Installing Ubuntu on a Macbook Air : An updated howto.

Nov 13

One of the machines I use on a daily basis is my 11.6 inch Macbook Air. I love power and the portability of the system and the fact that it is downright so small and sexy it easily fits into my compact but efficient “mobile setup”. The one thing I don’t like on it is the fact it ONLY comes with OSX. Who would I be if I were to be satisfied with that. Being a cross platform slider I just had to add another OS to the mix : Ubuntu !

Installing Ubuntu on Mac hardware is not that hard, but it is also very tricky. Because of the fact Apple is not very open about its hardware, Linux developers need to “figure out” the hardware drivers themselves, to make things like the sound, wifi and videocard work out of the box once you install. The downside is that when it SEEMS like everything is working .. things might not be so great for your system after all. Take friend of the show Jay who installed Ubuntu 12.04 on his new Macbook pro. It looked like everything worked but the laptop got extremely hot after a couple of hours. The problem ? “Under the hood” drivers. Aside from the drivers in operation you “See and Hear” (Videocard, soundcard) working fine, You also need to make sure that things like temperature control and Cpu kernell things are up to snuff with your mac. Otherwise things could get nasty and you end up damadging your hardware.

One of the tutorials I found to make my setup work just perfect has recently been update to the latest version of Ubuntu. This article on Make Tech easier gives you a step by step howto on creating a bootable Usb disk, installing the os and setting everything up right (including those vital “under the hood” drivers) to make your installation go smoothly. If you are planning to slide your Mac over to the “purple-brown side” you grab the special script linked in the article and store it offline for safe keeping. An essential manual for any slider or anyone wants to get the best experience, running Ubuntu on your mac.

Find the post HERE.

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@Mcvries does an “in place upgrade” : Ubuntu 12.04 becomes 12.10

Oct 20

It was a first timer for me : an “in place” upgrade. I had made it ‘a thing’ to install every Ubuntu version fresh, and do it fast. Creating a list of installed applications, exporting the software sources I collected and then let it install everything automatically after a fresh instal of the OS. This made it possible to do a totally clean install and be up and running within 90 minutes. But yesterday I got tempted by a tweet from @omgubuntu, explaining how to do an easy inplace upgrade. How? just run “update-manager -d” from the terminal. And i was curious, updating anything on Linux has become a breeze, so how would an entire Operating System upgrade turn out.

So i started a terminal, and pasted the “update-manager -d” and pressed enter. Distro Upgrade At that point I was given the option within the update-manager to do a distro upgrade, which I chose and I let it run. And thats all there to say, it went smoothly, fast and since we had friends over, almost enirely “unattended”. (So its ‘Social Life – Friendly’ technology.

Well, let’s cut to the chase, what is it like that “Ubuntu 12.10”. It looks more mature so to say, the transitions between applications, the hiding of apps within the unity interface just feel more.. more.. reliable, stable, … no, consistent. Yeah, all over my first conclusion was that it’s more consistent and more professional then 12.04. There, i said it, it’s a professional desktop. That might be why they have built up the guts to ask a contribution when you go to the download page.

I’ve found some nice touches. For example a dual monitor setup now results in two monitors with their own dash and an automatic focus when starting applications on either monitor.

Right click

The dash has the new feauture of “The Right Click”, where right clicking on an item gives you for a music file the ability to play it directly, for pictures the ability to mail them to someone and so forth.

One other thing i found while frantically clicking away at my new setup, some heavier 3D applications run faster. As an benchmark i always test with UrbanTerror to see what framerate i get. On this laptop using gnome 2 it has always been around 54 FPS, with SolusOs it was the same and with Unity i never got above the 24 FPS. And now it does, a nice 50 FPS was in my top right corner.

Another nice surprise is the wifi connection, after a nap or a well deserved deep rest it reconnects in about half the time it used to, a mere 4 seconds.

Any hickups? Well, i have found one, Thunderbird doesn’t show up in the notification centre. But that seems to be a problem with my own settings. Moving the .thunderbird in /home/mcvries to a different location and starting ‘Fresh’ makes it show up again. So there’s a small job left for me.

I am far from ready exploring and tweaking but for now I am quite impressed. Not in the least from the in place upgrade which plain simple was elegant and easy. Installing a new version of an OS was never this easy for me before.

Not an Ubuntu User yet? Head over to Ubuntu.com and find out!

