We're talking about Ubuntu 16.04 (or even the latest Beta of 16.10). Both are available as PowerPC image files thanks to some pretty active community support and demand to use old G5 Macs as. Download Ubuntu 16.04.1 LTS 32 bit Desktop Version ISO file from Ubuntu and save it to your downloads folder. 2.) Put a blank DVD in your DVD burner and open it with Disk Utility when prompted. Using Linux Ubuntu 16.04 on Macbook Pro 2016 2.6GHz quad-core Intel Core i7, Turbo Boost up to 3.5GHz, with 6MB shared L3 cache 16GB of 2133MHz LPDDR3 onboard memory Radeon Pro 450 with 2GB of GDDR5 memory and automatic graphics switching Intel HD Graphics 530. I got my hands on a Mac Pro at work over the holiday, and the first thing I did was install Ubuntu Linux on it. Everything went smoothly using the new 7.10 version of Ubuntu, so I wanted to post how I did it: Note: I'm assuming below that you're running OS 10.5 and have.
So, I have this MacBook that is approaching four years old, but I find that I’m not really using it these days. Then I had an idea. Why not take this aging MacBook that is probably already on borrowed time given Apple’s strict retirement policies as it pertains to hardware and give it new life with one of my favorite operating systems – Ubuntu Linux.
My goal is to install Ubuntu on a Mac to create a Linux laptop for me to be able to use around my home that I can use easily for both work and play. While I know I won’t do too much gaming on it, I should still be able to do everything I want to do, and that is enough.
Then I had another idea. Why not take this opportunity to show all of you how to do this while I’m at it. Linux is a great way to breathe new life into an aging laptop, and especially an aging Apple laptop. After all, you paid a lot of money for that laptop so you want to be able to use it for as long as you possibly can don’t you?
Today, let’s take a look at how to install Ubuntu on a MacBook Pro so you can see the step by step process for yourself before you start undertaking this type of change on your own. My hope is that you will find this guide helpful and useful to you as you move your Mac to the Linux platform and free it from the walled garden that is Apple’s Mac OS X.
1. What You Will Need
Before we get started, you will need a few things to get the job done. Luckily, our needs are pretty basic. So have a look at what you will need and then start gathering it all. I will walk you through how to get the Ubuntu ISO as part of this guide.
- A MacBook Pro (of course)
- Internet Connection
- Ubuntu ISO
- USB Stick with At Least 2 GB of Storage
2. Download Ubuntu
You can grab the Ubuntu ISO straight from their site. I would use the 64-bit version of the latest stable release, but you can choose whichever release you prefer. Once you have downloaded the ISO, make a note of where it is stored on your hard drive.
3. Build Your Bootable USB Stick
While you can create this manually, the easiest way to do it is to install Rufus. Rufus allows you to easily create bootable USB sticks with just a few clicks.
Using a PC
1. Plug in your USB stick.
2. Open Rufus.
3. Change the label to UBUNTU and make sure the scheme is set to “MBR partition scheme for BIOS or UEFI”.
4. Click the small CD/Hard Drive icon next to where it says “Create a bootable disk using…” and select your Ubuntu ISO that you downloaded.
5. Click Start.
6. It will then prompt you requesting to download Syslinux. Click Yes.
7. Select “Write in ISO Image mode (Recommended)” and click OK.
8. Click OK to accept that all data on the USB Stick will be destroyed to create a bootable Ubuntu USB stick.
9. When finished, eject your USB stick.
Using a Mac
If you don’t have a PC handy, you can always use the Mac OS X operating system you currently have installed to do the job.
1. Insert your USB and go to Applications > Utilities and launch Disk Utility.
2. Click on the USB drive in the left pane, then click the Partition tab and select 1 Partition from the drop down.
3. Create a name for the drive and then change the format to Mac OS Extended (Journaled).
4. Click the Options Button and ensure that GUID Partition Table is selected and then click Ok.
5. Open Terminal and enter the following command replacing the generic path and names to suit your file locations:
6. Find the Device Node for the USB Drive.
7. Unmount the USB by running the following command:
8. Create your bootable USB by running the following command:
4. Install Ubuntu on Your MacBook Pro
Now it is time for the fun part. For this guide, we are completely replacing the existing Mac OS X on the MacBook and going with an Ubuntu only installation, but you can set it up in a dual boot scenario as well if you wish. You will have to forgive me as this is being done on a live Mac, my screenshots will be very few and far between as you can really take them during the process. I hope you understand.
