12.04 “Try Ubuntu without installing” results in graphical artifacts on MacBookPro 5,

[EuroCity]

So, did you manage to boot into the graphical desktop? What happened with the nomodeset option?

BTW, the picture above was only an example of the boot options one can choose with F6 (I didn't mean that you should choose acpi=off, if not absolutely necessary)...

P.S.: Your MacBook Pro 5,3 might have problems with Ubuntu also because of the dual graphics cards; for example, yesterday I verified that my mid-2009 2.53 GHz MacBook Pro 5,4 boots the "+mac" desktop CD without any problems (and also with the full graphical bootsplash), without any additional boot parameters: but it has only one, integrated graphics card (the 9400M).

[EuroCity]

FYI, there are 2 versions also of the "+mac" (Intel 64-bit) CD:

http://cdimage.ubuntu.com/releases/1...-amd64+mac.iso

(the desktop and graphical installer CD), and:

http://cdimage.ubuntu.com/releases/1...-amd64+mac.iso

(the text-based installer CD, which can also be used if one has problems with the other one).

[jonas2012]

Yep, thanks to you i am on linux now.

Indeed it was just setting "aspci=off" in the bootoptions, using the alternate mac iso.

And yes it gave me the text-based installer. Did not even know what mount points were,
but then i watched someone doing a linux installation with a gui and then i figured it out from there
by goin back into mac os x and partitioning the drive accordingly.

[EuroCity]

Ah, good to know!

[jonas2012]

Yep, altho after merilly setting it all up, i found out that the actual command i used above is not to be reccomend for laptops. For example it does not allow for the fans to turn. Quite dangerous in summer.

I tried to reactive it afterwards by editing the grub.conf (i think that was it, but im not sure), but i failed (thanks again to superb instructions), leaving me only with a working clock, keyboard and touchpad freezing right after login.


If instructions were more clear on how to exactly alter boot parameters, not just use this in that file without knowing exactly where it goes, then that would maybe enable newcomers to install it properly.

Besides that another thing i have thought about is reformatting the drive to use fat 32 or whatever else is more compatible with linux, but for that i need to figure out my backup options.

[EuroCity]

Here is a good tutorial:

http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=1195275

To edit the boot options once the system is installed, do this:

gksudo gedit /etc/default/grub

... and save; and then:

sudo update-grub

... which makes the changes effective at boot.

The relevant line, in the file above, is:

GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT="quiet splash"

... where you can add additional parameters inside the quotes, such as acpi=off and others.

But is acpi=off really necessary? Doesn't the system boot, without adding this option?

[jonas2012]

Thanks, i managed to edit GRUB at startup back to default and now there are no more freezes.
Also the temperature is back to more acceptable level now. Without fans it was 70C in idle.
Now it is ~50C.