A post by Guestblogger McVries  http://www.mcvries.nl  A blog about my experiences using an opensource OS while working as a Windows sysadmin, and being the techno advocate for the organization i work for. @McVries_   Skeptic IT Manager with a liking for open Source.

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10 top features of Ubuntu 12.10

Oct 19

As we talked about in our interview with Alan Pope last week , Ubuntu 12.10 is going to be released somewhere today. If its your first plunge in the purple pool or if you are waiting to hit “Distribution upgrade” on your 12.04 install.. here are the top ten things to expect.

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3 linux apps that make the difference.

Oct 13

Since I’ve ported my brand new 11.6 inch Macbook Air to Ubuntu Linux, I’ve noticed that I seldom boot back into OSX on this little machine. Life is good on the Ubuntu side. Because for where it might lack powerful video editing tools or multitrack recorders that come with the same ease of use as Mac, Ubuntu (and Linux in general) shines when it comes to the myriad of free software that is available. Many blogposts will tell you the “top 5 apps” you NEED to install on your Linux machine, but you might know those lists by heart because they always offer the same apps.  Today I’ll serve you up three applications that don’t necessarily show up on those lists , but for me make all the difference.

Variety.

Though, with the Unity interface, Ubuntu might have moved on from spinning desktop cubes and wobbly windows, ‘looks’ are still a big part of the experience. Because 80 percent of your “post install” work consists of looking for “the right wallpaper”, I decided to ‘have somebody do that for me’ : Enter “Variety”  a light, well written and awesome application that will switch wallpapers for you. You can choose the interval time, but also many many external sources of wallpaper material. Predefined Flickr groups of wallpapers are just one of the options, you can have Variety search Flickr for certain tags and keywords and pull down those wallpapers for you automatically. Luckily Variety also has the option to add your own folder filled with your personal wallpapers and mix everything up a bit with the external feeds. The menu bar icon up top lets you know it’s been installed and gives you access to all the settings. A cute little app that gives my tweaked system a little extra shine. (AND lets you use the fantastic KNIGHTWISE.COM WALLPAPERS on your machine   Available from the Ubuntu software center or via  sudo apt-get install variety 

Kazam.

Although it was a pretty tough call between ‘soundconverter’ and ‘kazam screencaster’ to make this list, I chose the latter. Having to “capture” some internet video lately, I decided to give my Ubuntu machine the chance to prove its worth. Kazam is an online screen recorder that does its job well. You can record your entire screen, or sections of it, and have that video recorded in H264/mp4 format or VP8. You get to pick the framerate and the folder where the recordings are stored. No rocket science here. However the beauty comes with the combination of Kazam and Pulseaudio Volume control that let you record a much needed ‘sound input combination’. You cannot only record the screen with audio coming FROM ‘the sceen’ (your computer output) OR from your Microphone .. You can combine those 2 sound inputs and give “live” commentary on whatever youtube video you are grabbing. For a screencaster like me thats essential, AND damn handy when you want to record Google hangouts and the like. The output is very reliable and the process is dead easy. Kazam can also be found in the Ubuntu Software Center or via sudo apt-get install kazam

Lightread

lightreadAs the winner of the “Ubuntu app showdown” competition Rightlead is an RSS reader. Whow ! I hear you say, another RSS reader ?  In order to make this list it better come with belly dancing Ewoks as a key feature because when it comes to RSS reader we have seen them all. The kicker with Lightread is that it constantly “syncs” with your Google Reader feeds ( you subscribe to new stuff, your stuff is in Lightread ) Lightread is simple, elegant, lets you tag and star articles and export them to Instapaper and Pocket. No rocket science but brilliant in its simplicity. I dare say that Lightread could be a native Mac app .. thats how good its done. I boot it up when I open my machine to read my feeds instead of surfing the web. To see is to believe.   Lightread is available from the Ubuntu Software Center or via sudo apt-get install lightread.

 

You can find more applications from the Ubuntu App showdown HERE  and HERE.

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kw402 : Talking Ubuntu 12.10 with Popey

Oct 11

We take a good look at the hubbub around Ubuntu 12.10 with Mister Alan Pope. Canonical employee deluxe and host on the UUPC podcast. We try to find out whats awesome about Ubuntu, Who is Who in the world of benevolent dictators, New features in the upcoming Ubuntu release and the difference between Youzeewoozees and Tweakyweekees  

Shownotes.

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