- Insert your USB stick in your Mac.
- Restart your Mac and hold down the Option Key while it reboots.
- When you arrive at the Boot Selection screen, choose “EFI Boot” to select your bootable USB Stick.
- Select Install Ubuntu from the Grub boot screen.
- Select Your Language and click Continue.
- Click on “Install third-party software for graphics and Wi-Fi hardware, Flash, MP3 and other media.” Click Continue.
- Choose “Erase disk and install Ubuntu.” Click Install Now.
- Select Your Time zone and click Continue.
- Choose Your Keyboard Layout and click
- Enter your name, create a username and password and name your computer. Click Continue when finished.
- Wait for the installation to complete.
- Once the installation is complete, click the prompt saying Restart Now.
- Connect an Ethernet cable to your system to gain Internet access if it doesn’t find the Wi-Fi drivers.
- Run all Software Updates and restart your computer.
5. Get Wi-Fi Working
Chances are, the Wi-Fi on your Mac won’t work out the box. Don’t worry, you won’t have to go without wireless connectivity on your Mac just because you want to use Ubuntu. Follow the steps below to get Wi-Fi working.
- Make sure you are connected with an Ethernet cable to your network.
- Select the Broadcom driver listed in the Additional Drivers Tab and click Apply Changes.
- When the changes complete, close the app and restart your computer. Be patient, it may take a few minutes to make all the necessary changes.
6. Enjoy Ubuntu
Congratulations! You have now successfully installed Ubuntu onto your MacBook Pro and you can enjoy it and everything it has to offer when it comes to the world of free software right on your Mac. Now it is time to get to work tweaking your new installation of Ubuntu so you can enjoy it the way you want it. That, of course, is a guide for another day.
Although I do recommend you take the time to read a little more about all the freedom you actually have when you use Ubuntu. I think you will be glad you did, as the free world of Linux has so much to offer users from all types of backgrounds.
Conclusion
It wasn’t always easy to install Linux on a Mac, however today things are a little different. While there are a few extra steps to get everything working just right, in the end I believe it is worth it and it is a great way to breathe new life into your aging MacBook. As you know, Apple abandons their older tech pretty quickly, which could leave you out in the cold. But with Linux, you can keep using your MacBook or MacBook Pro for many years to come.
What did you think about this guide? Did you find it easy to follow or did you have issues? Let me know if this guide helped you out in the comments below and if you have any questions please feel free to ask and I will do my best to give you a hand. If you are looking for an alternative laptop for Ubuntu or other versions of Linux also feel free to browse our best Linux laptops guide.
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I had an old 17-inch MacBook Pro from 2009 (college) lying around and I figured it'd be a fun challenge to install Linux on it. I had never installed or even used Linux before (to my knowledge). I also, confusingly, hadn't found a clean, step-by-step guide for doing this, so I promised I'd write my process out as thoroughly but simply as I could once I got it done.
I now realize, I think, that the reason the process of installing even a popular Linux distribution on a common (if old) model computer isn't written out or easily findable is that the process is a bit different for everyone, depending on the distro, the version, and the hardware you're starting with. Apple touch bar magic keyboard. Note that I didn't want to partition my hard drive to allow myself to dual-boot either in OS X or Ubuntu-- I was going for a full replacement, and thus would and did lose all the files on applications I had on the old Mac.
But regardless, here is the process I took.
About This Mac
How I Got Ubuntu 16 Installed
Again, note, this worked for me and my machine but may not for you. For example I believe I had to do steps 4, 5, 8, 9, 10, and 11 only because I have a MBP with an Intel chip.
