Installing Ubuntu Lucid Lynx 10.04 on an Apple iMac 11,1 27"

[timblack]

Hey MountainX, I think I read elsewhere that you wanted to install linux natively on your mac for performance reasons and that you were going to be doing SW dev with eclipse. Well, FWIW I'm doing exactly that and for exactly the same reasons. As you know, Eclipse can be a memory/cpu/diskio hog. I had been running Debian under VirtualBox in OSX, and now things are considerably faster.

Anyone that works with computer software is inherently and actively working around bugs in said software whether they know it or not. The fact that the open radeon driver has a bug that makes video output switch to the mini display port on certain hardware does not mean that it is impossible to run linux on that hardware. Assuming you're ok with using non-free software, the workaround is quite simple: don't exercise the buggy driver - instead bypass it by staying in text mode and installing the non-buggy proprietary driver.

You may have found another solution, but if you're interested in giving it another go, I believe you could probably get it working in a few hours if you make all the right turns at Albuquerque. I didn't, and it has sucked 3 days of my life from me. However, I learned several new things in the process, and for this I am grateful. My success was largely due to yours and others' prior work and documentation on this issue. I am just the lucky one that came along at the right time.

Cheers,
Tim

[MountainX]

Hey MountainX, I think I read elsewhere that you wanted to install linux natively on your mac for performance reasons and that you were going to be doing SW dev with eclipse. Well, FWIW I'm doing exactly that and for exactly the same reasons. As you know, Eclipse can be a memory/cpu/diskio hog. I had been running Debian under VirtualBox in OSX, and now things are considerably faster.

Anyone that works with computer software is inherently and actively working around bugs in said software whether they know it or not. The fact that the open radeon driver has a bug that makes video output switch to the mini display port on certain hardware does not mean that it is impossible to run linux on that hardware. Assuming you're ok with using non-free software, the workaround is quite simple: don't exercise the buggy driver - instead bypass it by staying in text mode and installing the non-buggy proprietary driver.

You may have found another solution, but if you're interested in giving it another go, I believe you could probably get it working in a few hours if you make all the right turns at Albuquerque. I didn't, and it has sucked 3 days of my life from me. However, I learned several new things in the process, and for this I am grateful. My success was largely due to yours and others' prior work and documentation on this issue. I am just the lucky one that came along at the right time.

Cheers,
Tim

Tim, Thanks for your very nice reply. I am very tempted to give it another try as you suggest, but I think I will resist.

I did recognize that I could probably ultimately solve the issue, as you suggest. However, I stopped primarily because I felt Magic Trackpad and Magic Mouse support under Ubuntu were far from satisfactory. Even the wireless Apple keyboard support had annoying glitches.

I built a new Ubuntu PC that is almost as silent as my iMac. This machine is faster than my iMac, has much more memory (16GB) and I have the HP zr30w monitor, so I'm not missing the 27" iMac monitor either

(However, I learned from my experience building this PC that one cannot beat the value of an iMac 27" if one wants a quiet machine with a great display. My custom PC cost me more than my iMac cost.)

I use this Ubuntu machine for all my work and I am now content to let my iMac remain in its near stock configuration. (All I did was replace the HDD with an SSD to make it totally silent.)

The real deciding factor for me was the limited support for the Magic Trackpad and Magic Mouse.

On my Ubuntu PC I use the wired Apple keyboard and a Contour Roller Mouse Free2 (and EasyStroke). I'm very satisfied with my input and I don't miss the Magic Trackpad or Magic Mouse. I think the Contour Roller Mouse Free2 is the ultimate input tool. I never have to take my fingers off the home row (even when mousing) and I can work very fast.

I use my iMac mostly for watching DVDs and videos. I don't have a TV, so the iMac has become like my TV.

[timblack]

Sounds like a nice getup! You have quite a penchant for huge displays and ergo input devices. Do you do graphic design?

By "limited support" for magic mouse do you just mean the lack of scrolling and other gestures? I'm still trying to get my magic mouse paired with gnome-bluetooth. The keyboard wasn't too difficult but for some reason, the mouse is listed in the bluetooth devices list, but there is no option to pair it, it is not discovered when I scan for devices, and I can't figure out how to delete it and start over.. So I've got some work to be at feature parity with OSX but I've got a usb mouse so I don't care about it too much...

[Nicbi]

Hi,

What video driver are you using? If you use the free radeon driver, you might want to try something NOT newer than 6.12. On Debian, with 6.13, I am getting a black screen not because of KMS problems, but because the video is directed automatically to the extern DVI output (instead of the screen )

did you find a workarround ?? I'm using natty on an imac and have the same problem. using the restricted drivers from ati solved the problem, but i have then an issue with gnome 3 top bar, so that i would like to go back to the open source drivers...

[slow2anger]

Hello everyone with the "black screen" issue. Please take a look at post #23 below. It might help you.

http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.p...ost12255187#23