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Thread: MBA and Ubuntu

  1. #1
    Join Date
    Sep 2005
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    Milwaukee, WI
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    11
    Distro
    Ubuntu 8.04 Hardy Heron

    MBA and Ubuntu

    I'll admit it was not easy to get this far with my MBA. I followed the how tos in other forums and postings about installing Ubuntu on a Macbook Air.

    At this point the only OS I have is Ubuntu 8.04. I tried using Boot Camp to install Ub but each time (using rEFIT or not) the only partition recognizable was the OSX partition. So...bah! I blew the whole thing away and now I have a running copy of Linux.

    I was able to get the wifi working following the forums. Make sure you pay close attention to all steps (yeah that's right I was a bit impatient).

    As of now I can't get the light up keyboard stuff to work, or right clicking.

    For the keyboard lights I tried installing pommed. When I used apt the only available package was 15. I know that 16 is out and 17 is in beta....but I'm still not the best at installing from source. And now that I have installed 15 I have no idea how to upgrade. Grrrr

    I've read some grubbling about how to get the right click activity working, but nothing that I've tried yet.

    Oh yeah, I also got the audio working quite nicely.

    Anyone have suggestions for where to go from here?

  2. #2
    Join Date
    Aug 2005
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    Huntsville, AL, USA
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    Distro
    Ubuntu

    Re: MBA and Ubuntu

    pommed 1.16 is in the mactel-support ppa:
    https://launchpad.net/~mactel-support/+archive

  3. #3
    Join Date
    Sep 2005
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    Milwaukee, WI
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    Ubuntu 8.04 Hardy Heron

    Re: MBA and Ubuntu

    Awesome. Thanks. I added the repository and updated pommed it started and I didn't get the error like before, but now what?

    I thought that pommed would auto-magically make the hot-keys work and the abi-light sensor work.

    Is there something I need to enable before all that happens?

  4. #4
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    Re: MBA and Ubuntu

    what "hot keys" are you referring to?

  5. #5
    Join Date
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    Re: MBA and Ubuntu

    Oh, yeah I guess I should have been a little more specific. Sorry.

    In OSX the F keys raise and lower the volume, brighten and darken the screen. I thought that pommed allowed for that in Linux.

    Why don't we back up a little. What I've read pommed can do is:

    "pommed adjusts the LCD backlight, sound volume, keyboard backlight or ejects the CD-ROM drive.

    pommed also monitors the ambient light sensors to automatically light up the keyboard backlight.

    Optional support for the Apple Remote control is available."

    All this is great, but I think I'm missing a step. After I install pommed the cmd prompt says that pommed has started successfully (something along those lines basically no errors). Where do I go from here to make it do all that it been promoted to do?

  6. #6
    Join Date
    Aug 2005
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    Distro
    Ubuntu

    Re: MBA and Ubuntu

    Quote Originally Posted by othsy2k View Post
    Oh, yeah I guess I should have been a little more specific. Sorry.

    In OSX the F keys raise and lower the volume, brighten and darken the screen. I thought that pommed allowed for that in Linux.

    Why don't we back up a little. What I've read pommed can do is:

    "pommed adjusts the LCD backlight, sound volume, keyboard backlight or ejects the CD-ROM drive.

    pommed also monitors the ambient light sensors to automatically light up the keyboard backlight.

    Optional support for the Apple Remote control is available."

    All this is great, but I think I'm missing a step. After I install pommed the cmd prompt says that pommed has started successfully (something along those lines basically no errors). Where do I go from here to make it do all that it been promoted to do?
    you shouldn't have to do anything. if the function keys don't work as expected, try holding the FN key to access them.

  7. #7
    Join Date
    Sep 2005
    Location
    Milwaukee, WI
    Beans
    11
    Distro
    Ubuntu 8.04 Hardy Heron

    Re: MBA and Ubuntu

    I tried holding the fn key down, but nothing new seemed to happen. Do you think this might be because I chose a Mac keyboard layout during install?

    I ran the pommed with the -f option. It recognizes that I'm using a MBA, but at the end there was an error that kept repeating:

    E: Not primary DBus name owner

    I had to ctrl-c to kill it.

    BTW thanks for your help with this.

    Beyond pommed do you know any good ways to get my right click working?

  8. #8
    Join Date
    Aug 2005
    Location
    Huntsville, AL, USA
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    Distro
    Ubuntu

    Re: MBA and Ubuntu

    Quote Originally Posted by othsy2k View Post
    Beyond pommed do you know any good ways to get my right click working?
    It depends on what you mean by that, but you can get many of the more advanced touchpad features on the Macbook Air by using touchd.
    http://tannewt.org/touch/

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