I'm interested in trying Linux out on my MacBook. What would be the best way to go about doing this? I was intrested in using a Live CD, but I don't exactly know how that works on Macs. I have a Windows Partion if that is of any help.
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Linux?
- Thread starter theman5725
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I don't know the answer to this since all my Linux experience is on boxes with BIOSes instead of EFI - but a good place to ask might be over at Fedora Forum. Fedora ran reasonably well on PPC Macs, and I'm sure it runs fine on the x86 Macs. It's just the bootup that's tricky. 
I suppose one way is to just run it inside of Parallels though.
I suppose one way is to just run it inside of Parallels though.
There are severals way to try linux with a macbook. The LiveCD is an option. I tried botting Knopixx 3.9 and I have severals problem (no keyboard and touchpad, but if you add an external mouse, it'll work (it is a common problem altough .. even with pcs)) I also tried booting with uBuntu and Knopixx 5.0.2 without any problem. There is another option. VMware. VMware is a free player to read virtual machine. As we are talking now, it's free on the windows side, but still on closed beta on the Mac OS X side. You can get the virtual machine of a website ... http://www.thoughtpolice.co.uk. currently, I run Fedora Core 5 on a macbook 2ghz with 2gb of ram on VMWare Fusion (Thats how they called vmware beta for mac os x). It's great ... i think the beta on Mac Os is better than the offficial release on the windows side... anyway
Hope it helps.
Hope it helps.
If you have parallels (If not consider buying, well worth it, even for linux): Try downloading via Bittorrent free distros of linux as pre-configured parallels images. There are several, I've tried a few on my Macbook (There are ones completely pre-configured especially for the macbook), and they work beautifully on mine.
I Highly suggest this pre-configured version of Ubuntu 6.10
http://ramsinks.vox.com/library/post/ubuntu-610-parallels-macbook-image.html
I Highly suggest this pre-configured version of Ubuntu 6.10
http://ramsinks.vox.com/library/post/ubuntu-610-parallels-macbook-image.html
I'm typing this on a Linux system. This is my primary system at work. On a Mac you have the same options for running Linux as you do Windows. Either dual boot or inside an emulator
But I ask WHY? Seriously. Is there some Linux application you wan to use? Because both Linux and Mac OS are UNIX-like the same stuff will run on both. The same appache web server the same Postgresql DBMS server, the same Open Office,the same Gimp. It runs on Linux and Mac OSX just the same. You gain very little by putting :inux on a Mac because mac OS already does what Linux can do,. Well almost. If you are doing software development and targeting Linux you need a real Linux for testing and if you are or want to be a Linnxkernel hacker you need Linux. I'm not putting down Linux, I use it daily it's just that yu need to know WHY yu want Linux I could tell you which one or why.
I like the mac because of the applications that run on it. Fin Cut, Aperture. Photoshop, iTunes and so on. The OS is just something you have to have to get to the programes you use. Same with Linux. Except the all the Linux apps also run under mac OS.
I'm downloading this one as we speak. I am excited to see what Beryl is all about.
Another nice live distro is kororaa. It also has XGL. It runs great even running off the integrated Intel chip in my 1.83 macbook.
http://kororaa.org/
The reason I wanted to try Linux was a mix of curiosity and needed knowledge. My family's PC's windows xp was corrupted and died yet again, and I was considering running Linux on it. I wanted to test it first before I installed it. I was also just curious in general about Linux, I like to try different computer-related things just for fun.
Linux gives its uses a level of control that few are use to having. I would say that if you can look past the GUI of things then you could probably see the many uses and knowledge that linux brings to the table. Linux give you the opportunity to gain experience with the command. Linux is more of a tinker toy, something that gets better as you learn how to tweak it. If you going to leave everything at default and not move things around and learn new things then it might be best that you dont install linux. Truthfully i sometimes think that we have become quite spoiled with GUI and it seems like we cant fix problems unless we can see what to point and click.