and sync the partitions. This is a known issue and still has not been fixed.

http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=767677

[twoodcc]

thanks for the reply

ok, i installed rEFIt, and i rebooted, but it did not start the bootloader. how do i sync the partitions?

[twoodcc]

ok, i got rEFTt to work. but when it boots, i only get a command prompt.

[cyberdork33]

ok, i got rEFTt to work. but when it boots, i only get a command prompt.
So it booted Ubuntu?

Maybe you chose to install a commandline system? (That option is available on the alternate Installer). Can you login at the commandline? Any helpful information there?

[twoodcc]

i can login at the command line. but that's it. does this mean that i installed the wrong version?

[cyberdork33]

i can login at the command line. but that's it. does this mean that i installed the wrong version?

Sounds like you installed the server edition or a commandline-only system.

[twoodcc]

well, i thought i didn't, but anything is possible. so i downloaded the desktop version today, and am burning it. so when i install it this time, do i have to install grub? or just skip it?

[twoodcc]

ok, so i don't know what version i installed to begin with, but it was not the version i wanted. i downloaded the one from today, and i am on it right now.

thanks for the help. i am using a restricted driver for my wireless on my macbook air, is that fine to use? anything else i need to know?

[twoodcc]

well, i'm not sure what happened, but it just crashed. it froze, with only firefox open with 2 tabs, connected to my wireless. and i had my external dvd-drive connected, and that's it. i walked away, came back, the fans were going crazy and it was frozen

[cyberdork33]

well, i'm not sure what happened, but it just crashed. it froze, with only firefox open with 2 tabs, connected to my wireless. and i had my external dvd-drive connected, and that's it. i walked away, came back, the fans were going crazy and it was frozen Your only other option on the wireless would be ndiswrapper.

[twoodcc]

thanks. is one better than the other?

also, my fans seem to be running all the time, even though i just have firefox running and terminal. do i need to install anything else to help that?

[kosumi68]

thanks. is one better than the other?

also, my fans seem to be running all the time, even though i just have firefox running and terminal. do i need to install anything else to help that?

What version of MBA do you have?

sudo dmidecode | grep Product


Hope you checked this page: https://help.ubuntu.com/community/MacBook Air 1%2C1 and Intrepid

wl is working very well indeed. no need to use anything else.

The "just running firefox" could be your problem. Firefox 3 does a lot of things in the background unless you tell it not to. Try googling for "firefox prefetch".

The screen brightness makes a big difference too. Full throttle does tend to make the machine a bit hot.

The trackerd daemon might also cause a lot of activity.

If, unsure, run 'top' and watch it for a while. My system is always at 99% idle with firefox up, if I don't do anything.

[cyberdork33]

Listen to him, he has more experience with the MBA.

[twoodcc]

What version of MBA do you have?

sudo dmidecode | grep Product


Hope you checked this page: https://help.ubuntu.com/community/MacBook Air 1%2C1 and Intrepid

wl is working very well indeed. no need to use anything else.

The "just running firefox" could be your problem. Firefox 3 does a lot of things in the background unless you tell it not to. Try googling for "firefox prefetch".

The screen brightness makes a big difference too. Full throttle does tend to make the machine a bit hot.

The trackerd daemon might also cause a lot of activity.

If, unsure, run 'top' and watch it for a while. My system is always at 99% idle with firefox up, if I don't do anything.

output of what version Air i have:

Product Name: MacBookAir1,1
Product Name: Mac-F42C8CC8

thanks for the reply. i am around 95% idle, and my fans are running. i just turned the brightness down. the keyboard controls for brightness and eject button worked out of the box for me.

[kosumi68]

output of what version Air i have:

Product Name: MacBookAir1,1
Product Name: Mac-F42C8CC8

thanks for the reply. i am around 95% idle, and my fans are running. i just turned the brightness down. the keyboard controls for brightness and eject button worked out of the box for me.

Thanks - just wanted to confirm the subversion of the machine was the normal one.