Also, WARNING, this procedure completely wiped my OS X and all the files and applications on that installation, as I intended. There are ways to dual-boot both, but I wasn't interested in that as Mavericks was running super slow on this computer. Furthermore I think all the data I had on my USB stick is lost due to it being formatted in a certain way at some point in the procedure.
UPDATE (February 2017): Before moving ahead, you may want to consider the following. A helpful commenter, Brian Moran, writes that, when installing Ubuntu on an older Mac with a NVIDIA graphics card, it may be better to 'boot in 'Legacy BIOS mode', not in 'EFI' mode':
Apparently what is happening is that both the open source and Nvidia drivers are buggy when doing an 'EFI Install' on Mac machines. If full graphics performance is desired, a 'Legacy BIOS Install' is needed.
From the forum post that the commenter cites, which is concerned with a MacBook Air 3,2:
The core problem with the [generic] installation is this. The graphic driver that Ubuntu installs by default (Nouveau) has bugs with the MacBook Air 3 graphic processor, the nvidia GeForce 320M (G320M). You can do a default install, it will boot normally, but you'll soon see little glitches here and there and the computer will normally crash after a few minutes of use (especially when transparency or shadow effects are used, it seems). The problem exists with Raring and I expect it arises with Precise (though see 'alternative solutions' below).
To avoid that, you need to install the proprietary nvidia driver. But here is the catch: the driver requires the computer to boot in 'Legacy BIOS mode', not in 'EFI' mode (see here or here). If you install the nvidia drivers while Ubuntu is in EFI mode, you'll get a blank/black screen at the beginning of the boot. (If you got to that stage, see the 'recovery for nvidia drivers EFI crash' below). On a PC you can force Ubuntu to install in BIOS Legacy mode by selecting that mode in the computer BIOS. But on a Mac you can't (easily) do that, and if you install from a USB key by default you will be in EFI mode.
So summing up, if you do a default installation of Ubuntu from a USB on a MacBook Air 3,1 or 3,2, you'll either have buggy graphics and random crashes, or you'll install the nvdida drivers and have a blank/black screen at startup.
For the record, I followed the procedure detailed below with my MackBook Pro 3,1 and while I now believe that my nvidia card is NOT being used, basic computing (web browser, document editing coding, simple games) are working just fine. Not being a gamer I don't know much about graphics cards, but for what it's worth I believe my MacBook Pro has a G84M [GeForce 8600M GT] card, which is not the same model listed in the forum post the commenter cites.
But if I were starting over I might instead consider the procedure outlined in the forum post the commenter links to in hopes of even better performance. End of February 2017 update.
Alright, with all that said here's what I think I would do if I were starting fresh, knowing what I know now:
What I Did to Install Ubuntu
- Get a USB drive with at least 2 GB of storage. Know that it's going to get wiped, so move important files off it first. Then use the MacOS Disk Utility to format the USB stick as DOS FAT32.
- I'd follow this guide to download Ubuntu 16.04 LTS and get it onto the USB stick, using UNetbootin.
- As described in the final step in that guide, when you restart, hold down the option key on your Mac. In the resulting menu, select the 'EFI' device as the device to boot from.
- You'll be confronted with a text-only menu that's from a piece of software called GNU GRUB. Key down so your cursor is on 'Install Ubuntu', but instead of pressing enter, press
e
to edit the commands before booting. - This opens an options file in a basic text editor. Find the line that has
ro quiet splash
in it and make that bit of the line readro nomodeset quiet splash
. Then press either F10 or Ctrl-X to boot (read the text at the bottom of the screen to be sure of the key(s) to press). - If presented with a choice in GRUB (a text menu) with an option to
install Ubuntu
, choose that option. - You should be then presented with a nice GUI (not text only) Ubuntu installer, or maybe an icon that says
Install Ubuntu
. Double click the icon if you see it. Go through everything, decide whether or not to connect your Wifi to download updates, decide whether or not to encrypt your home folder, and then choose restart. - We now need to boot Ubuntu in recovery mode. To do this, as the computer is starting up again after restart, right after you hear the Apple/Mac start-up sound, hold the SHIFT key. Repeat step #3 above if you're presented with the EFI option. Once you're at a text-only menu, press
e
and addnomodeset
to the line of code discussed above. Then press the key(s) to boot. Ubuntu should boot up-- though the display may be screwy. In either case, we're not done yet. - Now we need to make that
nomodeset
setting permanent. Open terminal (ctrl+option+t) and runsudo nano /etc/default/grub
. (Reference) - In that file, add
nomodeset
toGRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT
as seen below:
- Save this text file by hitting Ctrl+O, then exit nano with Ctrl+X, then, back in Terminal, run:
sudo update-grub
- Restart the computer (the menu for which is in the top-right corner of Ubuntu 16).
