Ubuntu for Macbook Pro 4,1

**v1nsai2** · August 14th, 2013

Same v1nsai here, I logged in with the new Ubuntu One and it won't stop putting a 2 on the end of my name.

Anyway, I gave up. The lack of BIOS on Macs makes them pretty lousy Ubuntu machines anyway, and I've seen a way to make Ubuntu work without the battery-draining fake BIOS that it runs with on Macs, but with the issues I'm having just getting it to launch normally, I gave up. Luckily, I've got another laptop that I can use as a linux box and let my mac continue being a mac.

Hope you have better luck than I did though, do post results if you get it to work so others with the MBP 4,1 can find it.

**sock2** · August 15th, 2013

Okay thanks. It seems that everyone on the web with MBP 4,1 didn't have no luck with Linux.
Thanks anyway for the reply!

**Aaron_Goldfogel** · September 2nd, 2013

Same here. The installer had the GUI, but no installation has. I tried both Raring and Precise (also mint) and got the same problem.
When booting into the installation disk, only "install ubuntu" works (with nomodeset). The live cd option does not work at all. The installer worked fine from there.
The real nightmare was the installation itself. Firstly it needed nomodeset to keep from going to a black screen (but actually into terminal from which blind commands work).
With nomodeset, the installation boots straight into command line. Nothing I can do seems to help. proprietary drivers, nouveau, nothing!
startx gives the error "no screens found" and its log says something like screens found but none were configurable. #Xorg -config xorg.conf.new -retro worked, but I don't have any how that helps. It just makes it more infuriatingly obvious that my system should be able to work! (As if the installer working with GUI wasn't enough).

I'd really like to try out linux after being a long-time mac user and I got my linux savvy friend to help me with this and he's stumped too. So this isn't some idiot mistake. Help!

**maxbar** · April 3rd, 2014

So just wondering, is this thread still active? Anyone has a solution yet to get Xserver running? If so, even if not optimal, please post your xorg.conf and the steps you took (such as driver install, editing grub.conf, ...) as a reply here - thanks!