Installing on a Mac Mini 2011

[BDNiner]

Has anyone attempt to install ubuntu on the brand new mac minis? I just setup a virtual machine in virtual box and the graphics hardware is not detected. I got an error message stating that the unity desktop will not load on my hardware and to check for graphics drivers.

Since I have the AMD graphics card I was hoping that the Additional Drivers application would detect the card. But no luck so far.

[maxpolk]

If you are using rEFIt and dual-booting to Ubuntu (not a virtual machine setup), I found that:
1. rEFIt required Parallels Desktop to be uninstalled.
2. Booting to the Ubuntu 11.04 live CD AMD-64would get caught up with a video issues, forcing me to install Ubuntu using the alternate text mode AMD-64 installer.
3. After installing Ubuntu, it still had video issues. I could use the boot parameter nouveau.modeset=0, but that invalidated high screen resolutions. Finally I found that by adding "blacklist=vga16fb" boot parameter, Ubuntu Unity loads and I got video working fine. Make the boot parameter permanent by editing /etc/default/grub and editing the line to say: GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT="quiet splash blacklist=vga16fb", then run update-grub.
4. The magicmouse acceleration was horrible, so edit /etc/modprobe.d/magicmouse.conf to say: "options hid_magicmouse scroll-speed=45 scroll-acceleration=1".

[BDNiner]

Thank you for the response. That is a lot of information to take in. I will attempt it this week and post my experience.

[pindar]

This may also be of interest...

[BDNiner]

Thank you for the information.

I don't have the Mac Mini with the Intel graphics card. I got the one with the AMD card, but I will wait a little before attempting to install linux and brick my device.

[maxpolk]

Oh, one more kernel parameter to avoid crashing at system stop/reboot is "reboot=p", also add to grub default as described above.

[Drovakoy]

Hi guys,
How's the performance on it?
I'm aware ubuntu and ATI graphics have a bit difficulty getting on.

I'm thinking of installing ubuntu on my own Mini. Got it for some experience in support OSX.

[phuongdt3]

Thank you for the response.

[Wizard Sleeve]

Hi ive managed to get ubuntu 10.40 alternate amd64 installed through the menu system described above (on a 2011 mac mini with the i5 2.5 with the uprated graphics card) It still boots osx fine and I can get to Grub using rEFIt. I then press e on the top menu choice (Ubuntu, with Linux 2.6.38-8-generic) which then brings up this:

GNU GRUB version 1.99~rc1-13ubuntu3

Setprams...........
.........
.........
......... Loads of extra stuff I cant be bothered to type
linux /boot/vmlinuz-2.6.38-8-generic root=UUID=0b63ce06-5bcc-4653-9487-72bc5bffe0de ro \ quiet splash vt.handoff=7

Now ive tried all you suggested above adding a space after the final 7 blacklist=vga16fb reboot=p (and different combinations and orders) all tried and all failed. They do make the screen flicker slightly different.

I just get a totally white screen and that's it. Am I missing something else or doing something wrong.

Your help will be much appreciated because there doesn't seem from my search engine endeavors many people trying to do this.

Lee

[Wizard Sleeve]

Ive just tried with nomodeset in the boot command and that just hangs in this big list of things sucsessfully and unsuccessfully installing.

Now ive just tried beta 2 of 11.10 with the alternative install

installs again but didn't detect my Ethernet during installation where as 10.04 did

Still same problems with the white screen and tried the things mentioned above, no joy.