Just installed 12.04 from the daily build on an 11'' MBA (aka the 4,1 model). Still reading through the mega-thread for the MBA, it's almost at 80 pages so it's taking a while but in the meantime I have a couple of questions.
First, I must have ended with a hybrid MBR (using rEFIt) with the first three partitions taken up up by apple stuff: EFI, the OS X and the OS X recovery partition. I put the main ubuntu partition on sda4 and a 4GB swap on sda5. The first time I tried to install I put the partitions the other way around and since the system couldn't see beyond sda4 and couldn't boot off a swap partition I ended up with a black screen). Posts by dfacto and srs5694 on the MBA mega-thread, especially between posts #170 and #190, were very useful to understand what's going on with the partitions, many thanks for that. At least now I see why I couldn't create an extended partition and put ubuntu and swap inside.
My question is what's happening with the swap partition on sda5? Is it even being seen/used by ubuntu? I wonder whether I even need to have a swap partition. I understand that one can use a swap file instead: has anyone tried it on a mac?
Also, besides the manual install, which is what I did, ubuntu offers to install alongside OS X or to replace it. Would either option work given the idiosyncratic nature of the hardware? I am considering waiting for Mountain Lion to come out in the summer, downloading and creating a recovery USB and then switching to single-boot ubuntu. It seems that Apple is going the route of HP (which by default takes up all four primary partitions and thus makes linux installs more difficult/intimidating especially for new users) and I want to have the ability to ditch OS X entirely. Any suggestions and links will be welcome.
I'm still working through the minor post-install quirks and glitches. For example trackpad freezes after suspend, the workaround seems to be here http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=1952532 and on the related bug on launchpad though I haven't tried that yet. The screen resolution work out of the box, no need to change to nomodeset but the screen and keyboard brightness keys are not working. I am looking at the post-install script but will appreciate any suggestions how to adapt it to 12.04. Again, I am reading through the mega-thread but it's taking a while and some things are different for 12.04 so I thought I'd ask in a separate thread.
Thanks and cheers
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