Yes, the graphics card (GMA965/X3100) is quite well supported by now. Basically, if you follow the wiki page, you should have a box with everything working 100% - except for the front microphone.

I would love to hear about any differing experiences.

[twoodcc]

well, it crashed again. i turned the prefetch setting off in firefox, and that seemed to help with the fans. but again, only firefox and terminal running, and it just froze.

i had walked away, and the screen was black. i came back, moved the mouse to activate the screen, and it came on. i think clicked a few links in firefox and then turned away to my other computer for something, came back just a minute later, and it has froze.

[twoodcc]

ok well it crashed again. i don't know what is going on here.

here is the output from the "last" command:

tmac pts/0 :0.0 Fri Oct 31 01:16 still logged in
tmac tty7 :0 Fri Oct 31 01:15 still logged in
reboot system boot 2.6.27-7-generic Fri Oct 31 01:15 - 01:16 (00:01)
tmac tty7 :0 Fri Oct 31 00:45 - crash (00:29)
reboot system boot 2.6.27-7-generic Fri Oct 31 00:45 - 01:16 (00:31)
tmac pts/0 :0.0 Thu Oct 30 23:00 - crash (01:44)
tmac tty7 :0 Thu Oct 30 22:44 - crash (02:00)
reboot system boot 2.6.27-7-generic Thu Oct 30 22:44 - 01:16 (02:32)
tmac tty7 :0 Thu Oct 30 22:34 - 22:43 (00:08)
tmac tty7 :0 Thu Oct 30 22:18 - 22:34 (00:15)
reboot system boot 2.6.27-7-generic Thu Oct 30 22:18 - 22:43 (00:24)
tmac tty7 :0 Thu Oct 30 20:39 - crash (01:39)
reboot system boot 2.6.27-7-generic Thu Oct 30 20:38 - 22:43 (02:04)
tmac tty7 :0 Thu Oct 30 20:36 - down (00:00)
tmac tty7 :0 Thu Oct 30 20:27 - 20:35 (00:08)
reboot system boot 2.6.27-7-generic Thu Oct 30 20:27 - 20:37 (00:09)

[twoodcc]

and it crashed again last night before i went to bed. can someone help me out with this? if it keeps crashing, i'll have to just stick with leopard.

[cyberdork33]

and it crashed again last night before i went to bed. can someone help me out with this? if it keeps crashing, i'll have to just stick with leopard.
unless you can determine what exactly is causing the crash there is not much to say...

You could try downloading / burning / installing again to ensure something didn't get corrupted, but you seem to be the only one that has been experiencing this.

[twoodcc]

unless you can determine what exactly is causing the crash there is not much to say...

You could try downloading / burning / installing again to ensure something didn't get corrupted, but you seem to be the only one that has been experiencing this.

is there any log files i can look at? or something so i can figure out why it keeps crashing? it crashed again, and now i'm in leopard at the moment.

of course this would happen to me when i decide to try ubuntu again.

[kosumi68]

There is a possibility that this problem is hardware related. You might want to run the memory test, which is an option then you boot. Don't be alarmed if there is one or two errors from that test, as there is a known problem with memtest and low memory on macbooks. Still, as cyberdork says, nobody else seems to have experienced this problem.

[twoodcc]

There is a possibility that this problem is hardware related. You might want to run the memory test, which is an option then you boot. Don't be alarmed if there is one or two errors from that test, as there is a known problem with memtest and low memory on macbooks. Still, as cyberdork says, nobody else seems to have experienced this problem.

thanks for the reply. i can try that, but it seems that there is surely a way to show what is causing the computer to freeze. is there no command or no crash logs anywhere?

[kristina-dev]

I tried multiple times with the same result. I got a little further by using the kernel parameter pci=bios. It finishes the kernel stuff now, but then hangs a while and displays a BusyBox initramfs prompt that is either a) frozen or b) my keyboard doesn't work.

Any ideas?

[kristina-dev]

Sorry, wrong thread :(