I think that would do it. I don't think I needed rEFInd. And apparently the warning on UNetbootin that I could run the device on Macs was not accurate.
For completeness sake, here is the actual process I went through over three days.
Attempt #1: Ubuntu 16.04
I found this guide which involved downloading and using the UNetbootin USB installer.
![Macbook Pro Ubuntu 16 04 Macbook Pro Ubuntu 16 04](https://cdn1.macworld.co.uk/cmsdata/features/3637265/how_to_install_linux_on_mac_thumb800.jpg)
I believe I successfully downloaded the Ubuntu 16.04 ISO and UNetbootin. I then installed UNetbootin (by dragging it into Application) and then I used UNetbootin as described in the tutorial. However at step 7 when I restarted my Mac and held the option key I was presented with a menu to try or install Ubuntu. Every time I selected 'install' it just went to a black screen. I waited minutes but no installation screen appeared. I then held down the power button and the computer rebooted in OS X, back to square one.
I will say that after using UNetbootin to load the USB stick the program warned the device could only boot the new OS on PCs, not on Macs. I chose to ignore that warning and try anyway, but as I reported above, it didn't work.
Upon further research I believe the Ubuntu 16.04 may not work on Intel-based MBPs made circa 2009. One page, https://help.ubuntu.com/community/MacBookPro, seemed to encourage those with MBPs this old should instead opt for Ubuntu 14.04.
I didn't want to run an old version of a distro I wasn't particualrly excited about if I could find a distro that I could run the lastest version of. Plus I couldn't quite figure out how to download an (official) copy of version 14.04.
Attempt #2: Mint 18 ('Sarah') Cinnamon 64-bit
I understand that the other distro well-reviewed for beginners is Mint. And I saw that Mint 18 was itself got good reviews.
So I headed over to their download page and chose 'Cinnamon 64-bit' and downloaded it via a torrent.
The only tutorial that I found for installing Linux Mint via USB seemed strange and brief. Thus my current plan is to try to use UNetbootin again, following the Ubuntu guide but with Mint this time rather than Ubuntu 16.04.
However, as before, after using UNetbootin it told me the device could only boot the new OS on PCs, not on Macs.
When I restarted my Mac and held down the option key, I got a similar menu as when I tried Ubuntu, but eventually came to a dark black screen. I waited a few minutes, and then forced the computer to shut down by holding down the power button. Movie making software for mac free download.
Attempt #3: Back to Ubuntu 16.04 by a different method
I followed the instructions presented here, which I was optimistic about it because it avoided using UNetbootin, along with the potentially helpful warning:
UNetbootin for Mac OS X can be used to automate the process of extracting the Ubuntu ISO file to USB, and making the USB drive bootable. The resulting USB drive, however, can be booted on PCs only.
Which mirrors the warning UNetbootin gave me.
However the method described in the link above failed in the same way the others did-- I restarted, held down the option key, chose the EFI boot, chose to install Ubuntu, and then was met with a black screen. For the first time I thought to check the light on my USB stick to see if it was at least thinking but it was off.
Attempt #4: Using rEFInd Boot Manager
From here I found an article about installing Debian (a more advanced distro of Linux).
That let me to believe rEFInd was something I needed to install first.
However this program (I admittedly didn't take the time to figure out what it actually does) did not seem to help. Afterward, and before my next attempt, I bypassed rEFInd by going to System Preferences > Start Up Disk, selecting my hard drive and hitting the restart button. Thus I do not think I actually needed to install rEFInd to successfully get Ubuntu installed, however I'm not 100% of this, since the rEFInd uninstall instructions for OS X recommend bypassing rEFInd rather than actually uninstalling it.
Attempt #5: Having bypassed rEFInd, I replace quiet splash
with nomodeset
Big success!
Macbook Pro 16 Linux
Somewhere else I remember seeing someone recommend turning on an option called
nomodeset
in GNU GRUB, but for some reason didn't think I had that option in the menu that I kept getting. Turns out, as described here, when you get to the GRUB menu you hit the e
key. Then you add nomodeset
as a parameter in one of the lines of code in the text file that opens. Removing quiet splash
seems to just present more text as output-- the nomodeset
solved the problem.After maybe 40 seconds I was presented with an Ubuntu desktop and a shortcut icon to an Ubuntu installer. I double-clicked the installer and followed the wizard.
I connected to my wifi network and told it to download updates as it installed to make things quicker. The only hard choice was whether to encrypt my home folder (which I believe you can't do later). I decided not to based on this answer as I was worried about the performance hit on decrypting on a machine with 2GB memory. Then I just waited for Ubuntu 16.04.1 LTS to install.
After installation it asked me to restart. I clicked yes. I then got an ugly error message that said something like 'remove the installation device and hit enter'. I still had the USB stick in, unsure when I was to remove it. I pulled it out and hit enter. The computer then restarted, making the familiar Mac start-up sound and presenting the familiar Mac gray, but then it switched to a purple Ubuntu-like color and stayed there for a minute.
Setting nomodeset
permanently
When I came back from that restart it was stuck on a purple screen. I figured I needed to set
nomodeset
permanently on. I needed to get back to the GRUB screen, which I figured out from somewhere:- Switch on your computer.
- Wait until the BIOS has finished loading, or has almost finished. (During this time you will probably see a logo of your computer manufacturer.)
- Quickly press and hold the Shift key, which will bring up the GNU GRUB menu. (If you see the Ubuntu logo, you've missed the point where you can enter the GRUB menu.)
Then, to set
nomodeset
to be on permanently, I followed this Ask Ubuntu answer that reads:I saved that file and ran
sudo update-grub
as instructed. I then restarted my computer once again and I think that's when things went smoothly for the first time.(FYI a similar process to the one described above seems to be given here but with some other stuff as well, if you need more help at this stage.)
Initial Thoughts
Woohoo! It seems snappier that OS X 10.9, but it's not a speed demon like my 2012 MacBook Air with 8 GB of memory.
But the desktop and dock are familiar enough to me. It comes with Firefox, Libre Office, a basic text editor, and a link to Amazon.com(?) in the dock that's on the left by default. I got terminal Vim and RVM running with a few Google-able tweaks from the OS X installation process. Remapping caps lock to control was one line in Terminal (
setxkbmap -option caps:ctrl_modifer
), however that did not persist when restarted. I followed this AskUbuntu answer and went to Startup Applications > Add > and entered setxkbmap -option caps:ctrl_modifer
. It seems to persist on restart now.I was able to install git by running
sudo apt install git
. Similarly I was able to install KeePassX by running sudo apt-get install keepassx
(I'm not 100% in the difference between apt
and apt-get
here but that's what I saw on the internet help sites I found). I also installed a fresh version of vim but I forget what line I ran in terminal.To run a general update and upgrade, I run
sudo apt update && sudo apt upgrade
, which seems to work.Macbook Pro Ubuntu 16 04 Download
We'll see how much I use this old computer going forward, and what for.
Install Ubuntu Macbook Pro
Update: Just found this website that aims to teach Linux for beginners, which I might checkout. There's also this series of YouTube videos: Ubuntu Beginners Guide that looks nice, is Ubuntu-specific, and is, as of this writing, only one month old.